ticos of the palace, their lofty stature, silent order,
and splendid arms of silver and gold, displayed a martial pomp not
unworthy of the Roman majesty. From the seven schools two companies
of horse and foot were selected, of the protectors, whose advantageous
station was the hope and reward of the most deserving soldiers.
They mounted guard in the interior apartments, and were occasionally
despatched into the provinces, to execute with celerity and vigor the
orders of their master. The counts of the domestics had succeeded to the
office of the Praetorian praefects; like the praefects, they aspired from
the service of the palace to the command of armies.

The perpetual intercourse between the court and the provinces was
facilitated by the construction of roads and the institution of posts.
But these beneficial establishments were accidentally connected with
a pernicious and intolerable abuse. Two or three hundred agents or
messengers were employed, under the jurisdiction of the master of the
offices, to announce the names of the annual consuls, and the edicts
or victories of the emperors. They insensibly assumed the license
of reporting whatever they could observe of the conduct either of
magistrates or of private citizens; and were soon considered as the eyes
of the monarch, and the scourge of the people. Under the warm influence
of a feeble reign, they multiplied to the incredible number of ten
thousand, disdained the mild though frequent admonitions of the laws,
and exercised in the profitable management of the posts a rapacious and
insolent oppression. These official spies, who regularly corresponded
with the palace, were encouraged by favor and reward, anxiously to watch
the progress of every treasonable design, from the faint and latent
symptoms of disaffection, to the actual preparation of an open revolt.
Their careless or criminal violation of truth and justice was covered by
the consecrated mask of zeal; and they might securely aim their poisoned
arrows at the breast either of the guilty or the innocent, who had
provoked their resentment, or refused to purchase their silence. A
faithful subject, of Syria perhaps, or of Britain, was exposed to the
danger, or at least to the dread, of being dragged in chains to the
court of Milan or Constantinople, to defend his life and fortune
against the malicious charge of these privileged informers. The ordinary
administration was conducted by those methods which extreme nec