Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/83

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 63 the discipline and order of troops, and the military- operations by land and sea, are explained in the third of these didactic collections^ which may be ascribed to Constantine or his father Leo.* In the fourth, of the administration of the empire, he [The Ad- reveals the secrets of the Byzantine policy, in friendly or hostile of the intercourse with the nations of the earth. The literary labours "^"^* of the age, the practical systems of law, agriculture, and history, might redound to the benefit of the subject and the honour of the Macedonian princes. The sixty books of the Baiilics,^ the [Augmen code and pandects of civdl jurisprudence, were gradually framed Baauica] in the three first reigns of that prosperous dynasty. The art of agriculture had amused the leisure, and exercised the pens, of [Edition of 1, 1. /-i. 11.1, the GeoponlcH] the best and wisest or the ancients ; and their chosen precepts are comprised in the twenty books of the Geuponics '° of Con- stantine. At his command, the historical examples of vice and virtue were methodized in fifty-three books," and every citizen [Historical Encyclo- paedia] ■* The Tactics of Leo and Constantine are published with the aid of some new Mss. in the great edition of the works of Meursius, by the learned John Lami (torn, vi. p. 531-920. 1211-1417; Florent. 1745), yet the text is still corrupt and mutilated, the version is still obscure and faulty. [The Tactics of Constantine is little more than a copy of the Tactics of Leo, and was compiled by Constantine VIII., not by Constantine VII.] The Imperial library of Vienna would afford some valuable materials to a new editor (Fabric. Bibliot. Grose, torn. vi. p. 369, 370). [See Ap- pendix I.] ^ On the subject of the Basilics, Fabricius (Bibliot. Graec. tom. xii. p. 425-514), and Heineccius (Hist. Juris Romani, p. 396-399), and Giannone (Istoria civile di Napoli, tom. i. p. 450-458), as historical civilians, may be usefully consulted. Forty-one books of this Greek code have been published, with a Latin version, by Charles Annibal Fabrottus (Paris, 1647) in seven volumes in folio ; four other books have since been discovered, and are inserted in Gerard Meermans Novus The- saurus Juris Civ. et Canon, tom. v. Of the whole work, the sLxtj- books, John Leunclavius has printed (Basil, 1575) an eclogue or synopsis. The cxiii novels, or new laws, of Leo, may be found in the Corpus Juris Civilis. [See above, vol. 5, Appendi.x 11.] Leipsic, 1781, 2 vols, in octavo). [Recent edition by H. Beckh, 1895.] I read in the preface that the same emperor restored the long forgotten systems of rhetoric and philosophy ; and his two books of Hippialrica, or Horse-physic, were pub- lished at Paris, 1530, in folio (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 493-500). [All that Constantine did for agriculture was to cause an unknown person to make a very bad copy of the Geoponica of Cassianus Bassus (a compilation of the 6th century). See Krumbacher (Gesch. der byz. Litt. p. 262), who observes that the edition produced at the instance of Constantine was so bad that the old copies must have risen in price.] 'Of these liii books, or titles, only two have been preserved and printed, de Legationibus (by Fulvius Ursinus, Antwerp, 1582, and Daniel Hoeschelius, .ugust. Vindel. 1603) and de Virtutibus et Vitiis (by Henry Valesius, or de Valois, Paris, 1634). [We have also fragments of the titles r-epi yvuniMV (De Sententiis), ed. by A. Mai, Scr. Vet. Nov. Collect, vol. 2 ; and irtpi i-m^ovKav icoto ^aaiKiuiv yeyoi'i/Kiii' (De Insidiis), ed. C. A. Feder (1848-55). The collection was intended to be an En- cyclopaedia of historical literature.]
 * I have used the last and best edition of the Geoponics (by Nicolas Xiclas,