ter the seven provinces under his
civil jurisdiction. The number of their subordinate officers, clerks,
messengers, or assistants, was minutely expressed; three hundred and
ninety-six for the praefect himself, fifty for each of his vicegerents;
and the rigid definition of their fees and salaries was more effectual
to confirm the right than to prevent the abuse. These magistrates might
be oppressive, but they were not idle; and the subtile questions of
justice and revenue were infinitely propagated under the new government,
which professed to revive the freedom and equity of the Roman republic.
The conqueror was solicitous to extract a prompt and plentiful supply
from his African subjects; and he allowed them to claim, even in the
third degree, and from the collateral line, the houses and lands of
which their families had been unjustly despoiled by the Vandals. After
the departure of Belisarius, who acted by a high and special commission,
no ordinary provision was made for a master-general of the forces; but
the office of Praetorian praefect was intrusted to a soldier; the civil
and military powers were united, according to the practice of Justinian,
in the chief governor; and the representative of the emperor in Africa,
as well as in Italy, was soon distinguished by the appellation of
Exarch. [27]

[Footnote 23: The expression of Procopius (de Edific. l. vi. c. 7.)
Ceuta, which has been defaced by the Portuguese, flourished in nobles
and palaces, in agriculture and manufactures, under the more prosperous
reign of the Arabs, (l'Afrique de Marmai, tom. ii. p. 236.)]

[Footnote 24: See the second and third preambles to the Digest, or
Pandects, promulgated A.D. 533, December 16. To the titles of Vandalicus
and Africanus, Justinian, or rather Belisarius, had acquired a just
claim; Gothicus was premature, and Francicus false, and offensive to a
great nation.]

[Footnote 25: See the original acts in Baronius, (A.D. 535, No. 21--54.)
The emperor applauds his own clemency to the heretics, cum sufficiat eis
vivere.]

[Footnote 26: Dupin (Geograph. Sacra Africana, p. lix. ad Optat. Milav.)
observes and bewails this episcopal decay. In the more prosperous age of
the church, he had noticed 690 bishoprics; but however minute were the
dioceses, it is not probable that they all existed at the same time.]

[Footnote 27: The African laws of Justinian are illustrated by his
German biographer, (Cod. l. i. tit. 27. Novell. 36, 37, 131.