Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 2).djvu/375

 should be used in writing out the original or reproductions. But he was still more alarmed lest his concentrated text should be overwhelmed by commentators, so that after the lapse of a certain period there might be a return to the former state of things, when administrators of the law should again suffer bewilderment amid the overplus of legal literature. Commentaries, therefore, were forbidden, and, should any persons attempt them, they were warned that they would be considered as perverters and falsifiers of the law. Should any doubts arise, reference was to be made to the Emperor, as the sole legislator and interpreter of the law.

When the Pandects were approaching completion, Justinian decided on the issue of a third work, which should form a handbook for the law-student and ground him in the principles of Imperial jurisprudence as set forth in the two ponderous Codes. Under the name of the Institutes this little treatise soon took shape in four books, being for the most part a remodelled edition of a similar work by a certain Gaius, which had been in circulation for several centuries. This compendium was then announced to the student as furnishing him with as much legal information in a small compass as he could have attained to previously after a four years' investigation of the diffuse compositions to which he was obliged to have recourse. "Take these our laws," said the Emperor, "and study them assiduously, encouraged by the bright hope that your proficiency will one day enable you to govern our Republic in some province which may be entrusted to your care." At the same time Justinian mapped