=The Palace.=—­The emperors who dwelt in the East[170] adopted the customs of the Orient, wearing delicate garments of silk and gold and for a head-dress a diadem of pearls.  They secluded themselves in the depths of their palace where they sat on a throne of gold, surrounded by their ministers, separated from the world by a crowd of courtiers, servants, functionaries and military guards.  One must prostrate one’s self before them with face to the earth in token of adoration; they were called Lord and Majesty; they were treated as gods.  Everything that touched their person was sacred, and so men spoke of the sacred palace, the sacred bed-chamber, the sacred Council of State, even the sacred treasury.

The regime of this period has been termed that of the Later Empire as distinguished from that of the three preceding centuries, which we call the Early Empire.

The life of an emperor of the Early Empire (from the first to the third century) was still that of a magistrate and a general; the palace of an emperor of the Later Empire became similar to the court of the Persian king.

=The Officials.=—­The officials often became very numerous.  Diocletian found the provinces too large and so made several divisions of them.  In Gaul, for example, Lugdunensis (the province about Lyons) was partitioned into four, Aquitaine into three.  In place of forty-six governors there were from this time 117.[171]

At the same time the duties of the officials were divided.  Besides the governors and the deputies in the provinces there were in the border provinces military commanders—­the dukes and the counts.  The emperor had about him a small picked force to guard the palace, body-guards, chamberlains, assistants, domestics, a council of state, bailiffs, messengers, and a whole body of secretaries organized in four bureaus.

All these officials did not now receive their orders directly from the emperor; they communicated with him only through their superior officers.  The governors were subordinate to the two praetorian prefects, the officials of public works to the two prefects of the city, the collectors of taxes to the Count of the Sacred Largesses, the deputies to the Count of the Domains, all the officers of the palace to the Master of the Offices, the domestics of the court to the Chamberlain.  These heads of departments had the character of ministers.

This system is not very difficult for us to comprehend.  We are accustomed to see officials, judges, generals, collectors, and engineers, organized in distinct departments, each with his special duty, and subordinated to the commands of a chief of the service.  We even have more ministers than there were in Constantinople; but this administrative machine which has become so familiar to us because we have been acquainted with it from our infancy, is none the less complicated and unnatural.  It is the Later Empire that gave us the first model of this; the Byzantine empire preserved it and since that time all absolute governments have been forced to imitate it because it has made the work of government easier for those who have it to do.