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Chap, xliv] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 479 was salutary, the means were frequently absurd. The secret or probable wish of the dead was suffered to prevail over the order of succession and the forms of testaments ; and the claimant, who was excluded from the character of heir, accepted with equal pleasure from an indulgent praetor the possession of the goods of his late kinsman or benefactor. In the redress of private wrongs, compensations and fines were substituted to the obsolete rigour of the Twelve Tables ; time and space were an- nihilated by fanciful suppositions; and the plea of youth, or fraud, or violence, annulled the obligation, or excused the per- formance, of an inconvenient contract. A jurisdiction thus vague and arbitrary was exposed to the most dangerous abuse : the substance, as well as the form of justice, were often sacrificed to the prejudices of virtue, the bias of laudable affection, and the grosser seductions of interest or resentment. But the errors or vices of each praetor expired with his annual office; such maxims alone as had been approved by reason and practice were copied by succeeding judges ; the rule of proceeding was defined by the solution of new cases ; and the temptations of injustice were removed by the Cornelian law, which compelled the praetor of the year to adhere to the letter and spirit of his first proclama- tion. 84 It was reserved for the curiosity and learning of Hadrian to accomplish the design which had been conceived by the genius of Caesar; and the praetorship of Salvius Julian, an eminent The Per- • • -1 -1 •• ci petual lawyer, was immortalized by the composition of the perpetual Edict edict. This well-digested code was ratified by the emperor and the senate; the long divorce of law and equity was at length reconciled ; and, instead of the Twelve Tables, the Per- petual Edict was fixed as the invariable standard of civil juris- prudence. 35 3 * Dion Cassius (torn. i. 1. xxxvi. p. 100 [c. 23]) fixes the perpetual edicts in the year of Rome 686 [67 b.c. date of the Cornelian law]. Their institution, however, is ascribed to the year 585 in the Acta Diurna, which have been published from the papers of Ludovicus Vives. Their authenticity is supported or allowed by Pighius (Annal. Roman, torn. ii. p. 377 378). Grgevius (ad Sueton. p. 778), Dodwell (Preelection. Cambden, p. 665), and Heineccius ; but a single word, scutum Cimbricum, detects the forgery (Moyle's Works, vol. i. p. 303). a3 The history of edicts is composed, and the text of the perpetual edict is restored, by the master hand of Heineccius (Opp. torn. vii. P. ii. p. 1-564) ; in whose researches I might safely acquiesce. In the Academy of Inscriptions, M. Bouchaud has given a series of memoirs to this interesting subject of law and literature. [0. Lenel, Das Edictum Perpetuum : ein Versuch zu dessen Wieder- herstellung, 1883.]