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There was an old press, covered with dust and cobwebs, on the top of which huge volumes of Justinian's Institutes frowned at the ceiling; a row of shelves which were crammed with law books; an old faded carpet covered with ink-splotches on his right hand, splotches evidently produced by the lawyer's habit of shaking the superfluous ink from his pen before he placed it upon the paper; a dilapidated chair or two; the rough walnut desk at which he sat, covered with papers, open law volumes, and red tape; and finally, a tall mantel-piece, on which stood a half-emptied ink bottle which mantel-piece rose over a wide fire-place, surrounded with a low iron fender, on which a dislocated pair of tongs were exposed in grim resignation to the evils of old age.
Justinian, it is true, re-consolidated dominion into one, but then it was the partially reformed system of the Western Empire, and not Justinian's jurisprudence, with which the barbarians were in contact during so many centuries. While they remained poised on the edge of the Empire, it may well be that they learned this distinction, which afterwards bore remarkable fruit.
The church has a hundred and seventy pillars in it, each a single piece, and all of costly marbles of various kinds, but they came from ancient temples at Baalbec, Heliopolis, Athens and Ephesus, and are battered, ugly and repulsive. They were a thousand years old when this church was new, and then the contrast must have been ghastly if Justinian's architects did not trim them any.
Roman law does not seem to me to have influenced Islam immediately in the form of Justinian's Corpus Juris, but indirectly from such ecclesiastical sources as the Romano-Syrian code. This view, however, I would distinctly state, is merely my conjecture.
Outwardly correct in her life, and zealous for orthodoxy, her vigor of mind and cleverness were not without service to the government; but her vindictive passions had full indulgence. Justinian's reign was the most brilliant period in the Byzantine history after the time of Constantine. Under his despotic rule the last vestiges of republican administration were obliterated.
Hilderich was murdered by his cousin Gelimer: a new persecution was preparing. But the Vandal kingdom in Africa was overthrown in 533 by the eastern general Belisarius, and northern Africa united with Justinian's empire. However, the African Church never flourished again with its former lustre.
He was active, volatile, and went to the top of Arthur's Seat on the Sunday forenoon. He was as quiet in a debating society as he was loud in the streets. The student of LAW, again, was a learned man. 'He had turned over the leaves of Justinian's Institutes, and knew that they were written in Latin. He was the terror of essayists at the Speculative or the Forensic.
Had he remained in Rome, the authority of Pelagius would have fallen heavily upon him, and he could scarce have escaped the humiliation of yielding his Gothic captive to Justinian's friend. Apprised only a day before of Vigilius' purpose, he had barely time to plot with Marcian for the conveyance of Veranilda to Totila's camp.
At Aix-la-Chapelle a polygonal church exists, built by Charlemagne, and which tradition asserts was designed on the model of San Vitale at Ravenna. The resemblance is undoubted, but the German church is by no means an exact copy of Justinian's building. Piers are used more frequently than columns in the interiors, and are often very plain.
He was a Balliol scholar and a Fellow of Oriel, and is known as an editor of Justinian's 'Institutes. It is, I am told, a useful textbook, but the editor makes no special pretensions to original research.
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