of independent ministries; (b) new offices being created and old ones becoming merely titular. (2) Changes in nomenclature; substitution of Greek for Latin titles. (3) Changes in the relative importance and rank of the high officials, both civil and military.
The Prefect of the City (ἔπαρχος) controlled the police organization and administration of justice in the capital; he was vice president of the imperial court of justice, and, when the office of Prefect of the East was abolished, he inherited the functions of that dignitary as judge of appeals from the provinces. But the praefectus vigilum, commander of the city guards, who was subordinate to him, became an independent officer, entitled Drungary of the Watch, and in the 11th century superseded him as vice president of the imperial court. We are told that in the last years of the Empire the Prefect of the City had no functions at all; but his office survives in the Shehr-imaneti, “city prefecture,” of the Ottomans, in whose organization there are many traces of Byzantine influence.
Instead of the Quaestor of the Sacred Palace, whose duty was to draft the imperial laws and re scripts, we find in the 9th century a quaestor who possesses certain judicial and police functions and is far lower in the hierarchy of rank. It has been supposed that the later quaestor really inherited the duties of another officer, the quaesitor, who was instituted by Justinian. In the latest period the quaestor, if he still existed as a name, had no functions.
The Master of Offices, who supervised the bureaux in the palace and was master of court ceremonies, also performed many functions of a minister of foreign affairs, was head of the imperial post (cursus), and of the corps of agentes in rebus or Imperial Messengers. This ministry disappeared, probably in the 8th century, but the title was retained as a dignity at all events till the end of the 9th. The most important functions, pertaining to foreign affairs, were henceforward performed by the Logothete of the Post (λογοθέτης τοῦ δρόμου). In the 12th century this minister was virtually the chancellor of the Empire; his title was changed to that of Great Logothete by Andronicus II.
The two financial ministers, comes sacrarum largitionum and comes rei privatae, continued to the end under the titles λογοθέτης τοῦ γενικοῦ (General Logothete) and ὁ ἐπὶ τοῦ ἰδικοῦ (Anastasius added a third, the Count of the Sacred Patrimony, but he was afterwards suppressed). But in the 9th century we find both these ministers inferior in rank to the Sacellarius, or private purse keeper of the emperor. Besides these there was a fourth important financial department, that of the military treasury, under a Logothete.
The employment of eunuchs as high ministers of state was a feature of the Byzantine Empire from the end of the 4th century. It is laid down as a principle (A.D. 900) that all offices are open to them, except the Prefecture of the City, the quaestorship, and the military posts which were held by “Domestics.” There were then eight high posts which could only be held by eunuchs, of which the chief were the parakoimōmenos and the protovestiarios (master of the wardrobe).
An emperor who had not the brains or energy to direct the affairs of the state himself, necessarily committed the task of guiding the helm to some particular minister or court dignitary who had gained his confidence. Such a position of power was outside the constitution, and was not associated with any particular office; it might be held by an ecclesiastic or a eunuch; it had been held by the eunuchs Eutropius and Chrysaphius in the reigns of Arcadius and Theodosius II. respectively. In later times, such a first minister came to be denoted by a technical term, ὁ παραδυναστεύων. This was the position, for instance, of Stylianus, the father-in-law of Leo VI. Most of the emperors between Basil II. and Alexius Comnenus were under the influence of such ministers.
The orders of rank (which must be distinguished from titles of office) were considerably increased in later times. In the 4th and 7th centuries there were the three great classes of the illustres, spectabiles and clarissimi; and above the illustres a small, higher class of patricians. In the 9th century we find an entirely different system; the number of classes being largely augmented, and the nomenclature different. Instead of epithets like illustres, the names are titles which had designated offices; “patrician” alone survives. The highest rank is now (1) the magistroi; then come the patricians in two classes: (2) proconsular patricians, (3) respectable patricians; below these (4) protospatharioi; (5) dishypatoi (= bis consules); (6) spatharokandidatoi; (7) spatharioi; and other lower ranks. Particular ranks do not seem now to have been inalienably attached to particular offices. The strategos of the Anatolic Theme, e.g., might be a patrician or only a protospathar. Whoever was promoted to one of these ranks received its insignia from the emperor's hand, and had to pay fixed fees to various officials, especially to the palace eunuchs.
In the provinces ordinary justice was administered by judges (κριταί) who were distinct from the governors of the themes, and inherited their functions from the old provincial governors of Diocletian's system. In Constantinople higher and lower courts of justice sat regularly and frequently. The higher tribunals were those of the Prefect and the Quaestor, before whom different kinds of cases came. Appeals reached the emperor through the bureau of Petitions (τῶν δεησέων); he might deal with the case immediately; or might refer it to the imperial court of appeal, of which he was president; or else to the special court of the Twelve Divine judges (θεῖοι δικασταί), which was instituted by Justinian.
While the administration of justice was one of the best features of the Eastern Empire, its fiscal system, likewise inherited from the early Empire, was one of its worst. If the government had been acquainted with the principles of public economy, which have not been studied till comparatively recent times, a larger revenue might have been raised without injuring the prosperity of the inhabitants. Taxes were injudiciously imposed and oppressively collected. The commerce of the Empire was one of its great sources of strength, but the government looked on the merchants as a class from which the utmost should be extorted. The chief source of revenue was the land. The main burdens which fell upon the landed proprietors throughout the whole period were the land tax proper and the annona. The land tax (capitatio terrena = the old tributum of the imperial, stipendium of the senatorial, provinces) was based, not on the yearly produce, but on the capital of the proprietor, the character and value of the land being taken into account. In later times this seems to have become the καπνικόν, or hearth tax. The annona was an additional impost for supporting the army and imperial officials; it was originally paid in produce. In later times, we meet it under the name of σιταρκία or συνωνή. The province was divided into fiscal districts, and the total revenue to be derived from each was entered in a book of assessment. The assessment was in early times revised every fifteen years (the “indiction” period), but subsequently such revisions seem to have been very irregular. The collection of the taxes was managed through the curial system, while it lasted (till 7th century?). The decurions, or municipal councillors, of the chief town in each district were responsible for collecting and delivering the whole amount, and had to make good the sums owed by defaulters. This system of collective responsibility pressed very heavily on the decurions, and helped to cause their decay in the Western provinces. After the abolition of the curial organization, the principle of collective responsibility remained in the form of the ἐπιβολή or additional charge; that is, if a property was left without an owner, the taxes for which it was liable became an extra charge on the other members of the district (οἱ ὁμόκηνσοι). The taxes were collected by praktores, who were under the General Logothete. The peasant proprietors were also liable to burdens of other kinds (corvées), of which the most important was the furnishing of horses, vehicles, postboys, &c., for the state post (see Angaria).
The history of landed property and agrarian conditions in the Eastern Empire still awaits a thorough examination. It may be noted that individual hereditary proprietorship was always the rule (on crown and monastic lands as well as in other cases), and that the commonly supposed extensive existence of communities possessing land in common is based on erroneous interpretation of documents. When imperial lands were granted to monasteries or as fiefs (πρόνοιαι) to individuals, the position and rights of the peasant proprietors on the estates were not changed, but in many
