The Emperor Caesar Flavius Justinianus, Conqueror of the Alemanni, Goths, Franks, Germans, Antes, Alani, Vandals, and Africans, pious, fortunate, renowned, victor, triumpher, ever to be revered, Augustus, to the great senate and the people, and all the cities of our world. After peace was concluded with the Persians, after the trophies over the Vandals and the acquisition of all Libya, and after most renowned Carthage was again joined to our empire, God granted us to bring to its desired end the work of renewing the ancient laws, which no prince before our reign believed could be conceived in the mind, or thought possible to human ability.
For it was a marvel that all the Roman legislation, from the founding of old Rome down to the times of our empire, which run to nearly thirteen hundred years, wavered not only within itself in its various parts, but even, above all, in the imperial enactments, between all harmony and discord alike; and that one should not only drive out what was at war with itself, but also expel what was found to be identical or similar, and bestow upon it a varied form of its own beauty, so that for individual matters individual laws seemed to be established. This, beyond doubt, was the work of the higher Divinity and of the benignity flowing thence, not of human reflection, undertaking, or power.
We therefore, in our wonted manner, with hands lifted up to God and having invoked Him to deign to embrace us, undertook the matter and at last accomplished everything, employing for the whole service the most glorious Tribonian, master and former quaestor of our sacred palace and former consul, and likewise certain other illustrious and prudent men, ever examining the things composed by them, and scrutinizing whatever was doubtful, imposing upon all a fitting form according to the knowledge and vigour of understanding given to us by the Lord God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. — § 1. And so we first composed the most pious Constitutions, already comprised in twelve books, into a Code resplendent with the surname of our piety:
but now we have gathered the opinions of all the ancient framers of the law, out of a multitude which reached to nearly two thousand books and three hundred myriads of lines, into a measured and clear compendium. We have now embraced everything in fifty books by heaven's favour, collecting all that was useful, deciding all ambiguities, and leaving nothing seditious. These books we have called the Digest, or Pandects, from the fact that they contain the divisions and decisions of the laws, and likewise from the fact that they have received everything gathered into one, imposing on them this appellation: and we have given them no more than fifteen myriads of lines, and arranged them into seven parts.
and this not at random, nor without reason, but having regard to the nature and harmony of numbers. — § 2. Those matters, then, which among all are called the first principles, we have set apart into four books. — § 3. Next, those which treat of judicial proceedings, into another seven books. — § 4. Likewise those concerning property, into no more than eight books. — § 5. The following part of the work, which is the fourth and the middle of the whole work, we have laid down in another eight books, in which there is indeed the hypothecary action, not far distant from the pledge action; there is also the Aedilician edict, and the stipulation concerning evictions:
which two, being accessory and consequent enactments of sales, although in the old ordering of the law they wandered far afield from these, we have gathered nearer together because of their mutual kinship, lest matters which speak of almost the same subject should stand far apart from one another. After these, following those two books, we introduced what was written about interest, both of land-loans and of sea-loans or maritime loans, and about proofs and presumptions, into one book; and these three, set down as single books, as monobiblia after the treatise on property as matters closely related to one another; and again gathering what the laws have said concerning betrothals, marriages, and the dowry, we granted that these too should have three volumes in this arrangement.
Concerning the guardians of those under age, we have likewise compressed into a compendium the twin books, those, I say, which among all are named concerning guardianships, and here too we have completed the aforesaid ordering of eight books, and made (as has been said) this middle part of the whole work, describing in them the most beautiful and most useful laws. — § 6. Concerning testaments, legacies, and trusts, we have gathered everything into the number of nine books: of which the first place is held by those things which concern testaments and codicils, including those of all men, and also of soldiers, who make them as they wish, arranged in two books and entitled 'On Testaments'; while in the five following are contained those things which concern legacies
and trusts, and all their ambiguity has been disputed: and since the section containing the account of the Falcidian law was consonant with the proper treatise of legacies and trusts, on that account we have set it down immediately following the treatment of legacies, applying a whole book to the matter, with a certain brief addition;
and again, because in imitation of the Falcidian law the Trebellian decree of the senate had been introduced in matters of trusts, we assigned to this too the last place of this arrangement, attributing to the Trebellian decree of the senate the whole law established upon these matters, and finding the position of the Pegasian decree of the senate to be superfluous, and the absurd differences and shared elements between these decrees of the senate, which indeed even the ancients, abhorring them, called captious and harmful, we gathered all this scheme together by a certain simpler narration, and applied it to the ordering of the single Trebellian decree, and thus we completed this fifth part of the whole arrangement in these nine books:
in which nine books nothing has been said by us about the things once called 'caduca' (lapsed inheritances), because, on account of a certain unprosperous usage, when they had grown frequent in the commonwealth and were a mournful monument of the civil wars, it was not fitting that they should remain in these times, in which God has both granted us to act in peace at home and abroad, and, when it was necessary to wage war, easily by His favour to overcome and capture our enemies. — § 7. There follows next and arises for us the sixth part of the whole composition, comprised in eight books.
