The Roman Imperial Quaestor from Constantine to Theodosius II

Abstract

The greatest legal monuments to Late Antiquity are the Code of Theodosius II, published in 438, and the Code, Digest and Institutes of Justinian, produced between 529 and 534. The men on whose shoulders the main responsibility for their compilation rested were two imperial quaestors, each backed by teams of experts. Antiochus Chuzon, quaestor in 429, saw the Theodosian Code from its inception in the year of his quaestorship through a second stage in 435 to its completion in time for the marriage of Valentinian III and Theodosius' daughter Eudoxia in October 437 and publication in the following year. century later, under Justinian, Tribonian, perhaps the most famous and powerful of all quaestors, proved his organizational and legal ability during the production of the first edition of Justinian's Code in 529 and became the moving force behind the Digest of the works of the Roman jurists, the Institutes (an update of Gaius on the principles of law) and the second edition of the Code, all of which were crammed into the five years that followed.