Note 96 — Chapter III · ORIGIN AND LANDSCAPE (C) THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE CULTURES
Charles Francis Atkinson translation
As long ago as 1891 Mitteis (Reichsrecht und Volksrecht, p. 13) drew attention to the Oriental vein in Constantine’s legislation. Collinet (Études historiques sur le droit de Justinien I, 1912), chiefly on the basis of German researches, throws an immense amount back on Hellenistic law; but how much, after all, of this “Hellenistic” was really Greek and not merely written in Greek? The results of interpolation-research have proved truly devastating for the “Classical spirit” in Justinian’s Digests.