Page images
PDF
EPUB

words that merely rest on the conjecture of eminent writers; but I have printed them in small italics, so that there can be no doubt about their origin. Those words which are supplied from the Institutes, or Digest, or other certain authorities, are printed in large italics.

In short, I have employed three kinds of type:

1. The ordinary type, for letters which are found in the MS. 2. Large italics, for letters which are changed for the sake of orthography, or which are only partly traceable on the MS., or which are not in the MS., but are certain from the tenor of the context, or are supported by parallel passages.

3. Small italics, for those which rest on mere conjecture.

I have included in brackets [] what is found in the MS., but, apparently, should be cancelled.

Although I have chiefly followed the third edition of Goeschen, and have always consulted the fourth edition of Boecking, I have sometimes tacitly restored the reading of the MS. where it seemed to be tolerable. I have freely availed myself of the conjectures of others; and, where they seemed valuable, have appended them with asterisks *** and daggers ++; and I have sometimes explained the substance of the text by comments of my own.

I have referred to parallel passages and illustrations of Gaius by the letters abc I have supplied lacunas by extracts from the Epitome of Gaius.

My edition of the Institutes of Justinian closely follows that of Schrader. I had hardly anything to do but to add a few various readings, which are inserted in italics between brackets in the context; and a few parallel passages, chiefly from the Digest, where Gaius was defective. These are generally placed in the margin, to distinguish them from the annotations on Gaius.

Ulpian's Liber singularis regularum has long been regarded as a companion of the Institutes, with which it agrees in substance and arrangement. It contains some portions peculiar to itself, as may be seen by the Synoptic tables (printed at the end of this volume). Almost all the portions of any moment in Gaius are represented in Ulpian. Mommsen says truly, that the works of Gaius and Ulpian only differ as Institutes differ from Rules, that is, as the

rudiments of jurisprudence differ from the principal enactments of law.

The language of Gaius is easy, and adapted to students; that of Ulpian is a model of brevity, perspicuity, and propriety, which our lawyers have never equalled.

Mommsen has convinced me that Ulpian has not been mutilated by accident or carelessness, but designedly by some abbreviator. Almost all the divisions, even the most important, are wanting. Wherever Ulpian confessed the law was obsolete, there we have an hiatus. Some passages have clearly been mutilated where he had used an antiquated expression. However, I edit not the Liber regularum, but the compendium of it, so that I was bound not to cancel the additions of the epitomator, however incongruous. Many rubrics, for instance, are inserted in the wrong place, and badly written, as I shall indicate. In the context there are very few interpolations, though many omissions, as of the whole law of obligations and actions, and many alterations of the form for the

worse.

The Recepte sententia of Julius Paullus, or Paulus, which we find in the Roman Law of the Visigoths or Breviary of Alaric, have been much more corrupted than the book of Ulpian. The composer has jumbled together the titles, and spoilt many of them by omissions, leaving perhaps only a quarter of the original work. We have to piece together fragments found in the Collatio and Consultatio and other sources. My edition does not contain all that is found in the Breviary, or has been collected from other sources, but only those parts which I thought fitted to supplement the Rules of Ulpian. For Paulus contains useful additions, in the shape of rules expressed with singular brevity, not only to the law of Obligations and Actions, which is omitted in Ulpian, but to other branches of the law, as may be seen by the Synoptic tables before referred to. This selection can hardly be called a mutilation, as the work at first only consisted of incoherent sentences under certain titles. On the contrary, I am convinced that Paulus in this shape will be much more useful to students. In the portions which I have edited I have followed the edition of Louis Arndts, inserted in the Corpus juris antejustinianei and published

separately at Bonn in 1833. I have but rarely availed myself of the various readings added by Gustav Haenel. The sentences not found in the Breviary are distinguished by italics.

The fragments of the Twelve Tables are quoted in about forty passages of Gaius. I have printed them before the Institutes, that they may be present to our eyes as the originals were to the eyes of the students who listened to Gaius. The fragments in ordinary type are from Dirksen's edition, whose arrangement I have retained. The fragments, where we only know the sense and not the words, are printed in italics, and generally in the oratio obliqua.

« PreviousContinue »