Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 4 (1897).djvu/494

470 dexterity of an artist, who subscribed confessions of debt and promises of payment with the names of the richest Syrians. They pleaded the established prescription of thirty or forty years; but their defence was overruled by a retrospective edict, which extended the claims of the church to the term of a century: an edict so pregnant with injustice and disorder that, after serving this occasional purpose, it was prudently abolished in the same reign. If candour will acquit the emperor himself and transfer the corruption to his wife and favourites, the suspicion of so foul a vice must still degrade the majesty of his laws; and the advocates of Justinian may acknowledge that such levity, whatsoever be the motive, is unworthy of a legislator and a man.

Monarchs seldom condescend to become the preceptors of their subjects; and some praise is due to Justinian, by whose command an ample system was reduced to a short and elementary treatise. Among the various institutes of the Roman law, those of Caius were the most popular in the East and West; and their use may be considered as an evidence of their merit. They were selected by the Imperial delegates, Tribonian, Theophilus, and Dorotheus: and the freedom and purity of the Antonines was incrusted with the coarser materials of a degenerate age. The same volume which introduced the youth of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus, to the gradual study of the Code and Pandects is still precious to the historian, the philosopher, and the magistrate. The of Justinian are divided into four books; they proceed, with no contemptible method, from I. Persons to II. Things, and from things to III. Actions; and the article IV. of Private Wrongs is terminated by the principles of Criminal Law.

I. The distinction of ranks and persons, is the firmest basis of a mixed and limited government. In France, the remains