FLA'VIUS ANI'CIUS JUSTINIA'NUS I. or Justinianus Magnus or Justinian the Great
surnamed MAGNUS, or THE GREAT, emperor of CONSTANTINOPLE and ROME from A. D. 527 to 565. His descent and family connections are given in the following genealogical table:--
The date of the birth of Justinian is fixed on the 11th of May, A. D. 483, in
L' Art de Vérifier les Dates (vol. i. p. 409), where the question is critically investigated. His birthplace was the village of Tauresium, in the district of Bederiana, in Dardania, where he afterwards built the splendid city of Justiniana, on the site of which stands the modern town of Kostendil. (See D'Anville,
Mémoire sur deux villes qui ont porté le nom de Justiniana, in the 31 st vol. of
Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres.）
At an early age Justinian went to Constantinople, where his uncle Justin, who had risen to high military honours, took care of his education and advancement. During some time he lived as an hostage at the court of Theodoric, king of the East Goths.
After the accession of his uncle Justin to the imperial throne, in 518, he rose to eminence, and prepared his own fortune by securing that of the emperor. Active in the destruction of the eunuch Amantius and his associates, he contrived or perpetrated the murder of Vitalian, the Goth, so famous by his rebellion against the emperor Anastasius, and who was stabbed at a banquet in the presence of Justin and Justinian.
In reward for his faithful allegiance, Justinian was made commander-in-chief of the armies in Asia; but he was no warrior, and preferred remaining at Constantinople, where he canvassed the friendship of the clergy and the senators.
He was advanced to the consulship in 521, and his influence became so great, that, at the suggestion of the senate, the aged emperor adopted him, and proclaimed him co-emperor, 1st of April, 527. Justin died a few months afterwards, and Justinian was crowned by the patriarch of Constantinople, together with his wife, the actress Theodora, whom he raised to the dignity of empress, in spite of the opposition of his mother and other relatives. [THEODORA.]
Justinian signalised his accession by public festivals more splendid than the Greeks had ever witnessed, and the money alone which was distributed among the people is said to have amounted to 288,000 pieces of gold. Had he not been an excellent financier, his extravagances might have impeded his operations against the enemies of the empire, against whom he was obliged to prosecute the war which had been begun by his predecessor; but lie understood thoroughly the subtle art of emptying those purses again which his liberality had filled; and if his generals were not successful against the Persians, it was not for want of money. The Huns on the northern shores of the Euxine, especially around the Palus Maeotis, or the Sea of Azof, were either subjugated or submitted voluntarily; and the Arabs, who made frequent inroads into Syria as far as Antioch, were likewise, though with more difficulty, compelled to desist from hostilities.
The relations between Constantinople and Persia were of an indifferent character, and an open war broke out between the two powers, when Justinian promised to assist Tzathus, the king of the Lazi, between Pontus and the Caucasus, who came to Constantinople to implore the aid of the Romans against the Persians.
In the first campaign against these hereditary enemies of Rome, the generals of Justinian, Belisarius, Cyricus, and Petrus, were defeated; but their successor, Petrus Notarius, was successful.
The war was chiefly carried on in Armenia, but also on the frontiers of Syria and Mesopotamia, and lasted till 532, when, after as many defeats as victories, but without being compelled by necessity, Justinian made peace with Chosroes, the Persian king, who desisted from further hostilities on receiving an annual tribute of 440,000 pieces of gold. Justinian wished for peace with Persia, because he intended to make war against the Vandals in Africa, and to subdue, if possible, the political factions by which the empire had so often been shaken, and which had created a fearful riot in the very year that the peace was concluded with Persia. In January, 532, Justinian honoured the public feast in the hippodrome with his presence, being surrounded by vast numbers of the "Blue faction" (
οἱ Βένετοι), who were adherents of the orthodox Catholic church, and, consequently, partisans of the orthodox emperor. Suddenly some of the "Green faction" (
οἱ Πράσινοι), who had already made much noise, rose and complained of several grievances, especially that the emperor patronised the Blue, and showed himself too indulgent towards their riotous and dissolute conduct. They further complained of fiscal oppression and the partial administration of justice.
In all these points they were perfectly right.
The emperor answered them through a crier (
Μανδάτωρ, the Latin Mandator), and a long dialogue ensued, which grew more and more violent on both sides, and which Theophanes gives with apparent fidelity. The Blues took the emperor's part; the quarrel came to blows, and after a short struggle within the hippodrome, the infuriated factions rushed into the streets, and soon Constantinople was filled with murder and bloodshed.
The houses of the leaders of the two parties were demolished, others were set on fire; and every body being engaged either in saving their own lives or in attempting the lives of others, the flames spread from street to street, and a general conflagration consumed thousands of houses, the church of St. Sophia, a large part of the imperial palace, the baths of Zeuxippus (Alexander), the great hospital of Sampso, and a vast number of churches and public or private palaces.
After five days' murder and plunder, many thousands of dead bodies covered the streets, or lay roasting among burning ruins.
These riots are known by the name of the
ϝίκα riots, the word
ϝίκα, "be victorious," having been the war-cry of both the Blue and the Green. Unfortunately for the emperor, the two factions, after fighting against each other, perceived that the victory of neither would remove those abuses against which the Green had first risen, and they consequently formed an union, and turned their fury against such of the imperial officers as were most suspected of peculation and oppression.
The chief objects of their hatred were the quaestor Tribonian, the jurist, and the praefect John, of Cappadocia; Justinian deposed them both, in order to appease the popular fury, but in vain. Hypatius and Pompeius, two nephews of the late emperor Anastasius, who were removed from the court because they were suspected of being engaged in the riots, were, apparently against their will, chosen by the populace to act as their leaders; Hypatius was proclaimed emperor, and Justinian, despairing of quelling the rebellion, prepared to fly with his treasures to Heracleia, in Thrace, none of his ministers, not even Belisarius, having succeeded in discovering any means of saving their master in this critical moment.
He would have been lost but for his wife Theodora, who exercised an extraordinary influence over him. Being present at the privy council, where the emperor declared his resolution of leaving the city, she rose, and with impressive words, sometimes reproaching and sometimes encouraging, produced a happy change in the minds of Justinian and his councillors. Narses bribed the chiefs of the Blue, and soon rekindled those hostilities between the two factions which only an extraordinary event had appeased for a moment; and, sure of the assistance of the Blue, Belisarius led a body of 3000 veterans against the hippodrome, where the Green had fortified themselves.
In a dreadful carnage 30,000 of the Green were massacred within the space of one day; and IIypatius and Pompeius having been made prisoners, were led to death, with eighteen other leaders of patrician or consular rank. Thus ended one of the most terrible riots that had ever happened at Constantinople; but the power of the Green was far from being broken, and the two factions continued to make the hippodrome an occasional scene of bloodshed during the whole reign of Justinian.
Immediately after these troubles Justinian made serious preparations for a war against the Vandals. His pretext was to avenge the deposition of the aged Hilderic, the lawful king of the Vandals, and a great favourite of Justinian, on account of his orthodoxy, who had been deprived of his throne by the warrior Gelimer; but his design upon Carthage was blamed by the people, who had in mind the unhappy campaign of Basiliscus against the Vandals in A. D. 468, and still more so by most of his ministers, especially John of Cappadocia, who, however, acted from very selfish motives. [JOANNES of CAPPADOCIA.] Nor does it appear that Justinian originated the plan, which seems to have been suggested to him by Theodora and Antonina, the wife of Belisarius, and to which he was finally persuaded by this great general.
This was the last contest between Rome and Carthage, but on neither side was it carried on by Romans or Carthaginians, those who boasted of the former name being Greeks and Scythian or Gothic barbarians, while the defenders of Carthage were a mixture of Germans and Slavonians, commanded by Germanic chiefs.
An army of 35,000 soldiers, commanded by Belisarius, left the Bosporus in June, 533, in a fleet of 500 ships, manned by 20,000 mariners, and among the troops were several thousand archers with coats of mail, who fought on horseback, and of which Procopius gives a description which strongly resembles that of the brave Caucasians in our time. From the Bosporus the fleet made for Methone (Modon), in Messenia, where the troops were landed, and remained a short time on the shore to refresh themselves; thence they sailed round the Peloponnesus, reached Zante, and cast anchor at Caucana, about 50 miles from Syracuse, where they were well treated by the Goths--a great act of imprudence on their part -- and they finally landed on the African shore, near the promontory of Caput Vada, now Capaudia, at five days' journey south of Carthage. Gelimer, having dispatched part of his army and fleet for the conquest of Sardinia, was unable to offer any effective resistance: moreover, the aborigines of the country, and the descendants of the former Roman settlers, received the Romans as Catholic brethren, and Belisarius advanced as far as the palace of Grasse, only 50 miles from Carthage, meeting only with friends, and not with enemies. At 10 miles distance from Carthage the Romans encountered the main army of the Vandals, who were routed, and so completely dispersed, that Gelimer despaired of defending his capital with success, and fled into the interior, in order to collect a new army.
A few days afterwards, on the 15th of September, 533, the inhabitants of Carthage opened their gates to the victor, hot only without resistance, but with manifestations of joy. While Belisarius employed his time in repairing the fortifications of Carthage, Gelimer succeeded in raising a considerable number of troops, and his brother Zano, who had meanwhile conquered Sardinia, returned in haste with his army, which, however, was only 5000 men strong, and joined Gelimer in his camp at Balla, five days' journey from the capital. They marched upon Carthage, and their forces increased daily; so that when they arrived at Tricameron, 20 miles from Carthage, they commanded an army ten times more numerous than that of Belisarius.
But the Vandals who defended Africa were no longer the same who had conquered it: they were enervated by the climate and the luxuries of the South; and in a pitched battle at Tricameron they were entirely defeated. Gelimer fled into the mountains in the South, but was pursued by the Roman Pharas, who kept him besieged in a castle on Mount Papua, where he was reduced to such extremity that he at last surrendered, and after having been presented to Belisarius at Carthage, was sent to Constantinople, where he was treated by Justinian with great generosity. [GELIMER.] After the conquest of Carthage, Belisarius reduced the whole tract of Africa along the shore of the Mediterranean, as far as the columns of Hercules, and brought likewise the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, as well as the Baleares, under the authority of Justinian.
