eretic; and that, although Celer, one of the most intimate friends of
Anastasius, was at that very time holding the rank of Magister
Officiorum.'

[Footnote 143: To avoid confusion I will use the term
'Commentariensis' throughout.]

[Footnote 144: So Bethmann Hollweg (p. 179), 'Diess ist der Gehuelfe
des Magistrats bei Verwaltung der Criminaljustiz.' I compare him in
the following translation of Cassiodorus to a 'magistrate's clerk.']

[Footnote 145: See iii. 9 (p. 203, ed. Bonn), and combine with iii.
16. The _Augustales_ referred to in the latter passage were a higher
class of Exceptores.]

[Footnote 146: Applicitarii, Clavicularii, Lictores.]

[Footnote 147: [Greek: sidereois desmois kai poinaion organon kai
plektron poikilia saleuonton to phobo to dikasterion] (iii. 16).]

[Footnote 148: [Greek: kai koinonesantos auto tes basileias].]

[Footnote 149: [Greek: hote Koades ho Perses ephlegmaine]. The whole
passage is mysterious, but we seem to have here an allusion to the
outbreak of the Persian War (A.D. 502).]

An officer who was thus privileged to lay hands on Patriarch and
Patrician in the name of Augustus was looked up to with awful
reverence by all the lower members of the official hierarchy; and
Lydus, with one graphic touch, brings before us the glow of gratified
self-love with which, when he was a subordinate _Scriniarius_, he
found himself honoured by the familiar conversation of so great a
person as the Commentariensis[150]: 'I too am struck with somewhat of
my old awe, recurring in memory to those who were then holders of the
office. I remember what fear of the Commentarisii fell upon all who at
all took the lead in the _Officium_, but especially on the Scriniarii;
and how greatly he who was favoured with a chat with a Commentarisius
passing by valued himself on the honour.' Lydus also describes to us
how the Commentariensis, instructed by the Praefect, or perhaps even
by the Emperor himself, would take with him one of his faithful
servants, the Chartularii, would visit the abode of the suspected
person (who might, as we have seen, be one of the very highest
officers of the State), and would then in his presence dictate in
solemn Latin words the indictment which was to be laid against him,
the mere hearing of which sometimes brought the criminal to confess
his guilt and throw himself on the mercy of the Emperor.

[Footnote 150: iii. 17 (p. 210).]

It was from this _commentum_, the equivalent of