Tribonian ( Greek: Τριβωνιανός rivonia'nos c. 485?–542) was a notable Byzantine

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...

and advisor, who during the reign of the Emperor Justinian I, supervised the revision of the

legal code A code of law, also called a law code or legal code, is a systematic collection of statutes. It is a type of legislation that purports to exhaustively cover a complete system of laws or a particular area of law as it existed at the time the cod ...

of the Byzantine Empire. He has been described as one of the wisest collaborators of Emperor Justinian. Tribonian was a Greek, born in Side, in Pamphylia, around the year 500. He was well educated and practiced law before the court of the praetorian prefect. Justinian made Tribonian '' magister officiorum'' (Master of Offices), although it is not clear when, and then appointed him '' quaestor sacri palatii'' in September 529. In 528, before he was appointed quaestor, Tribonian was named by Justinian as one of the commissioners charged with preparing the new imperial legal code, the '' Codex Justinianeus'', which subsequently was issued on April 7, 529. In 530, after Tribonian had become quaestor, it was natural for Justinian to put him in charge of the next major law reform project: compiling and harmonizing the writings of classical Roman jurists. Justinian's main objects in creating this harmonized compilation of juristic writings were to shorten

litigation - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...

(by clarifying the law), and to create a syllabus to be used at the law schools in

Berytus ) or Laodicea in Canaan (2nd century to 64 BCE) , image = St. George's Cathedral, Beirut.jpg , image_size = , alt = , caption = Roman ruins of Berytus, in front of Saint George Greek Orthodox Cathedral in moder ...

( Beirut) and Constantinople. During the same period, Tribonian also was charged with carrying out another aspect of Justinian's reforms in legal education and codification — creating a textbook for first-year law students by updating the ''Institutes'' of Gaius. Both the

Digest Digest may refer to: Biology *Digestion of food *Restriction digest Literature and publications *''The Digest'', formerly the English and Empire Digest *Digest size magazine format * ''Digest'' (Roman law), also known as ''Pandects'', a digest ...

and the new Institutes of Justinian were promulgated in December of 533. In 534, Justinian decided that so many new laws had been passed, and so many older ones harmonized, since the publication of his first Code in 529, a second edition was needed. Hence, the '' Codex repetitae praelectionis'' was published, entirely superseding the edition of 529, the text of which has been lost. In 532, Tribonian was removed as quaestor due to the charges made by his enemies during the Nika riots, but he continued to work on the codification. He was restored to his post as quaestor in 535 and continued in that position until his death. Tribonian continued to help draft new laws for Justinian; these new laws (

Novellae Constitutiones The ("new constitutions"; grc, Νεαραὶ διατάξεις), or ''Justinian's Novels'', are now considered one of the four major units of Roman law initiated by Roman emperor Justinian I in the course of his long reign (AD 527–565). The o ...

) were later combined with the ''Codex Justinianus'', the

and the ''Institutes'' to comprise the '' Corpus Juris Civilis''. Tribonian died in 542 of a disease, perhaps the

plague Plague or The Plague may refer to: Agriculture, fauna, and medicine *Plague (disease), a disease caused by ''Yersinia pestis'' * An epidemic of infectious disease (medical or agricultural) * A pandemic caused by such a disease * A swarm of pes ...

. Tribonian's career is summarized by his noted modern biographer, Tony Honoré, in this way: "...he was Justinian's minister for legislation and propaganda for nearly twelve years...In these years the three volumes of the '' Corpus Juris Civilis'' and most of the surviving legislation of Justinian's reign were produced. He drafted about three-quarters of the surviving constitutions of Justinian's reign. He planned and directed the work of the Second Law Commission, which produced the

, the

Institutes An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes can ...

and the Second "Codex Iustinianus."Honoré, supra note 8 at 69.

References

{{Authority control 500 births 542 deaths 6th-century Byzantine people Ancient Roman jurists Byzantine jurists Magistri officiorum Ministers of Justinian I 6th-century Byzantine writers 6th-century Latin writers 6th-century jurists