ERRATA ET CORRIGENDA.

P. paginam, 1. paginæ lineam, n. adnotationem significat.

A SUMMARY

OF THE

ROMAN CIVIL LAW.

BOOK I.

TITLE I.

Legislation as connected with Civilization-State of the Roman Law under the Regal Polity-During the Republican Period-The Senate-Assemblies of the PeopleMagistrates-The Imperial Period, and leading Lawyers of that Age-Transfer of the Empire by Constantine to Byzantium-Line of Emperors to Justinian-Review of the Law up to his time-Tribonian-Contents of Justinian's Legal Works-Succession of Roman Emperors to Arcadius and Honorius-To Basil the MacedonianThe Basilics-Succession of Byzantine Emperors until the Latin Period-The Crusades -Godefroy De Bouillon-The Assise of Jerusalem-Continuation of the Eastern Empire until its Extinction by Mohammed II. under Constantine XIII.-Transfer of the Empire to the Turkish Padishah-Mohammed the Apostle of God-His Koran and LawThe first Caliphs-Fate of the West-The Kingdom of Lombardy-The Romano-Germanic Empire-The Lawyers of the Middle Age-The Popes and the Canon Law The Roman-Canon-Common and-Statute Law in England.

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policy.

CIVILIZATION in the history of all states has ever advanced pari Civilization passu with the enactment of just laws and wisely-liberal insti- connected with tutions; for it is obvious that a state must be well governed legislative internally, and possess such institutions as contribute to secure a national bond, in order to render itself either physically or morally respected by neighbouring or more distant nations. Nor is this a mere theory, but rather an incontrovertible fact drawn from experience of past ages. It is true that the physical force and power of a nation may not be directly referable to civilization and wise political institutions, such as in the present age would be considered as enlightened-for it suffices that they were so relatively to the advancement of their time-yet we find that where such have not been opportunely introduced into a state powerful in arms, or where that state has not advanced with the spirit of its time, it has gradually declined and relapsed into its normal state of weakness or anarchy. Thus, Egypt flourished no longer Egypt, Syria, than her excellent civil institutions were upheld; and the Jews, Persia, Greece, having learned there the art of civil government, overran the whole of Syria, and were only subdued when they began to

B

Rome, Car

thage.

Byzantium
Mohammedans

Modern ex

ample.

Rome walled

neglect the principles which had led to their former success. Persia made the rest of Asia, less civilized than herself, bow before her; but in her turn was overthrown in many battles by the more cultivated, though numerically weaker, Greeks; these again succumbed to the rising power of Rome. The Romans, having destroyed in Carthage the last remnant of the Phoenicians, proceeded to extend their power over three continents, until surrounding and tributary states, instructed in their arts and tutored by their power, now devoid of centralization, continued to cultivate what their masters had begun to neglect, and thus emancipated themselves one by one from the Roman power at Byzantium, in the day of its decline; until a wild horde of Tartars on the one side, and of Arabs of Vandal and Saracenic origin on the other, united by the aid of laws at once ecclesiastical and civil, and excellent so long as observed in purity, drove out this wretched remnant of the most powerful nation of antiquity, and extending its conquests threatened to subject Europe, as it had done Asia, to its dominion; but here again their civilization, science, and hardiness, then superior, did not keep pace with those of the rest of the world, and these once-powerful states sank into comparative insignificance and dependence on the jealousy or forbearance of their former vassals.

The speedy termination of Napoleon's career proved sufficiently that where the civilization of nations, as in the case of England and France, is nearly balanced, no occupation on the part of either can be lasting; thus he readily crushed the degenerate Italians and the Austrians, overran the barbarous Russians, and subjugated the Germans, then less civilized than at present, and oppressed by corrupt and irresponsible governors. England, equal, if not superior, in civilization to France, checked the torrent, and has since taken the lead. Germany, roused from her lethargy, and partially emancipated from the rule of some of her worst princes and the system of subinfeudation, is quickly overtaking France, while Eastern nations succumb to the moral and physical influence and power of Western Europe. Thus the current of civilization, whose cradle was in the East, has flowed gradually but determinately towards the West, deserting the more genial and languid land of its birth, for a more robust and invigorating clime of its adoption.

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Rome in its infancy, be its origin what it may, no sooner B. c. 753, 20th assumed the form of a connected state than it acknowledged the April. alternative of submitting to a common law and a common governor, or of being destroyed by its jealous neighbours. Under these circumstances, ROMULUS appears to have been chosen as her Destroys Remus. first ruler, and, having disposed of his brother REMUS, collected about him his former associates, consisting of armed shepherds,