[Footnote 429: 'Evectiones,' free passes by the _Cursus Publicus_.] 'What is there that he has not entrusted to him whose very speech is Judgment? He may almost be said to have the power of making laws, since the reverence due to him enables him to finish law-suits without appeal. 'On his entrance into the palace he, like ourselves, is adored by the assembled throng[430], and an office of such high rank appears to excuse a practice which in other cases would be considered matter for accusation[431]. [Footnote 430: 'Ingressus palatium nostra consuetudine frequenter adoratur.' We know from Lydus (De Mag. ii. 9) that the highest officers of the army _knelt_ at the entrance of the Praetorian Praefect. Perhaps we need not infer from this passage that Oriental _prostration_ was used either towards Theodoric or his Praefect.] [Footnote 431: 'Et tale officium morem videtur solvere, quod alios potuit accusare.'] 'In power, no dignity is his equal. He judges everywhere as the representative of the Sovereign[432]. No soldier marks out to him the limits of his jurisdiction, except the official of the Master of the Soldiery. I suppose that the ancients wished [even the Praefect] to yield something to those who were to engage in war on behalf of the Republic. [Footnote 432: 'Vice sacra ubique judicat.'] 'He punishes with stripes even the Curials, who are called in the laws a Lesser Senate. 'In his own official staff (officium) he is invested with peculiar privileges; since all men can see that he lays his commands on men of such high quality that not even the Judges of Provinces may presume to look down upon them. The staff is therefore composed of men of the highest education, energetic, strong-minded[433], intent on prompt obedience to the orders of their head, and not tolerating obstruction from others. To those who have served their time in his office, he grants the rank of Tribunes and Notaries, thus making his attendants equal to those who, mingled with the chiefs of the State, wait upon our own presence. [Footnote 433: 'Officium plane geniatum, efficax, instructum et tota animi firmitate praevalidum.'] 'We joyfully accomplish that which he arranges, since our reverence for his office constrains us to give immediate effect to his decrees. He deserves this at our hands, since his forethought nourishes the Palace, procures the daily rations of our servants, provides the salaries even of the Judges themselves[434]. By his arrangements he satiates the hungry appetites of the ambassadors of the [barbarous] nations[435]. And though other dignities have their specially defined prerogatives, by him everything that comes within the scope of our wisely-tempered sway is governed. [Footnote 434: 'Humanitates quoque judicibus ipsis facit.'] [Footnote 435: 'Legatos gentium voraces explet ordinationibus suis.' _Voraces_ seems to give a better sense than the other reading, _veraces_.]