Governmental Administration 65
empire. The Variae refer to a small host of dignitaries having authority in the
legal or financial administration of provinces: iudex, rector, consularis, praeses
and corrector. The term iudex tends to be a rather generic referent for someone
with either judicial or financial competence either as a part of the local civitas
administration or as an agent of the Gothic court sent to a particular place, and
not in the specific sense of a person who might be considered a civilian ana-
logue to the Gothic comes provinciae. The Edictum Theoderici refers to a iudex
eiusdem loci, in the sense of a magistrate of a particular civitas.88 Cassiodorus
uses iudex to refer to either a senior palatine minister (Variae 1.4) or unspecified
officials in the provinces having some role in tax collection (Variae 2.24, 11.7,
12.2). Elsewhere in the Variae it becomes clear that iudices provinciarum can
apply to the cancellarii assigned to provinces from the officium of the praeto-
rian prefect (11.14, 12.15). Similarly, the corrector appears to have been a tax offi-
cial charged with the collection of the bina et terna (a land tax) for the office of
the comes sacrarum largitionum, not a magistrate with general gubernatorial
competence over a province.89 Nonetheless, this agent also seems to have been
vested with the authority to pass sentence in civil cases, again an indication of
the evolving flexibility with which administrative authority could be applied
in the provinces.90 Another indication of this flexibility and a shift away from
an annually appointed ‘governor’ for each province is the presence of separate
formulae for the rector, consularis, and praeses, each with authority limited to
the bounds of a province. Of the three offices the consularis (Variae 6.20) had
sweeping administrative powers in a province, while the responsibilities of
the rector seem to have been confined to judicial duties (Variae 6.21) and the
authority of the praeses was limited to fiscal matters (Variae 7.2). Even with the
firm identification of the consularis as a provincial governor, by comparison to
the activity of the comes Gothorum, the governor of a province seems to have
been an occasional figure in the Gothic administration.91 Given the emphasis
that the formula for consularis places on the derivation of the title of the office
from the honour of the consul, it is quite likely that consulares were appointed
by the Gothic court on an ad hoc basis (as opposed to annually) from among
local elite such as the honorati, perhaps to compensate for periodic shortages
of administrative personnel in a particular region.92
88 Edict of Theoderic 64, ed. Baviera.
89 Cf. Variae 7.20 and 3.8, ed. Mommsen.
90 Variae 3.47, ed. Mommsen.
91 Only Variae 3.27, 4.10, 4.32, 5.8 and 5.24, ed. Mommsen, refer matters to the attention of
the consularis; cf. note # 88 for the activities of Gothic comites.
92 Variae 6.20.1, ed. Mommsen.