It begins beautifully from those things which are called possessions, which we likewise, carefully considering as the rest, brought down into a pure compendium out of the great confusion and obscurity of earlier times — both those which pertain to the freeborn and those which pertain to freedmen — judging the number of twin books to suffice for them. To these we have also added all the successions called 'on intestacy,' and the very orders of in-laws, with their degrees also inscribed in the book; and concerning the end of all these we composed the Tertullian and Orfitian decrees of the senate, by which mothers and children become heirs to one another.
After these there proceeds another book, in which the laws and statutes ordain things concerning the works of buildings, and concerning the guaranty given on account of ruinous and collapsed buildings, and those who have committed any treachery or fraud in these, and those who by the force of waters have harmed their neighbours, and the levyers of public taxes, and moreover concerning donations both indefinite (or simple) and those made in contemplation of death. Again, whatever exists concerning any kind of manumission, or concerning the cases which are litigated upon it, this also has been handed over to one book. Further, those things which concern possession, and acquisition through it, and the cases that bring it about, we have set apart into one treatise (or book).
And whatever also exists concerning judicial sentences, and those who have confessed in them anything against themselves, and concerning the surrender of goods, and the detention, and sale, by creditors, and concerning the separation and administration of an estate, and that creditors should suffer no fraud — this too has likewise been brought together into one book. Moreover the matter of interdicts we have given to no more than one book. Thence we have come also to prescriptions (or exceptions) and the times ordained in them. And we have set apart the modes of obligations and of actions, and we have compressed this whole part over which possessions preside (as has been said), described in the number of eight books, setting apart this sixth part of the whole volume. — § 8.
The last part of the whole, which is also the seventh of the whole treatment, has been assigned the number of six books, beginning indeed from stipulations, but proceeding to those things which are written concerning suretyship, and the numbering, payment, and discharge of debts, and the release from them, and the stipulations introduced from the jurisdiction of the praetors, all of which have been compressed by us into two books, whereas among the ancients it could not even be said how many books there were on this matter. It proceeds thereafter to the account of delicts, and reviews everything that pertains to the graver delicts, which they call private; and likewise those that pertain to what they do not yet call ordinary, but impose upon them the appellation of extraordinary:
it descends also to public crimes, which are the most atrocious and call down upon themselves a great penalty. Here too there are two books, which comprehend those things that pertain to delicts and crimes: with which are mingled also those things written about defendants in crimes who nevertheless attempt to hide themselves, and about their goods, and about the penalty or pardon imposed on the condemned. The beginning, moreover, of yet another book for us is the account of appeals, which is assuredly common to the rescinding both of pecuniary (or civil) sentences and of criminal ones.
And whatever has been devised by the ancients concerning citizens (or townsmen), and decurions, and municipal burdens, and public works, and markets, and the promises of revenues, and various inquiries (or interrogations), and the public assessment, and whatever exists concerning the signification of words, and concerning those things which among the ancients were stated as rules — all these the last book takes into itself. Of this composition, then, whose beginning is from stipulations, this book is indeed the sixth if compared to its own beginning; but it is the fiftieth if reckoned in relation to the whole perfection (or harmony) of the completed work. — § 9.
