Before we can understand the working of the school and see it in its proper perspective, before we can grasp the inner meaning of the system and appreciate its merits and demerits, something must be known about the society in which the school flourished and of the imperial organization which gave direction to that society. As Guizot said in his _History of Civilization_, study must proceed from without to within.[730] It is unnecessary to give a detailed account of a subject so well worn, but a brief summary of such points as bear on education is necessary. An outstanding feature in the development of the later empire is the growth of civil power. The great military commands, so common previously, become more and more impossible, owing to greater subdivision. The imperial army was divided into one hundred and twenty[731] parts, as against forty-five at the end of Trajan’s reign, and of these Gaul had fifteen. The civil power was so far recognized that military and civil offices were separated. The civil administrator of a province was called ‘proconsul’ or ‘consular’ (which did not necessarily mean ex-consul) according to whether the province was reckoned as ‘old’ or not. Above him were the four supreme civil authorities of the empire, the Praefectus Praetorio (who had become a civil magistrate after the Praetorian Cohorts had destroyed themselves by supporting Maxentius against Constantine), the Praefectus Galliarum, the Praefectus Italiae, and the Praefectus Illyrici et Orientis. It is well to bear in mind the status of these officials, for it will help us to understand the meaning of the fact that a schoolmaster like Ausonius became ‘praefectus Galliarum’. Each praefecture was divided into ‘dioceses’ and at the head of each was a ‘Vicarius’. The tenants of the higher offices were divided, according to the honour of their position, into ‘Illustres’, ‘Spectabiles’, and ‘Clarissimi’.