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I send you Silentiarius and some poems of Pisida in the same volume. Even if you had not asked for them, I should have asked you to look at some passages which are fine in both. It appears to me that Silentiarius writes difficult Greek, overlaying his description with a multitude of architectural and other far fetched words! I will send a coach and six with it if you please.
There was the arcarius, or account keeper, with his stylum behind his ear; the sleek praegustator, who sampled all foods, so as to stand between his master and poison, and beside him his predecessor, now a half-witted idiot through the interception twenty years before of a datura draught from Canidia; the cellarman, summoned from amongst his amphorae; the cook, with his basting-ladle in his hand; the pompous nomenclator, who ushered the guests; the cubicularius, who saw to their accommodation; the silentiarius, who kept order in the house; the structor, who set forth the tables; the carptor, who carved the food; the cinerarius, who lit the fires these and many more, half-curious, half-terrified, came to the judging of Datus.
It is to be observed that the Pope calls his judgment the Judgment of the Holy Ghost, just as Pope Clement I. did in the first recorded judgment. See his letter, secs. 58, 59, 63, quoted in Church and State, 198-199. Photius, i. 124. Domini sacerdotes. Jaffé, 365; Mansi, vii. 1065. iv. 16. Silentiarius, in the Greek court, officers who kept silence in the emperor's presence.
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