those who previously had been only _Perfectissimi_ and _Egregii_, and two still higher orders of _Illustres_ and _Spectabiles_ were created for the old _Clarissimi_ and _Perfectissimi_. The two topmost classes were thus given an upward step. Such was the new official aristocracy, while a rigid line of division, quite unknown to Republican and early Imperial Rome, was drawn between the civil and the military officers of the Empire. The military forces themselves were organised into two great divisions, (1) the troops kept permanently upon the frontiers, and (2) the soldiers of the line. The first were known as _Limitanei_ (Borderers) or _Riparienses_ (Guardians of the Shore), the second name being specially applied to the soldiers of the Rhine and the Danube. All these troops were stationed in permanent camps and forts, which often developed into townships, and it was a rare thing for a legion to be moved to another quarter of the Empire. Boys grew up and followed their fathers in the profession of arms in the same camp, and were themselves succeeded by their own sons. The term of service was twenty-four years, and these _Limitanei_ were not only soldiers but tillers of the soil, playing a part precisely similar to the soldier colonists of Russia in her Far Eastern provinces. The soldiers of the line (_Numeri_), on the other hand, served for the shorter period of twenty years. They included the _Palatini_,—practically the successors of the old Prætorian Guard,—the crack corps of the army, who were divided into regiments bearing such titles as _Scholares_, _Protectores_, and _Domestici_, and enjoyed the privilege of guarding the Emperor’s person. Most of the legions of the line were known as the _Comitatenses_. These were employed in the interior garrisons of the Empire, and Zosimus—whether justly or not, it is impossible to say—accuses Constantine of having dangerously weakened the frontier garrisons and withdrawn too many troops into the interior. The control of the army, under the Emperor and his two ministers for war, was vested by the end of the fourth century in thirty-five commanders bearing the titles of dukes and counts,—the latter being the higher of the two. Three of these were stationed in Britain, six in Gaul, one each in Spain and Italy, four in Africa, three in Egypt, eight in Asia and Syria, and nine along the upper and lower reaches of the Danube.