Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 4 (1897).djvu/570

 546 APPENDIX It was only to be expected that considerable resistance should be presented to the Eoman law, which became obligatory for the whole empire after the issue of the Constitutio Antoniiriajm (or Law of Caracalla), among races which had old legal systems of their own, like the Greeks, Egyptians, or Jews. The description which Socrates gives of the survival of old customs at Heliopolis, which were contrary to the law of the empire, indicates that this law was not everywhere and absolutely enforced ; the case of Athenais, put off by her brothers with a small portion of the paternal property, jioints to the survival of the Greek law of inheritance ; and the wU of Gregory Nazianzen, dra^-n up in &reek, proves that the theoretical invalidity of a testament, not dra^vn up in Latin and containing the prescribed formula;, was not ])ractically applied. Theory and practice were inconsistent. It was foimd impossible not to modify the applica- tion of the Roman principles by national and local customs ; and thus there came to be a particular law in Syria (cp. the Syro- Roman law book) and another in Egj-pt. The old legal systems of the East, still surviving though submitted to the influence of the Roman system, presentlv had their effect upon Im- perial legislation, and modified the Roman law itself. The influence of Greek idea* on the legislation of Constantine the Great can be clearly traced. ^ It can be seen, for instance, in his law concerning the bono, mattrni pcneris. by which, on a mother's death, her property belonged to the children, their father having only the administration and usufruct of it, and no right of alienation. The same law is fotmd in the Code of Gortyn it], 31 sqq.). The degeneration of Roman law [adultcrina doctrina), caused by the tenacity of " olksrechte " in the eastern provinces, was a motive of the compilation of Justinian's Digest. iCp. Mitteis. Beilage III., p. 5485175. Ammian calls Constantine novator turbatorque priscarum legum. ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS.