140.00€
A rare and historically significant Greek edition of Justinian’s Novels (Νεαραί Ιουστινιανού), published in Athens in 1898 by the Ekdotiki Etaireia (Publishing Company) and carefully edited by the lawyer Antonios S. Matesis.
This scholarly edition presents the celebrated Novellae Constitutiones, the imperial laws promulgated by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) after the completion of the Corpus Juris Civilis in AD 534. Together with the Code, Digest, and Institutes, the Novels constitute one of the four great pillars of Justinianic legislation and rank among the most influential legal texts in the history of European jurisprudence.
Unlike modern studies of Roman law, this volume is an annotated edition of the original legal text itself, intended for jurists, scholars, and students of law.
The principal distinction of this edition lies in its extensive scholarly apparatus.
Antonios S. Matesis supplemented the text with detailed references to the Basilika, the monumental ninth-century codification of Byzantine law, and to the Hexabiblos of Constantine Harmenopoulos, the celebrated fourteenth-century legal manual that remained one of the principal foundations of civil law in Greece until the introduction of the modern Civil Code in the twentieth century.
Published only a few decades after the establishment of the modern Greek state, this edition illustrates the continuing importance of Byzantine legal scholarship in shaping nineteenth-century Greek jurisprudence and legal education.
Printed in elegant Katharevousa Greek, the scholarly language of the period, the work remains an important source for historians of Roman law, Byzantine studies, and the history of European legal thought.
Title: Ιουστινιανού Νεαραί, μετά παραπομπών εις τα σχετικά χωρία των Βασιλικών και της Εξαβίβλου του Αρμενοπούλου
English title: Justinian’s Novels, with References to the Basilika and the Hexabiblos of Harmenopoulos
Editor: Antonios S. Matesis
Publisher: Ekdotiki Etaireia
Place of publication: Athens
Year: 1898
Language: Greek (Katharevousa)
Pages: 447
Dimensions: 16.5 cm × 12.5 cm
Binding: Contemporary leather binding.
Very good antique condition.
Complete copy in its contemporary leather binding. The leather spine remains particularly well preserved, while the boards display expected wear and signs of age. Internally, the text is clean and complete, with light age-toning and occasional foxing characteristic of late nineteenth-century paper. The binding remains firm and the pages are fully legible throughout.
Please examine the accompanying photographs carefully, as they form an integral part of the description.
The Novels represent the final legislative enactments of Emperor Justinian and constitute one of the foundational texts of Byzantine and European legal history. Through the Basilika and the Hexabiblos, Justinianic law continued to shape the administration of justice throughout the Greek world for centuries.
This 1898 scholarly edition stands as an important witness to that remarkable legal continuity and offers a fascinating insight into the revival and study of Byzantine jurisprudence in modern Greece.