All these things were composed and most excellently elaborated, as was worthy of our command, through Tribonian, that most illustrious and most prudent man, master and former quaestor of our palaces, and former consul, a man well proven both in the actual trials of affairs, and in eloquence, and in the writing of laws, and who never despised any of our commands; and likewise through other men who under him elaborated this work for us, that is, Constantine, the most magnificent count of the sacred largesses, and keeper of the records (or master) of the sacred chancery, and of the sacred petitions and imperial inquiries, who furnished us with a good opinion of himself in all things;
and likewise Theophilus, the most magnificent master, teaching the laws (or jurisprudence) here in the royal city laudably and with the utmost vigils, and as befits the diligence of teaching offices; and Dorotheus, the most magnificent quaestor, and appointed a teacher in the city of the laws — we mean the venerable and splendid metropolis of the Berytians — whom the best opinion and glory concerning himself both led to us, and urged that we should make him a participant in this work; and also Anatolius, the most magnificent master, who himself too beautifully teaches among the Berytians those things which proceed from the laws, a man descended to interpret the law among the Phoenicians from a third praiseworthy stock; for he traces his lineage to Leontius and Eudoxius,
men of the best memory in the laws; after Patricius of renowned recollection, quaestor and former assessor, and Leontius the most glorious, former prefect, former consul, and patrician, his sons (men of the highest admiration); and Cratinus, the most magnificent and most prudent count of the sacred largesses (and he is also the best expounder of the laws in this royal city); and besides these also Stephanus, Mena, Prosdocius, Eutolmius, Timotheus, Leonides, Leontius, Plato, Jacobus, Constantinus, Joannes — most prudent men, who are all rhetors of the most glorious prefects of our sacred praetoria;
and they justly hold glory or praise among all for their prudence, and have deservedly been judged by us worthy to be chosen as participants in so great a contest. These things, then, concerning the writing of the Digest, have been elaborated for us by the aforesaid most glorious men. — § 10.
So great, moreover, was our reverence for antiquity, that we did not even endure that the names of the ancient jurisconsults should be changed, but inscribed the appellation of each one of them upon the laws, changing indeed if anything was now seen not to be right, removing those parts now, adding these now, choosing at last the best out of many, and bestowing on all one and equal force (or strength) of authority, so that whatever is written in that book, that should be our sentence: with no one daring to compare the things now done with those that existed before, because we have transposed many things, not easy to number, into something better, even if anything had been stated in another form by some imperial constitution of the ancient emperors.
For we have indeed preserved the names for the ancients, but have made the truth of the laws our own. Therefore, if there was anything seditious in them (and many such things were stored up there), this has been decided and defined, and every law has been brought to a clear conclusion. — § 11.
But since it was fitting also to make some moderate introduction for the sake of those who are newly approaching the laws and cannot bear a greater learning, neither did we leave this outside our providence, but to the most glorious Tribonian, who was also chosen for the governance of the whole lawful work, and likewise to Theophilus and Dorotheus, the most magnificent and most prudent assessors, having summoned them, we gave commission that they should select out of those things which among the ancients had been composed by way of introductions, those which were most apt and held good in the very arguments of things;
and that they should collect them and offer them to us, and that they should also make mention of our Constitutions, which we promulgated for the correction of the ancient law, and so compose four books that should be the first elements of the whole introduction, which it seemed good to call the Institutes; which part indeed of the lawful work, when composed, they offered to us, and we, having considered and weighed the whole of it and seen that it rightly held good, judged it not unworthy of our sensibilities, and ordered it to be held as our Constitutions and to have the force of our Constitutions: which we have also made manifest to all from those things which we discussed in the prefaces of the same volume. — § 12.
Thus, then, the whole disposition of Roman law having been ordered, and so great a work perfected in three entire volumes and years (a work which from the beginning seemed to us to exceed every hope, but toward the end, when we had shown the matter to be penetrable, did not seem capable of being completed even in ten years), the work therefore having been consummated with so great a celebrity of three years, and this labour having been offered to the Lord God, who granted both to act in peace and to direct wars happily, and to lay down laws for time past, present, and to come — we have thought it just to make manifest to all men our zeal together with our providence in these matters: namely how, freed from the former perturbation and confusion and the never-ending positing of law, they shall hereafter use laws that are right, concise, and ready at hand for all, and that bring a shortening of lawsuits, and prepared and set forth for all men for easy acquisition, no longer needing much money to heap up a multitude of those useless books, but, for the cheapest sum, affording both to the richer and to those of slenderer patrimony the means of procuring them for themselves.
