Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.—Part IV

When Justinian ascended the throne, the reformation of the Roman
jurisprudence was an arduous but indispensable task. In the space
of ten centuries, the infinite variety of laws and legal opinions
had filled many thousand volumes, which no fortune could purchase
and no capacity could digest. Books could not easily be found;
and the judges, poor in the midst of riches, were reduced to the
exercise of their illiterate discretion. The subjects of the
Greek provinces were ignorant of the language that disposed of
their lives and properties; and the barbarous dialect of the
Latins was imperfectly studied in the academies of Berytus and
Constantinople. As an Illyrian soldier, that idiom was familiar
to the infancy of Justinian; his youth had been instructed by the
lessons of jurisprudence, and his Imperial choice selected the
most learned civilians of the East, to labor with their sovereign
in the work of reformation. 71 The theory of professors was
assisted by the practice of advocates, and the experience of
magistrates; and the whole undertaking was animated by the spirit
of Tribonian. 72 This extraordinary man, the object of so much
praise and censure, was a native of Side in Pamphylia; and his
genius, like that of Bacon, embraced, as his own, all the
business and knowledge of the age. Tribonian composed, both in
prose and verse, on a strange diversity of curious and abstruse
subjects: 73 a double panegyric of Justinian and the life of the
philosopher Theodotus; the nature of happiness and the duties of
government; Homer’s catalogue and the four-and-twenty sorts of
metre; the astronomical canon of Ptolemy; the changes of the
months; the houses of the planets; and the harmonic system of the
world. To the literature of Greece he added the use of the Latin
tongue; the Roman civilians were deposited in his library and in
his mind; and he most assiduously cultivated those arts which
opened the road of wealth and preferment. From the bar of the
Praetorian præfects, he raised himself to the honors of quaestor,
of consul, and of master of the offices: the council of Justinian
listened to his eloquence and wisdom; and envy was mitigated by
the gentleness and affability of his manners. The reproaches of
impiety and avarice have stained the virtue or the reputation of
Tribonian. In a bigoted and persecuting court, the principal
minister was accused of a secret aversion to the Christian faith,
and was supposed to entertain the sentiments of an Atheist and a
Pagan, which have been imputed, inconsistently enough, to the
last philosophers of Greece. His avarice was more clearly proved
and more sensibly felt. If he were swayed by gifts in the
administration of justice, the example of Bacon will again occur;
nor can the merit of Tribonian atone for his baseness, if he
degraded the sanctity of his profession; and if laws were every
day enacted, modified, or repealed, for the base consideration of
his private emolument. In the sedition of Constantinople, his
removal was granted to the clamors, perhaps to the just
indignation, of the people: but the quaestor was speedily
restored, and, till the hour of his death, he possessed, above
twenty years, the favor and confidence of the emperor. His
passive and dutiful submission had been honored with the praise
of Justinian himself, whose vanity was incapable of discerning
how often that submission degenerated into the grossest
adulation. Tribonian adored the virtues of his gracious master:
the earth was unworthy of such a prince; and he affected a pious
fear, that Justinian, like Elijah or Romulus, would be snatched
into the air, and translated alive to the mansions of celestial
glory. 74

71 (return) [ For the legal labors of Justinian, I have studied
the Preface to the Institutes; the 1st, 2d, and 3d Prefaces to
the Pandects; the 1st and 2d Preface to the Code; and the Code
itself, (l. i. tit. xvii. de Veteri Jure enucleando.) After these
original testimonies, I have consulted, among the moderns,
Heineccius, (Hist. J. R. No. 383—404,) Terasson. (Hist. de la
Jurisprudence Romaine, p. 295—356,) Gravina, (Opp. p. 93-100,)
and Ludewig, in his Life of Justinian, (p.19—123, 318-321; for
the Code and Novels, p. 209—261; for the Digest or Pandects, p.
262—317.)]

72 (return) [ For the character of Tribonian, see the testimonies
of Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 23, 24. Anecdot. c. 13, 20,) and
Suidas, (tom. iii. p. 501, edit. Kuster.) Ludewig (in Vit.
Justinian, p. 175—209) works hard, very hard, to whitewash—the
blackamoor.]

73 (return) [ I apply the two passages of Suidas to the same man;
every circumstance so exactly tallies. Yet the lawyers appear
ignorant; and Fabricius is inclined to separate the two
characters, (Bibliot. Grae. tom. i. p. 341, ii. p. 518, iii. p.
418, xii. p. 346, 353, 474.)]

