A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

'GAIUS. GAIUS. 201
fCodex xiii.,- and by means of the infusion of nut- they looked down upon their less fortunate predegalls, was able to decipher the 97th leaf of the ob- cessors. The authenticity of the discovered Instiliterated writing, whichhe at once recognised as an tutes was beyond dispute. This was clear from
important work of a most ancient jurist, whom he internal evidence, which would prove a forger to
-at first supposed to be Ulpian. The fruits of his have possessed miraculous knowledge and sagacity.
researches he communicated by letter to Savigny, The work was found to agree with the Institutes
by whom they were printed in the third volume of of Justinian, which were derived from it. It was
the Zeitschrifi. Savigny added a learned and acute the manifest source of the Gothic Epitome. It concommentary of his own, and put forward the feli- tained all the passages cited from the Institutes of
citous conjecture, amply verified in the sequel, that Gaius in the Digest, in the Collatio, by Biethius
the ancient text of codex xiii. contained the (Ad Cic. Topica, iii. 5. sub fin.), and by Priscian
genuine Institutes of Gaius, and that the fragment (A1s Gram. vi. sub fin.).
concerning Prescriptions and Interdicts -had for- The Institutes of Gaius are thought to have
merly been a part of that codex. been the first work of the kind, not a compilation
The fame of this discovery was soon diffused' from previous sources. As they became a popular
among the jurists of the continent. In May, 1817, manual at Rome, so are they perhaps to the mothe Royal Academy of Berlin despatched toVerona dern student the best initiation into the Roman
Giischen and Bekker, charged with the task of law, especially if they are read along with the
transcribing the manuscript, and the place of Bek- Institutes of Justinian and the Para2phrasis of
ker was shortly afterwards supplied by Bethmann Theophilus. They are composed in a clear and
Hollweg.'With scrupulous accuracy did Gischen, terse style, which is well suited to a technical
assisted by Hollweg, fulfil his difficult commission. treatise, and does not often fail to satisfy the reThe original manuscript, in the opinion of the quisitions of pure Latinity. The author always
palaeographer Kopp (Savigny's Zeitschrifi, vol. iv. has a meaning, and seldom expresses his meaning
p. 475), was anterior to Justinian's legal reforms. badly. The difficulties which occur in his InstiThe scribe, like the majority of legal writers in our'tutes usually depend either on our ignorance of
own country at the present day, employed a-great collateral facts and legal rules, or upon a train of
variety of contractions, and whole words were often reasoning'which demands attention, or upon disexpressed by initial letters. The old order of the tinctions which the intellect cannot comprehend
leaves was much deranged. There were very few without effort. Gaius is not a learned historian;
pages where the parchment had not been entirely he seeks not the merit of a critical philologer, and
written over, and, in more than 60 pages, it was bis does not push his logic so inconveniently as to.rescriptus. The new writing was in general di- assail the latent flaws of established law; but his
rectly over the old. In order. to prepare' the parch- history, his etymologies, and his logic bear a cerment, it had been washed, apparently bleached in tain stamp of technical propriety They are good
the sun, and in some places scraped by a knife. enough for their purpose of assisting the memory,
Notwithstanding these difficulties, by far the and facilitating the understanding of legal doctrine.
greater portion of the Institutes of Gaius has been He does not exhibit the details of refined philosopreserved to us. Probably not one tenth of the phical analysis, and pursue with lucid order the
whole work is wanting. It is true that certain prescriptions of scientific method; but yet the
parts of the extant leaves resisted all attempts at basis of his arrangement will appear, upon examidecyplering,'and that three leaves, namely, the nation, to be solid and profound; and the sequence
leaf following p. 80, the leaf following p. 126, and in which his-subjects are treated has been found so
the leaf following p. 194, are missing. The argu- practically satisfactory, that it has been received,
ment of the first missing leaf may be collected from with little alteration and improvement, by the
the West Gothic Epitome, and the whole contents majority of those who have followed in his track.
of the'second missing leaf have been luckily pre- " Omne jus quo utimur, vel ad personas pertinet,
served in an ancient extract, made by the author of vel ad res, vel ad actiones." This celebrated divithe Collatio Legum Rom. et Mos., but the loss of the sion rests on the notion of a subject, an object, and
third missing leaf is very tantalizing, for it doubtless a copula, connecting the subject with the object.
contained some particulars relative to the old legis Thinkers had not failed to dwell on the elementary
actiones, which we are left withoiit any means of distinction between a man and all that was not
supplying. A few of the gaps which are occasioned himself. They had seen that the relations between
by the impossibility of decyphering are also very a man and the rest of the universe were changed
lamentable, for they occur in the most obscure and modified by his own acts and by external
parts of the work,-in parts where the curiosity of events. In the schools of philosophy, these conthe antiquary is raised highest, and all the inge- siderations had led to divisions of human knownuity of conjecture possessed by the ablest critics ledge, analogous to the threefold division of law
has been unable satisfactorily to fill them up. laid down by Gaius. Our author, however, seems
The decyphered volume was anxiously looked to have contented himself with general notions,
for. In 1819, the first printed sheet of it ap- and not to have formed in his own mind any
peared, but not until 1821 was the first complete precise definition of the boundaries between the
edition of the work brought out by Gdschen. Its law relating to persons, the law relating to things
publication excited an unusual sensation among and the law relating to actions. The order of his
the jurists of the continent. It was considered to Institutes may be accounted for by some such
form an era in the study of Roman Law. It was analysis as the following:-Law treats of rights.:found to elucidate doubts, and clear up difficulties, Differences of rights result from permanent differbefore regarded as hopeless. By the true explana- ences in those who possess rights-the subject of'tion it afforded, many an ingeniously constructed right-persons; and also from differences in thaMt.theory was demolished. Modern jurists were thus over which rights are exercised-the objects of
suddenly placed upon a vantage ground, from which right-things. Besides the varieties of rights attri