It has seemed worth while to give this sketch of the actual career of a Byzantine official, as it may illustrate in some points the lives of the functionaries to whom so many of the letters of Cassiodorus are addressed; though I know not whether we have any indications of such a rivalry at Ravenna as that which prevailed at Constantinople between the _officium_ of the Praefect and that of the Magister. We now pass on to [Sidenote: Adjutor.] [Sidenote: Primiscrinius.] (3) The _Adjutor_. Some of the uses of this term are very perplexing. It seems clear (from Lydus, 'De Mag.' iii. 3) that all the members of the officium were known by the generic name _Adjutores_. Here however we may perhaps safely assume that Adjutor means simply an assistant to the officer next above him, as we find, lower down in the list of the 'Notitia,' the Exceptores followed by their Adjutores. We may find a parallel to Adjutor in the word Lieutenant, which, for the same reason is applied to officers of such different rank as the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, a Lieutenant-General, a Lieutenant-Colonel, and a simple Lieutenant in the Army or Navy. In the lists of Cassiodorus and Lydus we find no mention of an officer bearing the special name of Adjutor, but we meet instead with a _Primiscrinius_, of whom, according to Lydus, there were two. He says[136], 'After the Cornicularius are two Primiscrinii, whom the Greeks call first of the service[137].' And later on[138], when he is describing the course of business in the _secretum_ of the Praefect, as it used to be in the good old days, he informs us that after judgment had been given, and the Secretarii had read to the litigant the decree prepared by the Assessors and carefully copied by one of the Cancellarii, and after an accurate digest of the case had been prepared in the Latin language by a Secretarius, in order to guard against future error or misrepresentation, the successful litigant passed on with the decree in his hand _to the Primiscrinii, who appointed an officer to execute the judgment of the Court_[139]. These men then put the decree into its final shape by means of the persons appointed to assist them[140] (men who could puzzle even the professors themselves in logical discussions), and endorsed it on the litigant's petition in characters which at once struck awe into the reader, and which seemed actually swollen with official importance[141]. The name and titles of the 'completing' officer were then subscribed. [Footnote 136: De Mag. iii. 4.] [Footnote 137: [Greek: meta de ton kornikoularion primiskrinioi duo, ous Hellenes protous tes taxeos kalousi].] [Footnote 138: De Mag. iii. 11.] [Footnote 139: [Greek: pareei pros tous primiskrinious taxantas ekbibasten tois apopephasmenois]. Probably we should read [Greek: taxontas] for [Greek: taxantas].] [Footnote 140: [Greek: epleroun dia ton boethein autois tetagmenon] (? Adjutores).]