74 (return) [ This story is related by Hesychius, (de Viris
Illustribus,) Procopius, (Anecdot. c. 13,) and Suidas, (tom. iii.
p. 501.) Such flattery is incredible! —Nihil est quod credere de
se Non possit, cum laudatur Diis aequa potestas. Fontenelle (tom.
i. p. 32—39) has ridiculed the impudence of the modest Virgil.
But the same Fontenelle places his king above the divine
Augustus; and the sage Boileau has not blushed to say, “Le destin
a ses yeux n’oseroit balancer” Yet neither Augustus nor Louis
XIV. were fools.]

If Caesar had achieved the reformation of the Roman law, his
creative genius, enlightened by reflection and study, would have
given to the world a pure and original system of jurisprudence.
Whatever flattery might suggest, the emperor of the East was
afraid to establish his private judgment as the standard of
equity: in the possession of legislative power, he borrowed the
aid of time and opinion; and his laborious compilations are
guarded by the sages and legislature of past times. Instead of a
statue cast in a simple mould by the hand of an artist, the works
of Justinian represent a tessellated pavement of antique and
costly, but too often of incoherent, fragments. In the first year
of his reign, he directed the faithful Tribonian, and nine
learned associates, to revise the ordinances of his predecessors,
as they were contained, since the time of Adrian, in the
Gregorian Hermogenian, and Theodosian codes; to purge the errors
and contradictions, to retrench whatever was obsolete or
superfluous, and to select the wise and salutary laws best
adapted to the practice of the tribunals and the use of his
subjects. The work was accomplished in fourteen months; and the
twelve books or tables, which the new decemvirs produced, might
be designed to imitate the labors of their Roman predecessors.
The new Code of Justinian was honored with his name, and
confirmed by his royal signature: authentic transcripts were
multiplied by the pens of notaries and scribes; they were
transmitted to the magistrates of the European, the Asiatic, and
afterwards the African provinces; and the law of the empire was
proclaimed on solemn festivals at the doors of churches. A more
arduous operation was still behind—to extract the spirit of
jurisprudence from the decisions and conjectures, the questions
and disputes, of the Roman civilians. Seventeen lawyers, with
Tribonian at their head, were appointed by the emperor to
exercise an absolute jurisdiction over the works of their
predecessors. If they had obeyed his commands in ten years,
Justinian would have been satisfied with their diligence; and the
rapid composition of the Digest of Pandects, 75 in three years,
will deserve praise or censure, according to the merit of the
execution. From the library of Tribonian, they chose forty, the
most eminent civilians of former times: 76 two thousand treatises
were comprised in an abridgment of fifty books; and it has been
carefully recorded, that three millions of lines or sentences, 77
were reduced, in this abstract, to the moderate number of one
hundred and fifty thousand. The edition of this great work was
delayed a month after that of the Institutes; and it seemed
reasonable that the elements should precede the digest of the
Roman law. As soon as the emperor had approved their labors, he
ratified, by his legislative power, the speculations of these
private citizens: their commentaries, on the twelve tables, the
perpetual edict, the laws of the people, and the decrees of the
senate, succeeded to the authority of the text; and the text was
abandoned, as a useless, though venerable, relic of antiquity.
The Code, the Pandects, and the Institutes, were declared to be
the legitimate system of civil jurisprudence; they alone were
admitted into the tribunals, and they alone were taught in the
academies of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus. Justinian
addressed to the senate and provinces his eternal oracles; and
his pride, under the mask of piety, ascribed the consummation of
this great design to the support and inspiration of the Deity.

75 (return) [ General receivers was a common title of the Greek
miscellanies, (Plin. Praefat. ad Hist. Natur.) The Digesta of
Scaevola, Marcellinus, Celsus, were already familiar to the
civilians: but Justinian was in the wrong when he used the two
appellations as synonymous. Is the word Pandects Greek or
Latin—masculine or feminine? The diligent Brenckman will not
presume to decide these momentous controversies, (Hist. Pandect.
Florentine. p. 200—304.) Note: The word was formerly in common
use. See the preface is Aulus Gellius—W]

76 (return) [ Angelus Politianus (l. v. Epist. ult.) reckons
thirty-seven (p. 192—200) civilians quoted in the Pandects—a
learned, and for his times, an extraordinary list. The Greek
index to the Pandects enumerates thirty-nine, and forty are
produced by the indefatigable Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. tom.
iii. p. 488—502.) Antoninus Augustus (de Nominibus Propriis
Pandect. apud Ludewig, p. 283) is said to have added fifty-four
names; but they must be vague or second-hand references.]

