 In 326, Constantine reversed this pro-equestrian trend, raising many administrative positions to senatorial rank and thus opening these offices to the old aristocracy, and at the same time elevating the rank of already existing equestrians office-holders to senator, degrading the equestrian order — at least as a bureaucratic rank — in the process, so that by the end of the 4th century the title of perfectissimus was granted only to mid-low officials.
