Introductory

The Roman imperial government had always been inefficient in systematising the enormous legal repository which centuries of imperial edicts and juristic opinions had created.

The Theodosian Code (438 AD), the first official codification of the law, was from the outset incomplete, for it ignored that important part of Roman law built upon the commentaries of the classical jurists. Although the Law of Citations (426 AD), concerning the authority of juristic works, remained in force, it did not achieve legal certainty, as these works were great in number, contained a tremendous amount of cases and problems and abounded in disputes and contradictions.^[1266] Moreover, in the years following the enactment of the Theodosian Code, a large number of new imperial laws were issued and many the constitutions contained in the Code became obsolete. Under these conditions legal practitioners and state officials often found it very difficult to discover just what the current state of the law was. What was urgently needed was a comprehensive and authoritative statement of the law, making clear the changes brought about by post-Theodosian legislation and removing the uncertainty surrounding the content and authority of juristic works. Producing such a statement was among the first tasks which Justinian set himself when he became emperor in 527 AD. At the same time, he resolved to centralise and thereby control the teaching and interpretation of the law and to improve the quality of legal education. Accordingly, commissions consisting of jurists and imperial officials were assigned the task of reading thousands of legal works stretching back over hundreds of years of legal development with these goals: (a) the collection and editing with a view to their current applicability of all imperial laws which had been promulgated up to that time; (b) the gathering together and bringing into harmony the opinions of the Roman jurists; and (c) the creation of a standard textbook which would clearly and systematically introduce the first principles of the law to students. The key figure in this undertaking was Tribonian, head of the imperial chanceries {quaestor sacri palatii) and, from 530 AD, minister of justice (magister officiorum) .^[1267] Of great importance was also the contribution of Theophilus, professor (antecessor) at the law-school of Constantinople, and Dorotheus and Anatolius, who taught law at the law-school of Beirut.

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