77 (return) [ The item of the ancient Mss. may be strictly
defined as sentences or periods of a complete sense, which, on
the breadth of the parchment rolls or volumes, composed as many
lines of unequal length. The number in each book served as a
check on the errors of the scribes, (Ludewig, p. 211—215; and his
original author Suicer. Thesaur. Ecclesiast. tom. i. p
1021-1036).]

Since the emperor declined the fame and envy of original
composition, we can only require, at his hands, method, choice,
and fidelity, the humble, though indispensable, virtues of a
compiler. Among the various combinations of ideas, it is
difficult to assign any reasonable preference; but as the order
of Justinian is different in his three works, it is possible that
all may be wrong; and it is certain that two cannot be right. In
the selection of ancient laws, he seems to have viewed his
predecessors without jealousy, and with equal regard: the series
could not ascend above the reign of Adrian, and the narrow
distinction of Paganism and Christianity, introduced by the
superstition of Theodosius, had been abolished by the consent of
mankind. But the jurisprudence of the Pandects is circumscribed
within a period of a hundred years, from the perpetual edict to
the death of Severus Alexander: the civilians who lived under the
first Caesars are seldom permitted to speak, and only three names
can be attributed to the age of the republic. The favorite of
Justinian (it has been fiercely urged) was fearful of
encountering the light of freedom and the gravity of Roman sages.

Tribonian condemned to oblivion the genuine and native wisdom of
Cato, the Scaevolas, and Sulpicius; while he invoked spirits more
congenial to his own, the Syrians, Greeks, and Africans, who
flocked to the Imperial court to study Latin as a foreign tongue,
and jurisprudence as a lucrative profession. But the ministers of
Justinian, 78 were instructed to labor, not for the curiosity of
antiquarians, but for the immediate benefit of his subjects. It
was their duty to select the useful and practical parts of the
Roman law; and the writings of the old republicans, however
curious or excellent, were no longer suited to the new system of
manners, religion, and government. Perhaps, if the preceptors and
friends of Cicero were still alive, our candor would acknowledge,
that, except in purity of language, 79 their intrinsic merit was
excelled by the school of Papinian and Ulpian. The science of the
laws is the slow growth of time and experience, and the advantage
both of method and materials, is naturally assumed by the most
recent authors. The civilians of the reign of the Antonines had
studied the works of their predecessors: their philosophic spirit
had mitigated the rigor of antiquity, simplified the forms of
proceeding, and emerged from the jealousy and prejudice of the
rival sects. The choice of the authorities that compose the
Pandects depended on the judgment of Tribonian: but the power of
his sovereign could not absolve him from the sacred obligations
of truth and fidelity. As the legislator of the empire, Justinian
might repeal the acts of the Antonines, or condemn, as seditious,
the free principles, which were maintained by the last of the
Roman lawyers. 80 But the existence of past facts is placed
beyond the reach of despotism; and the emperor was guilty of
fraud and forgery, when he corrupted the integrity of their text,
inscribed with their venerable names the words and ideas of his
servile reign, 81 and suppressed, by the hand of power, the pure
and authentic copies of their sentiments. The changes and
interpolations of Tribonian and his colleagues are excused by the
pretence of uniformity: but their cares have been insufficient,
and the antinomies, or contradictions of the Code and Pandects,
still exercise the patience and subtilty of modern civilians. 82

78 (return) [ An ingenious and learned oration of Schultingius
(Jurisprudentia Ante-Justinianea, p. 883—907) justifies the
choice of Tribonian, against the passionate charges of Francis
Hottoman and his sectaries.]

79 (return) [ Strip away the crust of Tribonian, and allow for
the use of technical words, and the Latin of the Pandects will be
found not unworthy of the silver age. It has been vehemently
attacked by Laurentius Valla, a fastidious grammarian of the xvth
century, and by his apologist Floridus Sabinus. It has been
defended by Alciat, and a name less advocate, (most probably
James Capellus.) Their various treatises are collected by Duker,
(Opuscula de Latinitate veterum Jurisconsultorum, Lugd. Bat.
1721, in 12mo.) Note: Gibbon is mistaken with regard to Valla,
who, though he inveighs against the barbarous style of the
civilians of his own day, lavishes the highest praise on the
admirable purity of the language of the ancient writers on civil
law. (M. Warnkonig quotes a long passage of Valla in
justification of this observation.) Since his time, this truth
has been recognized by men of the highest eminence, such as
Erasmus, David Hume and Runkhenius.—W.]

