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

HISTORICAL CHRONOLOGY OF LAW.

...to transfer the composition of the Senate and all peoples to Hadrian, by whose command, evidently, it was collected, and by whose authority it was approved.

§. 22. Toward this collection of the edict, as the greater and more powerful part of Roman jurisprudence to be illustrated, the following Jurisconsults turned all their study and labor, following the example of Servius Sulpicius, a student of Q. Mucius, who had written commentaries on the edicts. Paulus wrote eighty books, Ulpianus wrote 83 books, specifically on this matter; and the final age of jurisprudence yielded only under these and other Jurisconsults. And that occurred under Alexander Severus in the year of Christ 224, who embraced both civil law and Jurisconsults with greater zeal than any of the princes before him. Lampridius in his Severus enumerates the Jurisconsults. "So that you may know," he says, "which men were in his council: Fabius Sabinus, son of the distinguished man Sabinus, the Cato of his time; Domitius Ulpianus, the most learned in law; Aelius Gordianus, father of the Emperor Gordian, himself truly a distinguished man; Julius Paulus, the most learned in law; Claudius Venatus, a most ample Emperor; Pomponius, most skilled in laws; Alphenus, Africanus, Florentinus, Martianus, Calistratus, Hermogenes, Venulejus, Triphoninus, Metianus, Celsus, Proculus, Modestinus; all these are professors of law who were students of the most splendid Papinian; and he names them as advisors to Alexander." But from the ancient membranes of the royal library, which Casaubon diligently examined for this passage, he thinks the others after Pomponius should be expunged. Cujacius observed the same in lib. 7. observ. c. 2. Labittus diligently collected the rest, reread their fragments, and rewove them into their proper place and proper series of authors in his indices of law, which should be consulted on this matter. We believed we would be doing a worthwhile task by exhibiting in the following pages, under the title of the chronology of law, the names of the Jurists and the laws excerpted from their writings, with the place and time in which they lived noted.

§. 23. With the empire declining and rushing toward change, as the Goths were devastating Italy with incursions and continuous wars, and the dominion of the Emperors was gradually cut back and diminished, the Jurisconsults ceased, and the responses, which were like oracles, fell silent. This happened around the times of Gordian in the year of Christ 242, to which Modestinus reached, arg. l. 6. C. ad exhib. argument from law 6, Code, On the exhibition of things, who was nearly the last of the Jurisconsults. From that same time, the disciplines lay almost dead, with barbarism encroaching daily and occupying the seat of the Latin language.

SECT. III. FROM CONSTANTINE THE GREAT UNTIL THEODOSIUS THE YOUNGER.

§. 24. Finally, Flavius Constantine in the year of Christ 329 chose Byzantium, where he might raise up a rival to old Rome, which he named Constantinople after himself, to which the laws and arms of the eastern empire migrated, and to which later Emperors withdrew as the most ferocious nations daily rushed forth and persisted in devastating Italy, because they were remote from them. Where, meditating on peace no less than war and combining the glory of both, as other parts of the law were failing, they collected the constitutions of past princes. But since the constitutions became more frequent henceforth and were issued as such and alone had the force of law, they must be distinguished and distributed into two parts: into those which were issued from the times of Augustus to Constantine, and those from Constantine to Justinian. Of those which were made from the times of Augustus, no older ones are found than those of Hadrian; either because before Hadrian the ancient laws were observed, or if laws were established anew by Senatusconsulta decrees of the Senate, of which many of this age occur in the law, they were established having been preceded by the oration of the prince; later, under the Antonines, as jurisprudence grew daily (as it is said to grow in l. 11. §. ergo. de leg. 3.), various constitutions were issued with various responses of the Jurisconsults, by which the controversies that were moved among the Jurisconsults were decided.

§. 25. Some were issued from Constantine to Justinian partly in Italy and partly in Thrace, almost all of them Latin. The earlier ones were collected by the Jurisconsults Hermogenianus and Gregorianus, in my opinion, not by any authority of the prince, but for the sake of the mind. Certain remains of these Codes survive today, mutilated by the hand of Anianus. Hence their history is very uncertain. Little is known about the collectors. Some believe that Gregory lived under Constantine the Great in the year 336 and was Prefect of the Praetorium. William Grotius, in his Life of the Jurists, refers the age of Hermogenianus to the times of Diocletian. Gothofredus asserts that he lived under the children of Constantine the Great. Whose Emperors' constitutions were contained in these codes is again debated. It is probable that they exhibited constitutions from the age of Hadrian. Cujacius thinks they ceased under Valerian and Gallienus. But the fragments themselves prove that the constitutions of both Diocletian and Maximian were to be sought in them. It is asked whether both Codes proposed the same epoch for themselves. Gothofredus affirms this, stating that the one seemed to have added something to the work of the other, as if they were rivals. The most polished Jurisconsult Antonius Schultingius denies this with the most learned arguments in Jurispr. Antejust. p. 684. Almost everyone asserts that these codes had public authority. Justinian compared them with the Theodosian code and drew from them the laws prior to this.

SECT. IV. FROM THEODOSIUS THE YOUNGER UNTIL JUSTINIAN.

§. 26. The Emperor Theodosius, in the year of Christ 435, on the 15th day before the Kalends of March, collected the constitutions of the Christian Emperors and reduced them into a Code, which was called Theodosian after his name, and he ordered his son Valentinian to command it to be promulgated, Novell. 1. ad Valentinian. The fragments of this Code, which were scattered in many places, did not come to us at one and the same time, but successively in parts through the care and solicitude of learned men. First, the distinguished man Charpinus [brought forth] books 7 and 8 of the Constitutions; Loisellus exhibited the novels of Majorian; Joannes Tilius and Joannes Sichardus brought forth the remaining eight books. Finally, Jac. Cujacius arranged for the edition of the 16 books which we have today, along with the novels of Valentinian and Majorian. However, the excellent Jurist Jacobus Gothofredus surpassed the efforts of all regarding this Code; laboring for thirty years on his immortal work, he was prevented by death and left the care of the edition to Antonius Marvilius, an Antecessor and Primicerius at the University of Valence, who ordered it to go into the public light at Lyon in the year 1665, nearly a decade after the death of the Author. This Code was collected in A.D. 438 by eight noble men, whom Theodosius mentions in his constitution regarding the authority of the Code. It was the intention of the Emperor to save the laws of his predecessors from oblivion, to purge them of errors, and to collect them into one body with as much brevity as possible. He gave the collectors license to change them. They followed the order of the Gregorian Code, which itself seems to have been composed according to the order of the perpetual edict. It is divided into 16 books, which did not escape the hands of Anianus the Referendary in the court of King Alaric. After Theodosius, many constitutions were sanctioned by...