Governmental Administration 61
Administrative Functions in Action
The remaining portion of this chapter will illustrate some of the ways in which
the conflation of boundaries between personnel is visible in the Ostrogothic
period. Cassiodorus accorded the office of praefectus praetorio a dignity above
all other offices, and indeed the praetorian prefect was closely associated with
the comitatus of the Gothic ruler.68 Having authority over both legal and finan-
cial personnel of the administration, the prefect commanded the most numer-
ous branches of the bureaucracy (exceptores and scrinarii). His competence
covered the collection of taxes in all provinces, the local officials involved in
its collection, the distribution of taxes as payment to military and administra-
tive personnel, the maintenance of the public food supply, oversight in local
finances, and rendering final judgement in legal disputes.69 Given the breadth
of the praetorian prefect’s involvement in various affairs throughout Italy, it
is perhaps unsurprising that the Gothic court would direct him to undertake
tasks traditionally delegated to other ministers. For example, in Variae 2.9 and
3.51, Theoderic orders the prefect to take charge of fairly minor matters per-
taining to public spectacles in Milan and Rome (something that might have
pertained to the tribunus voluptatum or vicarius urbae Romae).70 Similarly, in
Variae 11.5, the prefect directs his deputy assistant (vices agenti) to adminis-
ter the annona in Rome, without mention of the authority that the praefectus
annonae would have had in the matter.71 It may have been the case that the
appointment of specialized officials to govern such matters as public spectacle
and the annona was only periodic and that the Gothic ruler typically required
the praetorian prefect, as the highest-ranking minister attendant in the comi-
tatus, to act in the absence of such personnel.
Other high ministers of the comitatus, however, with competences that were
traditionally much more circumscribed, similarly display evidence of operat-
ing in a wide ambit, or at other times having their traditional roles assumed by
others. The relative ease with which traditional administrative roles were con-
flated among the comes sacrarum largitionum, the comes patrimonii nostri, and
the comes privatarum speaks to a habit of appointing officials to tasks based
68 As described in the formula for praetorian prefect: Variae 6.3.4, ed. Mommsen; on the
itinerant nature of the office: Variae 11.5.1–3.
69 For descriptions of the duties of the praetorian prefect: Variae, praefatio 1.5–6, ed.
Mommsen; Variae 1.4, 2.5, 2.37, 2.38, 4.36, 4.38, 4.50, 5.34, 6.3, 12.2; also, Morosi, “Praefectus
praetorio”, pp. 71–93.
70 Cf. formulae at Variae 6.15 for the vicarius and 7.10 for tribunus voluptatum, ed. Mommsen.
71 Cf. formula for the prefect of the annona at Variae 6.18, ed. Mommsen.