A decorative rectangular woodcut headpiece featuring symmetrical floral scrolls and foliage.

OF ROMAN

ANTIQUITIES

Caius in law 2, Digest, On the Origin of Law.

Edition of the Institutes.

Ornamental woodcut initial "Q" depicting a scholar or saint seated at a desk, writing in a book.

HOW gravely and elegantly Pomponius describes the fountains of Civil Law and the succession of the Jurisconsults, and how distinctly the names of the authors are ascribed to individual laws, his distinguished second law On the Origin of Law is witness; the fifty books of the Pandects and the twelve books of the Codex of Justinian are also witnesses. For it is so profitable to observe diligently and to hold exquisitely by which authors and at what time Roman laws were written, that without that knowledge the things themselves can scarcely be usefully perceived. For the condition of men changed through the ages, and the changed Republics brought in different phrases of writing: which often brought great difficulties and perplexities to the Accursian refers to the glosses of Accursius school. Therefore, being about to give the four books of the Imperial Institutes with perpetual notes selected from all the best interpreters for the use of students of law: it seemed convenient to add, as an appendix to those books, what all legal experts judge to be necessary to know first. And just as many have diligently collected Roman antiquities, so from their own books we shall insert into this periochē summary/abridgment those things which contribute primarily to Civil Law and the interpretation of many laws.