This page needs to be proofread.
OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
469
mation. To maintain the text of the Pandects, the Institutes, and the Code, the use of cyphers 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,[1] he 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 Second edition of the Code. A.D. 534, Nov. 16 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 Many of his acts were rescinded by himself, many were rejected by his successors, many have been obliterated by time; but the number of sixteen edicts, and one hundred and sixty-eight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,[2] has been admitted into the authentic body of the civil jurisprudence. The Novels, A.D. 534-565 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.[3] 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
- ↑ Χρύσεα χαλκείων, ὲκατόμβοι’ ἑννεαβοἰν, apud Homerum patrem omnis virtutis (1st Præfat. ad Pandect.). A line of Milton or Tasso would surprise us in an act of Parliament. Quæ omnia obtinere sancimus in omne ævum. Of the first Code, he says (2d Præfat.), in æternum valiturum. Man and for ever!
- ↑ Novellæ 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 Contins (Ludewig, p. 249, 258; Aleman. Not. in Anecdot. p. 98).
- ↑ Montesquieu, Considérations sur la Grandeur et la Décadence 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.
