'Now the Scriniarii [subordinates of the Magister Officiorum] are made Cancellarii and Logothetes and purveyors of the Imperial table, whereas in old time the Cancellarius was chosen only from the ranks of Augustales and Exceptores who had served with credit. In those days the Judgment Hall [of the Praefect] recognised only two Cancellarii, who received an _aureus_ apiece[176] per day from the Treasury. There was aforetime in the Court of Justice a fence separating the Magistrate from his subordinates, and this fence, being made of long splinters of wood placed diagonally, was called _cancellus_, from its likeness to network, the regular Latin word for a net being casses, and the diminutive cancellus[177]. At this latticed barrier then stood two _Cancellarii_, by whom, since no one was allowed to approach the judgment-seat, paper was brought to the members of the staff and needful messages were delivered. But now that the office owing to the number of its holders[178] has fallen into disrepute, and that the Treasury no longer makes a special provision for their maintenance, almost all the hangers-on of the Courts of Law call themselves Cancellarii; and, not only in the capital but in the Provinces, they give themselves this title in order that they may be able more effectually to plunder the wealthy.' [Footnote 176: About twelve shillings.] [Footnote 177: This derivation from casses is, of course, absurd.] [Footnote 178: Can this be the meaning of [Greek: eis plethos]?] This description by Lydus, while it aptly illustrates Cassiodorus' exhortations to his Cancellarii to keep their hands clean from bribes, shows how lowly their office was still considered; and indeed, but for his statement that it used to be filled by veteran Augustales, we might almost have doubted whether it is rightly classed among the 'Learned Services' at all. [Sidenote: End of the Militia Literata.] Now at any rate we leave the ranks of the gentlemen of the Civil Service behind us, and come to the 'Militia Illiterata,' of whom the 'Notitia' enumerates only [Sidenote: Militia Illiterata: Singularii.] (13) The _Singularii_, a class of men of whose useful services Lydus speaks in terms of high praise, contrasting their modest efficiency with the pompous verbosity[179] of the Magistriani (servants of the Master of the Offices) by whom they were being generally superseded in his day. They travelled through the Provinces, carrying the Praefect's orders, and riding in a post-chaise drawn by a single horse (veredus), from which circumstance, according to Lydus, they derived their name Singularii[180]. [Footnote 179: [Greek: Kompophakellorremosyne] = Pomp-bundle-wordiness, an Aristophanic word.] [Footnote 180: De Dignitatibus iii. 7.]