Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/214

Rh 200 GAIUS. "Btitutes of Gaius. The preferable opinion, how- ever, is, that the Res Quotidianae and the Institu- tiones^ though the-^ had much in common, were distinct works. (Savigny's ZeiUchrifU vol. i. p. 54—77 ; Hugo, Civilist. Mag. vol. vi, p. 228 — 264.) Justinian, in his Institutes, made consider- able use of this GoMen Work {Prooem. Inst. § 6). 5. AoS€KaSiTov (sic, sed qu. DuoScKaSeATou vel A«5€/ca5eATou) ^iSAia ^. Extracts, 20. This is the work, the beginning of which has been supposed, on account of the citations in Lydus, to resemble part of the EneMridion of Pomponius, and to have borrowed some of its historical details from Grac- chanus. 6. Instituton (Institutionum), fiiSKia Tca-aapa. Extracts, 14. An account of this famous work is given below. 7. De Verhoi'um Obligationihus, fiiSKia j. Ex- tracts, 12. 8. De Manumissionibtis, Pi§ia rpla. Extracts, 5. 9. Fideicommisson [Fideicommissorum], fii.^la Svo. Extracts, 12. This work was published after the death of Antoninus Pius. (Dig. 35. tit. 1. s. 90, Dig. 32. s. 96, Dig. 36. tit. 1. s. 63. § 5.) A Liber sinyularis de tacltis Fideicommissis, not mentioned in the Index, is cited, Dig. 34. tit. 9. s. 23. 10. De Casibus, ^i€iov '4v. Extracts, 7. We have already explained the purport of this work. 11. Regularion [Regularum], ^i€iov '4u. There is but one extract from this work in the Digest (Dig. 1. tit. 7. s. 21), unless there is some error in the Index or in the inscriptions. Gaius appears to have written a?iotIier treatise in three books on Regulae, or rules of law. (Dig. 50. tit. 17. s. 100 ; Dig. 47. tit. 10. s. 43.) 12. Dolalicion [Dotaliciorum]. Though this work is mentioned in the Index, there is not a single extract from it in the Digest. It is probablj'^ the same with the Liber singularis de Re Uocoria, which was one of' the four libri singulares of Gaius, that were used for instruction in the law schools. (Const. OniTiem, § 1.) Of the other three libri sin- gulares, unless they were extracted from the larger work on the edict, nothing is known. 13. "TnodTiKaplas [Ad formulamhypothecariam], fiiSKiou ev. Extracts, 6. Besides other titles of works, which have been already incidentally mentioned as not inserted in the Florentine Index, we read Gaius, ad Edictum Aedilium CuruHum Libri duo, in the inscriptions of eleven fragments, and Gaius, ad Legem Gliciam, in the inscription of Dig. 5. tit. 2. s. 4. Of the Lex Glicia no mention occurs elsewhere, and conse- quently the genuineness of the inscription has been doubted. (Bynkerschoeck. Obs. iL 12.) Great as are the intrinsic merits of Gaius as a jurist, he yet owes some of his celebrity to the re- cent discovery of his genuine Institutes, in a state 80 nearly perfect, that the resuscitated treatise forms by far the most complete specimen in existence, of an original unmutilated work, which has survived the wreck of classical Roman jurisprudence. It was a common practice in the middle ages to ■wa«h out the relics of antiquity, in order to econo- mise the parchment on which they were written. When washing alone would not expunge the writ- ing — afi often happened in the case of manuscripts written on the once hairy side of the parchment — the characters were further scratched out with a knife. A father of the Church sometimes covered the pages which had before contained the works of GAIUS. some profane dramatist. Not un frequently the parchment was a second time submitted to the same treatment. The father who had supplanted the dramatist was himself washed and rubbed out in order, peradventure, to give place to some scho- lastic doctor. In the library of the Chapter at Verona is a codex formerly numbered xv., but now xiii., con- taining a manuscript of the Jjetters of St. Jerome (Hieronymus), written over an older manuscript. Nearly one fourth part of the codex was bis re- scriptus, and where this was the case, it seems that St. Jerome had also been the second occupant. The manuscript first written on the parchment consisted of 251 pages, and eacli page of 24 lines. One leaf or two pages, 235 and 236, concerning Prescriptions and Interdicts, had been detached from the rest of the manuscript, and escaped being overlaid by St. Jerome. These two detached pages, together with four other pages detached from some other codex, and containing the fragment of an uncertain author De Jure Fisci, had been found in the library of Verona before the year 1732, by the celebrated Scipio Maffei. He describes them in his Verona Illustraia, Parte Terza, c. 7. p. 464 (8vo. Verona, 1732). In his Istoria Teologica (fol. Trento, 1742,) the greater part of both frag- ments was first published, and in plate x. a fac- simile was given of part of the writing of the frag- ment De Interdictis. From the Istoria Teologica, part of this facsimile was copied and republished, not very accurately, in the Nouveau Trait e de Di- plomatique, vol. iii. p. 208. tab. 46 (Paris, 1757). Maffei had observed a correspondence between the fragment De hiterdictis and the 15th title of the 4th book of Justinian's Institutes ; but, instead of recognizing Gaius, whose text was the basis of Justinian's work, he supposed that the leaf he had found was part of an interpretation or compendium of Justinian's Institutes, made by some later jurist. To Maffei, however, belongs the credit of having first given to the world two pages of the manuscript of the genuine Gaius. It had not escaped the notice of Maffei that the manuscript of the letters of St. Jerome was a codex rescriptus. This appears by his unpublished re- marks in the Catalogue of the Library ; but he did not know what the subject of the obliterated writing was, and was not aware of the connection between that manuscript and the detached leaf which had drawn his attention. The fragment concerning Interdicts, published by Maffei, had not been unobserved by Haubold. lie determined to recal it to the memory of Ger- man jurists, and prepared an essay for that pur- pose, which was published at Leipzig in 1816, under the title of Notitia Frugmeiiti Veronensis de Interdictis, and is to be found in his collected Opus- cvla, vol. ii. p. 327 — 346. By chance, while the essay of Haubold was in preparation, but not yet published, in the year 1816, Niebuhr was despatched to Rome by the king of Prussia, as minister to the Apostolic See. On his way, he spent the greater part of two days in examining the cathedral library of Verona, and made wonderfully good use of his limited time. Beside copying the manuscript of the fragment De Jure Fisd, he copied, fully and accurateljs the fragment concerning Interdicts and Prescriptions, and did not hesitate to ascribe the latter fragment to its real author, Gaius. He procv^eded to exsiniiiie