The overthrow of the Vandal kingdom in Africa was followed by a war with the East Goths in Italy, which arose out of the following circumstances, in which the cunning and artfulness of Justinian were no less conspicuous than the frank heroism of Belisarius. Shortly after the accession of Justinian, the young king of the East Goths, athalaric, died, and his mother Amalasuntha, a highly gifted woman, who was the youngest daughter of the great Theodoric, succeeded her son, and, in order to establish her power the better, married her cousin Theodat.
It happened, however, that Justinian contemplated a marriage with that queen, although he was already married to Theodora; and we cannot doubt that, in order to obtain his ends, he would have sacrificed both his wife and king Theodat. Suspecting his designs, Theodora secretly negotiated with Theodat, and made him great promises, if he would put Amalasuntha to death. Theodat saw his danger, and lost no time in seizing his unfortunate queen, and confining her in a castle, where she was found strangled some time after her imprisonment (534).
The anger of Justinian was extreme, and as the Gothic kingdom was shaken by political factions, while his own power had much increased through his conquest of Africa, he prepared for an invasion of Italy.
The pretext he alleged was to avenge the murder of Amalasuntha.
He began his hostile demonstrations by demanding the fortress of Lilybaeum, in Sicily, from the Goths: this town had been given to Thrasimond, king of the Vandals, by Theodoric the Great, but after the overthrow of the Vandals in 534, the Goths occupied the town, and refused to surrender it to Justinian, when he claimed it as an appendage of the Vandal kingdom. Thus the war broke out, the chief events of which, till the final recal of Belisarius in 548, are related in the life of BELISARIUS. When Belisarius was recalled, the Roman army was in a critical position, because the brave Gothic king, Totilas, had gained great advantages over Belisarius, and after his recal the Goths made such progress as to reduce the Roman power in Italy to a shadow. Totilas took Rome by a stratagem, restored the senate, and made it once more the seat of the Gothic empire. Thence he sailed to Calabria, took Tarentum and Rhegium, conquered Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, and despatched a fleet of 300 gallies, which were probably manned by Greek natives of Southern Italy, for the Goths were no mariners, to the coast of Greece, where the Gothic warriors landed, and spread terror among the inhabitants. They pushed as far as Nicopolis and Dodona, and Totilas sent envoys to Justinian, offering him peace, and promising to assist him against any enemy, if he would desist from his designs upon Italy. Justinian would perhaps have accepted his offers but for the circumstance that the Goths being Arians, the orthodox church in Italy was in danger of being overthrown by schismatics. Fresh troops were consequently sent to Italy, and Germanus, the nephew of Justinian, who was renowned by many victories over the Bulgarians, the Persians, and the Mauritanians, was destined to command them, but died at Sardica, in Illyricum, on his march to Italy. [GERMANUS, No. 2.] The choice of Germanus proves the danger in which the empire was placed by the victories of Totilas.
This prince was dear to the Goths through his marriage with Mathasuntha, daughter of Amalasuntha, and grand-daughter of Theodoric the Great; and as he was also one of the best Roman generals, a suspicious man like Justinian must have had urgent motives for sending him into Italy, where, in case of success, he had still greater chances of becoming king of the Goths than Belisarius could have had in making himself independent in Africa. But Germanus was a man of so excellent a character as to be above the suspicions even of a Justinian.
The mere fact of his being appointed to the command roused the spirit of the Roman army, and ere the eunuch Narses was chosen to succeed him, the Gothic fleet had been defeated, and Sicily reconquered by Artabanus. Narses led the Roman army round the Adriatic into Italy, while a fleet followed him along the shore, and in a dreadful battle at Tagina (July, 552) slew 6000 Goths, and dispersed the rest. Totilas fell in the conflict, and his bloody dress was sent as the most acceptable trophy to Justinian.
The successor of Totilas, Teias, continued the war, but he likewise was killed in a pitched battle on the river Sarnus, near Naples, and his death was the downfal of the Gothic kingdom in Italy.
A host of Franks and Alemanni descended from the Alps to dispute the possession of Italy with Narses, and their first inroad was so irresistible that they penetrated as far as the straits of Sicily.
But in a battle on the river Volturnus, near the bridge of Casilinum, they were routed with great slaughter by Narses, who drove their scattered remnants beyond the Alps (554). Narses was appointed exarch, or viceroy, of Italy, and took up his residence at Ravenna, and he united his efforts with those of his master in settling the domestic state of Italy, which was nearly ruined through the protracted war, while millions of her inhabitants had perished by the sword and famine.
To these conquests the lieutenants of Justinian in Africa added a considerable tract in Spain, along the shores of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, from the south-western extremity of Algarve in the west to the confines of the modern kingdom of Murcia in the east, which the West Goths were obliged to cede to the victorious Romans; and the fortunate Justinian now reigned over the whole extent of the Roman empire as it existed under the earlier emperors, except the greater part of Spain, Gaul, and Britain, where the most warlike of all the barbarians of those times exercised an authority unchecked by either Romans or Greeks.
The strength of Justinian's empire, however, did not correspond with its dimensions. Both the Romans and Greeks were enervated, and little disposed to serve in the field, when they could buy foreigners to defend Rome and Constantinople; and the practice of enlisting barbarians proved very dangerous, since so many veterans, who returned into their native forests or steppes, informed their brethren of the internal weakness of the Roman empire. We thus see that, notwithstanding the fear which the victories of Belisarius, Narses, Germanus, and so many other great generals, necessarily caused among the immediate neighbours of the Romans, many barbarian nations, that lived at greater distances from the Roman frontiers, pushed slowly towards Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor, in order to be ready to invade the empire at the first opportunity. From the extreme north of Germany, the Longobards, of Saxon origin, advanced towards the Danube, and settled in Moravia and Northern Hungary, whence, but a few years after the death of Justinian, they broke forth for the conquest of Italy. Their neighbourhood appeared so dangerous to Justinian, that he tried to gain them to his interests, and to use them as a barrier against other enemies, by ceding to them Pannonia and Noricum.
The latter province was, however, soon taken from the Longobards by the Franks.
The neighbours of the Longobards, the Gepidae, had founded a kingdom in Eastern Hungary and Transylvania as early as the middle of the fifth century; and since they were always annoying the Romans in Illyricum, Justinian availed himself of their feuds with the Longobards, and assisted the latter.
In consequence of this, the power of the Gepidae was weakened, but that of the Longobards increased in proportion; and had Justinian lived but two years longer, he would have seen that the final overthrow of the Gepidae had, as its immediate consequence, the destruction of the Roman power in Italy by the Longobards. Still farther in the East, on the river Don, appeared in 557 the Avars, a nation of Turkish origin.
In accordance with his usual policy of turning the feuds of the barbarians to his own profit, Justinian lavished his money upon the Avars, and employed them together with his own forces against some barbarian tribes which annoyed the Roman possessions in the Chersonnesus Taurica (the Crimea).
This was in 558. Only four years afterwards the whole of the nations north of the Danube, as far west as modern Bavaria, was subjugated by the Avars, and Justinian II. paid dearly for the timid and wavering conduct of Justinian I. Among the nations subdued by the Avars were the Bulgarians, between the Don and the Volga, who, in 559, passed the frozen Danube, and under their chief, Zabergan, ravaged Thrace and Macedonia, and appeared under the walls of Constantinople.
The capital was saved by Belisarius, whom Justinian rewarded with a dry compliment.
If we turn our eyes from the West to the East, we find that the treaty of peace had scarcely been concluded between Constantinople and Persia, before the Persian king Chosroes or Nushirwan, with his accustomed faithlessness, violated its conditions, and a new and terrible war broke out in 540.
According to Procopius, however, Justinian purposely excited the Persian king to take up arms, and, at any rate, wished for a new war, which is the more likely, as he was then at the pinnacle of his power.
In the year mentioned Nushirwán invaded Syria, and the Roman army being too weak to arrest his progress, he spoiled the principal towns of their riches, and laid siege to Antioch, which was defended by Germanus.
This general thought his forces insufficient for an effective resistance, and consequently withdrew, a step for which he has been charged with cowardice, although on many other occasions he had shown himself a brave and fearless man. The "queen of the East" soon became a prey to the Persians, and after having been plundered, was destroyed by fire. The Asiatic provinces of Justinian would have been lost but for the timely arrival of Belisarius (541), who through a well calculated invasion of Mesopotamia and Assyria, compelled Nushirwán to leave the province of Pontus which he was ravaging, and to hasten to the defence of his hereditary dominions. Suddenly Belisarius was recalled to Constantinople, and during his absence Nushirwán collected his forces, and set out for a new invasion of Syria and Palestine.
In this emergency Belisarius was again put at the head of the Roman armies in those quarters; and the mere fact of his presence was sufficient to induce Nushirwán to repass the Euphrates. Every body now expected that Belisarius would march forthwith upon Ctesiphon, when the unfavourable turn of the Gothie war required his presence in Italy (543). No sooner was he gone than 30,000 Romans suffered a severe defeat from 4000 Persians ; but the differences between the two empires were nevertheless settled to the satisfaction of Justinian, and a sort of truce was made, in consequence of which that part of the East was no longer disturbed by the Persians.
It happened, however, that the Lazians and Colchians became tired of their dependence upon Constantinople, and implored the protection of Nushirwán, who accepted the offer, and placed garrisons in the principal towns of those nations.
A few years were sufficient to show them that the rapacity of the king was still greater than that of the emperor, and they accordingly entreated Justinian to receive them again among his subjects, and to deliver them from their Persian oppressors. Justinian despatched Dagisteus with 7000 Romans and 1000 Zani into Lazica; and Petra, the strongest fortress of the country, was taken from the Persians by storm, after a memorable and protracted siege (549-551).
This war lasted, with various success, till 561, when, tired of eternal bloodshed, the two monarchs came at last to an agreement. Through the peace of 561 the tranquillity of the East was finally restored, but Justinian bought it on the dishonourable condition of an annual payment of 30,000 pieces of gold. Yet the profit of this negotiation was on the side of Justinian, because Nushirwán renounced his claims upon Colchis and Lazica, both of which countries were then renowned for their gold mines; and the restoration of peace in all his Eastern dominions was a sufficient consideration to induce Justinian to expend so small a sum as 30,000 pieces of gold.
In the beginning of the Persian war Justinian concluded a singular alliance.
At that time there was a Christian kingdom in Southern Arabia, which extended over the provinces of Yemen and Hadhramaút, and was then commonly called the kingdom of the Homeritae. Dunaan having seized the supreme power, persecuted the Christians, who found assistance in the person of Eleesbam, the Negus or Christian king of Abyssinia, who came over to Arabia, and made himself master of the Homeritic kingdom.
