[2][3] The post first appears in the 4th century as the tribunus [sacri] stabuli ('tribune of the [sacred] stable'), initially responsible for the levying of horses from the provinces.
[5] By the early 5th century, as attested in the Codex Theodosianus, they were raised to comites with the rank of vir clarissimus, but the older title of tribune remained in parallel use for some time (cf.
Evidently, the post was closely associated with the imperial family, as affirmed further when Stilicho was appointed to it on the occasion of his marriage to the adopted niece of Emperor Theodosius I (r. 378–395), Serena.
The distinguished general Flavius Aetius held the post in 451, and in the 6th century, the variant "Count of the Imperial Grooms" was conferred on leading generals such as Belisarius and Constantinianus, while Baduarius, a relative of Emperor Justin II (r. 565–578), is recorded by the 9th-century chronicler Theophanes the Confessor to have held the post of 'Count of the Imperial Stables'.
[1][9] The office reappears in the sources in the 820s, when the "protospatharios and komes tou basilikou hippostasiou" Damian led an unsuccessful expedition against the Saracens in Crete.