The Dark Ages. David Hume

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ 443).75 She was not deprived of Imperial honours and an ample revenue was placed at her disposal. In Jerusalem she kept such state and was so energetic in public works that the jealousy of Theodosius was aroused and he sent Saturninus, the commander of his guards, to inquire into her activities. Saturninus slew the priest Severus and the deacon John who were confidants of the Empress.76 She avenged this act by permitting the death of Saturninus; the words of one of our authorities might lead us to suppose that she caused him to be assassinated,77 but it has been suggested that officious servants or an indignant mob may have too hastily anticipated her supposed wishes. Then by the Emperor’s command she was compelled to reduce her retinue.

      The last sixteen years78 of the life of this amiable lady were spent at Jerusalem where she devoted herself to charitable work, built churches, monasteries and hospices, and restored the walls of the city.79 She was drawn into the theological storm which swept over the East in the last years of Theodosius, an episode which will claim our notice in another place. It is said that before her death she repeated her denial of the slander that she had been unfaithful to her husband.80

      § 5. The University of Constantinople and the Theodosian Code

      The three most important acts of the reign of Theodosius II were the fortification of the city by land and sea, which has already been described, the foundation of a university, and the compilation of the legal code called after his name. It would be interesting to know whether the establishment of a school for higher education in the capital was due to the influence of the young Empress, who had been brought up in the schools of Athens. The new university (founded February 27, A.D. 425) was intended to compete with the schools of Alexandria and the university of Athens, the headquarters of paganism — with which, however, the government preferred not to interfere directly — and thereby to promote the cause of Christianity. Lecture-rooms were provided in the Capitol. The Latin language was represented by ten grammarians or philologists and three rhetors, the Greek likewise by ten grammarians, but by five rhetors; one chair of philosophy was endowed and two chairs of jurisprudence. Thus the Greek language had two more chairs than the Latin, and this fact may be cited as marking a stage in the official Graecisation of the eastern half of the Roman Empire.81

      In the year 429 Theodosius determined to form a collection of all the constitutions issued by the “renowned Constantine, the divine Emperors who succeeded him, and ourselves.” The new code was to be drawn up on the mode of the Gregorian and Hermogenian codes,82 and the execution of the work was entrusted to a commission of nine persons, among whom was Apelles, professor of law at the new university. Nine years later the work was completed and published, but during the intervening years the members of the commission had changed; of the eight who are mentioned in the edict which accompanied the final publication only two, Antiochus and Theodorus, were among the original workers, and a constitution of A.D. 435, which conferred full powers on the committee for the completion of the work, mentions sixteen compilers.83

      The code was issued conjointly by Theodosius and Valentinian, and thus expressed the unity of the Empire (February 15, A.D. 438). The visit of the younger Emperor to Constantine on the occasion of his marriage with his cousin Eudoxia facilitated this co-operation. On December 23 of the same year, at a meeting of the Senate of Old Rome, the code which had been drawn up by the lawyers of New Rome was publicly recognised, and an official account of the proceedings on that occasion — gesta in senatu Urbis Romae de recipiendo Codice Theodosiano — may still be read. The Praetorian Prefect and consul of the year, Anicius Acilius Glabrio Faustus, spoke as follows:

      The felicity of the eternal Emperors proceeds so far as to adorn with the ornaments of peace those whom it defends by warfare. Last year when we loyally attended the celebration of the most fortunate of all ceremonies, and when the marriage had been happily concluded, the most sacred Prince, our Lord Theodosius, was fain to add this dignity also to his world, and ordered the precepts of the laws to be collected and drawn up in a compendious form of sixteen books, which he wished to be consecrated by his most sacred name. Which thing the eternal Prince, our Lord Valentinian, approved with the loyalty of a colleague and the affection of a son. And all the senators cried out in the usual form, “Well spoken!” (nove diserte, vere diserte). But instead of following the course of the gesta in the Roman senate-house, it will be more instructive to read the Imperial constitution which introduced the great code to the Roman world.

      The Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian, Augusti, to Florentius, Praetorian Prefect of the East. Our clemency has often been at a loss to understand the cause of the fact that, when so many rewards are held out for the maintenance of arts and (liberal) studies, so few are found who are endowed with a full knowledge of the Civil Law, and even they so seldom; we are astonished that amid so many whose faces have grown pale from late lucubrations hardly one or two have attained to sound and complete learning. When we consider the enormous multitude of books, the diverse modes of process and the difficulty of legal cases, and further the huge mass of imperial constitutions, which hidden as it were under a rampart of gross mist and darkness precludes men’s intellects from gaining a knowledge of them, we feel that we have met a real need of our age, and dispelling the darkness have given light to the laws by a short compilation. We selected noble men of approved faith, lawyers of well-known learning; and clearing away interpretations, we have published the constitutions of our predecessors, so that men may no longer have to await formidable responses from expert lawyers as from an inner shrine, when it is really quite plain what action is to be adopted in suing for an inheritance, or what is to be the weight of a donation. These details, unveiled by the assiduity of the learned, have been brought into open day under the radiant splendour of our name. Nor let those to whom we have consigned the divine secrets of our heart imagine that they have obtained a poor reward. For if our mind’s eye rightly foresees the future, their names will descend to posterity linked with ours. Thus having swept away the cloud of volumes, on which many wasted their lives and explained nothing in the end, we establish a compendious knowledge of the Imperial constitutions since the time of the divine Constantine, and allow no one after the first day of next January to use any authority in the practice of law except these books which bear our name and are kept in the sacred bureaux. None of the older Emperors, however, has been deprived of his immortality, the name of no author of a constitution has fallen to the ground; nay rather they enjoy a borrowed light in that their august decrees are associated with us. The glory of the originators, duly refined (filed), remains and will remain for ever; nor has any brilliance passed thereby to our name except the light of brevity (nisi lux sola brevitatis). And though the undertaking of the whole work was due to our auspicious initiation, we nevertheless deemed it more worthy of the imperial majesty (magis imperatorium) and more illustrious, to put envy to flight and allow the memory of the authors to survive perennially. It is enough and more than enough to satisfy our consciences, that we have unveiled the laws and redeemed the works our ancestors from the injustice of obscurity. We further enact that henceforward no constitution can be passed in the West (in partibus occidentis) or in any other place, by the unconquerable Emperor, the son of our clemency, the everlasting Augustus, Valentinian, or possess any validity, except the same by a divine pragmatica be communicated of us. The same precaution is to be observed in the acts which are promulgated by us in the East (per Orientem); and those are to be condemned as spurious which are not recorded in the Theodosian Code, excepting special documents in the official bureaux. It would be a long tale to relate all that has been contributed to the completion of this work by labours of Antiochus, the all-sublime prefect and consul; by the illustrious Maximin, ex-quaestor of our palace, eminent in all departments of literature; by the illustrious Martyrius, count and quaestor, the faithful interpreter of our clemency; by Sperantius, Apollodorus, and Theodore, all respectable men and counts of our sacred consistory; by the respectable Epigenes, count and magister memoriae; by the respectable Procopius, count, and magister libellorum. These men may be compared to any of the ancients. It remains, O Florentius, most dear and affectionate relative, for your illustrious and magnificent authority, whose delight and constant practice is to please Emperors, to cause the decrees of our August Majesty to come СКАЧАТЬ