With this Eleesbam Justinian entered into negotiations, and in 533 despatched Nonnosus as ambassador to him, to induce him to unite his forces with the Romans against the Persians, and to protect the trade between Egypt and India, especially that of silk, which Justinian wished to establish by sea, through the assistance of the inhabitants of Abyssinia and Arabia. Nonnosus ascended the Nile, and was received by Eleesbam at Axum, but he did not attain his objects. Soon afterwards the Homeritae freed themselves from the Abyssinian supremacy; but the rise of Mohammedanism proved the ruin of the Christians in Arabia, for the power of the Abyssinian kings in Africa was weakened through internal discord and revolutions. Gibbon remarks with great justness, that " these obscure and remote events are not foreign to the decline and fall of the Roman empire. If a Christian power had been maintained in Arabia, Mohammed must have been crushed in his cradle, and Abyssinia would have prevented a revolution which has changed the civil and religious state of the world."
The final overthrow of the Gothic power in Italy, the peace with Persia, the reconquest of Lazica, and the last victories of Belisarius over the Bulgarians in 559, followed each other so closely, and were of such importance in their consequences, that Justinian was allowed during the last years of his life to enjoy in peace the extraordinary power which his ambition made him wish for, but which he owed entirely to the skill and heroism of Belisarius, Narses, and Germanus, and many other generals, as well as to the valour and discipline of the troops formed by those eminent officers. Nino months after Belisarius, the victim of his base ingratitude, had sunk into the grave, the emperor Justinian died, on the 14th of November, 565, at the age of eighty-three, and left an empire, colossal in size, threatening in its appearance, but rotten in its foundations, to the imbecile son of his sister Vigilantia, Justinus II.
After this sketch of the principal political events of the reign of Justinian, it remains to say a few words on the manner in which he guarded his empire against so many enemies which surrounded it, and on the system of his government at home.
The ancient Roman system of fortifying the frontiers of the empire was carried by Justinian to an extent which plainly shows the great danger to which his subjects were constantly exposed; for not only were the outer frontiers secured by an immense number of forts and towers, interspersed with larger regular fortresses, but even most of the towns in the very heart of Greece, Thrace, and Asia were provided with walls and towers, to protect the inhabitants against the irresistible inroads of the barbarians. Thence Montesquieu observes, that the Roman empire at the time of Justinian resembled the Frankish kingdom in the time of the Norman inroads, when, in spite of every village being a fortress, the kingdom was weaker than at any other period.
The entire course of the Danube was defended by about eighty forts, of different dimensions, all of which were guarded by numerous garrisons; other fortresses were erected beyond the river, in the middle of the countries of the barbarians.
But these detached forts were utterly unable to protect Thrace against an enemy who used to appear suddenly with overwhelming forces, leaving no alternative to the Roman garrisons than of shutting themselves up within their walls, and of beholding as inactive spectators the Bulgarians swimming over the Danube with 20,000 horses at once, or crossing it in the winter on the solid ice. Similar forts were built, too, from the junction of the Save with the Danube north, towards Pannonia, and they proved quite as ineffective against the Avars as the forts along the Danube against the Bulgarians. Italy was fortified by nature, yet the Franks crossed the Alps with impunity. Thence the necessity of creating a system of inland fortifications.
The ancient Greek wall across the Thracian Chersonnese, near Constantinople, was carefully restored, and brought to a degree of strength which caused the admiration of Procopius; the Bulgarians nevertheless crossed it, and fed their horses in the gardens round Constantinople. Similar walls, with towers, were constructed across Thessaly (beginning with the defiles of Thermopylae) and across the isthmus of Corinth; yet Bulgarians, Slavonians, and other barbarians, kept the inhabitants of Greece in constant fear of being carried off as slaves.
At whatever point these savage warriors appeared, they were always the strongest, and the poor Romans had no other chance of safety left than of taking refuge within the larger towns, the solid fortifications of which were sufficient to keep the enemy at a distance.
In the north-east the isthmus of the Chersonnesus Taurica, the present Crimea, was fortified in the same way as the isthmus of Corinth, by a long wall. The Roman possessions along the eastern shores of the Euxine and in the Caucasus were covered with forts and military stations; and from the corner of Colchis to the sources of the Euphrates, and along the river as far as Syria, and thence along the edge of the Syro Arabic desert, there was scarcely a town or a defile but was surrounded by walls and ditches, or shut up by massive barriers of stone, against the inroads of the Persians. Syria was thought to be sufficiently guarded by the great desert between the Euphrates and the Lebanon, and the fortifications of the Syrian towns were allowed to fall into decay, till the repeated invasions of Nushirwán and the sack of Antioch directed the attention of Justinian to that quarter also. Dara, not far fron Nisibis, was the strongest bulwark of the empire on the side of Mesopotamia, and constantly prooked the jealousy of the Persians.
The enormous sums which the defence of the empire required, together with the gold which Justinian lavished upon the barbarians, involuntarily led to the system of his administration. Procopius, in his Secret History or Anecdota, gives an awful description of it but however vicious that administration was, the colours of Procopius are too dark, and his motives in writing that work were not fair.
There was decided order and regularity in the administration, but the leading principles of it were suspicion and avarice.
The taxes were so heavy, their assessment so unequal, that Gibbon compares them to a hail-storm that fell upon the land, and to a devouring pestilence with regard to its inhabitants.
In cases of necessity, the inhabitants of whole districts were compelled to bring their stores of corn to Constantinople, or other places where the troops might be in want of it, and they were either not paid at all, or received such bad prices that they were often completely ruined.
In all the provinces the officers of the crown took much more from the people than the law allowed, because the venality of places was carried on openly as a means of filling the emperor's treasury, and the purses of his prime minister; and those who purchased places, which were, after all, badly paid, could not keep their engagements with the sellers, nor enrich themselves, without carrying on that system of robbery, which is at the present day the general practice in Turkey and most of the other countries in the East. Justinian certainly tried to check peculation and venality (
Novella, viii.), but this thundering edict was soon forgotten, and it would seem that the emperor himself lent his endeavours to throw it into oblivion. Another great abuse which the principal officers made of their power was that of prevailing upon wealthy persons to make wills in their favour, to the disadvantage of the natural heirs.
A great source of revenue for the imperial treasury consisted in the numberless duties, entry fees, andothercharges, mostly arbitrary, laid upon trade and manufactures, and we may fairly presume that the tradespeople were as much oppressed as the land-owners. Some branches of trade, as for instance silk, were made monopolies of the crown, and, in short, there were no means left untried to fill his treasury. However, he never tampered with the coinage, nor gave it an artificial value.
The millions thus obtained by Justinian were not only sufficient to cover the expenses occasioned by the army, the fortifications, the wars, and the bribery of barbarians, but enough remained to enable him to indulge his passion of perpetuating his name by public festivals, and especially by those beautiful buildings and monuments which were erected by his order, and render his time conspicuous in the history of art. Procopius describes them in his work "De Aedificiis Justiniani."
The church of St. Sophia in Constantinople, that splendid edifice, which, though now transformed into a Turkish mosque, still excites the admiration of the spectator, was the most magnificent building erected by Justinian. Besides this Church of St. Sophia, there were twenty-five other churches constructed in Constantinople and its suburbs, among which were the beautiful churches of St. John the Apostle and St. Mary the Virgin, near the Blachernae, the latter of which he perhaps only repaired.
The imperial palace at Constantinople was embellished with unparalleled splendour and taste; and his new palace with the gardens at Heraeum, near Chalcedon, was praised as the most beautiful residence in the world. The "Antiquities of Constantinople," by Petrus Gyllius (English translation by John Ball, London, 1729), give a description of the most remarkable buildings of Justinian, in Constantinople. Justinian paid 45 centenaries of gold (nearly 200,000 l.), towards the rebuilding and embellishment of Antioch, after it had been destroyed by an earthquake; his native village he transformed into a large and splendid city, to which he gave his name; and, in short, there was not a town of consequence in his vast dominions, from the Columns of Hercules to the shores of the Caspian, but could show some beautiful monument of the emperor's splendour and taste. Asia Minor still contains a great number of edifices erected by Justinian, and our modern travellers have discovered many which were formerly unknown. Indeed his love of splendour and his munificence in matters of taste, show, or luxury, no less than his extraordinary power, made his name known over the world, whence he received embassies from the remotest nations of Asia.
In his reign the silk-worm was brought to Constantinople, by some Nestorian monks, who had visited their fellow-Christians in China.
In 541 Justinian abolished the consulship, or, more correctly, discontinued the old-established custom of choosing consuls.
The consulate being a mere title, it was but reasonable to do away with it, although the name was still dear to the people ; but it was not abolished by law until the reign of the emperor Leo Philosophus (886-911.) Justinian likewise shut up the schools at Athens and Alexandria, where the Neo-Platonists still professed dogmas which the orthodox emperor thought dangerous to Christianity.
In the time of Justinian, however, those schools were only a shadow of what they had been in the first centuries of our era. Christian orthodoxy was one of the most important objects which Justinian endeavoured to establish in his empire, and many of his laws testify his zeal on behalf of the church and the clergy.
But his piety was exaggerated, and toleration was a thing unknown to him.
He persecuted Christian sectaries, Jews, and pagans, in an equally heartless manner, and actually endeavoured to drive them all out of his dominions. Towards the end of his life, however, Justinian changed his religious opinions so much that he was considered a complete heretic. Nestorianism, which he was so active in condemning at the fifth General Council, the second of Constantinople, in 553, was the doctrine which he embraced.
The character of Justinian presented a strange mixture of virtues and vices, but he was neither so depraved as Procopius depicts him, nor so accomplished as the modern jurists of Germany and France represent him in their admiration for his legislation. His private life was exemplary.
He was frugal, laborious, affable, and generous, but his mean suspicions and unreasonable jealousy never allowed him to gain the love of his friends or the esteem of his subjects. His conduct towards Belisarius was execrable. Another of his vices was rapacity, and it would seem that he considered men created to work, not for themselves, but for him alone. Thence the little regard he paid to the complaints of his subjects with reference to his perpetual wars; and although he assisted them with great liberality when they were suffering from the consequences of those plagues and earthquakes which signalized his time, his motive was vanity as much as humanity. If we look at his endless and glorious wars, we should think that he was a great warrior himself, or possessed at least great military talents : but however great his talents were, they were not in that line; he never showed himself in the field, and his subjects called him a bigoted and cowardly tyrant.
