[Sidenote: Grand Chamberlain.]

(_b_) The _Praepositus Sacri Cubiculi_ had under his orders the large
staff of Grooms of the Bedchamber, at whose head stood the
_Primicerius Cubiculariorum_, an officer of 'respectable' rank. The
_Castrensis_, Butler or Seneschal, with his army of lacqueys and pages
who attended to the spreading and serving of the royal table; the
_Comes Sacrae Vestis_, who with similar assistance took charge of the
royal wardrobe; the _Comes Domorum_, who perhaps superintended the
needful repairs of the royal palace, all took their orders in the last
resort from the Grand Chamberlain. So, too, did the three Decurions,
officers with a splendid career of advancement before them, who
marshalled the thirty brilliantly armed Silentiarii, that paced
backwards and forwards before the purple veil guarding the slumbers of
the Sovereign.

[Sidenote: Count of Sacred Largesses.]

(_c_) The _Comes Sacrarum Largitionum_, theoretically only the Grand
Almoner of the Sovereign, discharged in practice many of the duties of
Chancellor of the Exchequer. The mines, the mint, the Imperial linen
factories, the receipt of the tribute of the Provinces, and many other
departments of the public revenue were originally under the care of
this functionary, whose office however, as we are expressly told by
Cassiodorus, had lost part of its lustre, probably by a transfer of
some of these duties to the Count of the Private Domains.

[Sidenote: Count of Private Domains.]