The second dimension of public law is administration. Here is another surprise. Only one half of one book of the Digest, namely book, titles to, deal with public officials. Subjects treated include obsolete matters and the real elements of government do not appear. Every title (or chapter) is very short. The opening title on public offices, specifically, D. . ‘Senators’. tells the story. The first text, D... sets the scene: The last, D. .. is a fitting closure: Nothing in between tells us what the senate does or why being a senator is a matter of importance to the state. A further peculiarity of the Corpus Iuris is that it is overwhelmingly in Latin, a language not understood by the majority of even the educated in Justinian’s Empire. Latin remained the language of legal education. Even more bizarre is the fact that the compilers of the Institutes, as they worked, seem to have had no research tools in front of them Ulpian, Edict, book : That a man of consular rank always takes precedence over a lady of consular rank is a point no one doubts. But whether a man of prefectorial rank takes precedence over a lady of consular rank remains to be seen. I should think he does, because greater dignity inheres in the male sex. . “Consular,” of course, is a term we apply to ladies married to men who have been consuls. Saturninus adds also their mothers, but no case of this is reported from anywhere, nor has this ever been the received practice. Ulpian, Census, book : Women who previously have been married to a man of consular rank generally try to prevail on the emperor to let them, albeit very exceptionally, keep their consular rank despite a subsequent marriage to a man of lower rank. One case of which I know: the Emperor Antoninus gave this indulgence to his cousin Julia Mamaea. . By senators we should understand people whose descent from patricians and consuls stretches back to illustrious men, because these and only these men are entitled to deliver speeches in the senate.
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