Cobidas, Joannes
a Graeco-Roman jurist, who seems to have lived shortly after the time of Justinian.
His name is spelt in various ways, as Gobidas, Cobidius, &c.
In
Basil. (ed. Fabrot.) iii. p. 182, Cobidas is found citing Cyrillus and Stephanus, contemporaries of Justinian, and in no extant passage does he refer to the Novellae of Leo; though Nic. Comnenus (
Praenot. Mystag. p. 372) mentions a Gobidas, logotheta genici, who wrote scholia on the Novellae of Leo. Cobidas is cited by Balsamo. (
Ad Nomocan. Photii in Just. et Voell. Bibl. Jur. Canon, p. 1118.)
Works
He is one of the Greek jurists whose commentaries on the titles
de Procuratoribus et Defensibus in the Digest and the Code (which titles, translated into Greek and arranged, constitute the eighth book of the Basilica).
Editions
These were edited by D. Ruhnkenius and first published in the third and fifth volumes of Meermann's Thesaurus. Extracts from the commentaries of Cobidas on the Digest are sometimes appended as notes to the Basilica, and
sometimes the Scholiasts on the Basilica cite Cobidas. (
Basil. ed. Heimbach, i. pp. 359, 794, ii. p. 10.)
Ποιναλίον, or treatise on punishments
Cobidas, the commentator on the Digest, is usually identified and may perhaps be the same with the Joannes Cubidius (Cobidius, Convidius, &c.) who wrote a
Ποιναλίον, or treatise on punishments.
Editions
Some fragments of the Ποιναλίον are preserved in the appendix to the Ecloga of Leo and Constantine. This appendix consists of legal writings, chiefly of the eighth and ninth centuries, and was published from a Parisian manuscript by C. E. Zachariae in his work entitled
Anecdota. (Lips. 1843, p. 191.)
Works still in MS.
Of this jurist and professor (antecessor) Suarez (
Notit. Basil. § 27) says, that Ant. Augustinus possessed some works or portions of works in manuscript.
Further Information
Zachariae,
Hist. Jur. Graeco-Rom. p. 30; Heimbach,
Anecdota, i. p. lxxviii; Pohl,
ad Suares. Notit. Basil. p. 137, n. (
ω); Fabric.
Bibl. Graec. xii. p. 563.
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J.T.G]