Body of Civil Law (Corpus Iuris Civilis) Vol. I (Digest)

...persisted in their ways, while others gradually usurped legislative authority under the guise of mild and modest interpretation, or under the title of jurisdiction, and entangled the affairs of private citizens with countless subtleties. Finally, as the Republic fell under the power of the Emperors, private laws were changed in a remarkable manner. The early Emperors inspired fear by establishing harsher penalties for crimes that were usually punished lightly in the free Republic; they narrowed the limits of the powers that Roman citizens exercised over their children and slaves; they circumscribed the jurisdiction of magistrates and weakened the authority of the Jurisconsults. These things happened by degrees, while some semblance of the ancient status was retained in the early periods. Hadrian began to speak more openly, and he was also nearly fatal to the edicts of the Praetors and the ancient law. He had led the way by his example for his successors, who, mindful of the imperial title, poured forth new constitutions daily. The Christian religion brought a significant change to Roman law; it urged not only the abolition of law that was infected with paganism, but also rendered it somewhat milder. Clerics were also present, who labored to build an edifice of ecclesiastical judgment from the ruins of the old jurisdiction. Theodosius the Younger assumed an entirely different face of jurisprudence by compiling his Code, and he was also the first to seriously meditate upon diminishing the solemnities of wills, contracts, and judgments, which comprised half of Roman law. But Roman rights and laws still awaited JUSTINIAN, a Prince most desirous of glory, a second Numa of the Romans, whose efforts undertaken regarding Roman jurisprudence are abundantly evident from the vast volumes which have reached our age, not without the greatest glory for the Justinian name. He enclosed the vague and uncertain jurisprudence of the Romans in three books. The many centuries that preceded the Justinian age had labored toward this work, which reduced countless laws, countless volumes, and countless constitutions into a few books—though this is not the place to discuss the order or the success of that achievement. For some centuries now, these books have exercised men of most perspicacious wit and stupendous erudition, who, however, have not infrequently complained of great difficulties despite the excellent literary apparatus with which they were equipped. All Roman law flowed together into this body, coalescing in such confusion that ancient laws were mixed with new ones, and new ones with ancient ones, with even the most recent jurisprudence looking back toward the older principles of law. It is therefore worth the effort to trace these Roman sanctions back to their own times, so that we may contemplate their origins, authors, and end, and from this consideration acquire the aids for good interpretation. And thus, the present chronology of law will be able to be not useless. It teaches when some significant change occurred in the Republic, when and by what author a law, plebiscite, or decree of the senate was passed, when new law was established, and when the more celebrated jurists lived, whose opinions are either recorded in the Digests or extracted from their writings by collectors of law.

JACOBI

LABITTI

We have used the index of laws, which we have corrected in certain places and supplemented in others. Let us describe the use of Labittus’s own work in his own words:

"The first use of this work," he says, "will be that, from a diligent and accurate comparison of the individual chapters of the same inscription, the comprehension and summary of individual books may be gathered, and their inquiry may be brought into view as if before the eyes; then, from these, the genuine interpretation of many laws may be sought. This will be the second use: that, because of the similarity of inscriptions and questions, which were divided and digested into various titles, most of the chapters of the laws will be correctly and conveniently joined again, and thus a continuous treatment of a question will be perceived. Sometimes, indeed, even if they cannot be conveniently joined, the similarity of the inscriptions will ensure that some are seen to depend almost upon others, and thus they may take their place and interpretation. To these we add this third [use]: that it will sometimes be of no small help to see all the fragments of individual Jurisconsults collected into one place. One who reads these separately will easily understand how each used his own method of treating law, what order and method they maintained in interpreting edicts, laws, and decrees of the Senate, what order they observed in responding about law, what manner of speaking they adopted that was peculiar and familiar to them, how consistently they stood by themselves, and how often they agreed with others in treating the same question, or how often and in what matters they dissented. Indeed, all places where they cite the opinions of others are to be recalled for this purpose, which we note most accurately—lest I say fastidiously—omitting nothing as far as possible. Although the principal—and indeed the fourth—use of our Index will be that what is written by one Jurisconsult in some chapter of a law is found to be reported by another, either in exactly the same words or in different, sometimes clearer and more open words, or by noting the place or only citing the author, so that thus as many places as possible may be compared with one another, and obscure things may be illustrated and depraved things amended. Nor will it be useless or unpleasant to read the words of the same author repeated, or to see the same opinion explained in various ways. Furthermore, all the things we have said will often result in a true and easy reconciliation of laws that seem to conflict with others."

Thus far Labittus. In the same manner, we have exhibited the laws of the Code extracted from the constitutions of the Princes, and we have attributed them to the times of each Emperor by indicating that in the inscriptions and subscriptions of the law, a labor which Freymonius in the Symphonia juris Harmony of Law, Jacques Godefroy in his immortal work on the Theodosian Code, and Hadrian Reland in his most elegant edition of the Fasti Consularium Consular Records have assisted. We have finished with the death of the Emperor Justinian: for here Roman jurisprudence, which in the East was vexed by constant changes by the Emperors up to the fall of the city of Constantinople, came to a halt in the West.