ated by the enemies of
Justinian, that the jurisprudence of ancient Rome was reduced to ashes
by the author of the _Pandects_, from the vain persuasion that it was
now either false or superfluous. Without usurping an office so
invidious, the Emperor might safely commit to ignorance and time the
accomplishment of this destructive wish. Before the invention of
printing and paper, the labor and the materials of writing could be
purchased only by the rich; and it may reasonably be computed that the
price of books was a hundredfold their present value. Copies were slowly
multiplied and cautiously renewed: the hopes of profit tempted the
sacrilegious scribes to erase the characters of antiquity,[26] and
Sophocles or Tacitus were obliged to resign the parchment to missals,
homilies, and the _Golden Legend_. If such was the fate of the most
beautiful compositions of genius, what stability could be expected for
the dull and barren works of an obsolete science? The books of
jurisprudence were interesting to few and entertaining to none: their
value was connected with present use, and they sunk forever as soon as
that use was superseded by the innovations of fashion, superior merit,
or public authority. In the age of peace and learning, between Cicero
and the last of the Antonines, many losses had been already sustained,
and some luminaries of the school or Forum were known only to the
curious by tradition and report. Three hundred and sixty years of
disorder and decay accelerated the progress of oblivion; and it may
fairly be presumed that of the writings which Justinian is accused of
neglecting many were no longer to be found in the libraries of the East.
The copies of Papinian or Ulpian, which the reformer had proscribed,
were deemed unworthy of future notice; the _Twelve Tables_ and praetorian
edicts insensibly vanished, and the monuments of ancient Rome were
neglected or destroyed by the envy and ignorance of the Greeks.

Even the _Pandects_ themselves have escaped with difficulty and danger
from the common shipwreck, and criticism has pronounced that _all_ the
editions and manuscripts of the West are derived from _one_ original. It
was transcribed at Constantinople in the beginning of the seventh
century, was successfully transported by the accidents of war and
commerce to Amalphi, Pisa, and Florence,[27] and is now deposited as a
sacred relic in the ancient palace of the republic.[28]

It is the first care of a reformer to