BASIL´ICA
BASIL´ICA the Greek code of
Roman
law. About A.D. 876, the Emperor Basil, the Macedonian, commenced
this work, which was completed by his son Leo, the philosopher, who reigned
from A.D. 886 to 911. Before the reign of Basil, there had been several
Greek translations of the Pandects, the Code, and the Institutes; but there
was no authorised Greek version of them. The numerous Constitutions of
Justinian's
[p. 1.293]successors, and the contradictory
interpretations of the jurists, were a further reason for publishing a
revised Greek text under the imperial authority. This great work was called
Ἀνακάθαρσις τῶν παλαιῶν νόμων, τὸ
ἑξηκοντάβιβλιον, ὁ βασιλικός (
ϝόμος) and
τὰ βασιλικά. It was
revised by the order of Constantine Porphyrogennitus, about A.D. 945. The
Basilica comprised the Institutes, Pandects, Code, the Novellae, and the
imperial Constitutions subsequent to the time of Justinian, in sixty books,
which are subdivided into titles. For the Institutes the paraphrase of
Theophilus was used; for the Digest the
πλάτος of Stephanus, and the commentary of Cyrillus and of an
anonymous author; for the Code the
κατὰ
πόδας of Thalelaeus and the work of Theodorus; and for the
Novellae, except the 168, the Summae of Theodorus, Athanasius, and
Philoxenus. The publication of this authorised body of law in the Greek
language led to the gradual disuse of the original compilations of Justinian
in the East. But the Roman law was thus more firmly established in Eastern
Europe and Western Asia, where it has maintained itself among the Greek
population to the present day.
The arrangement of the matter in the Basilica is as follows:--All the matter
relating to a given subject is selected from the Corpus Juris; the extracts
from the Pandect are placed first under each title, then the constitutions
of the Code, and next in order the provisions contained in the Institutes
and the Novellae, which confirm or complete the provisions of the Pandect.
The Basilica does not include all that the Corpus Juris contains; but it
preserves numerous fragments of the opinions of ancient jurists, and of
imperial constitutions, which are not in the Corpus Juris.
The Basilica were published, with a Latin version, by Fabrot, Paris, 1647,
seven vols. folio. Fabrot published only thirty-six books complete, and six
others incomplete: the other books were made up from an extract from the
Basilica and the Scholiasts. Four of the deficient books were afterwards
found in MS., and published by Gerhard Meerman, with a translation by M.
Otto Reitz, in the fifth volume of his
Thesaurus Juris Civilis et
Canonici; and they were also published separately in London, in
1765, folio, as a supplement to Fabrot's edition. The work, however, is
still incomplete, not less than 17 out of the 60 books having been lost, and
others mutilated. The best edition is that of C. W. E. Heimbach, Leipzig,
1833-51, 5 vols. 4to, with a
Supplementum editionis Basilicorum
Heimbachianae by C. E. Zachariä von Lingenthal,
Leipzig, 1846.
(Heimbach,
de Basilicorum Origine, Fontibus, &c.,
Leipzig, 1825; A. F. Rudorff;
Röm. Rechtsgeschichte,
1.127, pp. 355-359.)
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