*The imperial secretaryships.* At first the imperial civil service lacked system and there was little or no connection between the various administrative offices in Italy and in the provinces. Augustus and his immediate successors conducted the administration as part of their private business, keeping in touch with the imperial officials through the private secretaries of their own households, that is to say, their freedmen, who, in another capacity, conducted the management of the private estate of the princeps. An important change was introduced under Claudius, when his influential freedmen caused the creation within the imperial household of a number of secretaryships with definite titles that indicated the sphere of their duties. The chief of these secretaryships were the _a rationibus_, the _ab epistulis_, the _a libellis_, the _a __cognitionibus_ and the _a studiis._ The _a rationibus_ acted as a secretary of the treasury, being in charge of the finances of the empire which were controlled by the princeps; the _ab epistulis_ was a secretary for correspondence, who prepared the orders which the princeps issued to his officials and other persons; the _a libellis_ was a secretary for petitions, who received all requests addressed to the princeps; the _a __cognitionibus_ served as a secretary for the imperial inquests, entrusted with the duty of preparing the information necessary for the rendering of the imperial decision in the judicial investigations personally conducted by the princeps (_cognitiones_); and the _a studiis_, or secretary of the records, had the duty of searching out precedents for the guidance of the princeps in the conduct of judicial or administrative business. The establishment of these secretaryships in the imperial household tended to centralize more completely the imperial administration and to give it greater uniformity and regularity. At the same time the influence of the freedmen who occupied these important positions was responsible for the admission of freedmen to many of the minor administrative procuratorships. It was under Claudius also that the preliminary military career of the procurators was more definitely fixed.