As a statesman he was crafty rather than wise; yet his legislation is a lasting monument of his administrative genius, and has given him a place in the opinion of the world far beyond that which he really deserves. (Procopius, with special reference to his
Anecdota and
De Aedificiis ; Agathias,
Hist. ; Paulus Silentiarius ; Cedrenus, p. 366, &c.; Zonaras, xiv. p. 60, &c. ; Joannes Malala, vol. ii. p. 138, &c.; Marcellinus,
Chron. ad an. 520, &c., p. 50, &c.; Theophanes, p. 300, &c.; Evagrius, 4.8, &c. in the Paris editions ; Jornandes,
De Regn. Succ. p. 62, &c.,
De Reb. Goth. p. 143, &c. ed. Lindenbrog; Paulus Diaconus,
De Gest. Longobard. 1.25, &c., 2.4, &c. ; Ludewig,
Vita Justiniani, &c., Halle, 1731, is rather too flattering; the best description of the reign and character of Justinian is given in Gibbon's
Decline and Fall.) [
W.P]
The Legislation of Justinian.
The idea of forming a complete code of law has been attributed to Pompey, to Cicero, and to Julius Caesar. Such, too, was the original plan of Theodosius the younger, although a much more limited design was ultimately carried into effect in the Theodosian Code. [
DIODORUS.] Shortly before the reign of Justinian, upon the submission of the Western empire to Germanic rule, the Roman law was still allowed to retain its force in the West by the side of a newly-introduced Germanic jurisprudence. The
Lex Romana, as it was barbarously called, remained the law of the subjugated Romans, while the
Barbari, as the Germans were proud to be styled, continued to live under their own Teutonic institutions. Under this anomalous system of
personal laws, many difficulties must have arisen, and it was found necessary to make separate collections of such sources of law as were to be recognised for the future in regulating the respective rights and duties of the subjugated Roman provincials and their conquerors.
In the West Gothic kingdom, which was established in Spain and a part of Gaul, a collection of Roman laws was formed during the reign of Alaric II. (A. D. 484-507), partly from the Theodosian, Gregorian, and Herimogenian Codes, and partly from the works of jurists.
This collection is known in modern times by the name
Breviariumn Aniani [
ANIANUS], or
Breviarium Alaricianum. In A. D. 493 the Ostrogoths became masters of Italy, and in A. D. 500 Theodoric the Great published for the use of the whole population of the Ostrogothic kingdom a set of rules based on the Roman, not the Gothic law. About the year A. D. 517 the
Lex Romana Burgundiorum was compiled for the use of the Burgundian Romans. The Burgundian conquerors, who, towards the middle of the fifth century, established a kingdom upon the banks of the Rhone, had already a similar code of their own, called
Gundobada.
Though the necessities which called for these legislative efforts in the kingdoms of the West did not exist to the same extent in the Oriental empire, ther, were not wanting other reasons for legal reform and consolidation. From the time of Constantine, he fresh and vigorous spirit of the classical jurists seems to have vanished. Many of the most active intellects were now turned away from legal to religious discussions. Jurisprudence, no longer the pursuit of the minister and statesman, became the handicraft of freedmen. (Mamert.
Panegyr. 10.20.)
The law was oppressed by its own weight.
The complexity of practice, the long series of authoritative writings, the unwieldy bulk of express enactments, and the multitude of voluminous commentators, were sufficient to bewilder the most resolute jurist.
In the midst of conflicting texts, it was hard to find out where the true law lay.
By the citation law of Theodosius II. and Valentinian III. (Theod. Cod. 1. tit. 4. s. 3), the majority of juristic suffrages was substituted for the victory of scientific reasoning. [
GAIUS, p. 196.] The schools of law established by Theodosius II. at Rome and Constantinople (Cod. 11, tit. 18) were unable to revive the practical energy of former times.
A host of pedants and pretenders came into existence. Some quoted at second-hand the names of ancient jurists, whose works they had never read, while others derided all appeal to scarce and antiquated books, which they boasted that they had never seen. To them the name of an old jurist was no better than the name of some outlandish fish. (Amm. Marcell. 30.4; Jac. Gothofredus,
Prolegomena ad Theod. Cod. i.）
Such were the evils which Justinian resolved to remedy.
In his conceptions of the measures necessary for this purpose he was more vast than all who had preceded him, and he was more successful in the complete execution of his plan.
It seems to have been his intention to establish a perfect system of written legislation for all his dominions ; and, to this end, to make two great collections, one of the imperial constitutions, the other of all that was valuable in the works of jurists.
He was personally not unacquainted with the theory and the working of the law; for, in his youth, he had devoted careful attention to the study of jurisprudence at Constantinople; and, in his manhood, had discharged the duties of the most important offices in the state.
The first work attempted by Justinian, as the most practical and the most pressing, was the collection of imperial constitutions.
This he commenced in A. D. 528, in the second year of his reign.
The task was entrusted to a commission of ten, who are named in the following order : Joannes, Leontius, Phocas, Basilides, Thomas, Tribonianus, Constantinus, Theophilus, Dioscorus, Praesentinus. (Const.
Haec quae necessario.) In compiling preceding constitutions, and making use of the Gregorian, Hermogenian, and Theodosian Codes, the commission was armed with very ample powers.
It was authorized to correct and retrench, as well as to consolidate and arrange.
The commissioners executed their task speedily.
In the following year, on the 7th of April, A. D. 529, the emperor confirmed the
Novum Justinianeum 1 Codicem, giving it legal force from the 16th of April following, and abolishing from the same date all preceding collections. Little did he then think how short was destined to be the duration of his own new code ! (Const.
Summa Reipublicae.）
At the end of the following year (Const.
Deo Auctore, dated Dec. 15. A. D. 530), Tribonian, who had given proof of his great ability in drawing up the code, was authorised to select fellow-labourers to assist him in the other division of the undertaking--a part of Justinian's plan which the emperor justly regarded as the most difficult, but also as the most important and the most glorious. Tribonian was endowed with rare qualifications for such an appointment.
He was himself deeply learned in law, and possessed in his library a matchless collection of legal sources.
He had passed through many gradations of rank, knew mankind well, and was remarkable for energy and perseverance. " His genius," says Gibbon, " like that of Bacon, embraced as its own all the business and knowledge of the age."
In pursuance of his commission, he selected the following sixteen coadjutors : Constantinus, comes sacrarum largitionum ; Theophilus, professor at Constantinople; Dorotheus, professor at Berytus; Anatolius, professor at Berytus ; Cratinus, professor at Constantinople, and eleven advocates who practised in the courts of the praefecti praetorio, namely, Stephanus, Menna, Prosdocius, Eutolmius, Timotheus, Leonidas, Leontius, Plato, Jacobus, Constantinus, Joannes.
This commission proceeded at once to lay under contribution the works of those jurists who had received from former emperors " auctoritatem conscribendarum interpretandique legum." They were ordered to divide their materials, under fitting titles, into fifty books, and to pursue the arrangement of the first code and the perpetual edict. Nothing that was valuable was to be excluded, nothing that was obsolete was to be admitted, and neither repetition nor inconsistency was to be allowed. This " juris enucleati codex" was to bear the name
Digesta or
Pandectae, and to be compiled with the utmost care, but with all convenient speed. Rapid indeed was the progress of the commissioners.
That which Justinian scarcely hoped to see completed in less than ten years, was finished in little more than three; and on the 30th of Dec. A. D. 533, received from the imperial sanction the authority of law.
It comprehends upwards of 9000 extracts, in the selection of which the compilers made use of nearly 2000 different books, containing more than 3,000,000 (trecenties decem millia) lines (
versus or
στίχοι). (Const.
Tanta, Const.
Δέδωκεν.)
This extraordinary work has been blamed by men of divers views on divers accounts. Tribonian and his associates, regarding rather practical utility than the curiosity of archaeologists, did not scruple at times so to adulterate the extracts they made, that a theorizer in legal history might easily be misled if he trusted implicitly to their accuracy. Hence the
emblemata Triboniani have been to many critics a fertile topic of reprehension.
The complaints of others are levelled against scientific rather than historical delinquencies. Unity and system, say they, could result only from a single complete code of remodelled laws, and not from the lazy plan of two separate collections, made out of independent pre-existing writings; and though, from the circumstances of the time, Justinian may have been forced to adopt the latter alternative, it was unphilosophical to commence with the constitutions in place of the jurists.
Those principles which lie at the foundation of jurisprudence pervade the writings of the Roman lawyers, and their works are in reality more full of practical law than the constitutions to which occasional exigency gave birth. Then the arrangement of the Digest sins against science.
The order of the Edict, which it followed, was itself based on the order of the twelve tables, and was historical or accidental, not systematic.
There is no
pars generalis--no connected statement of first principles--no regular development of consequences. Leading maxims are introduced incidentally, and matters of the greatest moment, as the law of procedure, are scattered under various heads -- here a little, and there a little.
The Digest is divided into seven
partes, and is also divided into fifty books.
The partes begin respectively with the 1st, 5th, 12th, 20th, 28th, 37th, and 45th books. Each book is divided into titles, and each title has a rubric or heading denoting the general nature of its contents.
The division into seven parts, though the late Hugo often took occasion to insist upon its importance, has been little attended to in modern times. Under each title are separate extracts from ancient jurists--sometimes only a single extract.
These were not originally numbered, but they were headed by the name of the author, and a reference to his work (
inscriptiones). Justinian directed that a catalogue should be prefixed to the Digest with the names of all the authors cited, and of the particular works from which the extracts were taken. Such a catalogue, though not perhaps the genuine original, is placed at the beginning of the celebrated Florentine manuscript of the Digest, and is thence called
the Florentine Index. The jurists from whom extracts are
directly taken, often cite other jurists, but seldom literally.
These are, however,
pure or literal, though not direct extracts, from Q. Mucius Scaevola, Aelius Gallus, and Labeo.
There are 39 jurists, from whose works the Digest contains literal extracts, whether made directly or at second-hand ; and these 39 are often called the
classical jurists, a name sometimes extended to all those jurists who lived not later than Justinian, and sometimes confined to Papinian, Paulus, Ulpian, Gaius, and Modestinus, from the special manner in which these five are mentioned in the citation law of Valentinian III. Extracts from Ulpian constitute about one third of the Digest; from Paulus about one sixth; from Papinian about one twelfth. In Hommel's
Palingenesia Pandectarum the fragments of each jurist are collected and printed separately : an attempt is made to reanimate the man--to restore his individuality--by bringing together his dispersed limbs and scattered bones.
