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Title: The Institutes of Justinian

Author: Caesar Flavius Justinian

Translator: J.B. Moyle

Release Date: June, 2004 [EBook #5983]
Posting Date: April 11, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INSTITUTES OF JUSTINIAN ***

Produced by Howard Sauertieg

THE INSTITUTES OF JUSTINIAN

Translated into English by J. B. Moyle, D.C.L. of Lincoln's Inn,
Barrister-at-Law, Fellow and Late Tutor of New College, Oxford

Fifth Edition (1913)

PROOEMIVM

In the name of Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

The Emperor Caesar Flavius Justinian, conqueror of the Alamanni, the
Goths, the Franks, the Germans, the Antes, the Alani, the Vandals, the
Africans, pious, prosperous, renowned, victorious, and triumphant, ever
august,

To the youth desirous of studying the law:

The imperial majesty should be armed with laws as well as glorified
with arms, that there may be good government in times both of war and
of peace, and the ruler of Rome may not only be victorious over his
enemies, but may show himself as scrupulously regardful of justice as
triumphant over his conquered foes.

With deepest application and forethought, and by the blessing of God, we
have attained both of these objects. The barbarian nations which we have
subjugated know our valour, Africa and other provinces without number
being once more, after so long an interval, reduced beneath the sway of
Rome by victories granted by Heaven, and themselves bearing witness to
our dominion. All peoples too are ruled by laws which we have either
enacted or arranged. Having removed every inconsistency from the sacred
constitutions, hitherto inharmonious and confused, we extended our care
to the immense volumes of the older jurisprudence; and, like sailors
crossing the mid-ocean, by the favour of Heaven have now completed a
work of which we once despaired. When this, with God's blessing, had
been done, we called together that distinguished man Tribonian, master
and exquaestor of our sacred palace, and the illustrious Theophilus and
Dorotheus, professors of law, o