These directions were carried out with a speed which is surprising when we remember not only that the work was interrupted by the terrible insurrection which broke out in Constantinople in January 532, and which led to the temporary retirement from office of Tribonian, but also that the mass of literature which had to be read through consisted of no less than two thousand treatises, comprising three millions of sentences. The commissioners, who had for greater despatch divided themselves into several committees, presented their selection of extracts to the emperor in 533, and he published it as an imperial statute on December 16th of that year, with two prefatory constitutions (those known as Omnem reipublicae and Dedit nobis). It is the Latin volume which we now call the Digest (Digesta) or Pandects (Πάνδεκται) and which is by far the most precious monument of the legal genius of the Romans, and indeed, whether one regards the intrinsic merits of its substance or the prodigious influence it has exerted and still exerts, the most remarkable law-book that the world has seen. The extracts comprised in it are 9123 in number, taken from thirty-nine authors, and are of greatly varying length, mostly only a few lines long. About one-third (in quantity) come from Ulpian, a very copious writer; Paulus stands next. To each extract there is prefixed the name of the author, and of the treatise whence it is taken.[5] The worst thing about the Digest is its highly unscientific arrangement. The order of the Perpetual Edict, which appears to have been taken as a sort of model for the general scheme of books and titles, was doubtless convenient to the Roman lawyers from their familiarity with it, but was in itself rather accidental and historical than logical. The disposition of the extracts inside each title was still less rational; it has been shown by a modern jurist to have been the result of the way in which the committees of the commissioners worked through the books they had to peruse.[6] In enacting the Digest as a law book, Justinian repealed all the other law contained in the treatises of the jurists (that jus vetus which has been already mentioned), and directed that those treatises should never be cited in future even by way of illustration; and he of course at the same time abrogated all the older statutes, from the Twelve Tables downwards, which had formed a part of the jus vetus. This was a necessary incident of his scheme of reform. But he went too far, and indeed attempted what was impossible, when he forbade all commentaries upon the Digest. He was obliged to allow a Greek translation to be made of it, but directed this translation to be exactly literal.
These two great enterprises had substantially despatched Justinian’s work; however, he, or rather Tribonian, who seems to have acted both as his adviser and as his chief executive officer in all legal affairs, conceived that a third book was needed, viz. an elementary manual for beginners which should present an outline of the law in a clear and simple form. The little work of Gaius, most of which we now possess under the title of Commentarii institutionum, had served this purpose for nearly four centuries; but much of it had, owing to changes in the law, become inapplicable, so that a new manual seemed to be required. Justinian accordingly directed Tribonian, with two coadjutors, Theophilus, professor of law in the university of Constantinople, and Dorotheus, professor in the great law school at Beyrout, to prepare an elementary textbook on the lines of Gaius. This they did while the Digest was in progress, and produced the useful little treatise which has ever since been the book with which students commonly begin their studies of Roman law, the Institutes of Justinian. It was published as a statute with full legal validity shortly before the Digest. Such merits as it possesses—simplicity of arrangement, clearness and conciseness of expression—belong less to Tribonian than to Gaius, who was closely followed wherever the alterations in the law had not made him obsolete. However, the spirit of that great legal classic seems to have in a measure dwelt with and inspired the inferior men who were recasting his work; the Institutes is better both in Latinity and in substance than we should have expected from the condition of Latin letters at that epoch, better than the other laws which emanate from Justinian.
In the four years and a half which elapsed between the publication of the Codex and that of the Digest, many important changes had been made in the law, notably by the publication of the “Fifty Decisions,” which settled many questions that had exercised the legal mind and given occasion to intricate statutory provisions. It was therefore natural that the idea should present itself of revising the Codex, so as to introduce these changes into it, for by so doing, not only would it be simplified, but the one volume would again be made to contain the whole statute law, whereas now it was necessary to read along with it the ordinances issued since its publication. Accordingly another commission was appointed, consisting of Tribonian with four other coadjutors, full power being given them not only to incorporate the new constitutions with the Codex and make in it the requisite changes, but also to revise the Codex generally, cutting down or filling in wherever they thought it necessary to do so. This work was completed in a few months; and in November 534 the revised Codex (Codex repetitae praelectionis) was promulgated with the force of law, prefaced by a constitution (Cordi nobis) which sets forth its history, and declares it to be alone authoritative, the former Codex being abrogated. It is this revised Codex which has come down to the modern world, all copies of the earlier edition having disappeared.
