Beritus (Berytus) Nutris Legum (Beirut Mother of Law), Roman School of Law
Beritus (Berytus) Nutris Legum (Beirut Mother of Law)
Towards the middle of the third century after Christ a school of law
and jurisprudence arose at Berytus, which attained high distinction,
and is said by Gibbon to have furnished the eastern provinces of
the empire with pleaders and magistrates for the space of three
centuries (A.D. 250-550). The course of education at Berytus lasted
five years, and included Roman Law in all its various forms, the works
of Papinian being especially studied in the earlier times, and the
same together with the edicts of Justinian in the later. Pleaders
were forced to study either at Berytus, or at Rome, or at
Constantinople, and, the honours and emoluments of the profession
being large, the supply of students was abundant and perpetual. External misfortune, and not internal decay, at last destroyed the
school, the town of Berytus being completely demolished by an
earthquake in the year A.D. 551. The school was then transferred to
Sidon, but appears to have languished on its transplantation to a new
soil and never to have recovered its pristine vigour or vitality.
In many respects,
one of the most important cities of Phoenicia during the time of the Roman
Empire was Berytus. It became the seat of the most famous provincial school
of Roman law. The school, which probably was founded by Septimius Severus,
lasted until the destruction of Berytus itself by a sequence of earthquakes,
tidal wave, and fire in the mid-6th century. Two of Rome's most famous jurists,
Papinian and Ulpian, both natives of Phoenicia, taught as professors at the
law school under the Severans. Their judicial opinions constitute well over
a third of the Pandects (Digest) contained in the great compilation of Roman
law commissioned by the emperor Justinian I in the 6th century AD.
Two great enterprises
had substantially despatched Justinian’s
work; however, he, or rather Tribonian, who seems to have acted both as his
adviser and as his chief executive officer in all legal affairs, conceived
that a third book was needed, viz. An elementary manual for beginners which
should present an outline of the law in a clear and simple form. The little
work of Gaius, most of which we now possess under the title of Commentarii
institutionum, had served this purpose for nearly four centuries; but
much of it had, owing to changes in the law, become inapplicable, so that
a new
manual seemed to be required. Justinian accordingly directed Tribonian, with
two coadjutors, Theophilus, professor of law in the university of Constantinople,
and Dorotheus, professor in the great law school at Berytus, to prepare
an elementary textbook on the lines of Gaius. This they did while the Digest
was in progress, and produced the useful little treatise which has ever since
been the book with which students commonly begin their studies of Roman law,
the Institutes of Justinian. It was published as a statute with
full legal validity shortly before the Digest. Such merits as it possesses – simplicity
of arrangement, clearness and conciseness of expression – belong less
to Tribonian than to Gaius, who was closely followed wherever the alterations
in the law had not made him obsolete. However, the spirit of that great legal
classic seems to have in a measure dwelt with and inspired the inferior men
who were recasting his work, the Institutes is better both in Latinity and
in substance than we should have expected from condition of Latin letters
at that epoch, better than the other laws which emanate from Justinian.
Papinian,
Jurist
Latin in full
AEMILIUS PAPINIANUS (b. c. AD 140 -- d. 212), Phoenician Roman jurist
who posthumously became the definitive authority on Roman law, possibly because
his moral highmindedness was congenial to the worldview of the Christian rulers
of the postclassical empire.
Papinian held
high public office under the emperor Lucius Septimius Severus (reigned AD
193-211) and was the best known of the Roman prefects. He was killed at the
order of Severus' son and successor, Caracalla, perhaps for refusing to supply
a legal excuse for the new emperor's murder of his brother and political rival,
Geta.
The most important
of Papinian's works are two collections of cases: Quaestiones (37 books)
and Responsa (19 books) Definitiones (2 books), and De adulteriis
(2 books), attained the highest authority and are regarded today as among
the principal Roman contributions to the foundation of modern law. In the
postclassical law schools, the third-year students, who were called Papinianistae,
used the Responsa as the basis of the curriculum. The Law of Citations
(AD 426) of the emperor Theodosius II made Papinian predominant among five
classical jurists whose works were to be authoritative in legal proceedings.
His books were written in precise and elegant Latin.
Ulpian,
Jurist
Latin in full
DOMITIUS ULPIANUS (b. Tyre, Phoenicia--d. AD 228), Phoenician Roman
jurist and imperial official whose writings supplied one-third of the total
content of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I's monumental Digest, or Pandects
(completed 533). He was a subordinate to Papinian when that older jurist was
praetorian prefect (chief adviser to the emperor and commander of his bodyguard)
under Lucius Septimius Severus (reigned 193-211), and he annotated Papinian's
works. Afterward Ulpian was master of petitions to the emperor Caracalla,
and under Severus Alexander he served as praetorian prefect from 222 until
228, when he was murdered by officers in his command.
Ulpian wrote
prolifically on law in a clear, elegant style. Like Papinian, he was an intelligent
editor and interpreter of existing ideas rather than an original legal thinker,
such as Marcus Antistius Labeo. His major works are the commentaries Libri
ad Sabinum (51 books interpreting the civil law; incomplete) and Libri
ad edictum (81 books concerning praetorian edicts). Justinian's compilers,
headed by Tribonian, drew heavily on these and other treatises and monographs
by Ulpian. A work variously called Tituli ex corpore Ulpiani, Epitome Ulpiani,
or Regulae Ulpiani is no longer believed to be his.
Dorotheus,
Jurist and Professor of Roman Law
Dorotheus (first
half of the 6th century AD), jurist, was one of the principal codifiers of
Roman law under the emperor Justinian I.
Dorotheus helped
to compile the Digest, or Pandects (published in 533), and the second edition
of the Codex Constitutionum (published in 534). With Tribonian (Tribonianus),
head of the Digest's compilers, and Theophilus, he also prepared the Institutes
(533) as an introduction to the Digest. Fragments of his Index (542), a commentary
on the Digest, are preserved in the 9th-century law code called the Basilica.
Dorotheus taught jurisprudence in the school of Roman law at Berytus at
that time probably the best law school in the eastern Roman Empire.
|
Phoenician Encyclopedia -- Phoenicia, A Bequest Unearthed (Desktop Version)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Contact: Salim George Khalaf, Byzantine Phoenician Descendent
Salim is from Shalim, Phoenician god of dusk, whose place was Urushalim/Jerusalem
"A Bequest Unearthed, Phoenicia" — Encyclopedia Phoeniciana |
|
This site has been online for more than 21 years.
We have more than 420,000 words.
The equivalent of this website is about 2,000 printed pages.
DATE (Christian and Phoenician):
,
year 4758 after the foundation of Tyre |
|