80 (return) [ Nomina quidem veteribus servavimus, legum autem
veritatem nostram fecimus. Itaque siquid erat in illis
seditiosum, multa autem talia erant ibi reposita, hoc decisum est
et definitum, et in perspicuum finem deducta est quaeque lex,
(Cod. Justinian. l. i. tit. xvii. leg. 3, No 10.) A frank
confession! * Note: Seditiosum, in the language of Justinian,
means not seditious, but discounted.—W.]

81 (return) [ The number of these emblemata (a polite name for
forgeries) is much reduced by Bynkershoek, (in the four last
books of his Observations,) who poorly maintains the right of
Justinian and the duty of Tribonian.]

82 (return) [ The antinomies, or opposite laws of the Code and
Pandects, are sometimes the cause, and often the excuse, of the
glorious uncertainty of the civil law, which so often affords
what Montaigne calls “Questions pour l’Ami.” See a fine passage
of Franciscus Balduinus in Justinian, (l. ii. p. 259, &c., apud
Ludewig, p. 305, 306.)]

A rumor devoid of evidence has been propagated by the enemies of
Justinian; that the jurisprudence of ancient Rome was reduced to
ashes by the author of the Pandects, from the vain persuasion,
that it was now either false or superfluous. Without usurping an
office so invidious, the emperor might safely commit to ignorance
and time the accomplishments of this destructive wish. Before the
invention of printing and paper, the labor and the materials of
writing could be purchased only by the rich; and it may
reasonably be computed, that the price of books was a hundred
fold their present value. 83 Copies were slowly multiplied and
cautiously renewed: the hopes of profit tempted the sacrilegious
scribes to erase the characters of antiquity, 8311 and Sophocles
or Tacitus were obliged to resign the parchment to missals,
homilies, and the golden legend. 84 If such was the fate of the
most beautiful compositions of genius, what stability could be
expected for the dull and barren works of an obsolete science?
The books of jurisprudence were interesting to few, and
entertaining to none: their value was connected with present use,
and they sunk forever as soon as that use was superseded by the
innovations of fashion, superior merit, or public authority. In
the age of peace and learning, between Cicero and the last of the
Antonines, many losses had been already sustained, and some
luminaries of the school, or forum, were known only to the
curious by tradition and report. Three hundred and sixty years of
disorder and decay accelerated the progress of oblivion; and it
may fairly be presumed, that of the writings, which Justinian is
accused of neglecting, many were no longer to be found in the
libraries of the East. 85 The copies of Papinian, or Ulpian,
which the reformer had proscribed, were deemed unworthy of future
notice: the Twelve Tables and praetorian edicts insensibly
vanished, and the monuments of ancient Rome were neglected or
destroyed by the envy and ignorance of the Greeks. Even the
Pandects themselves have escaped with difficulty and danger from
the common shipwreck, and criticism has pronounced that all the
editions and manuscripts of the West are derived from one
original. 86 It was transcribed at Constantinople in the
beginning of the seventh century, 87 was successively transported
by the accidents of war and commerce to Amalphi, 88 Pisa, 89 and
Florence, 90 and is now deposited as a sacred relic 91 in the
ancient palace of the republic. 92

83 (return) [ When Faust, or Faustus, sold at Paris his first
printed Bibles as manuscripts, the price of a parchment copy was
reduced from four or five hundred to sixty, fifty, and forty
crowns. The public was at first pleased with the cheapness, and
at length provoked by the discovery of the fraud, (Mattaire,
Annal. Typograph. tom. i. p. 12; first edit.)]

8311 (return) [ Among the works which have been recovered, by the
persevering and successful endeavors of M. Mai and his followers
to trace the imperfectly erased characters of the ancient writers
on these Palimpsests, Gibbon at this period of his labors would
have hailed with delight the recovery of the Institutes of Gaius,
and the fragments of the Theodosian Code, published by M Keyron
of Turin.—M.]

84 (return) [ This execrable practice prevailed from the viiith,
and more especially from the xiith, century, when it became
almost universal (Montfaucon, in the Memoires de l’Academie, tom.
vi. p. 606, &c. Bibliotheque Raisonnee de la Diplomatique, tom.
i. p. 176.)]

