Tribonian adored the virtues of his gracious master:
the earth was unworthy of such a prince; and he affected a pious fear,
that Justinian, like Elijah or Romulus, would be snatched into the air
and translated alive to the mansions of celestial glory.
If Caesar had achieved the reformation of the Roman law, his creative
genius, enlightened by reflection and study, would have given to the
world a pure and original system of jurisprudence. Whatever flattery
might suggest, the Emperor of the East was afraid to establish his
private judgment as the standard of equity; in the possession of
legislative power, he borrowed the aid of time and opinion; and his
laborious compilations are guarded by the sages and legislators of past
times. Instead of a statue cast in a simple mould by the hand of an
artist, the works of Justinian represent a tessellated pavement of
antique and costly, but too often of incoherent, fragments. In the first
year of his reign he directed the faithful Tribonian and nine learned
associates to revise the ordinances of his predecessors, as they were
contained, since the time of Adrian, in the Gregorian, Hermogenian, and
Theodosian codes; to purge the errors and contradictions, to retrench
whatever was obsolete or superfluous, and to select the wise and
salutary laws best adapted to the practice of the tribunals and the use
of his subjects.
Pages:
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302