The constitutions contained in it number 4652, the earliest dating from Hadrian, the latest being of course Justinian’s own. A few thus belong to the period to which the greater part of the Digest belongs, i.e. the so-called classical period of Roman law down to the time of Alexander Severus (244); but the great majority are later, and belong to one or other of the four great eras of imperial legislation, the eras of Diocletian, of Constantine, of Theodosius II., and of Justinian himself. Although this Codex is said to have the same general order as that of the Digest, viz. the order of the Perpetual Edict, there are considerable differences of arrangement between the two. It is divided into twelve books. Its contents, although of course of the utmost practical importance to the lawyers of that time, and of much value still, historical as well as legal, are far less interesting and scientifically admirable than the extracts preserved in the Digest. The difference is even greater than that between the English reports of cases decided since the days of Lord Holt and the English acts of parliament for the same two centuries.
The emperor’s scheme was now complete. All the Roman law had been gathered into two volumes of not excessive size, and a satisfactory manual for beginners added. But Justinian and Tribonian had grown so fond of legislating that they found it hard to leave off. Moreover, the very simplifications that had been so far effected brought into view with more clearness such anomalies or pieces of injustice as still continued to deform the law. Thus no sooner had the work been rounded off than fresh excrescences began to be created by the publication of new laws. Between 534 and 565 Justinian issued a great number of ordinances, dealing with all sorts of subjects and seriously altering the law on many points—the majority appearing before the death of Tribonian, which happened in 545. These ordinances are called, by way of distinction, new constitutions, Novellae constitutiones post codicem (νεαραὶ διατάξεις), Novels. Although the emperor had stated in publishing the Codex that all further statutes (if any) would be officially collected, this promise does not seem to have been redeemed. The three collections of the Novels which we possess are apparently private collections, nor do we even know how many such constitutions were promulgated. One of the three contains 168 (together with 13 Edicts), but some of these are by the emperors Justin II. and Tiberius II. Another, the so-called Epitome of Julian, contains 125 Novels in Latin; and the third, the Liber authenticarum or vulgata versio, has 134, also in Latin. This last was the collection first known and chiefly used in the West during the middle ages; and of its 134 only 97 have been written on by the glossatores or medieval commentators; these therefore alone have been received as binding in those countries which recognize and obey the Roman law,—according to the maxim Quicquid non agnoscit glossa, nec agnoscit curia. And, whereas Justinian’s constitutions contained in the Codex were all issued in Latin, the rest of the book being in that tongue, these Novels were nearly all published in Greek, Latin translations being of course made for the use of the western provinces. They are very bulky, and with the exception of a few, particularly the 116th and 118th, which introduce the most sweeping and laudable reforms into the law of intestate succession, are much more interesting, as supplying materials for the history of the time, social, economical and ecclesiastical, than in respect of any purely legal merits. They may be found printed in any edition of the Corpus juris civilis.
This Corpus juris, which bears and immortalizes Justinian’s name, consists of the four books described above: (1) The authorized collection of imperial ordinances (Codex constitutionum); (2) the authorized collection of extracts from the great jurists (Digesta or Pandectae); (3) the elementary handbook (Institutiones); (4) the unauthorized collection of constitutions subsequent to the Codex (Novellae).