85 (return) [ Pomponius (Pandect. l. i. tit. ii. leg. 2)
observes, that of the three founders of the civil law, Mucius,
Brutus, and Manilius, extant volumina, scripta Manilii monumenta;
that of some old republican lawyers, haec versantur eorum scripta
inter manus hominum. Eight of the Augustan sages were reduced to
a compendium: of Cascellius, scripta non extant sed unus liber,
&c.; of Trebatius, minus frequentatur; of Tubero, libri parum
grati sunt. Many quotations in the Pandects are derived from
books which Tribonian never saw; and in the long period from the
viith to the xiiith century of Rome, the apparent reading of the
moderns successively depends on the knowledge and veracity of
their predecessors.]

86 (return) [ All, in several instances, repeat the errors of the
scribe and the transpositions of some leaves in the Florentine
Pandects. This fact, if it be true, is decisive. Yet the Pandects
are quoted by Ivo of Chartres, (who died in 1117,) by Theobald,
archbishop of Canterbury, and by Vacarius, our first professor,
in the year 1140, (Selden ad Fletam, c. 7, tom. ii. p.
1080—1085.) Have our British Mss. of the Pandects been collated?]

87 (return) [ See the description of this original in Brenckman,
(Hist. Pandect. Florent. l. i. c. 2, 3, p. 4—17, and l. ii.)
Politian, an enthusiast, revered it as the authentic standard of
Justinian himself, (p. 407, 408;) but this paradox is refuted by
the abbreviations of the Florentine Ms. (l. ii. c. 3, p.
117-130.) It is composed of two quarto volumes, with large
margins, on a thin parchment, and the Latin characters betray the
band of a Greek scribe.]

88 (return) [ Brenckman, at the end of his history, has inserted
two dissertations on the republic of Amalphi, and the Pisan war
in the year 1135, &c.]

89 (return) [ The discovery of the Pandects at Amalphi (A. D
1137) is first noticed (in 1501) by Ludovicus Bologninus,
(Brenckman, l. i. c. 11, p. 73, 74, l. iv. c. 2, p. 417—425,) on
the faith of a Pisan chronicle, (p. 409, 410,) without a name or
a date. The whole story, though unknown to the xiith century,
embellished by ignorant ages, and suspected by rigid criticism,
is not, however, destitute of much internal probability, (l. i.
c. 4—8, p. 17—50.) The Liber Pandectarum of Pisa was undoubtedly
consulted in the xivth century by the great Bartolus, (p. 406,
407. See l. i. c. 9, p. 50—62.) Note: Savigny (vol. iii. p. 83,
89) examines and rejects the whole story. See likewise Hallam
vol. iii. p. 514.—M.]

90 (return) [ Pisa was taken by the Florentines in the year 1406;
and in 1411 the Pandects were transported to the capital. These
events are authentic and famous.]

91 (return) [ They were new bound in purple, deposited in a rich
casket, and shown to curious travellers by the monks and
magistrates bareheaded, and with lighted tapers, (Brenckman, l.
i. c. 10, 11, 12, p. 62—93.)]

92 (return) [ After the collations of Politian, Bologninus, and
Antoninus Augustinus, and the splendid edition of the Pandects by
Taurellus, (in 1551,) Henry Brenckman, a Dutchman, undertook a
pilgrimage to Florence, where he employed several years in the
study of a single manuscript. His Historia Pandectarum
Florentinorum, (Utrecht, 1722, in 4to.,) though a monument of
industry, is a small portion of his original design.]

