Governmental Administration 51
to officials from the officium of the praefectus praetorio (praetorian prefect)
may offer a better picture. In a series of four letters, three addressed to cancel-
larii and one to a canonicarius, Cassiodorus ordered the release of pensions to
individuals upon retirement from tenure in upper grades of the civil service.22
Of these letters, 11.36 discloses the actual amount paid: 700 solidi to a cornicu-
larius. The other letters refer to the payment of “so many solidi” (tot solidorum).
As the head of the judicial branch of the praetorian officium, the cornicular-
ius was only slightly junior in grade to the princeps augustorum (letter 11.35),
meaning that this represents the higher end of compensation for a lifelong
career in civil service.23 In the East the same official received one pound of
gold per month (864 solidi per year), making the western pension of 700 solidi
less than the annual salary of the eastern counterpart.24 This may seem par-
ticularly modest when weighed against legal fines used to penalize the officium
of the praefectus praetorio for various offences. Such penalties were typically
assessed in pounds of gold in multiples of ten (or multiples of 720 solidi with
72 solidi to the pound of gold).25 However, when the pension of the cornicu-
larius is weighed against its source a different perspective emerges.
Each letter (11.35–11.38) instructs the official’s pension to be drawn from the
“third portion” (illatio tertia) of taxes collected in a particular province. This
fund corresponds to the schedule by which provincials paid their taxes, the
tertia being a third portion thereof rendered every four months.26 Several let-
ters of the Variae provide some sense of the range of income expected from
a province as payment of the tertia. Letter 11.39 discusses the contribution of
the province Lucania-Bruttium as “annual payments” (annuis praestationibus)
in the amount of 1000 solidi, which if this represents one of three annual pay-
ments, indicates a total annual income for the state of 3000 solidi from this
province. Similarly, the 1500 solidi remitted to the provincials of Liguria in let-
ter 2.8, if representative of the illatio tertia owed by the province, would indi-
cate that Liguria owed a total of 4500 solidi annually. As comparanda, a letter of
Pope Pelagius from the mid 550s claims that the church had received 2160 solidi
annually from the province of Picenum in the time of Theoderic.27 Although
22 Variae 11.35 for princeps augustorum, 11.36 for cornicularius, 11.37 for primiscrinius and 11.38
for subadiutor.
23 On the cornicularius: Jones, Later Roman Empire, pp. 563–6, 587–93.
24 On eastern pay: Jones, Later Roman Empire, p. 591.
25 Variae 2.26.3 (a penalty of 30 pounds), 3.20.4 (a penalty of 50 pounds), 10.28.3 (a penalty
of 30 pounds).
26 e.g. Variae 2.24.3, 11.7.3, 11.35.3, 11.36.4, 11.38.6, 12.2.5, 12.16.3, ed. Mommsen.
27 Christie, Constantine to Charlemagne, p. 37.