258 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, cised over all the departments of the palace. They were '__ deprived by Constantine of all military command, as soon as they had ceased to lead into the field, under their im- mediate orders, the flower of the Roman troops; and at length, by a singular revolution, the captains of the guards were transformed into the civil magistrates of the provinces. According to the plan of government instituted by Diocletian, the four princes had each their pretorian prefect; and, after the monarchy was once more united in the person of Constantine, he still con- tinued to create the same number of four prefects, and intrusted to their care the same provinces which they already administered. 1. The prefect of the east sti'etched his ample jurisdiction into the three parts of the globe which were subject to the Romans, from the cataracts of the Nile to the banks of the Phasis, and from the mountains of Thrace to the frontiers of Per- sia. 2. The important provinces of Pannonia, Dacia, Macedonia, and Greece, once acknowledged the autho- rity of the prefect of Illyricum. 3. The power of the prefect of Italy was not confined to the country from whence he derived his title ; it extended over the addi- tional territory of Rhetia as far as the banks of the Danube, over the dependent islands of the Mediterra- nean, and over that part of the continent of Afi-ica which lies between the confines of Cyrene and those of Tingitania. 4. The prefect of the Gauls compre- hended under that plural denomination the kindred provinces of Britain and Spain, and his authority was obeyed from the wall of Antoninus to the fort of mount Atlas s. After the pretorian prefects had been dismissed from all military command, the civil functions which they were ordained to exercise over so many subject nations, were adequate to the ambition and abilities of the most « Zosimus, 1. ii. p. 109, 110. If we had not fortunately possessed this satisfactory account of the division of the power and provinces of the pre- torian prefects, we should frequently have been perplexed amidst the co- pious details of the Code, and the circumstantial minuteness of the Notitia.
