ossess (since 1824) some interesting information as to
the framing of the Theodosian Code, and its ratification at Rome, in the
year 438. M. Closius, now professor at Dorpat in Russia, and M. Peyron,
member of the Academy of Turin, have discovered, the one at Milan, the
other at Turin, a great part of the five first books of the Code which
were wanting, and besides this, the reports (gesta) of the sitting of
the senate at Rome, in which the Code was published, in the year
after the marriage of Valentinian III. Among these pieces are the
constitutions which nominate commissioners for the formation of the
Code; and though there are many points of considerable obscurity
in these documents, they communicate many facts relative to this
legislation. 1. That Theodosius designed a great reform in the
legislation; to add to the Gregorian and Hermogenian codes all the new
constitutions from Constantine to his own day; and to frame a second
code for common use with extracts from the three codes, and from the
works of the civil lawyers. All laws either abrogated or fallen into
disuse were to be noted under their proper heads. 2. An Ordinance was
issued in 429 to form a commission for this purpose of nine persons,
of which Antiochus, as quaestor and praefectus, was president. A
second commission of sixteen members was issued in 435 under the
same president. 3. A code, which we possess under the name of Codex
Theodosianus, was finished in 438, published in the East, in an
ordinance addressed to the Praetorian praefect, Florentinus, and
intended to be published in the West. 4. Before it was published in the
West, Valentinian submitted it to the senate. There is a report of
the proceedings of the senate, which closed with loud acclamations and
gratulations.--From Warnkonig, Histoire du Droit Romain, p. 169-Wenck
has published this work, Codicis Theodosiani libri priores. Leipzig,
1825.--M.] * Note *: Closius of Tubingen communicated to M.Warnkonig
the two following constitutions of the emperor Constantine, which he
discovered in the Ambrosian library at Milan:-- 1. Imper. Constantinus
Aug. ad Maximium Praef. Praetorio. Perpetuas prudentum contentiones
eruere cupientes, Ulpiani ac Pauli, in Papinianum notas, qui dum ingenii
laudem sectantur, non tam corrigere eum quam depravere maluerunt,
aboleri praecepimus. Dat. III. Kalend. Octob. Const. Cons. et Crispi,
(321.) Idem. Aug. ad Maximium Praef Praet. Universa, quae scriptura
Pauli contine