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non-literary education 879
on the new Corpus Iuris. It also describes briefly the arrangements previously
in force. This Constitution, though no doubt clear to contemporaries,
is not entirely free from ambiguity for us. Legal education, it declares,
had previously been available in a number of cities, including Alexandria
and Caesarea in Palestine. These schools were henceforth to be closed, and
the teaching of law confined to Berytus and Constantinople. No mention
is made of Rome, which when the Constitution was promulgated was
under Ostrogothic rule. But Law had been, and no doubt still was, taught
there, and provision was made for the payment of public teachers of law
in the Pragmatic Sanction of 554, after the reconquest of Italy.
Before Justinian’s reforms, law was studied for four years, with an
optional fifth year. The first year was devoted to reading the Institutes of
Gaius and to the law on dowry, tutela, wills and legacies. In their second year,
students studied the prima pars legum together with portions of the partes de
rebus and de iudiciis (these expressions probably refer to portions of the
commentaries of the classical jurists on the Praetorian Edict, particularly
those of Ulpian; but their precise meaning is not clear to us). The subject
matter of the third year was the remainder of the partes de rebus and de iudiciis,
together with selections from the responsa of Papinian. In their fourth
year, students studied the responsa of Paulus on their own and were not
expected to attend lectures. The optional fifth year may have been occupied
by the study of imperial constitutions.
The new programme of study instituted by Justinian lasted five years. In
their first year, students attended lectures on the Institutes and the first part
of the Digest – probably Books 1–4. The second year was devoted to the
study of either Books 5–11 of the Digest (De iudiciis) or Books 12–19 (De
rebus), in both cases plus Books 23, 26, 28 and 30, dealing respectively with
dowry, tutela, wills and legacies. In their third year, students attended lectures
on whichever of the sections of the Digest they had not covered in their
second year, as well as Books 20–2. The fourth year was for private study of
the books of the Digest up to Book 36, which had not been expounded in
the second and third years. The fifth year was for private study of Justinian’s
Code. The detailed arrangements for this programme escape us, but it
seems likely that the same professor taught a group of students through the
whole of their five-year course. Students of each year had long had names,
no doubt originally unofficial. Freshmen had been known as dupondii, the
meaning of which is not clear, but it was probably pejorative. Second- and
third-year students were known as Edictales and Papinianistae, and fourthyear
students were lytai. Justinian, who was fussy about such matters, prescribed
the following names: Iustiniani novi, Edictales, Papinianistae, lytai and
prolytai. He also prohibited all traditional student ragging – with what effect
we do not know. These matters have been set out in some detail, not only
for their intrinsic interest, but also as some indication of the precision with
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