Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 1).djvu/245

 was habitually spoken of as the "mother" and "nurse of the laws." Four jurists of eminence, double the number allotted to any other school, under the title of Antecessors, lectured in the auditorium; and a progressive course of study was arranged to extend over five years. In each successive year the candidate assumed a distinctive designation which marked his seniority or denoted the branch of law on which he was engaged. Before the sixth century the legal archives of the Empire had been swollen to such proportions that it had become an almost impossible task to thread the maze of their innumerable enactments. During the lapse of a thousand years the constitutions of the emperors had been engrafted on the legislation of the Republic, and the complexity of the resultant growth was capable of bewildering the most acute of legal minds. On three occasions, beginning from the time of Constantine, attempts had been made to separate and classify the effective laws; and the Code of Theodosius II, published in 438, the only official one, was at; Totius Orb. Descript.; Gotlefroy ad Cod. Theod., XI, i, 19, etc.](when reading Paulus); fifthly, the last year, Prolytae (mainly given up to reviewing previous studies); Pand. praef., 2. The last two terms are not explained; the idea is evidently that of being loosed or dismissed from the courses. Cf. Macarius Aegypt. Hom. xv, 42 (in Migne, S. G., xxxiv, 604), who presents a different scheme, perhaps, from the Alexandrian law-school.]