From what has been already stated, the reader will perceive that Justinian did not, according to a strict use of terms, codify the Roman law. By a codification we understand the reduction of the whole pre-existing body of law to a new form, the re-stating it in a series of propositions, scientifically ordered, which may or may not contain some new substance, but are at any rate new in form. If he had, so to speak, thrown into one furnace all the law contained in the treatises of the jurists and in the imperial ordinances, fused them down, the gold of the one and the silver of the other, and run them out into new moulds, this would have been codification. What he did do was something quite different. It was not codification but consolidation, not remoulding but abridging. He made extracts from the existing law, preserving the old words, and merely cutting out repetitions, removing contradictions, retrenching superfluities, so as immensely to reduce the bulk of the whole. And he made not one set of such extracts but two, one for the jurist law, the other for the statute law. He gave to posterity not one code but two digests or collections of extracts, which are new only to this extent that they are arranged in a new order, having been previously altogether unconnected with one another, and that here and there their words have been modified in order to bring one extract into harmony with some other. Except for this, the matter is old in expression as well as in substance.
Thus regarded, even without remarking that the Novels, never having been officially collected, much less incorporated with the Codex, mar the symmetry of the structure, Justinian’s work may appear to entitle him and Tribonian to much less credit than they have usually received for it. But let it be observed, first, that to reduce the huge and confused mass of pre-existing law into the compass of these two collections was an immense practical benefit to the empire; secondly, that, whereas the work which he undertook was accomplished in seven years, the infinitely more difficult task of codification might probably have been left unfinished at Tribonian’s death, or even at Justinian’s own, and been abandoned by his successor; thirdly, that in the extracts preserved in the Digest we have the opinions of the greatest legal luminaries given in their own admirably lucid, philosophical and concise language, while in the extracts of which the Codex is composed we find valuable historical evidence bearing on the administration and social condition of the later Pagan and earlier Christian empire; fourthly, that Justinian’s age, that is to say, the intellect of the men whose services he commanded, was quite unequal to so vast an undertaking as the fusing upon scientific principles into one new organic whole of the entire law of the empire. With sufficient time and labour the work might no doubt have been done; but what we possess of Justinian’s own legislation, and still more what we know of the general condition of literary and legal capacity in his time, makes it certain that it would not have been well done, and that the result would have been not more valuable to the Romans of that age, and much less valuable to the modern world, than are the results, preserved in the Digest and the Codex, of what he and Tribonian actually did.
To the merits of the work as actually performed some reference has already been made. The chief defect of the Digest is in point of scientific arrangement, a matter about which the Roman lawyers, perhaps one may say the ancients generally, cared very little. There are some repetitions and some inconsistencies, but not more than may fairly be allowed for in a compilation of such magnitude executed so rapidly. Tribonian has been blamed for the insertions the compilers made in the sentences of the old jurists (the so-called Emblemata Triboniani); but it was a part of Justinian’s plan that such insertions should be made, so as to adapt those sentences to the law as settled in the emperor’s time. On Justinian’s own laws, contained in the Codex and in his Novels, a somewhat less favourable judgment must be pronounced. They, and especially the latter, are diffuse and often lax in expression, needlessly prolix, and pompously rhetorical. The policy of many, particularly of those which deal with ecclesiastical matters, may also be condemned; yet some gratitude is due to the legislator who put the law of intestate succession on that plain and rational footing whereon it has ever since continued to stand. It is somewhat remarkable that, although Justinian is so much more familiar to us by his legislation than by anything else, this sphere of his imperial labour is hardly referred to by any of the contemporary historians, and then only with censure. Procopius complains that he and Tribonian were always repealing old laws and enacting new ones, and accuses them of venal motives for doing so.
The Corpus Juris of Justinian continued to be, with naturally a few additions in the ordinances of succeeding emperors, the chief law-book of the Roman world till the time of the Macedonian dynasty when, towards the end of the 9th century, a new system was prepared and issued by those sovereigns, which we know as the Basilica. It is of course written in Greek, and consists of parts of the substance of the Codex and the Digest, thrown together and often altered in expression, together with some matter from the Novels and imperial ordinances posterior to Justinian. In the western provinces, which had been wholly severed from the empire before the publication of the Basilica, the law as settled by Justinian held its ground; but copies of the Corpus Juris were extremely rare, nor did the study of it revive until the end of the 11th century.