The viziers were the chief councillors of the sultan for peace and war, administration and justice; and they deliberated all important questions in the meetings of the Divan, which will be described later. The word vizier means burden-bearer, the idea being that an official so designated lifted from the shoulders of the sovereign the burden of state, and bore it upon his own shoulders. The number of viziers was not rigidly fixed, but in the reign of Suleiman, there were ordinarily four, that being a sacred number with both Turks and Moslems.[555] All bore the title pasha, which was sparingly used in the sixteenth century. Ordinary viziers had no regular responsibilities besides their function as councillors; they had great incomes from both regular and irregular sources, and kept large establishments modeled on that of their master.[556] In the time of Suleiman, the office of grand vizier reached the climax of a noteworthy development. Whereas formerly this official had been the senior member of the sultan’s board of advisers, _primus inter pares_, he now became a personage far above his fellow-viziers. His position came to differ from theirs not merely in degree, but in kind, a difference typified by the fact that, in reporting to Suleiman after the meetings of the Divan, none spoke but the grand vizier.[557] This development of the office seems to have resulted from Suleiman’s willingness to entrust much power to a chosen instrument, who would thus relieve him of many of the immense cares of empire. Ibrahim first held his master’s confidence for many years. Later Rustem came to full power, supported by the wife and the favorite daughter of the monarch. In Suleiman’s last years he left well-nigh everything to Ali and to Mohammed Sokolli.[558] The grand vizier thus came practically to wield the sovereign power of the Ottoman state: the sultan might almost discharge his mind of public care. That is why it became easy for Selim II and his successors to withdraw into the harem, and devote most of their energies to carousing and debauchery. Had the position of the grand vizier been more secure, this change might have been for the good of the Ottoman state, as affording a means of supplementing the scanty abilities of weak sultans by those of the ablest men of the empire. In the case of Mohammed Sokolli, and of the Kiuprilis three generations later, such was to be the fact. More often, however, the place of grand vizier was to be so thoroughly at the mercy of harem intrigue that only a master of this art could retain his precarious position by immense efforts, such as would leave a mere remnant of his energies free for the service of the state. The increase under Suleiman of the relative power of the grand vizier was thus a dangerous and eventually a disastrous development.