C. 8.--Whatever these may have been they did not include the financial administration of the Diocese, the general management of which was in the hands of two officers, the "Accountant of Britain" [_Rationalis Summarum Britanniarum_] and the "Provost of the London Treasury" [_Praepositus thesaurorum Augustensium_].[360] Both these were subordinates of the "Count of the Sacred Largesses" [_Comes Sacrarum Largitionum_], one of the greatest officers of State, corresponding to our First Lord of the Treasury, whose name reminds us that all public expenditure was supposed to be the personal benevolence of His Sacred Majesty the Emperor, and all sources of public revenue his personal property. The Emperor, however, had actually in every province domains of his own, managed by the Count of the Privy Purse [_Comes Rei Privatae_], whose subordinate in Britain was entitled the "Accountant of the Privy Purse for Britain" [_Rationalis Rei Privatae per Britanniam_]. Both these Counts were "Illustrious" [_illustres_]; that is, of the highest order of the Imperial peerage below the "Right Noble" [_nobilissimi_] members of the Imperial Family. C. 9.--Such and so complete was the system of civil and military government in Roman Britain up to the very point of its sudden and utter collapse. When the 'Notitia' was compiled, neither Celerinus, as he wrote, nor the officials whose functions and ranks he noted, could have dreamt that within ten short years the whole elaborate fabric would, so far as Britain was concerned, be swept away utterly and for ever. Yet so it was. C. 10.--For what was left of the British Army now made a last effort to save the West for Rome, and once more set up Imperial Pretenders of its own.[361] The first two of these, Marcus and Gratian, were speedily found unequal to the post, and paid the usual penalty of such incompetence; but the third, a private soldier named Constantine, all but succeeded in emulating the triumph of his great namesake. For four years (407-411) he was able to hold not only Britain, but Gaul and Spain also under his sceptre; and the wretched Honorius, the unworthy son and successor of Theodosius, who was cowering amid the marshes of Ravenna, and had murdered his champion Stilicho, was fain to recognize the usurper as a legitimate Augustus. Only by treachery was he put down at last, the traitor being the commander of his British forces, Gerontius. Both names continued for many an age favourites in British nomenclature, and both have been swept into the cycle of Arturian romance, the latter as "Geraint."