ichtsverfassung des sinkenden Roemischen Reichs,' are the chief
modern works which have treated of the subject.

[Sidenote: The Officium as described in the Notitia.]

We will follow the order in which the various offices are arranged by
the 'Notitia,' which is most likely to correspond with that of
official precedence.

In the second chapter of the 'Notitia Orientis,' after an enumeration
of the five Dioceses and forty-six Provinces which are 'sub
dispositione viri illustris Praefecti Praetorio per Orientem,' we have
this list, 'Officium viri illustris Praefecti Praetorio Orientis:'

Princeps.
Cornicularius.
Adjutor.
Commentariensis.
Ab actis.
Numerarii.
Subadjuvae.
Cura Epistolarum.
Regerendarius.
Exceptores.
Adjutores.
Singularii.

The lists of the officia of all the other Praetorian Praefects in the
'Notitia' are exactly the same as this, except that under the head
'Praefectus Praetorio per Illyricum' we have, instead of the simple
entry 'Numerarii,'

'Numerarii quatuor: in his auri unus, operum alter;'

and the 'Praefectus Urbis Romae' had under his Numerarii, a

'Primiscrinius,'

and between the 'Adjutores' and 'Singularii,'

Censuales and
Nomenculatores.

We will go through the offices enumerated above in order:

[Sidenote: Princeps.]

(1) The PRINCEPS was the head of the whole official staff. In the case
of the officium of the Praetorian Praefect, however, this officer
seems, after the compilation of the 'Notitia,' to have disappeared,
and his rights and privileges became vested in the Cornicularius. It
will be observed that in the letters of Cassiodorus to the members of
his staff there is none addressed to the Princeps; and similarly there
is no mention of a Princeps as serving under the Praetorian Praefect
in the treatise of Lydus. This elimination of the Princeps, however,
was not universally applicable to all the officia. Cassiodorus (xi.
35) mentions a _Princeps Augustorum_, who was, perhaps, Princeps of
the _Agentes in Rebus_; and Lydus more distinctly ('De Mag.' iii. 24)
speaks of a bargain made between the Cornicularius of the Praetorian
Praefect and the [Greek: Prinkips ton magistrianon], who must be
supposed to be Princeps in the officium of the _Magister Officiorum_,
though no such officer appears in the 'Notitia[123].'

[Footnote 123: See also Var. vii. 24 and 28.]

Speaking generally, however