Words thus exhaust themselves describing these grandiose, overpowering, magnificent courts, halls, and apartments. We can perforce ignore such features as the separate hippodrome and the luxurious gardens reserved for imperial amusement or recreation. Better it is to concentrate attention upon the human life wherewith the Palatine ordinarily abounds. =250. Swarms of Civil Officials Always on the Palatine.=--All the Palatine revolves around the Emperor. Rome is not yet governed by an unabashed despotism, yet it would be hard to name a deed that a king of old Babylon could perform which a _Princeps et Imperator_ could not perpetrate if his heart really desired, although certain restraints and decencies make this absolutism endurable save under a Nero or a Domitian. The thousands of persons who dwell upon or are employed upon the Palatine are all employed with one of two things, the imperial court or the imperial public service. Since Hadrian (despite the grumblings of his Italian subjects) is still absent from Rome the court ceremonial has practically ceased. A few of the Emperor’s relatives dwell in gilded ease in certain wings of the palace, but except for the caretakers the great army of self-sufficient slaves and still more self-sufficient freedmen who act as valets, cooks, waiters, musicians, chamberlains, and in every other menial capacity, can eat, play dice, and discuss the races in idleness. Now as always, however, the imperial public service which sends its impulse to the remotest borders of Dacia, Syria, or Britain is functioning actively, and most of the vast bureaus and ministries have huge offices upon the Palatine. The Prætorian Præfect, as high judge for the Emperor’s half of the provinces, daily mounts his supreme tribunal. The four Imperial Secretaries for Finance, for Petitions, and for Official Correspondence (one for the Greek provinces and one for the Latin) direct their great corps of subordinates. The chief Procurators (Superintendents) of the enormous Imperial Estates all over the Empire are receiving reports and protecting their masters’ interests; and so with a great body of other high officials. The huge administrative machine perfected by the practical Roman genius is running steadily--so steadily that even under a very bad Emperor, even a Nero, it will function for years with no great harm to the governed millions. The only condition is that the tyrant will reserve his cruelties for the nobility and refrain from tactless interference with the secretaries instead of indulging merely in vicious personal pleasures.[151]