Reference Edition:

FIRA - Fontes Iuris Romani Antejustiniani, II, 2a ed., Firenze 1968, pp. 229-257 (J. Baviera)

The Gai Institutionum Epitome, or the Epitome Gai, is an anonymous work that forms part of the Lex Romana Wisigothorum (also called the Breviarium Alaricianum), a compilation of leges and iura published in Toulouse, on the 2 February 506 CE, by the Visigothic king Alaric II. Most scholars think that the compilation pertained only to the Roman subjects of the Visigothic kingdom, which comprised part of Gaul and the Iberian peninsula, but some argue that its authority pertained to the region and not to individuals, and that it thus applied to all subjects, both Romans and Visigoths. The Epitome Gai appears in the Breviarium between the post-Theodosian Novellae and the Pauli Sententiae, under the title of Liber Gai; the title of Gai Institutionum Epitome was given by modern scholars who compared it with the Gaian Institutiones, which had been rediscovered in 1816 in a Veronese palimpsest. It may have originally appeared as one single book, but modern editions divide it into two. There are significant differences between the Epitome Gai and Gaius’ original Institutiones: firstly, the Epitome only covers the first three books of Gaius’ Institutiones (concerning people and things), and so excludes procedural matters of trials, which are addressed in the fourth book; similarly, the procedural profiles of substantive law are almost never addressed. Scholars explain this omission by pointing out that the use of procedural formulas had been discontinued by Constantius II and Constant in 342, leading to the obsolescence of both Book 4, which concerns actiones, and the sections on various institutions’ judicial safeguards, which the rest of Gaius’ work addresses. Furthermore, the few passages in the Epitome Gai linked with procedural profiles show updating from the archetype, in ways that align with the post-classical development of the institutions. The two works also differ in that the Epitome Gai does not address some basic institutions of classical Roman law and does not discuss the jurisprudential disputes that Gaius had treated in detail, and finally, that it uses a different system for covering its subject matter. Due to these differences, Archi’s important 1937 monograph asserted that the Epitome Gai was intended for practical usage, and that it did not derive from the original Gaian Institutiones, but rather from a later paraphrase, which covered more than the Epitome Gai, and was intended for educational purposes. He argues that the Epitome Gai must have been compiled in Gaul before 428 CE, because the work does not show knowledge of that year’s constitution, issued by Theodosius II and Valentinian III, which abolishes the dotis dictio (C. Th. 3.13.4). Other scholars, however, consider this argument moot, and prefer to date the work to the second half of the fifth century. Archi also argued that the Epitome Gai constitutes an Interpretatio of Gaius’ Institutiones that is remarkably similar to the Interpretationes of the Lex Romana Wisigothorum, and that its presence in this compilation would have been connected to its circulation and authority among contemporaries. The compilers of the Breviarium Alaricianum – he continues – would not have intervened in any way in the text of the Epitome Gai, and the omissions in its compilation would attest to its practical purpose. Archi’s conclusions are innovative in comparison to previous arguments on the work, which include that it was intended didactically (supported by such scholars as Hitzig, who argued that the compilers made significant cuts, and Fitting, who argued that they not only expanded, but also modified, parts of the text), and Conrat’s theory that affirms the work’s Visigothic origins and links it to the compilation of the Breviarium Alaricianum. In the second half of the twentieth century, some scholars diverged somewhat from Archi’s conclusions: in particular, according to Lambertini, the fourth section of the second book of the Epitome, ‘De substitutionibus et faciendis secundis tabulis’, was not part of the text as it was added to the Breviarium Alaricianum, but was inserted later; he supports his argument by examining the compilation’s textual tradition. In fact, the Lex Romana Wisigothorum (or Breviarium Alaricianum) survives in numerous manuscripts, which arose in disparate periods and places, and display various characteristics: when Haenel edited the text (Lex Romana Visigothorum ad LXXVI librorum manuscriptorum fidem recognovit, prolegomenis instruxit Gustavus Haenel, Lipsiae 1849), he studied seventy-six manuscripts, and compiled meticulous descriptions for each, which Mommsen and Meyer then used for their edition of the Codex Theodosianus. The title ‘De substitutionibus et faciendis secundis tabulis’ appears in only five manuscripts, which are not among those that Haenel calls ‘very old’. Among the ‘very old’ manuscripts, it is worth mentioning Monacensis 22501, from the seventh century, which Ritter considered an authenticum exemplar of the Lex Romana Wisigothorum as it was sent to a Visigothic count, and Codex Parisinus 4405, which dates from the late ninth century and has a Gallic origin, and which fully preserves the Praescriptio Breviarii and the Auctoritas Alarici (or Commonitorium) — and which, for this reason, is considered a direct descendant of the original text sent by Alaric II to Count Timothy. The Commonitorium reveals how several copies of the text, whose original was kept in the archives of Alaric II, were prepared for the comites responsible for regional courts. Consequently, Lambertini argues that the legal experts who wrote the Lex Romana Wisigothorum deliberately excluded the title in question from the Epitome Gai, perhaps because they considered it unsuitable for the compilation’s purposes. This would suggest, however, that the compilers – contrary to Archi’s conclusions – intervened in the text of the Epitome Gai (in addition to the other texts in the Lex Romana Wisigothorum) and so subjected the work to a kind of revision, and may have additionally revised other passages of the text, although the surviving manuscripts do not prove this. Other scholars have also diverged from Archi by arguing for an educational purpose for the Epitome Gai – an argument that had already been made at the end of the nineteenth century. In this line of argument, Liebs asserts that the Epitome Gai was intended for basic legal education, and was perhaps not meant to be published; he argues that this would explain the work’s many omissions, which – he continues – would have caused problems in any attempts to use it for practical ends. [M. A. Ligios tr. C. Belanger]