The officials of the empire were divided into three classes of the Illustrious, Respectable, and Honourable.  The consuls were still annually elected, but obtained the semblance of their ancient authority, not from the suffrages of the people, but from the whim of the emperor.  On the morning of January 1 they assumed the ensigns of their dignity, and in the two capitals of the empire they celebrated their promotion to office by the annual games.  As soon as they had discharged these customary duties, they retired into the shade of private life, to enjoy, during the remainder of the year, the undisturbed contemplation of their own greatness.  Their names served only as the legal date of the year in which they had filled the chair of Marius and of Cicero.  The ancient title of Patrician became now an empty honour bestowed by the emperor.  Four prefects held jurisdiction over as many divisions of the empire, and two municipal prefects ruled Rome and Constantinople.  The proconsuls and vice-prefects belonged to the rank of Respectable, and the provincial magistrates to the lower class of Honourable.  In the military system, eight master-generals exercised their jurisdiction over the cavalry and the infantry, while thirty-five military commanders, with the titles of counts and dukes, under their orders, held sway in the provinces.  The army itself was recruited with difficulty, for such was the horror of the profession of a soldier which affected the minds of the degenerate Romans that compulsory levies had frequently to be made.  The number of the barbarian auxiliaries enormously increased, and they were included in the legions and the troops that surrounded the throne.  Seven ministers with the rank of Illustrious regulated the affairs of the palace, and a host of official spies and torturers swelled the number of the immediate followers of the sovereign.

The general tribute, or indiction, as it was called, was derived largely from the taxation of landed property.  Every fifteen years an accurate census, or survey, was made of all lands, and the proprietor was compelled to state the true facts of his affairs under oath, and paid his contribution partly in gold and partly in kind.  In addition to this land tax there was a capitation tax on every branch of commercial industry, and “free gifts” were exacted from the cities and provinces on the occasion of any joyous event in the family of the emperor.  The peculiar “free gift” of the senate of Rome amounted to some $320,000.

Constantine celebrated the twentieth year of his reign at Rome in the year 326.  The glory of his triumph was marred by the execution, or murder, of his son Crispus, whom he suspected of a conspiracy, and the reputation of the emperor who established the Christian religion in the Roman world was further stained by the death of his second wife, Fausta.  With a successful war against the Goths in 331, and the expulsion of the Sarmatians in 334, his reign closed.  He died at Nicomedia on May 22, 337.