We have already enacted a law concerning appeals which prescribes the method of presenting them, and designates those to whom they should be made. This law was at the same time addressed to Your Highness, and the Most Glorious Quaestor; but because doubt has arisen concerning the officials charged with this duty, and as the employees of the Imperial Bureau of Epistles have claimed this service for judges, and, on their side, the officials belonging to your jurisdiction have stated that their rights would be infringed if any innovation should be made, and they be prevented from discharging the functions with which they were formerly invested with reference to appeals taken from the illustrious Governors of provinces, through your tribunal, as well as to what took place when you alone had cognizance of such appeals in your consistory; but as the distinguished title accorded to these Governors caused appeals to be taken to the Imperial Consul from the tribunal where you and the Most Glorious Quaestor preside; and the employees of the Bureau of Imperial Records, who took part in the presentation of appeals to the Quaestor, did not alone discharge the duties of the two offices combined in the tribunal of Your Highness, and still more often in that of the Most Glorious Quaestor; they themselves brought up this same question which you recently verbally referred to Us. Your application does not seem to Us unimportant, as, in the meantime, Paphlagonia and Honoria, formerly divided between two Governors, have been united under a single magistrate invested with the title of Praetor, appeals from whom undoubtedly belong to your jurisdiction; just as one Governor, with the rank of spectabilis, has been substituted for the two magistrates who formerly presided over the provinces of The Hellespont and Pole-moniac Pontus, where the same question again came up; for appeals taken in these provinces should only be brought before your tribunal, in accordance with what is provided at the end of the constitution which treats of this subject.

  As both your offices and those of the Quaestor have approved of it, it seems to Us proper to have the officials attached to the tribunal of Your Excellency alone discharge the duties of attendants in the appeals previously referred to; and these appeals shall (as was formerly the case) be heard and decided in the Imperial Audience-Chamber and Our Most Glorious Quaestor shall be present, and take part in the proceedings.

  As the Governor of First Cappadocia, whose appeals were formerly brought before your tribunal, has just been appointed proconsul, it is proper that appeals from this magistrate should, in conformity with Our Constitution, be heard in the Imperial Audience-Chamber, where Our Most Glorious Quaestor shall preside and give his opinion, and where your officers alone shall act as attendants, as was formerly the custom; for although the office of Count of the Houses has been merged into that of Proconsul of Cappadocia, and as formerly very few cases were brought before this distinguished Count, and very few appeals, indeed, were taken to Us from his tribunal, now that We have entrusted the administration of the Treasury to the Proconsul, and have charged other persons with these duties, there is no reason to limit your jurisdiction on this account, hence the officers attached to your court shall alone be employed where appeals are taken from the Proconsul of Cappadocia.

  This rule shall also apply to the Proconsul of Armenia, for while this province was formerly subject to an ordinary administration, We, without adding anything to it, have changed it into a Proconsulate. And as the subordinates of Your Highness formerly had charge of appeals, and as these are now regularly brought before the Imperial Audience-Chamber (as We have previously stated), and both of you should examine them; your executive officers shall, nevertheless, be employed in these cases, as was done when the Province of Armenia was subject to ordinary administration, no change being made in the former method of procedure.

  The Provinces of Lycaonia, Pisidia, Isauria, which originally were under the charge of Governors, and took their appeals to your tribunal, are now subject to Praetorian magistracy. Although it is apparent in what way this change of administration was effected, as at first there was a general stationed in each one of these provinces, We have, nevertheless, deemed it necessary, because of this innovation, to confer upon your tribunal and that of the Most Glorious Quaestor the right to take cognizance of appeals from the decisions of the Praetors of said provinces, but your subordinates will have the privilege of acting as executive officers in cases of this kind. We also direct that the same order shall be observed in cases of appeal, whether they have been brought before, or after the enactment of the present law.

  Your Highness will, by special edicts, make known to all persons the matters which it has pleased Us to promulgate by means of this Imperial law, so that no one may be ignorant of what We have decreed.