Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

174 7. government and administration
The praetorian prefects stood, in theory, and sometimes in practice,
outside the palatine system: they were imperial deputies, and their judicial
functions, their right to issue edicts and the honours paid to them paralleled
and mimicked those of the emperors: ‘On his entry to the palace, he is
adored as I [the monarch] am, by large numbers, and so high an office
permits a practice which would mean a treason charge for others.’ 40 Post-
Roman monarchs in the west may have adopted something of their legislative
role from the prefects. 41 However, an informal distinction grew up
between the prefects of Italy and the east (Oriens), who resided in the imperial
capitals and were de facto members of the comitatus, and the prefects of
Gaul and Illyricum, who were usually based far from the court and enjoyed
less wealth, prestige and influence on the court and emperor. From commanding
the praetorian guard of the early empire, the prefects developed
into something like ministers of war, deputizing for the emperor as head
of the army, even though operational command of troops was taken from
them by Constantine I. They remained the army’s chief purveyors, drawing
up the empire’s annual budget, calculating the needs of the empire and the
corresponding taxes or special levies, and seeing to military recruitment
and supply; hence they controlled the systems of taxation and communications
– namely, the roads and the cursus publicus (public post) – on which
these were based, supervising the lower administrative tiers, the diocesan
vicars, the provincial governors and even the town councils. It should be
noted that the cursus publicus was ‘probably second only to the army in its
command of manpower and resources – certainly it must have been superior
in this respect to the civil bureaucracy’. 42 Praetorian duties of military
supply seem also to have been gradually extended into the food supply of
the imperial capitals and of lesser cities. 43 This formidable accumulation of
responsibilities highlights the degree to which the Roman empire was an
institution organized for war; the fourth-century separation of military and
civilian powers, important politically, seems, in this light, an artificial and
vulnerable distinction. Aided by tax changes (discussed below), these
mighty prefectures increasingly overshadowed the financial ministries, but
their powers were also exposed to encroachment by generals and warlords,
and to reforms that aided the army’s needs, notably Justinian’s creation of
the quaestura exercitus.
The staffs of the prefectures (we know most about the prefectures of
the east) were divided into two sections, judicial and financial. In the latter,
one scrinium was allocated to the tax affairs and administrative expenses of
40 Cass. Variae vi.3.4. Cf. Eunap. VS 490 (‘an office which, while lacking the imperial purple, exercises
imperial power’); Soc. HE ii.16 (‘second in power after the emperor’).
41 Barnwell (1992) 74; though note the criticism of Sirks (1996a) 154–5.
42 Hendy, Studies 605; though cf. n. 168 below for the magister officiorum sharing control of the cursus.
43 Cass. Variae praef. 5; xi.2.2–4, 5, 11, 15, 39; xii.11.26–8. Durliat (1990a) 67, 234, 245.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008