The internal arrangement of the separate fragments of jurists under each title would appear at first sight to be completely fortuitous.
It is neither chronological nor alphabetical; nor does it consistently and uniformly follow any rational train of thought, depending on the subject treated of. Blume (as he now writes himself, or Bluhme, as the name was formerly written) has elaborately expounded a theory which, though rejected by Tigerstrom and others seems to rest upon the foundation of facts, and must at least be something like the truth. No one can form a sound opinion of the merits of Blume's theory without a careful examination of a great number of titles in the Digest.
It is found that the extracts under each title usually resolve themselves into three masses or series--that the first series is headed by extracts taken from commentaries on Sabinus; the second from commentaries on the Edict; and the third from commentaries on Papinian. Hence he supposes that the commission was divided into three sections, and that to each section was given a certain set of works to analyse and break up into extracts.
The masses or series he names from the works that head them : the Sabinian, Edictal, and Papinian masses; although each mass contains extracts from a great number of other works unconnected with Sabinus, the Edict, or Papinian. Besides these three principal masses of extracts, a set of miscellaneous extracts, forming an appendix to the Papinian mass, seems to have been drawn up in order to complete the selection, and may be said to form a fourth, or supplementary mass, called by Blume the Post-Papinian.
Regularly, the mass that contained the greatest number of fragments relating to any particular title appears first in that title.
The total number of fragments belonging to the Sabinian mass exceeds the number in the Edictal, and the Edictal fragments are more numerous than the Papinian. Hence the usual order is S, E, P. By these initial letters (previously used by Blume) the brothers Kriegel in their edition of the Digest (Lips. 1833), mark the separate fragments, to denote the masses with which they are classed.
The fragments belonging to the supplementary mass are marked Pp. For the details of exceptions from this arrangement, and the reasons for such exceptions; for lists of the works of ancient jurists, so classed as to show to what mass the fragments of each work belong ; and for applications of the theory to critical purposes, the reader is referred to Blume's justly celebrated essay on the
Ordnung der Fragmenta in den Pandectentiteln, in the 4th volume of Savigny's
Zeitschrift, and to the following works: Hugo,
Lehrbuch der Digesten, 2te Ausg. 8vo. Berl. 1828 ; Reimarus,
Bemerkungen über die Inscriptionenruhen der Pandecten fragmenta, 8vo. Götting. 1830; the synoptic tables appended to the Digest in the edition of the brothers Kriegel, which forms part of the last Leipzig edition of the
Corpus Juris Civilis.
It may seem remarkable that the credit of this discovery should be reserved to so recent a date. Most of the moderns who investigated the subject had sought, by reference to the actual contents of the fragments, to make out the principle on which they were arranged; but it was an examination of the
inscriptiones that led Blume to his theory. Some approximations to it had been previously made by inquirers who followed the same clue. Ant. Augustinus had observed that, in each title, the fragments taken from different books of the same work were regularly arranged, an extract from book 2. never coming before an extract from book 1. Giphanius (
Oeconomia Juris, 4to, Franc. 1606, c. ult.) had gone further than Augustinus ; and Jac. Gothofredus, in his commentary on the title of the Digest, "De Regulis Juris" (
Opera Minora, p. 719, 739), approaches more closely than Giphianius to Blume's discovery.
It is to be remarked that most of the institutional works, and most of the dogmatic treatises on the pure
jus civile of Rome -- on the law of Rome as unaltered by legislation or equitable construction--furnish extracts to the Sabinian mass.
The works which relate to the modifications of the original law introduced by
jus honorarium fall naturally into the Edictal mass; while the Papinian mass consists of fragments from works which relate chiefly to the practical application of the law, e. g. cases and opinions relating to miscellaneous points in the construction of wills.
Those who are still opposed to Blume's theory think that the compilers of the Digest were led to their arrangement of the fragments by something like a natural development of the subject treated under each title : that they inserted at the commencement of a title such passages as explain the law institutionally, or such as relate chiefly to the original principles of the jus civile : that they then proceeded to the modifications of the original law, and finally to its practical applications.
According to this theory, the principle of internal arrangement, though rude, would lead incidentally to something like uniformity in the order of the works analysed : according to Blume's theory, where the contents of a title proceed from the simple to the more complex, such an arrangement is secondary and dependent on the general character of the three groups of works analysed by different sections of the commissioners.
He admits, however, that some of the exceptions to the general rule of arrangement which his theory propounds result from attention to the natural order of ideas. Thus, at the beginning of a title, fragments are placed, severed from the mass to which they regularly belong if they contain definitions of words or general divisions of the subject, or give a summary explanation of leading principles.
Considering the short time in which the Digest was completed, and the peculiarity of its arrangement, its compliance with the requisitions of Justinian deserves high commendation.
It was not, however, entirely free from repetitions of the same passage under different titles (
leges geminatae), nor from the insertion of fragments under unappropriate heads (
leges fugitivae or erraticae), nor from the admission of actual inconsistencies or contradictions (
antinomiae, leges inter se pugnantes).
Justinian forbade all commentary on his collections, and prohibited the citation of older writings.
It is said that Napoleon exclaimed, when he saw the first commentary on the
Code Civil, "Mon Code est perdu!" and Justinian seems to have been animated with the same spirit.
He allowed no explanation save the comparison of parallel passages (
indices, paratitla), and the interpretation of single words or phrases. Such at least were his original injunctions, though they were not long obeyed.
The text was to be written in letters at length, all abbreviations (
notae, sigla) and numeral figures being interdicted.
The emperor was desirous that the body of law to be compiled under his direction should be all in all, not only for practice, but for academical instruction ; but the Digest and the Code, though they were to form part of an advanced stage of legal education, led far into detail, which could not well be understood by beginners.
It became necessary therefore to compose an elementary work for students. Already in the constitution,
Deo Auctore, of Dec. A. D. 530, Justinian had declared his intention of ordering an elementary work to be written.
The composition of it was entrusted to Tribonian, in conjunction with Theophilus and Dorotheus, who were respectively professors in the two great schools of law at Constantinople and Bervtus. Florentinus and other Roman jurists had written elementary works (
Institutiones,
Regularum libri), but none were so famous as the
Institutes and
Res Quotidianae of Gaius, which were taken as the basis of Justinian's Institutes. Other treatises, however, were also made use of, and alterations were made for the purpose of bringing the new treatise into harmony with the Code and the Digest. Hence there is an occasional incongruity in the compilation, from the employment of heterogeneous materials. For example, at the very commencement the discordant notions of Gaius and Ulpian on the
jus naturale and the
jus gentium are brought together, but refuse to blend in consistent union.
The general arrangement of the work, which is divided into four books, does not materially differ from that of the Institutes of Gaius, of which we have given a sketch under
GAIUS, pp. 201, 202. The Institutes received the imperial sanction on the 21st of November, 533, and full legal authority was conferred upon them, from the 30th of December, A. D. 533, the same day from which the Digest was to take effect as law. (
Prooem. Instit. ; Const.
Tanta, § 23.)
Had it been possible to make law for ever fixed, and had the emperor's workmen been able to accomplish this object, the desire of Justinian's heart would have been fulfilled.
But there were many questions upon which the ancient jurists were divided. Under the earlier emperors, these differences of opinion had given rise to permanent sects [
CAPITO]; nor were they afterwards entirely extinguished, when party spirit had yielded to independent eclecticism.
The compilers of the Digest tacitly, by their selection of extracts, manifested their choice; but a Catholic doctrine, the great object of Justinian's wishes, was not thus to be accomplished.
At the suggestion of Tribonianus, the emperor began, while his compilations were yet in progress, to issue constitutions having for their object the decision of the ancient controversies.
These constitutions helped to guide the compilers of the Digest and Institutes; but, as they were issued from time to time after the first
constitutionum codex (the greater part of them in the years 529 and 530), it was found desirable, when they had reached the number of fifty, to form them into a separate collection, which seems to have been published under the title
L. Constitutionum Liber. This collection has not come down to us in a separate form, for its legal authority was repealed upon the revision of the
Constitutionum Codex ; and the separate publication of the Fifty Decisions has been doubted; but the phrase in the ancient Turin Gloss upon the Institutes,
Sicut libro L. constitutionum invenies (Savigny,
Gesch. des R. R. im Mittelalter, vol. ii. p. 452, ed. 2), confirms the inference to be drawn from Const.
Cordi, § 1, and Inst. 1. tit. 5.3. (Brunquell,
Hist. Jur. Rom. ed. 1742, p. 239-247; Hugo,
Civilist. Mag. vol. v. p. 118-125.)
Even after the publication of the fifty decisions, the imperfection and ambiguity of the existing law required to be remedied by further constitutions.
The incompleteness of the Code of A. D. 529 was now apparent, and Justinian was not indisposed to the revision of a compilation, which, having been made at the commencement of his reign, contained but little of his own legislation. Accordingly, the task of revision was entrusted to Tribonianus (who had no part in the original compilation), with the assistance of the legal professor Dorotheus, and the advocates, Menna, Constantinus, and Joannes. They were empowered to omit, to improve, and to add; and, in the formation of the
secunda editio, or
repetita praelectio, care was taken to insert the constitutions of Justinian which had appeared since the first edition.
It is probable that all the Fifty Decisions were incorporated, although we have not the means of precisely identifying them. On the 16th of Nov. A. D. 534, Justinian issued a constitution, giving legal force to the new edition of the Code, from the 29th of Dec. 534. To this new edition, in contradistinction to the former (which was now superseded and carefully suppressed), has been usually given the name
Codex Repetitae Praelectionis. It is now ordinarily called
the Code of Justinian, although it is more correctly called
Constitutionum Codex, since the other collections of Justinian are also entitled to the name of Codes.
The earliest constitution contained in the Code is one of Hadrian, the latest one of Justinian, dated Nov. 4., A. D. 534.
The matter of constitutions older than Hadrian had been fully developed in the works of jurists. The Code is divided into 12 books, and the books into titles, with rubrics denoting their contents. Under each title, the constitutions are arranged chronologically. Each constitutio is headed by an
inscriptio, or address, and ended by a
subscriptio, announcing the place and time of its date, The general arrangement corresponds on the whole with that of the Digest, so far as the two works treat of the same subject, but there are some variations which cannot be accounted for. For instance, the law of pledges and the law of the father's power occupy very different relative positions in the Digest and the Code. Some constitutiones, which are referred to in the Institutes, do not appear in the modern manuscripts of the Code; and it is doubtful whether they were omitted by the compilers of the second edition, or left out by subsequent copyists.
