terms of any passage of Gaius' Institutes with the terms of the amending passage in Justinian's Institutes-was still equal to its purpose, and was intelligible throughout the bulk of the populations affected by the law. The intensely centralized administration and the current system of judicial procedure and appeals tended to keep the Latin tongue, if not everywhere a vulgar dialect, at all events a necessary accomplishment for all aspirants to office.

At the same time the Greek language, which, in Constantinople and all the chief ports of Asia Minor, in Greece itself, in Syria, and in Alexandria, was the language of the market-place, the exchange, and, as it would seem, the polite coterie, afforded a secondary vehicle for the diffusion of Justinian's laws. It is sufficient to conclude these remarks by noticing that of the two most authoritative texts of his Novells (that is, his numerous constitutions published after his main compilations were completed), one is in Latin and the other in Greek.

It may be observed, by the way, that the interval of a century between the legislation and victories of Justinian and the legislation and victories of the Caliphs was just sufficient to enable the law as settled by Justinian to take root in the Eastern provinces, afterwards subjugated by the Arabs, and to evolve, through the schools of law and the ubiquitous system of administration, a type on which the Arab legislation was, as will be shown on a later page, manifestly founded. The law was thus prepared to be co-extensive with the reach of Mahommedan, as it already was with that of Christian, influence.

This consideration of the peculiar circumstances of Roman law at the era of Justinian at once demonstrates the impropriety of treating the subject without regard to the period of time concerned. The history of Roman law from the XII. Tables to the legislation of Justinian covers a period of nearly a thousand years. The progress of the law throughout all this time can be traced step by step, although the authorities for the state of the law are much. more numerous and copious at one time than at another.

Thus, there are preserved in the writings of the

Roman historians, and on the older monuments, clear indications of the state and working of the law in the early days of the republic and also at every chief epoch in the development of its history, such as those of the several Secessions of the Plebs, of the Punic wars, of the reforms of the Gracchi, and of the revolutions of Marius, Sulla, Pompey, and Cæsar. The law at the close of the republic is repeatedly alluded to in Cicero's speeches, his essays, and his letters. The writers of the early empire, such as Tacitus, Suetonius, Plutarch, Aulus-Gellius, and others less well known, give abundant testimony to the state of the law at the beginning of the empire and up to the times of the writings of the great jurists of the Antonine period.

From this era the description of the progress of the law is exact and continuous. The writings which survive of Gaius, Ulpian, and Paul, at the end of the second and the beginning of the third century, throw a clear light on the law of their day. The Gregorian and Hermogenian codes mark the progress made a century further on. The Theodosian code, the Vatican fragments, and other invaluable relics carry the history on to the middle of the fifth century. During all this period, beginning with the latter days of the republic, inscriptions, which are now being discovered in such plenty, illustrate or reveal the state of the law to which they refer, especially as it operated in the provinces. The so-called "Barbarian codes," and the legislation and codification of Justinian in the first part of the sixth century, further mark an epoch of the utmost significance in the evolution of the law; but, by the very nature of the extracts embodied in Justinian's Digest and the continuity of the enactments collected in his Code, a full and bright light is thrown back on the state of the law as it was during a long series of preceding epochs.

Thus nothing could be more misleading or false than to speak of "Roman law," as if the term represented an abiding entity knowing no change. The history of Roman law is, indeed, the history-political, social, and moral-of the Roman people; and therefore it is not less inopportune to speak of the Roman constitution or the extent of the

Roman territory as identical in the times of the Gracchi and in those of Marcus Aurelius, than to handle as one system the law as it was in the undivided empire of the days of Gaius and the law as it was three centuries later in the eastern empire of the days of Justinian.

The attempt to record the history of the substance of Roman law apart from the whole history of the government and the people, though often made, is an impossible and almost a frivolous one. What can be made of the repeated agrarian laws, the criminal legislation of Sulla, the Julian laws, the laws in prevention of celibacy, and the rest of the Augustan reforms, apart from all reference to current social facts, wants, and conditions?

The effort to isolate legal facts from all other facts is thus doomed to disappointment, as it is the sure avenue to an untruthful representation of facts. What can be done, and what ought to be done, is to demonstrate the steps of a purely technical sort by which the various kinds of written and unwritten law actually came into being. This narrative of the formation of law can be to some extent isolated from the rest of the history, though even then not without perilous liability to error. The student need not be misled, provided he is aware of the inherent defects of the method of separate treatment and keeps on his guard against them. On the other hand, without some account of the historical evolution of law from the beginning, it is almost impossible to understand the ideas, institutions, and terms, which. belong to its final stages.

In presenting a system of law at a special epoch, when that system is imbedded, like the Roman, in statutes and case-law, the question at once presents itself as to how far the leading principles and rules can, for the sake of brevity and of provisional study, be separated from the detailed application of the law, as given in reported decisions. The choice must be a matter of discretion, and in travelling over so vast a surface of law as that of the "Corpus Juris" it cannot be supposed that any two persons would draw the line in exactly the same way.

The

Corpus Juris" itself is so voluminous and, to the superficial eye, so destitute of systematic arrangement, that a guide may well be welcomed. This task of guidance has too often been evaded, especially in England, by simply republishing the superficial sketch contained in Justinian's Institutes, which, though in its day and now (for different reasons) a precious monument of the law, was, in Justinian's own scheme of legal studies for his universities, treated as wholly insufficient, apart from the study of the Digest, even for students in the first of their five years' course.

The object of the ensuing account of the law is to give an exact and comprehensive exhibition of all the legal rules actually in force in Justinian's time, for the use of those who have no opportunity nor desire to study their minute applications; and at the same time to afford a trustworthy guide to those who propose to study the “Corpus Juris," or parts of it, exhaustively.

The purposes which students may propose to themselves in studying Roman law, (apart from the compulsion or strong encouragement of educational institutions, are so various that it is difficult to anticipate them all. But among these purposes certainly that of comprehending, · through an indispensable medium, the notions, language, and arrangement of all European codes, of international. law, and even of ecclesiastical law in England, is no unworthy one.

There have been two special mechanical difficulties in preparing this treatise. One has been that of translating technical law terms; the other has been that of appending notes of the authorities for statements contained in the text.

A choice had to be made whether to translate a technical Latin law term by the corresponding English law term; to make (where possible) exclusive use of colloquial English terms; to modify the Latin term conformably to analogy, as in such words as mandate, inofficious testament, pacts; or whether not to translate the Latin term at all, but to reproduce it simply in italics. The best course seemed to be to use, where possible, approximate English law

terms, or well recognized technical terms when they are not misleading, and are so far in common use as to be intelligible to the ordinary English reader. Where there is danger of misapprehension, special precautions are taken to guard the interpretation.

As to references generally, it would simply have crowded the pages to repletion to have provided all the references to the "Corpus Juris " on some passage or other of which every sentence in the expository portion of this treatise is based. The preferable course has seemed to be only to add a reference when it is especially desirable for the reader to study the whole passage in the original, or when some statement is made which is so unexpected as to seem to need special justification. The urgent need of an English translation of the Digest to open out to students and legal practitioners belonging to English speaking populations the enormous body of matchless case-law and deductive logic contained in the Digest is still unsatisfied.For access to these fountains of legal knowledge a special training in the Law Latin of a particular period ought not longer to be an indispensable requisite. The like need has long been satisfactorily provided for in France and in Germany.