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The Notitia Dignitatum Author(S): J The Notitia Dignitatum Author(s): J. B. Bury Source: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 10 (1920), pp. 131-154 Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/295799 . Accessed: 15/06/2014 07:03 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Roman Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 185.2.32.28 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 07:03:44 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NOTITIA DIGNITATUM. By J. B. BURY. ? I. The document (or rather two documents) which has come down under the title Notitia Dignitatumis well known to all students who have concerned themselves, however incidentally, with the government of the Roman empire in the fourth and fifth centuries. It sometimesstrikes one that it is referredto in a way that betrays a defective realisationof what it was. Some of those who quote it appear to think that it was compiled for the purpose of giving in- formationto the Romanpublic as to the organisationof the civil and military servicesand belongs to much the same class of work as e.g. the Synecdemusof Hierocles or the Notitia of Polemius Silvius. It was, of course, nothing of the kind, and it has been known since the days of Pancirolusprecisely what it was; but even by some who were fully aware of its characterand purpose deductionshave been drawn which its character and purpose exclude. For students of Roman Britain it is particularlyimportant to have a full grasp of the general questions connected with the Notitia, since it contains a great deal of the little evidence we have for the fortunes of that country at the beginning of the fifth century. ? 2. The primiceriusnotariorum was one of the highest officials of the second class (i.e. those who had the rank of spectabilis). In A.D. 381 an imperial law elevated him above the vicarii and placed him in the same group as the proconsuls. The sphere of his duties is thus defined: omnium dignitatum et amministrationumnotitia tam mili- tarium quam civilium. scholas et numeros tractat.2 Claudian in his Epithalamiumon the marriageof Palladius and Celerina describeshis duties in the following verses: paulatim vectus ad altum princepsmilitiae qua non illustriorexstat altera . cunctorum tabulas assignathonorum, regnorum tractat numeros, constringit in unum sparsasimperil vires cuneosque recenset dispositos, quae Sarmaticiscustodia ripis, quae saevisobiecta Getis, quae Saxonafrenat vel Scotum legio, quantae cinxere cohortes oceanum, quanto pacatur milite Rhenus.3 1 Cod. Th. 6, Io, 2. 3 Carm. Min. 25, 83 sqq. The father of Celerina 2 Not. Or. xviii. omniumis Schonhov's correction is the primicerius referred to, and he held office in of omnis; the corresponding text in Not. Occ. xvi the west. Cp. Birt in the index to his ed., sub has Notitia omnium, but omits the words scholas- Palladius. iractat. This content downloaded from 185.2.32.28 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 07:03:44 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions I32 THE NOTITIA DIGNITATUM. The first duty of the primicerius was to prepare and issue the codicilli (tabulae honorum), given to every higher official, illustris, spectabilis or clarissimus, from a Praetorian Prefect or Master of Soldiers down to a provincial governor, on his appointment to his post. His second duty on which Claudian enlarges was one that in modern states devolves upon a ministry of war. He kept the complete survey of the distribution of the military forces in the provinces. The procedure in the case of appointing the higher officials seems to have been as follows. When the emperor had made an appointment, the chartularii of the sacrum cubiculumprepared a formal brief to that effect and forwarded it to the primicerius notariorum.2 The primicerius (like the quaestor) had not a regular staff (oqficium); all that the discharge of his functions required was an assistant (adiutor) selected from the schola notariorumand a number of clerks taken from that body.1 In his bureau the codicil of installation was prepared. It contained the title of the functionary, an enumeration of the provinces, or military units or functionaries, as the case might be, which were under his control, the constitution of his staff if he had one, and also, painted in colours, the insignia of his office (for instance, in the case of a Master of Soldiers, the shields of all the military units under his command). For this purpose it was necessary for the primicerius to have a list of the offices he had to deal with, the details as to their functions, and model copies of the insignia which his clerks had to copy. All this was contained in the notitia dignitatum et amministrationum. The principal insigne of the primicerius himself was the Laterculum Maius. It is not, I think, identical with the notitia, but rather a register containing the names of the occupants of the various posts. It was called Maius to distinguish it from the Laterculum Minus, which contained the list of the lesser military officers-tribunes, praepositi, prefects-and was managed by the scrinium memoriaeunder the control of the quaestor.3 The duplication of the central ministries, in consequence of the partition of the empire, involved two primicerii, one at Rome and one at Constantinople, as independent of each other as the two quaestors or the two masters of offices. The primicerius at Rome had no regular concern with the notitia at Constantinople, and any interest he' might take in it would be occasional or platonic. Changes might be made in arrangements as to dignities or offices in the.east without his knowing anything about them. Hence, although originally the two notitiae were framed in unison and were, so far as possible, exactly identical in arrangement and phrasing (we do not know 1 Cp. Justinian, Nov. 24 ad fin., 25 ad fin. etc. this practice had fallen out of use before the age Karlowa, Gesch. d. rom. Rechts, i, 99I. It is not of Justinian and that he revived it (Nov. I7). that mandata were issued to probable principis Not. Or. x; Not. cc. xvi. They were called provincial governors in the fourth century, nor (if laterclisii ( . Justinian, lcc. citt.). they were) is there any evidence that the primicerius had anything to do with them. We only know that 3 Cod. Th. I, 8. This content downloaded from 185.2.32.28 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 07:03:44 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NOTITIA DIGNITATUM. I33 whether the common form goes back to Constantine), changes independently made from year to year produced a number of divergencies. ? 3. Our Notitia Dignitatum consists of two such notitiae, one of the east and one of the west. The circumstance that both these books were preserved together in the west raises a strong probability that the lost Speier MS. which was still extant in the sixteenth century and was the parent of the existing MSS., was derived ulti- mately from originals at Rome (or Ravenna) belonging to the bureau of the primicerius of the west. The further conclusion suggests itself that the Notitia of the west is an actual working copy, used by the primicerius and his clerks, while that of the east is a clean copy only kept for reference; and this conclusion is borne out, as we shall see, by an examination of the documents. So far as the text is concerned, the admirable edition of Mr. Seeck which appeared forty-five years ago is probably final unless such a very improbable thing were to occur as the discovery either of a MS. independent of the Spirensis or of an ancestor of the Spirensis. The recovery of the lost Spirensis itself would probably not throw much new light. Of the four apographs, which are independent of one another, Mr. Seeck remarks: omnes tam diligenter descripti sunt, ut plerumque etiam in minimis rebus conspirent, et ubi dissentiunt, consensus partis maioris, id quod raro alias evenit, fere pro tradita lectione habenda est. But we may hope that it may some day be found possible to issue an edition reproducing the coloured insignia. No one who has not seen the pictures can form an idea of what the original Notitia used by the primicerius notariorum was like, and any English student who has occasion to use these documents should look at the beautiful book in the Bodleian, one of the Canonici, which came from North Italy and was probably written by Pietro Donato (A.D. I436).1 ? 4. It will be convenient to consider each Notitia separately before comparing them. Each is prefaced by an index of officials. The first thing to be noticed in the Notitia Orientis is that there are a number of inconsistencies between the Index and the sections of the book, and some among the sections themselves, chiefly regarding the order of precedence. (I) In the Index the primicerius notariorum precedes the castrensis; in sections xvii, xviii the order is the reverse. (2) In the Index the provinces of Egypt are enumerated before those of Oriens; in ii and xxii, xxiii the order is the reverse.
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