Justinian, though fond of legal unity, was fond of law-making. If he had lived long enough, there might perhaps have been a second edition of the Digest. When the new Code was published, he contemplated the necessity of a supplement to it, and promised that any legislative reforms which he might afterwards make should be formed into a collection of
Novellae Constitutiones. (Const.
Cordi, § 4.) Many such Novells (
νεαραὶ διατάξεις), with various dates, from Jan. 1. 535, to Nov. 4. 564, were published from time to time, by authority, in his life-time.
The greater part were promulgated in the first five years after the publication of the new Code; and there is a marked diminution in the number of Novells subsequent to the death of Tribonian in 545.
There are extant at least 165 Novells of Justinian, making many reforms of great consequence, and seriously affecting the law as laid down in the Digest, Institutes, and Code. Though the imperial archives contained all the Novells that were issued from time to time, no collective publication by official authority seems to have taken place before Justinian's death, for Joannes Scholasticus, at the beginning of his collection of 87 chapters, compiled from the Novells of Justinian, between A. D. 565 and 578, speaks of those Novells as still
σποράδην κειηένων. (Heimbach,
Anecdota, vol. ii. p. 208.)
Such were Justinian's legislative works--works of no mean merit--nay, with all their faults, considering the circumstances of the time, worthy of very great praise. They have long exercised, and, pervading modern systems of law, continue to exercise, enormous influence over the thoughts and actions of men.
It is true that they exhibit a certain enslavement to elements originally base, for there was much that was narrow and barbarous in the early law of Rome; but, partly by tortuous fictions, and partly by bolder reform, the Roman jurisprudence of later times struggled to arrive at better and more rational rules. The Digest is especially precious, as preserving the remains of jurists whose works would otherwise have been wholly lost, notwithstanding their great value as illustrations of history, as materials for thinking, and as models of legal reasoning and expression. If adherence to the contents of the imperial law during the middle ages cramped on the one hand the spontaneity of indigenous development, it opposed barriers on the other to the progress of feudal barbarism.
Editions
We proceed now to give some account of the literary history, and to mention the principal editions, separate and collective, of Justinian's compilations.
The editions up to the end of the first third of the 16th century are scarce, for, from the inconvenience of their form, and the variety of contractions they employ, they have been subjected to the sane fate with the early manuscripts : but, like the early manuscripts, they are often of use in correcting the text.
The first printed edition of the Institutes is that of Petrus Schoyffer, fol. Mogunt. 1468. The last edition of importance is that of Schrader, 4to. Berlin, 1832. This is an exceedingly learned and elaborate performance, and is intended to form part of an intended Berlin
Corpus Juris Civilis, which is still promised, but has hitherto made no further visible progress. Among the exegetical commentators, Vinnius, à Costa, and Otto, will be found the most useful.
The Institutiones cum Commentario Academico, by Vinnius, first appeared 4to, Amst. 1642, and has been frequently reprinted. The Elzevir Vinnius of 1665 is, typographically, the neatest; but the jurist will prefer those editions which are enriched with the notes of
Heineccius, and contain the Quaestiones Selectae of Vinnius. (2 vols. 4to. Lugd. 1747, 1755, 1761, 1767, 1777.) The Commentarius ad Institutiones of à Costa (Jean de la Coste) first appeared, 4to. Paris, 1659; but
the best editions are those of Van de Water (4to. Ultraj. 1714), and Rücker (4to. Lugd. 1744). The Commentarius et Notae Criticae of Everard Otto first appeared 4to. Traj. ad Rhen. 1729; and
the best edition is that of Iselin (4to. Basil. 1760).
Commentaries
The commentaries of
Balduinus (fol. Paris, 1546),
Hotomann (Basil. 1560, 1569, Lugd. 1588),
Giphanius (4to. Ingols. 1596, &c.),
Bachovius (4to. Frank, 1628, 1661, &c.),
Merillius (4to. Paris, 1654, Traj. ad Rhen. 1739), and
Hoppius (Dantz. 1693, &c.; and edited by Walchius, 4to. Frank. ad Moen. 1772), also deserve mention.
Translations
There are modern French commentaries and translations by Blondeau,
Ducaurroy,
Ortolan, and
Etienne ; and
there is an English translation, with the Latin text and notes, by George Harris, LL.D. (4to. London, 1796, 1812.) We regard
the Greek Paraphrasis of Theophilus as the most useful of all commentaries, but the original work is so clear as seldom to require voluminous explanation; and not without reason was an Essay, as long ago as the first year of the 18th century, composed by Homberg, professor of law at Helmstadt,
De Multitudine nimia Commentatorum in Institutiones Juris.
Institutes of Justinian and Gaius
The Institutes of Justinian were edited, jointly with those of Gaius,
by Klenze and Böcking (4to. Berol. 1829). The most valuable critical editions anterior to Schrader's are those of Haloander (Nuremb. 1529),
Contius (Paris, 1567),
Cujas (Paris, 1585; re-edited by Köhler, Göttingen, 1773),
Biener (Berlin, 1812), and
Bucher (Erlangen, 1826).
Further Information
A complete account of the literature connected with the Institutes would fill a volume.
The reader is referred for full and authentic information on the subject to Spangenberg,
Einleitung in das Corpus Juris Civilis; Böking,
Institutionen, pp. 145-158;
Prodromus Corporis Juris Civilis a Schradero, Clossio, Tafelio edendi, 8vo. Berol. 1823; Beck,
Indicis Codicum et Editionum, Juris Justiniani Prodromus, 8vo. Lips. 1823; and the editions of the Institutes by Biener and Schrader.
Digest
Textual History
The literary history of the Digest has been a subject of hot and still unextinguished controversy.
The most celebrated existing manuscript of this work is that called the Florentine, consisting of two large quarto volumes, written by Greek scribes, probably not later than the end of the sixth, or the beginning of the seventh century.
It was formerly supposed by some to be one of the authentic copies transmitted to Italy in the lifetime of Justinian, but this opinion is now abandoned.
It is, in general, free from contractions and abbreviations, which were strictly forbidden by the emperor, but letters and parts of letters are sometimes made to do double duty, as
necesset for
necesse esset (
geminationes), and AB for A B (
monogranmmata). The Florentine manuscript was for a long time at Pisa, and hence the glossators refer to its text as
litera Pisana (P. or Pi.), in contradistinction to the common text (
litera vulgata). Its history before it arrived at Pisa, is doubtful.
According to the testimony of Odofredus, who wrote in the 13th century, it was brought to Pisa from Constantinople, and Bartolus, in the 14th century, relates that it was always at Pisa. We are strongly inclined to put faith in the constant tradition that it was given to the Pisans by Lothario the Second, after the capture of Amalfi, in A. D. 1135 (?), as a memorial of his gratitude to them for their aid against Roger the Norman.
The truth or falsehood of this tradition would be a matter of little importance, if it were not usually added, among other more apocryphal embellishments, that Lothario directed the Digest to be taught in the schools, and to be regarded as law in the courts, and that the Roman law had been completely forgotten, until the attention of the school of Bologna was turned to it by the ordinance of the emperor, consequent upon the finding of the manuscript. (Sigonius,
de Regno Ital. xi. in fine.)
It is certain that soon after the capture of Amalfi, the Roman law, which had long been comparatively neglected, was brought into remarkable repute by the teaching of Irnerius, but this resuscitation is attributed by Savigny to the growing illumination of men's minds, and to that felt want of legal science which the progress of commerce and civilisation naturally produces.
He thinks that civilisation, excited by these causes, not by any sudden discovery, had only to put forth its arm and seize the sources of Roman law, which were previously obvious and ready for its grasp.
Pisa was conquered by the Florentine Caponius, in 1406, and the manuscript was brought to Florence in 1411 (?), ever since which time it has been kept there as a valuable treasure, and regarded with the utmost reverence.
Where the Florentine manuscript may have been before the siege of Amalfi is of little consequence ; but it is of great consequence that we should be able to decide another much disputed question, namely, whether the Florentine manuscript be or be not the sole authentic source whence the text of all other existing manuscripts, and of all the printed editions, is derived.
In favour of the affirmative opinion there are several facts, which have not, we think, been satisfactorily accounted for.
The leaves of the Florentine manuscript are written on both sides and the last leaf but one, in binding the volume, has been so placed as to reverse the order of the pages.
The fault is copied in all the existing manuscripts.
The order of the 8th and 9th titles in the 37th book of the Digest is reversed in the Florentine manuscript, but the error is corrected by the scribe by a
Greek note in the margin.
There are fragments similarly reversed in lib. 35, tit. 2, and lib. 40, tit. 4, and similarly corrected.
In the other existing old manuscripts, written by men who did not understand Greek, the error is reproduced, but not the correction. On the other hand, an interpolation added in
Latin in the margin of the Florentine manuscript, is inserted in the text of the other manuscripts. For this reason, the last four fragments of lib. 41, tit. 3, are wrongly converted into a separate title, with the rubric
de Solutto. In the 20th and 22nd titles of the 48th book, there are blanks in the Florentine manuscript, indicating the omission of several fragments, which were first restored by Cujas from the Basilica.
The omissions exist in all the ancient manuscripts.
In general, where the text of the Florentine manuscript presents insuperable difficulties, no assistance is to be derived from the other manuscripts, whereas they all, in many passages, retain the errors of the Florentine. Their variations are nowhere so numerous and arbitrary as where the Florentine is defective or corrupt. Moreover, they appear to be all later than the beginning of the twelfth century; and, in general, the older they are, the less they depart from the Florentine.
In opposition to these facts, the supporters of the conflicting theory adduce many passages of the ordinary text in which the omissions and faults of the Florentine manuscript are corrected and supplied. Some of the variations are not improvements, some may be ascribed to critical sagacity and happy conjecture, and some may have been drawn from the Basilica or other Eastern sources : yet, in the list which Savigny has given, a few variations remain, which can scarcely be accounted for in any of these ways. Passages from the Digest, containing readings different from those of the Florentine manuscript, occur in canonists and other authors, anterior to the supposed discovery at Amalfi. Four palimpsest leaves of a manuscript of the Digest, nearly as old as the Florentine, were found at Naples by Gaupp, and an account of them was published by him at Breslau, in 1823. They belong to the tenth book, but are nearly illegible.
In most of the manuscripts and early editions, the Digest consists of three nearly equal volumes.
