The most famous legal work of the ancient world was compiled at the order of the emperor Justinian (c.482-565) and issued in the period 529-34. It was intended to be a complete codification of all law, to be used as the only source of law in all the courts of the empire. The work was divided into three parts: the Codex Justinianus contained all of the extant imperial enactments from the time of Hadrian; the Digesta compiled the writings of great Roman jurists; and the Institutiones was intended as a textbook for law schools. However, Justinian later found himself obliged to create more laws,...

The most famous legal work of the ancient world was compiled at the order of the emperor Justinian (c.482-565) and issued in the period 529-34. It was intended to be a complete codification of all law, to be used as the only source of law in all the courts of the empire. The work was divided into three parts: the Codex Justinianus contained all of the extant imperial enactments from the time of Hadrian; the Digesta compiled the writings of great Roman jurists; and the Institutiones was intended as a textbook for law schools. However, Justinian later found himself obliged to create more laws,...

The most famous legal work of the ancient world was compiled at the order of the emperor Justinian (c.482-565) and issued in the period 529-34. It was intended to be a complete codification of all law, to be used as the only source of law in all the courts of the empire. The work was divided into three parts: the Codex Justinianus contained all of the extant imperial enactments from the time of Hadrian; the Digesta compiled the writings of great Roman jurists; and the Institutiones was intended as a textbook for law schools. However, Justinian later found himself obliged to create more laws,...

The classical scholar J. P. Mahaffy (1839 1919) is known equally for his work on Greek texts and Egyptian papyri (his edition of The Flinders Petrie Papyri is reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection). He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin and spent the rest of his working life there, as a fellow, and ultimately as provost from 1914 until his death. This work, in which Mahaffy records his impressions of his first visit to Greece, was published in 1876. Though it is not uncritical ('Nothing is more melancholy and more disappointing than the first view of the Athenian museums'), his...

The classical scholar J. P. Mahaffy (1839-1919) is known equally for his work on Greek texts and Egyptian papyri (his edition of The Flinders Petrie Papyri is reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection). He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin and spent the rest of his working life there, as a fellow, and ultimately as provost from 1914 until his death. In this 1874 work, Mahaffy attempts to penetrate what he describes as the 'subjective side ...the feelings of the Greeks in their temples and their assemblies, in their homes, and their wanderings'. He considers the methodology to be used...

The dialect of ancient Greek in which the Homeric epics the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed and later written down is sufficiently different from classical Attic Greek that it has always proven a stumbling block for students. Perceiving the need for a concise dictionary of Homeric Greek forms, German scholar Georg Autenrieth (1833-1900) compiled this now famous work, first published in 1873 and translated into English by Robert P. Keep (1844-1904) in 1877. Keep, who taught Greek at Yale University and various New England colleges, recognised from his own experience that Autenrieth's book...

The French historian Auguste Bouche-Leclercq (1842-1923) made major contributions to our knowledge of the Hellenistic period. A member of the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, he was also made an officer of the Legion d'Honneur. Bouche-Leclercq is also considered the first modern historian of astrology: he had developed a long-lasting interest in divination during his extensive researches on ancient Greek civilisation. This field had not been considered worthy of serious scholarly study until he published his Histoire de la divination dans l'antiquite between 1879 and 1882....

Controversial for centuries, the route across the Alps taken by Hannibal, his Carthaginian army and his famous elephants in 218 BCE formed the basis of an extended scholarly dispute between William John Law (1786-1869) and Robert Ellis (1819/20-85). Fought in the pages of books and the Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, their exchanges lasted several years. Ellis' Treatise on Hannibal's Passage of the Alps (1853) and An Enquiry into the Ancient Routes between Italy and Gaul (1867) are also reissued in this series. Published in 1866, this two-volume work was Law's major contribution to...

The classical scholar J. P. Mahaffy (1839-1919) is known equally for his work on Greek texts and Egyptian papyri (his edition of The Flinders Petrie Papyri is reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection). He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, and spent the rest of his working life there, ultimately as provost from 1914 until his death. In this illustrated 1887 work, Mahaffy describes Alexander's extraordinary conquest of territories in Europe, Africa and Asia, the collapse of his empire after his death, and the later subjugation of the successor kingdoms to the power of Rome. With his...

The philologist Georg Friedrich Grotefend (1775 1853) combined his career as a senior master at schools in Frankfurt and Hannover with the publication of school textbooks on German and Latin, and academic research in ancient history and languages. He was a co-founder of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica series of historical sources, still widely consulted today, and is also remembered for his role in deciphering Old Persian cuneiform. During his lifetime he was best known for his study of the geography and history of pre-Roman Italy (published 1840 2 and also reissued in the Cambridge Library...