Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

250 9. roman law
‘interpolations’ and supplemented with emblemata. Nevertheless it is clear
that much obsolete material survived. Even reduced to a bare twentieth of
the extant corpus, the volume was enormous. That sufficiently shows that
the commissioners found it impossible to submit to the discipline of selecting
only what was essential and that, quite to the contrary, they allowed
themselves to be carried along by their fascination with the classical legal
literature.
The work was not confined to the books of the five jurists approved by
the Law of Citations (see p. 242 above, n. 19) but took into consideration
all that were still obtainable, even the critical commentaries on Papinian
which Constantine had outlawed. Moreover, conflicts were to be resolved
by following the line which seemed most reasonable; there was no question
of counting heads or following an artificial structure of authority in the
manner of the Law of Citations. That law itself, though included in the first
edition of 529, was omitted from the 534 Codex. Only authors who had
achieved no recognition at all were excluded. The instruction to eliminate
all contradictions did not prevent the survival of much evidence for divergent
opinions and unresolved discussions of difficult points.
The driving force was Tribonian. In the commission to compile the
Codex he had been sixth in seniority, and it was now he who put together
the team which Justinian commissioned to undertake the work on the
Digest. He included the four leading professors of law. It is also clear that it
was Tribonian’s thinking that underlay the idea and scope of the project as
authorized by Justinian’s constitution of 15 December 530, when in fact the
work had already begun. 44 On 16 December 533 the emperor was able to
publish the complete work. 45 The purpose which it served was not so much
the work of the courts and legal practice but rather the very demanding
programme of legal education. A fine manuscript from the sixth century
survives in Florence. 46
From 529 the emperor had started on the business of resolving by legislation
the outstanding controversies in the standard legal literatures.
These decisions were collected under the title Quinquaginta decisiones and
published at the earliest in late 531, more probably in 532. This collection
has not survived. Further interventions were necessitated as the work progressed,
and more reforming constitutions were therefore enacted. A wideranging
law of this kind was issued on 17 November 533. 47 Apart from this,
the commissioners were left in peace from the time of the Nika riot in
January 532, which cost Tribonian all his offices except his chairmanship of
44 Digest Const. Deo auctore�CJ i.17.1; on Tribonian and his work, see Honoré (1978).
45 Digest Const. Tanta (�CJ i.17.2) or, in its Greek form, ∆έδωκεν.
46 Mommsen, Praefatio (pp. v,lxxviii) to Digest (ed. maior); Krüger (1912) 428–33; Spagnesi (1986);
Mantovani (1987) with Kaiser (1991).
47 CJ i.3.53; v.17.11; vii.24.1; ix.13.1; xi.48.24, all from the same law.
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