The first, comprehending lib. 1-24, tit. 2, is called
Digestum Vetus ; the second, comprehending lib. 24, tit. 3-lib. 38, is called
Infortiatum ; the third, comprehending lib. 39-lib. 50, is called
Digestum Novum. The
Digestum Vetus and
Digestum Novum are each again divided into two parts; the second part of the former beginning with the 12th book ; the second part of the latter with the 45th. The
Infortiatum is divided into three parts, of which the second begins with the 30th book, and the third (strangely enough) with the words
tres partes occurring in the middle of a sentence, in
Dig. 35, tit. 2. s. 82.
The third part of the
Infortiatum is hence called
Tres Partes. The glossators often use the name
Infortiatum for the first two parts of the second volume, e. g.
Infortiatum cum Tribus Partibus ; and sometimes the
Tres Partes are attached to the
Digestum Novum. In order to explain these peculiarities, many conjectures have been hazarded.
It is most probable that the division owes its origin partly to accident; that the
Digestum Vetus first came to the knowledge of the earliest glossators; that they were next furnished with the
Digestum Novum ; then with the
Tres Partes, which they added to the
Digestum Novum ; and that then they got the
Infortiatum, so called, perhaps, from its being
forced in between the others; and that finally, in order to equalize the size of the volumes, they attached the
Tres Partes to the
Infortiatum. The common opinion is that the
Infortiatum derived its name from having been
reinforced by the
Tres Partes.
Editions
The editions of the Digest, with reference to the character of their text, may be divided into three classes, the Florentine, the vulgate, and the mixed. Politianus and Bologninus had both carefully collated the Florentine manuscript, but no edition represented the Florentine text before
the year A. D. 1553, when the beautiful and celebrated edition of Laelius Taurelius (who, out of paternal affection, allowed his son Franciscus to name himself as the editor) was published at Florence.
This edition is the basis of that given by Gebauer and Spangenberg in their Corpus Juris Civilis, and these editors had the advantage of referring to the later collation of Brenkmann.
The vulgate editions have no existing standard text to refer to.
The ideal standard is the text formed by the glossators, as revised by Accursius. Their number is immense.
The first known edition of the Digestum Vetus was printed by Henricus Clasm (fol. Perusiae, 1476), although
Montfaucon (Bibl. MSS. p. 157) mentions the existence of an edition of 1473, of the first and second parts of the Digest. The first edition of the Infortiatum is that of Pücher (fol. Rom. 1475), and the
first Digestum Novum was printed by Pücher (fol. Rom. 1476). In the early vulgate editions the Greek passages of the original are given for the most part in an old Latin translation, and the inscriptions prefixed to the extracts, and referring to the work and the author, are either imperfect or wanting.
Of the mixed editions, the earliest is that which was edited by Baublommius (Paris, 1523, 1524), with the aid of the collation of Politianus, but the most celebrated is that of
Haloander (4to. Nuremb. 1529), published without the gloss. Haloander was, himself, a daring and adventurous critic, and made much use of the conjectural emendations of Budaeus and Alciatus.
Commentaries
The commentators upon the Digest and upon separate portions of it are extremely numerous. Among the most useful are
Duarenus (Opera, Luc. 1765),
Cujacius, Ant. Faber (Rationalia in Pandectas, Lugd. 1659-1663),
Donellus, Ant. Matthaeus (De Criminibus, Commenturius ad lib. 47 et 48 Dig.）,
Bynkershoek,
Noodt.
The commentaries of
Voet and
Pothier are well known in this country.
The voluminous
Meditationes in Pandectas of
Leyserus, and the still more voluminous
German Erläuterungen of Glück, with the continuations of
Mühlenbruch and Reichardt, are interesting, as showing the construction put upon the law of the Digest, in cases that occur in modern practice.
One of the most valuable works upon the Digest is
Ant. Schulting's Notae ad Digesta, cum animadversionibus Nic. Smallenberg, 7 vols. 8vo. Lug. Bat. 1804-1835. Here the reader will find ample references to the work where the difficulties of the text are best explained. The
Pandectenrecht of Thibaut and the
Doctrina Pandectarum of Mühlenbruch are not commentaries on the Digest, but are systematic expositions of the civil law, as it exists in Germany at this day.
Further Information
In Brenkmann's
Historia Pandectarum will be found a full account of the early state of the controversy relating to the history of the Florentine manuscript.
The writings of Augustinus, Grandi, Tanucci, Guadagni, Schwartz, and others, who have signalised themselves in this field, are referred to in Walch's note on Eckhard's
Ermeneutica Juris, § 74; and the researches of Savigny on the same subject will be found in the second and third volumes of his " History of the Roman Law in the Middle Ages." For detailed information as to editions of the Digest and Commentaries on that work, Spangenberg's
Einleitung, and Beck's
Prodromus, may be consulted with advantage.
Codex Justinianus
Textual History
The earliest manuscript containing a portion of the
Constitutionum Codex is a palimpsest in the Chapter House at Verona, and two of the 10th century have been lately discovered by Blume at Pistoia and Monte Casino.
In the early editions the first nine books are separated from the other three, which, relating principally to the public law of the Roman empire, were often inapplicable in practice under a different government. Hence, by the glossators, the name
Codex is given exclusively to the first nine books; while the remainder are designated by the name
Tres Libri. At first the
inscriptions and
subscriptiones of the constitutions were almost always omitted, and the Greek constitutions were wanting. Haloander considerably improved the text, and was followed by Russardus. Cujas, Augustinus, and Contius, were of service in restoring to their places the omitted constitutions (
leges restitutae). Leunclavius (1575), Charondas (1575), Pacius (1580), Dionysius Gothofredus (1583), Petrus and Franciscus Pithoeus (
Obs. ad Cod. Par. fol. 1689), all contributed to the criticism and restoration of the text; and in more modern times, Biener, Witte, and the brothers Heimbach, have similarly distinguished themselves.
Editions
The first edition of the first nine books was printed by P. Schoyffer (fol. Mogunt. 1475).
The
Tres Libri first appeared (along with the Novells and the
Libri Feudorum) at Rome (fol. 1476).
The first edition of the twelve books was given by Haloander (fol. Noremb. 1530).
Commentaries
Cujas and Wissenbach are among the best commentators on the Code.
The commentaries of the latter comprise the first seven books (
in lib. iv. prior. 4to. Franeq. 1660;
in lib. v. et vi. ib. 1664 ;
in lib. vii. ib. 1664).
Further Information
For further particulars as to the other editions and commentators, reference may be made to Spangenberg's
Einleitung, Beck's
Prodromus, Biener's
Beiträge zur Revision der Justin. Cod., and the preface of S. Hermanni to his edition of the Code in the Leipzig edition of the
Corpus Juris Civilis, commenced by the brothers Kriegel.
An abstract of the first eight books of the Code, made at latest in the 9th century, was discovered by Niebuhr at Perugia; and this
Summa Perusina has been edited by G. E. Heimbach, in the second volume of his
Anecdota (fol. Lips. 1840).
The Novells
Textual History
We possess the Novells of Justinian in three ancient forms; the Latin Epitome of Julianus, of which we have already spoken [
JULIANUS]; an ancient Latin translation (the
Authenticum, or
Versio Vulgata), containing 134 Novells, and the Greek collection, numbering 168 Novells.
Of the 134 Novells contained in the
Versio Vulgata, the glossators recognised only 97 as practically useful, and these were the only Novells to which they appended a gloss.
As the Institutes, Digest, and Code, were divided into books and titles, the glossators divided the 97 glossed Novells (which they arranged chronologically) into nine books, intended to correspond with the first nine books of the Code.
These books were called
collationes. Under each
collatio was placed a certain number of constitutions, and each constitution formed a separate title, except the 8th, which was divided into two titles.
There were thus 98 titles.
The rubrics of the constitutions, and the division into chapters and paragraphs, though not due to Justinian, were probably older than the glossators, and to be attributed to the original collectors or translators. The 97 glossed Novells, thus divided, constituted the
liber ordinarius ; the remaining Novells of. the
Authenticum were called
extravagantes or
authenticae extraordinariae, and were divided into three
collationes, to correspond with the last three books of the Code : but, as they were not used in forensic practice, they soon ceased to be copied in the manuscripts.
The oldest printed edition of the
versio vulgata is that of Vit. Piicher, containing the 97 Novells, with the gloss, followed by the last three books of the Code (Rom. 1476).
The Greek collection of the Novells of Justinian was made for the use of the Oriental lawyers, probably under Tiberius II., who reigned A. D. 578-582. The Greek collection was not confined to constitutions of Justinian.
There are four of Justin II., three of Tiberius II., and four edicts (
eparchica, formae) of the praefectus urbi and praefectus praetorio.
A list of the rubrics of the 168 Novells was first printed in Latin by Cujas (
Exposit. Novell. fol. Lugd. 1570), and the original Greek text of this list is given in the second volume of Heimbach's Anecdota.
It is called
Index Reginae, from having been found in the queen's library at Paris.
The Greek Novells were wholly unknown to the glossators. Haloander was the first who published them at Nuremburg, in 1531, from an imperfect Florentine manuscript. Scrimger, a Scotchman and Professor of the Civil Law at Geneva, afterwards published them from a less imperfect Venetian manuscript.
The collection of Scrimger was printed by H. Stephanus at Geneva in 1558. Neither the Venetian nor the Florentine manuscript contains in full the 168 Novells. Sometimes the mere title of an omitted Novell is inserted; sometimes only the number of the Novell is given, and the lacuna is marked by asterisks.
Haloander gave a Latin version of the Novells he published. Scrimger published the Greek without a translation; but the Novells, which are contained in Scrimger and not in Haloander, were translated by Agylaeus. (
Supplementum Novelarum, Colon. 1560.)
The labours of Contius constituted the next important stage in the literary history of the Novells.
He formed a Greek text from combining Haloander and Scrimger.
He formed a Latin text from the
Versio Vulgata, so far as he was acquainted with it.
This he supplied by a translation from the Greek, partly his own and partly compiled from Haloander.
He subjoined the matter contained in Julian's
Epitome, so far as it was not contained either in the
Versio Vulgata or in the published Greek Novells.
In this manner he made up the 168 Latin Novells, which compose the stock of Novells in ordinary modern editions of the
Corpus Juris Civilis.
Contius published many editions of the Novells, differing among themselves in a way which it is necessary to remark. Some of the editions contained the gloss, and in these the 97 glossed Novells were arranged as usual in the old nine
collationes, while all the remaining Novells were subjoined as a tenth
collatio. An important change, however, took place in the unglossed edition of 1571.