— § 13. But if anything out of that multitude which has now been heaped together, and collected out of so many myriads, shall seem to be similar (or duplicated) — and this we suppose to be granted — nevertheless, to those considering the weakness of human nature, not even this will seem to be outside a just defence; for to err in nothing (or to be irreproachable, or uncorrectable, in all things) belongs assuredly to the divine constancy alone, not to mortal firmness (or strength), even as has been said by our forefathers:
and then there is the case where we have also taken on the placing of similar matters, either because the subjects involved demanded it, so that the same thing had to be applied to several titles, or because that which seemed similar to a foregoing passage was mixed up with an extraneous passage, and it was impossible for that similarity to be drawn out; or also because often the whole continuity of the theory (or vision) had to be kept intact, and the mind and understanding of the readers must not be severed (or torn apart) by the removal of those things which had already been written: nay, even where this was taken on out of the necessity of the matter, nevertheless it is brief, and affords scarcely any sense of itself. — § 14.
This very thing also we have observed both in the Constitutions already reckoned among the imperial Constitutions, and in the law that results from them: for those things which were already provided for in them, we have not allowed to be placed in this volume either, unless on account of some occasional circumstance of similarity some matter has been left in. — § 15. But a law contrary to other laws, out of those which have been placed in this volume, one will not easily find, if only he hastens to direct his mind to all the bounds of contrariety; rather there is something diverse, which, being taken on from another kind of matter, will perhaps make this and that placing of a law appear (contrary). § 16.
But also, if perchance anything of those things which ought to have been placed has been omitted (for perhaps some such thing has happened on account of the weakness of human nature), it is assuredly far better that our subjects be freed from many useless laws, even though they be deprived perhaps of a few certain things which seemed suitable, buried and laid away among nearly infinite myriads, and noticed perhaps by no mortal. — § 17. For this reason judges, deprived of so many books which formerly had to be written, more easily arrived at the end of lawsuits from very few authors and books of law, and decided cases, either on account of the scarcity of books, or because they did not suffice, amid many labours, to find the many useful things needful, and were unequal to it in strength.
In the present completed work, however, the greatest number of prevailing laws has been heaped together out of rare books, and ones which could scarcely be found, and whose very names not even many men most learned in the laws had known. Of these indeed the aforesaid most glorious Tribonian furnished us a most abundant supply (or material), a multitude of many books, and ones which can scarcely be counted, being supplied; all of which having been perfectly read, these volumes have been heaped together; but out of the many and various of these, those who had been gathered by us for this purpose, when they had found nothing suitable, or new, out of those things which had already been collected, with the best disposition rejected the bringing in of these into this work. § 18.
But if afterwards anything new should be disputed, which will not appear inscribed in these laws (for nature knows how to innovate many things), then God has on this account imposed sovereignty upon men, so that it may by law define matters that emerge and stand in need of law, and may fill up the uncertainty of human nature, and conclude it within fixed laws and rules; and this we do not now say of our own, but already the most prudent Julian, of all the framers of the law who once shone forth, seems to have said this very thing, who also implores that the filling-up of the laws be done by imperial authority in emerging ambiguities and questions; and so too the deified
Hadrian of pious memory, when he comprised in a brief booklet those things which had been edicted by the praetors year by year, having taken on for that purpose the excellent Julian, in the oration which he delivered in common at elder Rome, says this very thing too: that if anything should emerge beyond what has already been ordained, it is fitting that those who are in the magistracy under him should endeavour to decide it, and impose a remedy according to the consequence (or imitation) of those things which have already been ordained. — § 19. All you, then, knowing these things (we mean you, men of the great senate and all the men of our commonwealth), confess your thanks indeed to God, who has preserved so great a good for our times;
and use our laws, attending to none of those which are inscribed in the ancient books, nor comparing them with those things which have now been laid down; because, even though some may seem not to accord with one another, nevertheless that former and older one has displeased us as imperfect, while now this has seemed obliged to prevail. For we forbid that those be used hereafter: but we concede and ordain that these alone be observed in the commonwealth and prevail;
so that whoever shall have attempted to use any laws out of the earlier books, and not out of these two alone and the Code of Constitutions composed by us, or to read them in trials, or whoever as judge shall have suffered them to be recited before him out of these, shall be guilty of forgery and judged guilty of public crimes and condemned to the penalty: which, even if we did not say it, would be manifest from this very thing. — § 20. But this too we have judged would be best: to set before the volume of the Digest both the ancient framers of the law, and their volumes, and whence the collection has been made of the laws now heaped together by us: which we have both ordered to be done, and it has been done;
and at the same time we command that those things which have been written about these matters be appended to this our divine Constitution, so that it may be made manifest to all both what belonged to the former inexperience together with uncertainty, and what has been newly devised by us. As legislators, or interpreters of the laws, we have heaped together those who among all were approved and received, and had pleased the earlier emperors, and who deserved to be named by them. For if anyone is not yet known to the ancient legislators, him too we have forbidden the participation in this volume. To all set here, indeed, we have given one order and equal dignity, no greater prerogative being given to any one than to the rest.
