denotes originally a fellow-traveller: hence it is
applied to the members of the retinue of a magistrate or high official sent
into the provinces (cf. Cic. Ver. 2.10,
; ad Quint. Fr.
11; Suet. Jul. 42
, “neu qui senatoris
filius nisi contubernalis aut comes magistratus peregre
proficisceretur” ); and under the emperors the term is used
especially of those accompanying the emperor or members of his family (cf.
Hor. Ep. 1.8
; Mommsen in Hermes,
4.120 ff.; Suet. Aug. 16
From this it was a natural transition to apply the term to the courtiers
generally, even when not on a journey ; and in later Latin we find it used
of the holders of the various state-offices. About the time of Constantine
it became a regular honorary title, including various grades, answering to
the comites ordinis primi, secundi, tertii.
power of these officers, especially the provincial, varied with time and
place; some presided over a particular department, with a limited authority,
as we should term them, commissioners;
invested with all the powers of the ancient proconsuls and praetors.
The names of the following officers explain themselves:--Comes Orientis (of
whom there seem to have been two, one the superior of the other), comes
Aegypti, comes Britanniae, comes Africae, comes rei militaris, comes
portuum, comes stabuli, comes domesticorum equitum, comes clibanarius, comes
linteae vestis or vestiarii (master of the robes). In fact the emperor had
as many comites
as he had functions: thus,
comes consistorii, the emperor's privy-councillor; comes largitionum
privatarum, an officer who managed the emperor's private revenue, as the
comes largitionum sacrarum did the public exchequer. The latter office
united in a great measure the functions of the aedile and quaestor. The four
comites commerciorum, to whom the government granted the exclusive privilege
of trading in silk with barbarians, were under his control. An account,
however, of the duties and functions of the comites of the later empire does
not fall within the scope of the present work. (Cf. Notitia Dignitatum,
ed. Böcking; Wilmanns,
Exempla Inscript. Latin.
Ind. p. 555.)
] [p. 1.503]