In this, Contius classed the 168 Novells with reference to their dates (though there are some exceptions to the chronological order), and distributed them, so arranged, into nine
collationes, and subdivided the
collationes into titles.
The same order was reproduced in the edition of 1581, and has been followed ever since in all but the glossed editions. From the account which we have given, it will easily be conceived that great confusion has been occasioned in references by the varieties of arrangement in different editions of the Novells. for example, the 131st Novell of modern editions of the
Corpus Juris Civilis forms, according to the arrangement of Contius, the 14th title of the 9th
collatio, while it was the 6th title of the 9th
collatio of the old glossators.
Editions
Of modern editions since the time of
Contius, it is unnecessary to say much.
Under the title Novellae Constitutiones Justiniani, a Graeco in Latinum versae opera Hombergk zu Vach (4to. Marburg, 1717), more is performed than is promised.
The author presents to us not only a very good new Latin translation, but the Greek text, and a series of Latin Novells from the
versio vulgata, of which the original Greek has not been preserved, and valuable critical notes.
Translations
The translation of Hombergk zu Vach is the basis of that of
Osenbrüggen, the editor of the Novells in the Leipzig
Corpus Juris Civilis.
Commentaries
Among the best commentators upon the Novells may be mentioned
Cujas,
Joach,
Stephanus (Expositio Novellarum, 8vo. Franc. 1608), and
Matthaeus Stephanus. (Commentarius Novellarum, 4to. Gryphsw. 1631. Cum notis Brunnemanni, 4to. Viteb. 1700, 4to. Lips. 1707.)
G. E. Heimbach, in the first volume of his Anecdota, has published the remains of the ancient commentators, Athanasius Scholasticus, Theodorus Hermopolitanus, Philoxenus, Symbatius, and Anonymus.
Much labour and learning have been recently expended in unravelling the intricacies of this part of literary history, and in correcting the errors of former writers on the Novells. Biener's
Geschichte der Novellen Justinian's contains the most accurate and elaborate information upon this subject. G. E. Heimbach's essay,
De Origine et Fatis Corporis quod clxviii. Novellis Constitutionibus constat (8vo. Lips. 1844), contains some questionable views. Mortreueil has treated of the Novells in his Histoire du Droit
Byzantin, vol. i. pp. 25-60.
The separate Novells were designated by the glossators by the name
Authenticae, but that word has also another signification, which it is necessary to explain, in order to prevent the mistakes which have sometimes occurred in consequence of this verbal ambiguity.
In their lectures on the Institutes and the first nine books of the Code, the earliest glossators were accustomed to insert in the margin of their copies abbreviated extracts from such parts of the Novells as made alterations in the law contained in the text.
In reading the Digest, they referred to the notes contained in the margin of the Code.
At a later period these abstracts were discontinued in the Institutes.
In the Code they were taken from the margin, and placed under the text, where they still appear, distinguished by Italic type in most of the modern editions. They are called
Authenticae either, as some assert, from their representing the latest authentic state of the law, or from the name of the source whence they were taken, and which, in practice, they nearly superseded. Certain capitularies of Frederic I. and Frederic II., emperors of Germany, about the end of the 12th century, were treated by the glossators as Novells, and thirteen extracts taken from them are inserted in the Code, with the inscription "Nova Constitutio Frederici." They are known by the name
Authenticae Fredericianae.
The collections of Justinian, together with some later appendages, formed into one great work, are commonly known by the name
Corpus Juris Civilis. The later appendages are really arbitrary and misplaced additions, having no proper connection with the law of Justinian, and they vary in different editions. They consist, for the most part, of a collection of constitutions of Leo the Philosopher, anterior to A. D. 893; of some other constitutions of Byzantine emperors, from the 7th to the 14th century; of the so-called
Canones Sanctorum Apostolorum ; of the
Feudorum Consuetudines ; a few constitutions of German and French monarchs ; and the
Liber de Pace Constantiae.
The expression
Corpus Juris was employed by Justinian himself (Cod. 5. tit. 13. s. 1); but the earliest editions of the whole of his legal collections have no single title. Russardus first chose the title
Jus Civile. The modern name
Corpus Juris Civilis appears first in D. Godefroi's edition of 1583, though the phrase had been employed by others before him.
The old glossed editions consist of five volumes, folio (usually bound in five different colours), namely : 1.
Digestum Vetus; 2.
Infortiatum ; 3.
Digestum Novum; 4. The
Codex, i. e. the first nine books of the Code; 5.
Volumen, or
Volumen Parvum, or
Volumen Legum Parvum, containing the
Tres Libri, the
Authenticae, and the
Institutiones. The latter had a separate title-page, and was sometimes bound as a separate volume, distinct from the
Volumen.
This arrangement was first departed from by
R. Stephanus in his edition of the Digest in five instead of three volumes (8vo. Paris, 1527-1528).
The editions of the
Corpus Juris Civilis may be divided into the glossed and the unglossed.
The gloss is an annotation which was gradually formed in the school of Bologna, and finally settled by Accursius.
It is of great practical importance, since, in the countries which adopted the civil law, the portions without the gloss did not possess legal authority in the courts.
Quod non recipit glossa, id non recipit curia, was the general maxim.
All the editions up to that of Claud. Chevallon (12mo. Paris, 1520-1527) have the gloss.
The latest glossed edition is that of
J. Fehius. (Lugd. 1627.) This celebrated edition has on the title-page of every volume (in allusion to the place of its publication, Lyons) the representation of a
living lion, surrounded by bees, with the motto
Ex forti dulcedo. Hence it is known by the name
Edition du Lion Moucheté--a name also given to one of the previous editions of
D. Gothofredus. (Fol. Lugd. 1589.) The very valuable index of Daoyz is appended as a sixth volume to the edition of J. Fehius.
Of the unglossed editions, some have notes and some have none. Of the unglossed editions with notes, the two most celebrated and useful are that of
D. Godefroi and Van Leeuwen (2 vols. fol. apud Elzeviros, Amst. 1663), and that of
Gebauer and Spangenberg (2 vols. 4to. Gotting. 1776, 1797).
Of the editions without notes the most beautiful and convenient is the well-known, but not very correct
8vo. Elzevir of 1664, distinguished as the Pars Secundus edition, from an error in p. 150. Two editions by
Beck, one in 4to. and
one in 5 vols. 8vo., were published at Leipzig in 1825-1836. The latest edition is that which was commenced by the brothers Kriegel in 1833, and completed in 1840, Hermanni having edited the Code, and Osenbriiggen the Novells. The edition undertaken by Schrader and other eminent scholars will, if completed as it has been begun, supersede for some purposes all that have gone before it. The old editions of
Contius,
Russardus,
Charondas and
Pacius, are sought for by critics.
A more complete enumeration of the editions of the collective
Corpus Juris Civilis will be found in Böcking's
Institutiones, p. 85-88.
Translations
There is a French translation of the whole
Corpus, with the Latin text
en regard, published at Paris 1805-1811.
In this work we have : 1. The Institutes, by Hulot, 1 vol. 4to. or 5 vols. 8vo.; 2. The Digest, by Hulot and Berthelot, 7 vols. 4to. or 35 vols. 12mo.; 3. The Code, by Tissot, 4 vols. 4to. or 18 vols. 12mo.; 5. The Novells, by Berenger, 2 vols. 4to. or 10 vols. 12mo., to which is appended, 6.
La Clef des Lois Romaines, ou Dictionnaire, &c., 2 vols. 4to.
There is also a German translation of the whole
Corpus, by a society of
savans, edited by C. E. Otto, Bruno Schlilling, and C. F. F. Sintenis (7 vols. 8vo. Lips. 1830-1833). [
J.T.G]
The Coins of Justinian.
The coins of Justinian, which are very numerous, have been explained in an interesting monogram entitled, "Die Münzen Justinians, mit sechs Kupfertafeln," by M. Pinder and J. Friedländer, Berlin, 1843.
These writers give a satisfactory explanation of the letters CONOB, which frequently appear on the coins of the Byzantine emperors, and which have given rise to much dispute. That CON should be separated from OB, and and that they signify Constantinople, seems clear from the legends AQOB, TESOB, and TROB, which indicate respectively the towns of Aquileia, Thessalonica, and Treves.
The above-mentioned writers suppose that OB represent the Greek numerals, and that they consequently indicate the number 72.
In the time of Augustus forty gold coins (
aurei or
solidi) were equal to a pound; but as these coins were struck lighter and lighter, it was at length enacted by Valentinian I. in A. D. 367 (Cod. 10. tit. 72 (70), s. 5), that henceforth 72 solidi should be coined out of a pound of gold; and we accordingly find CONOB for the first time on the coins of the latter emperor.
In the reign of Justinian the custom was first introduced of indicating on the coins the number of the year of the emperor's reign.
This practice began in the twelfth year of Justinian's reign, and explains the reason why Justinian enacted, in the eleventh year of his reign, that in future all official documents were to contain in them the year of the emperor's reign. (Novella, 47.)
In the same year another change was made in the coins. Hitherto they had represented the emperor as a warrior with a lance; but Justinian, who carried on his wars by means of his generals, and who was more interested personally in legislation, theological disputes, and public buildings, caused himself to be represented with the imperial globe and no longer as a warrior.
The drawing below represents a medal of Justinian, which was found by the Turks among the ruins of Caesareia, in Cappadocia, in the year 1751.
It was carried to Constantinople, where it was bought by Desalleurs, who presented it to Louis XV.
It was stolen from the royal collection at Paris, in the year 1832, but an engraving of it had been previously given by De Boze, in the
Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, vol. xxvi. p. 523. Its loss is the more to be deplored, as it is the only specimen known to be in existence.
The obverse represents the head of Justinian with the legend D N IVSTINIANVS PP AVG : he wears a richly adorned helmet, behind which is the nimbus, and holds in his right hand a spear. On the reverse the emperor is riding on a horse, adorned with pearls; the helmet, the nimbus, the spear, and the dress, correspond to the representation on the obverse : before him walks Victory, looking round at him, and carrying in her left hand a trophy : by the side of Justinian's head a star appears.
The legend is SALVS ET GLORIA ROMANORVM. This medal was struck probably in the early years of the emperor's reign, as the face is that of a young man, and the obverse resembles what we find on the early coins of Justinian. De Boze thinks that it has reference to the Persian victories.
