JUSTINIAN I. (483-565). Flavius Anicius Iustinianus, sur named the Great, the most famous of all the emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire, was by birth a barbarian, native of a place called Tauresium in Illyricurni, and was born, most prob ably, on May II, 483, probably of Slavonic parentage. His own name was originally Iustinianus was a Roman name which he took from his uncle Justin I., who adopted him, and to whom his advancement in life was due. Of his early life we know nothing, except that he went to Constantinople while still a young man, and received there an excellent education, though it is alleged that he always spoke Greek with a barbarian accent. When Justin ascended the throne in 518, Justinian became at once a person of the first consequence, guiding, especially in church matters, the policy of his aged, childless and ignorant uncle, and is commonly identified with the modern Kiistendil, but Skoplye (the former Uskiib) has also been suggested. See Tozer, Highlands of European Turkey, ii. 37o.
'The name Uprauda is said to be derived from the word Prauda, which in Old Slavic means jus, justitia, the prefix being simply a breathing frequently attached to Slavonic names.
soon coming to be regarded as his destined successor. On Justin's death in 527, having been a few months earlier associated with him as co-emperor, Justinian succeeded without opposition to the throne. About 523 he had married the famous Theodora (q.v.), who, as empress regnant, was closely associated in all his actions till her death in 547.
Justinian's reign was filled with great events, both at home and abroad, both in peace and in war. They may be classed under four heads : (I) his legal reforms ; (2) his administration of the empire; (3) his ecclesiastical policy; and (4) his wars and foreign policy generally.
I. Consolidation of Law.—It is as a legislator and codifier of the law that Justinian's name is most familiar to the modern world. He found the law of the Roman empire in a state of great confusion. It consisted of two masses, which were usually distinguished as old law (ins vetus) and new law (ius novum). The first of these comprised : (i.) all such of the statutes (leges) passed under the republic and early empire as had not become obsolete; (ii.) the decrees of the senate (senatus consulta) passed
at the end of the republic and during the first two centuries of the empire; (iii.) the writings of the jurists, and more particularly of those to whom the right of declaring the law with authority (ius respondendi) had been committed by the emperors. As these jurists had, in their commentaries upon the leges, senatus consulta and edicts of the magistrates, practically incorporated all that was of importance in those documents, the books of the jurists may substantially be taken as including (i.) and (ii.). These writings were, of course, very numerous. Many of them had become exceedingly scarce—many had been altogether lost. Some were of doubtful authenticity. They were so costly that even the public libraries had nothing approaching to a complete collection. Moreover, as was natural, they contained many dis crepancies and contradictions. A remedy had been attempted to be applied to this evil by a law of the emperors Theodosius II. and Valentinian III., which gave special weight to the writings of five eminent jurists (Papinian, Paulus, Ulpian, Modestinus, Gaius) ; but it was very far from removing it.
The new law (ius novum), which consisted of the ordinances of the emperors promulgated during the middle and later empires (edicta, rescripta, mandate, decreta, usually called by the general name of constitutiones), was in a condition not much better. These ordinances or constitutions were extremely numerous. No complete collection of them existed, for the earlier Codices did not include all the constitutions ; there were others which it was necessary to obtain separately, but many whereof it must have been impossible for a private person to procure. In this branch too of the law there existed some, though a less formidable, un certainty; for there were constitutions which practically, if not formally, repealed or superseded others without expressly men tioning them. It was therefore clearly necessary to collect so much of the law, both New and Old, as was regarded as binding into a reasonable corpus and to purge away the contradictions and inconsistencies of it.