It is the first care of a reformer to prevent any future
reformation. To maintain the text of the Pandects, the
Institutes, and the Code, the use of ciphers and abbreviations
was rigorously proscribed; and as Justinian recollected, that the
perpetual edict had been buried under the weight of commentators,
he denounced the punishment of forgery against the rash civilians
who should presume to interpret or pervert the will of their
sovereign. The scholars of Accursius, of Bartolus, of Cujacius,
should blush for their accumulated guilt, unless they dare to
dispute his right of binding the authority of his successors, and
the native freedom of the mind. But the emperor was unable to fix
his own inconstancy; and, while he boasted of renewing the
exchange of Diomede, of transmuting brass into gold, 93
discovered the necessity of purifying his gold from the mixture
of baser alloy. Six years had not elapsed from the publication of
the Code, before he condemned the imperfect attempt, by a new and
more accurate edition of the same work; which he enriched with
two hundred of his own laws, and fifty decisions of the darkest
and most intricate points of jurisprudence. Every year, or,
according to Procopius, each day, of his long reign, was marked
by some legal innovation. Many of his acts were rescinded by
himself; many were rejected by his successors; many have been
obliterated by time; but the number of sixteen Edicts, and one
hundred and sixty-eight Novels, 94 has been admitted into the
authentic body of the civil jurisprudence. In the opinion of a
philosopher superior to the prejudices of his profession, these
incessant, and, for the most part, trifling alterations, can be
only explained by the venal spirit of a prince, who sold without
shame his judgments and his laws. 95 The charge of the secret
historian is indeed explicit and vehement; but the sole instance,
which he produces, may be ascribed to the devotion as well as to
the avarice of Justinian. A wealthy bigot had bequeathed his
inheritance to the church of Emesa; and its value was enhanced by
the dexterity of an artist, who subscribed confessions of debt
and promises of payment with the names of the richest Syrians.
They pleaded the established prescription of thirty or forty
years; but their defence was overruled by a retrospective edict,
which extended the claims of the church to the term of a century;
an edict so pregnant with injustice and disorder, that, after
serving this occasional purpose, it was prudently abolished in
the same reign. 96 If candor will acquit the emperor himself, and
transfer the corruption to his wife and favorites, the suspicion
of so foul a vice must still degrade the majesty of his laws; and
the advocates of Justinian may acknowledge, that such levity,
whatsoever be the motive, is unworthy of a legislator and a man.

93 (return) [ Apud Homerum patrem omnis virtutis, (1st Praefat.
ad Pandect.) A line of Milton or Tasso would surprise us in an
act of parliament. Quae omnia obtinere sancimus in omne aevum. Of
the first Code, he says, (2d Praefat.,) in aeternum valiturum.
Man and forever!]

94 (return) [ Novellae is a classic adjective, but a barbarous
substantive, (Ludewig, p. 245.) Justinian never collected them
himself; the nine collations, the legal standard of modern
tribunals, consist of ninety-eight Novels; but the number was
increased by the diligence of Julian, Haloander, and Contius,
(Ludewig, p. 249, 258 Aleman. Not in Anecdot. p. 98.)]

95 (return) [ Montesquieu, Considerations sur la Grandeur et la
Decadence des Romains, c. 20, tom. iii. p. 501, in 4to. On this
occasion he throws aside the gown and cap of a President a
Mortier.]

96 (return) [ Procopius, Anecdot. c. 28. A similar privilege was
granted to the church of Rome, (Novel. ix.) For the general
repeal of these mischievous indulgences, see Novel. cxi. and
Edict. v.]

Monarchs seldom condescend to become the preceptors of their
subjects; and some praise is due to Justinian, by whose command
an ample system was reduced to a short and elementary treatise.
Among the various institutes of the Roman law, 97 those of Caius
98 were the most popular in the East and West; and their use may
be considered as an evidence of their merit. They were selected
by the Imperial delegates, Tribonian, Theophilus, and Dorotheus;
and the freedom and purity of the Antonines was incrusted with
the coarser materials of a degenerate age. The same volume which
introduced the youth of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus, to the
gradual study of the Code and Pandects, is still precious to the
historian, the philosopher, and the magistrate. The Institutes of
Justinian are divided into four books: they proceed, with no
contemptible method, from, I. Persons, to, II. Things, and from
things, to, III. Actions; and the article IV., of Private Wrongs,
is terminated by the principles of Criminal Law. 9811

97 (return) [ Lactantius, in his Institutes of Christianity, an
elegant and specious work, proposes to imitate the title and
method of the civilians. Quidam prudentes et arbitri aequitatis
Institutiones Civilis Juris compositas ediderunt, (Institut.
Divin. l. i. c. 1.) Such as Ulpian, Paul, Florentinus, Marcian.]

98 (return) [ The emperor Justinian calls him suum, though he
died before the end of the second century. His Institutes are
quoted by Servius, Boethius, Priscian, &c.; and the Epitome by
Arrian is still extant. (See the Prolegomena and notes to the
edition of Schulting, in the Jurisprudentia Ante-Justinianea,
Lugd. Bat. 1717. Heineccius, Hist. J R No. 313. Ludewig, in Vit.
Just. p. 199.)]

9811 (return) [ Gibbon, dividing the Institutes into four parts,
considers the appendix of the criminal law in the last title as a
fourth part.—W.]