s compared
with the chancellor of the Latin monarchies. [42] His discerning
eye pervaded the civil administration; and he was assisted, in due
subordination, by the eparch or praefect of the city, the first
secretary, and the keepers of the privy seal, the archives, and the red
or purple ink which was reserved for the sacred signature of the emperor
alone. [43] The introductor and interpreter of foreign ambassadors
were the great Chiauss [44] and the Dragoman, [45] two names of Turkish
origin, and which are still familiar to the Sublime Porte. 3. From the
humble style and service of guards, the Domestics insensibly rose to
the station of generals; the military themes of the East and West, the
legions of Europe and Asia, were often divided, till the great Domestic
was finally invested with the universal and absolute command of the land
forces. The Protostrator, in his original functions, was the assistant
of the emperor when he mounted on horseback: he gradually became the
lieutenant of the great Domestic in the field; and his jurisdiction
extended over the stables, the cavalry, and the royal train of hunting
and hawking. The Stratopedarch was the great judge of the camp: the
Protospathaire commanded the guards; the Constable, [46] the great
Aeteriarch, and the Acolyth, were the separate chiefs of the Franks, the
Barbarians, and the Varangi, or English, the mercenary strangers, who,
a the decay of the national spirit, formed the nerve of the Byzantine
armies. 4. The naval powers were under the command of the great Duke;
in his absence they obeyed the great Drungaire of the fleet; and, in
his place, the Emir, or Admiral, a name of Saracen extraction, [47] but
which has been naturalized in all the modern languages of Europe. Of
these officers, and of many more whom it would be useless to enumerate,
the civil and military hierarchy was framed. Their honors and
emoluments, their dress and titles, their mutual salutations and
respective preeminence, were balanced with more exquisite labor than
would have fixed the constitution of a free people; and the code was
almost perfect when this baseless fabric, the monument of pride and
servitude, was forever buried in the ruins of the empire. [48]

[Footnote 41: Par exstans curis, solo diademate dispar, Ordine pro rerum
vocitatus Cura-Palati, says the African Corippus, (de Laudibus Justini,
l. i. 136,) and in the same century (the vith) Cassiodorus represents
him, who, virga aurea de