olitianus (l. v. Epist. ult.) reckons
thirty-seven (p. 192--200) civilians quoted in the Pandects--a learned,
and for his times, an extraordinary list. The Greek index to the
Pandects enumerates thirty-nine, and forty are produced by the
indefatigable Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. tom. iii. p. 488--502.)
Antoninus Augustus (de Nominibus Propriis Pandect. apud Ludewig, p.
283) is said to have added fifty-four names; but they must be vague or
second-hand references.]

[Footnote 77: The item of the ancient Mss. may be strictly defined as
sentences or periods of a complete sense, which, on the breadth of the
parchment rolls or volumes, composed as many lines of unequal length.
The number in each book served as a check on the errors of the scribes,
(Ludewig, p. 211--215; and his original author Suicer. Thesaur.
Ecclesiast. tom. i. p 1021-1036).]

Since the emperor declined the fame and envy of original composition, we
can only require, at his hands, method choice, and fidelity, the
humble, though indispensable, virtues of a compiler. Among the various
combinations of ideas, it is difficult to assign any reasonable
preference; but as the order of Justinian is different in his three
works, it is possible that all may be wrong; and it is certain that
two cannot be right. In the selection of ancient laws, he seems to have
viewed his predecessors without jealousy, and with equal regard: the
series could not ascend above the reign of Adrian, and the narrow
distinction of Paganism and Christianity, introduced by the superstition
of Theodosius, had been abolished by the consent of mankind. But the
jurisprudence of the Pandects is circumscribed within a period of
a hundred years, from the perpetual edict to the death of Severus
Alexander: the civilians who lived under the first Caesars are seldom
permitted to speak, and only three names can be attributed to the age of
the republic. The favorite of Justinian (it has been fiercely urged) was
fearful of encountering the light of freedom and the gravity of Roman
sages.

Tribonian condemned to oblivion the genuine and native wisdom of Cato,
the Scaevolas, and Sulpicius; while he invoked spirits more congenial to
his own, the Syrians, Greeks, and Africans, who flocked to the Imperial
court to study Latin as a foreign tongue, and jurisprudence as a
lucrative profession. But the ministers of Justinian, [78] were
instructed to labor, not for the curiosity of antiquarians, but for
the immedi