MINISTRIES. 443 



agents. From the earliest times onwards we meet with 

 illustrations. In ancient Egypt 



&quot;The office of fan- bearer to the king was a highly honourable post, 

 which none but the royal princes, or the sons of the first nobility, were 

 permitted to hold. These constituted a principal part of his staff ; and 

 in the field they either attended on the monarch to receive his orders, 

 or were despatched to have the command of a division.&quot; 

 In Assyria the attendants who thus rose to power were not 

 relatives, but were habitually eunuchs ; and the like hap 

 pened in Persia. &quot; In the later times, the eunuchs acquired 

 a vast political authority, and appear to have then filled all 

 the chief offices of state. They were the king s advisers in 

 the palace, and his generals in the field.&quot; Kindred illustra 

 tions are furnished by the West. Shown among the primitive 

 Germans, the tendency for officers of the king s household to 

 become political officers, was conspicuous in the Merovingian 

 period : the seneschal, the marshal, the chamberlain, grew 

 into public functionaries. Down to the later feudal period 

 in France, the public and household administrations of the 

 king were still undistinguished. So was it in old English 

 times. According to Kemble, the four great officers of the 

 Court and Household were the Hrsege Thegn (servant of the 

 wardrobe) ; the Steallere and Horsthegn (first, Master of the 

 Horse, then General of the Household Troops, then Constable 

 or Grand Marshal) ; the Discthegn (or thane of the table 

 afterwards Seneschal) ; the Butler (perhaps Byrele or Scenca). 

 The like held under the conquering Normans ; and it holds in 

 a measure down to the present time. 



Besides relatives and servants, friends are naturally in some 

 cases fixed on by the ruler to get him information, give him 

 advice, and carry out his orders. Among ancient examples the 

 Hebrews furnish one. .&quot;Remarking that in the small kingdoms 

 around Israel in earlier times, it was customary for the ruler 

 to have a single friend to aid him, Ewald points out that 

 under David, with a larger State and a more complex ad 

 ministration, &quot; the different departments are necessarily more 

 subdivided, and new offices of friends or ministers of the 



