282 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP. Comana, where the high priest of the goddess of war '_ supported the dignity of a sovereign prince ; and they apphed to their private use the consecrated lands which were inhabited by six thousand subjects or slaves of the deity and her ministers. But these were not the valuable inhabitants : the plains that stretch from the foot of mount Argasus to the banks of the Sarus, bred a generous race of horses, renowned above all others in the ancient world for their majestic shape and in- comparable swiftness. These ' sacred' animals, des- tined for the service of the palace and the imperial games, were protected by the laws from the profana- tion of a vulgar master ^ The demesnes of Cappadocia were important enough to require the inspection of a ' count' ^; officers of an inferior rank were stationed in the other parts of the empire ; and the deputies of the private, as well as those of the public treasurer, were maintained in the exercise of their independent func- tions, and encouraged to control the authority of the The counts provincial magistrates'. 6,7. The chosen bands of of the do- cavalry and infantry which guarded the person of the mestics. *' *' .'=' . '■ emperor, were under the immediate command of the two ' counts of the domestics.' The whole number consisted of three thousand five hundred men, di- vided into seven ' schools,' or troops, of five hundred each ; and in the east, this honourable service was al- most entirely appropriated to the Armenians. When- ever, on public ceremonies, they were drawn up in the courts and porticoes of the palace, their lofty stature, •> Strabon. Geograph. 1. xii. p. 809. The other temple of Comana, in Pontus, was a colony from that of Cappadocia : 1. xii. p. 825. The presi- dent Des Brosses (see his Saluste, torn. ii. p. 21.) conjectures, that the deity adored in both Comanas was Beltis, the Venus of the east, the goddess of generation ; a very different being indeed from the goddess of war. f Cod. Theod.l. x. tit. vi. de Grege Dominico. Godefroy has collected every circumstance of antiquity relative to the Cappadocian horses. One of the finest breeds, the Palmatian, was the forfeiture of a rebel, whose estate lay about sixteen miles from Tyana, near the great road between Constantinople and Autioch.
- Justinian (Novell. 30.) subjected the province of the count of Cappa-
docia to the immediate authority of the favourite eunuch, who presided over the sacred bedchamber. ' Cod. Theod. 1. vi. tit. xxx. leg. 4, etc.
