giving him thereby what we should call Cabinet-rank, and placing him
among the ten or eleven ministers of the highest class[23], by whom,
under the King, the fortunes of the Gothic-Roman State were absolutely
controlled.

[Footnote 21: 'Cassiodorus Senator ... juvenis adeo, dum patris
Cassiodori patricii et praefecti praetorii consiliarius fieret et
laudes Theodorichi regis Gothorum facundissime recitasset, ab eo
quaestor est factus' (Anecdoton Holderi, ap. Usener, p. 4).]

[Footnote 22: He himself says, or rather makes Theodoric's grandson
say to him, 'Quem _primaevum_ recipiens ad quaestoris officium, mox
reperit [Theodoricus] conscientiâ praeditum, et legum eruditione
maturum' (Var. ix. 24).]

[Footnote 23: At this time the Illustres actually in office would
probably be the Praefectus Praetorio Italiae (Cassiodorus the father),
the Praefectus Urbis Romae, the two Magistri Militum in Praesenti, the
Praepositus Sacri Cubiculi, the Magister Officiorum, the Quaestor, the
Comes Sacrarum Largitionum, the Comes Rerum Privatarum, and the two
Comites Domesticorum Equitum et Peditum.]

[Sidenote: Nature of the Quaestor's office.]

The Quaestor's duty required him to be beyond all other Ministers the
mouthpiece of the Sovereign. In the 'Notitia[24]' the matters under
his control are concisely stated to be 'Laws which are to be dictated,
and Petitions.'

[Footnote 24: 'Sub dispositione viri illustris Quaestoris