The importance of the Justinian Code, however, is not that of mere history. Its influence as a living force is what compels the admiration and gratitude of mankind. It forms the basis of the systems of law in all the civilized nations of the world, with the exception of those of the English-speaking peoples, and even in these the principles of the civil law--as the Roman law is called in contradistinction to the common and statute law of these nations--form the most important part of the regulations concerning personal property.
For this monumental work the world is indebted to Justinian I (Flavius Anicius Justinianus), the most famous of the emperors of the Eastern Empire since Constantine. He was born a Slavonian peasant. Uprawda, his original name, was Latinized into Justinian when he became an officer in the Imperial Guard. He was adopted, educated, and trained by Justin I, whom he succeeded as emperor. His long reign (527-565) was disturbed by the sanguinary factions of the Circus--the Greens and the Blues, so named from the colors of the competing charioteers in the games--the suppression of the schools of philosophy at Athens, and by various wars. Nevertheless it was marked by magnificent works, the administrative organization of the empire, and the great buildings at Constantinople. The Church of Santa-Sophia, the first great Christian church, although used as a Mahometan mosque since 1459, still stands at Constantinople, with its plain exterior but impressive interior, a monument of Justinian's reign.
His two great masters of war, foreigners in origin like himself, were Belisarius the Thracian and Narses the Armenian. Africa was wrested from the Vandals; Italy from the successors of Theodoric; and much of Spain from the Western Goths. Under Justinian the Byzantine or Eastern Empire resumed much of the majesty and power of ancient Rome. But the crowning glory of his career was the Code. One of the greatest historians says of his reign: "Its most instructive lesson has been drawn from the influence which its legislation has exercised on foreign nations. The unerring instinct of mankind has fixed on this period as one of the greatest eras in man's annals."
The Code was a digest of the whole mass of Roman law literature, compiled and annotated at the command of Justinian, under the supervision of the great lawyer Tribonian, who, with his helpers, reduced the chaotic mass to a logical system containing the essence of Roman law. The first part of the _Codex Constitutionem_, prepared in less than a year, was published in April, 529. The second part, the _Digest_ or _Pandects,_ appeared in December, 533. To insure conformity, both were revised and issued in November, 534, the Institutiones, an _elementary_ text-book, founded on the _Institutiones_ of Gaius, who lived A.D. 110-180, being added, and the whole, as a complete body of law, given to the law schools at Constantinople, Rome, Alexandria, Berytus, and Cæsarea, for use in their graduate course. Later the _Novellæ Constitutione_, or _Novels,_ most of them in Greek, comprising statutes of Justinian arranged chronologically, completed the Code.