For if we have given to all those things which were written by them the force of imperial Constitutions, what reason is there that among these one should be held of greater and another of less account? § 21. But that which we ordered straightway, when we commanded this composition of laws to be gathered together, we now again ordain, confirming it: we likewise forbid all alike, that no man of those who now are, or shall be hereafter, dare to write commentaries on these laws, except if anyone should wish to translate these into the Greek language, whom also we wish to use only the interpretation of the laws according to the letter (or so-called word-for-word), and if they should wish to subscribe anything according to the use of the so-called paratitla (as is fitting); but nothing else at all, nor so much as the least thing, in circumlocution.
nor again to give occasion to the laws for sedition, and doubt, or an infinite multitude, that which was done before in the ordering of the ancient edict, so that that most brief enactment was extended into an infinite multitude through the diversity (or variety) of differing commentaries. For if anything should perhaps seem ambiguous, whether to the contenders in lawsuits, or to those who preside over the judging of matters, this the emperor shall rightly interpret: for this faculty alone has been permitted to him by the laws.
Therefore, whoever shall dare to add any commentary to this our compilation of laws in a manner other than the form of this our command prescribes, let him know that he himself will be liable before the law as guilty of forgery, so that whatever he has composed shall be searched out and in every way destroyed. (§22) The same penalty is imposed also against those who use in their writing certain marks (or signs)—those signs which they call siglas—and who attempt thereby to throw the text into confusion, and who do not write out the numbers, the names of the ancient jurists, and the whole arrangement of the laws in full continuity of letters. Let those also who purchase books written in this way know that they will be owners of a worthless book;
for we do not grant permission to use such books in courts of law or to take any action with them, even if it should happen that the book has no such sign or mark in the very part which is being recited, but only in some other part of itself, even if the offence was committed but once. Therefore the judge himself shall regard that book as utterly null and void. But he who wrote it and gave it to an unwitting buyer shall pay double its appraised value to him who has suffered loss thereby in respect of the sum at issue, and nonetheless a criminal penalty is to be inflicted. For this we have written also in other constitutions issued on this matter, both in those which were promulgated in the Latin tongue and in those in the language of the Greeks, which indeed we addressed to the professors of law. (§23)
These volumes therefore (we mean the Institutes and the Digest) we ordain shall obtain their binding force from the close of our third most happy consulship, that is, from the day before the third of the Kalends of January of the present twelfth indiction, to be valid for all time and to have force and standing together with the imperial constitutions, both in those matters which shall arise hereafter and in those which are still pending in the courts and have not yet been settled by amicable arrangements; for whatever up to now has been adjudicated or settled by compromise, we do not permit to be reopened.
This third consulship, most renowned for us, God gave us, when under it both peace with the Persians was confirmed, and so great a volume of laws was laid up as was never devised even by our forefathers, and besides this a third part of the world (we mean all Libya) was joined to our sceptre—all these gifts granted by the most high God and our Saviour Jesus Christ in our third consulship. (§24) Let all therefore the most praiseworthy Magistrates of our commonwealth, receiving this our divine constitution, each provide in his own court that they use our aforesaid laws. And the most glorious prefect shall display it in this greatest and royal city.
And it shall be the care of our most excellent and most praiseworthy Master, and of the most glorious and most blessed prefects of our sacred praetoria—both of those in the regions toward the rising sun, and of those in Illyricum, and likewise also of those in Libya—through their own edicts to make these things plain to those who are ordered under them, for the inexcusable knowledge of all our subjects. Given on the seventeenth of the Kalends of January, our lord Justinian, perpetual Augustus, being consul for the third time, in the year 533.