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Updated: September 3, 2025
The theory of professors was assisted by the practice of advocates and the experience of magistrates, and the whole undertaking was animated by the spirit of Tribonian. This extraordinary man, the object of so much praise and censure, was a native of Side in Pamphylia; and his genius, like that of Bacon, embraced as his own all the business and knowledge of the age.
From the bar of the prætorian prefects he raised himself to the honors of quæstor, of consul, and of master of the offices: the council of Justinian listened to his eloquence and wisdom, and envy was mitigated by the gentleness and affability of his manners. The reproaches of impiety and avarice have stained the virtues or the reputation of Tribonian.
Justinian authorized Tribonian, then quaestor, "vir magnificus magisteria dignitate inter agentes decoratus," for great titles were now given to the officers of the crown, to prepare, with the assistance of seventeen associates, a collection of extracts from the writings of the most eminent jurists, so as to form a body of law for the government of the empire, with power to select and omit and alter; and this immense work was done in three years, and published under the title of Digest or Pandects.
They were selected by the Imperial delegates, Tribonian, Theophilus, and Dorotheus; and the freedom and purity of the Antonines was incrusted with the coarser materials of a degenerate age. The same volume which introduced the youth of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus, to the gradual study of the Code and Pandects, is still precious to the historian, the philosopher, and the magistrate.
And we, in our desire to surpass that prince, have recently made a constitution, suggested by a matter brought before us by the eminent Tribonian, quaestor of our sacred palace, by which it is enacted, that if a testator charges his heir with a trust to transfer the whole inheritance or some specific thing, and the trust cannot be proved by writing or by the evidence of five witnesses five being, as is known, the number required by law for the proof of oral trusts through there having been fewer witnesses than five, or even none at all, and if the heir, whether it be his own son or some one else whom the testator has chosen to trust, and by whom he desired the transfer to be made, perfidiously refuses to execute the trust, and in fact denies that he was ever charged with it, the alleged beneficiary, having previously sworn to his own good faith, may put the heir upon his oath: whereupon the heir may be compelled to swear that no trust was ever charged upon him, or, in default, to transfer the inheritance or the specific thing, as the case may be, in order that the last wishes of the testator, the fulfilment of which he has left to the honour of his heir, may not be defeated.
From the bar of the Prætorian præfects, he raised himself to the honors of quæstor, of consul, and of master of the offices: the council of Justinian listened to his eloquence and wisdom; and envy was mitigated by the gentleness and affability of his manners. The reproaches of impiety and avarice have stained the virtue or the reputation of Tribonian.
Tribonian composed, both in prose and verse, on a strange diversity of curious and abstruse subjects; a double panegyric of Justinian and the life of the philosopher Theodotus; the nature of happiness and the duties of government; Homer's catalogue and the four-and-twenty sorts of metre; the astronomical canon of Ptolemy; the changes of the months; the houses of the planets; and the harmonic system of the world.
They are as permanent in their effects as any thing can be in this world more so than palaces and marbles. The latter crumble away, but the legacy of Gaius, of Ulpian, of Paulus, of Tribonian, will be prized to the remotest ages, not only as a wonderful work of genius, but for its practical utility.
His good fortune in obtaining the services of able generals was not greater than that which attended him in the field of law and legislation. Brilliant as were the triumphs of Narses and Belisarius, they were indeed short-lived in comparison with the work done by the celebrated Tribonian and his coadjutors in the way of reforming and codifying the law.
Justinian determined to unite in one body all the rules of law, whatever may have been their origin; and in the year 528 appointed ten jurisconsults, among whom was the celebrated Tribonian, to select and arrange the imperial constitutions and rescripts, leaving out what was obsolete or useless or contradictory, and to make such alterations as the circumstances required.
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