History
Early systems
Public administration has ancient origins. In antiquity the Egyptians and Greeks organized public affairs by office, and the principal officeholders were regarded as being principally responsible for administering justice, maintaining law and order, and providing plenty. The Romans developed a more sophisticated system under their empire, creating distinct administrative hierarchies for justice, military affairs, finance and taxation, foreign affairs, and internal affairs, each with its own principal officers of state. An elaborate administrative structure, later imitated by the Roman Catholic Church, covered the entire empire, with a hierarchy of officers reporting back through their superiors to the emperor. This sophisticated structure disappeared after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, but many of its practices continued in the Byzantine Empire in the east, where civil service rule was reflected in the pejorative use of the word Byzantinism.