Provinces, which number forty-two,
excluding all the Provinces of Italy. Besides, in some cases the
jurisdiction appears to be the same. Thus we have both a Dux and a
Comes Britanniarum, and the Dux Mauritaniae Caesariensis must, one
would think, have held command in a region as large or larger than the
Comes Tingitaniae. Again, we have a Comes Argentoratensis and a Dux
Moguntiacensis, two officers whose power, one would think, was pretty
nearly equal. The same may perhaps be said of the Comes Litoris
Saxonici in Britain and the Dux Tractus Armoricani et Nervicani in
Gaul. While recognising a _general_ inferiority of the Dux to the
Comes, I do not think we can, with the Notitia before us, assert that
the Provincial Duces were regularly subordinated to the Diocesan
Comes, as the Provincial Consulares were to the Diocesan Vicarius. And
the fact that both Comes and Dux were addressed as Spectabilis rather
confirms this view.]

Besides these three classes of dignitaries, the _Castrensis_, who was
a kind of head steward in the Imperial household, and most of the
Heads of Departments in the great administrative offices, such as the
_Primicerius Notariorum_ and the _Magistri Scriniorum_[116], bore the
title of Spectabilis. We have perhaps hardly sufficient data for an
exact calculation, but I conjecture that there would be as many as
fifty or sixty Spectabiles in the Kingdom of Theodoric.

[Footnote 116: Probably, from the order in which they are mentioned by
the Notitia.]

It appears to me that the epithet _Sublimis_ (which is almost unknown
to the Theodosian Code), when it occurs in the 'Variae' is used as
synonymous with Spectabilis[117].

[Footnote 117: Sublimis occurs in the superscription of the following
letters: i. 2; iv. 17; v. 25, 30, and 36; ix. 11 and 14; xii. 5.]

[Sidenote: Clarissimi.]

III. The _Clarissimi_ were the third rank in the official hierarchy.
To our minds it may appear strange that the 'most renowned' should
come below 'the respectable,' but such was the Imperial pleasure. The
title 'Clarissimus' had moreover its own value, for from the time of
Constantine onwards it was conferred on all the members of the Senate,
and was in fact identical with Senator[118]; and this was doubtless,
as Usener points out[119], the reason why the letters Cl. were still
appended to a Roman nobleman's name after he had risen higher in the
official scale and was entitled to be called Spectabilis or
Illustris. The _