Novellae

Thalelaeus

(Θαλέλαιος), a jurist, lived in the time of Justinian.

He was a professor of law, and probably at Constantinople, though there is no evidence for that. He is mentioned among the Antecessores, to whom the Constitution Omnem, &c. is addressed; but he was not employed with Tribonian and others upon the compilation of any of Justinian's law books. Thalelaeus had a high reputation : he was called the " eye of jurisprudence," (τῆς νομικῆς ὀφθαλμός).

Works

Commentary on the Code of Justinian

His great work was a Greek commentary on the Code of Justinian, which was divided into three parts. The first and most extensive part is a kind of introduction to a knowledge of the text of the Code, which is properly called τὸ πλάτος, a name sometimes given, but perhaps incorrectly, to the whole commentary. The second part consisted of a literal Greek version (κατὰ πόδας) of the constitutions which existed in Latin in the Code, or of an extract only from those which had been copied in Greek into the same collection. The third part consists of observations on the Greek and Latin Constitutions.

The commentary of Thalelaeus is the most important of all that has been written upon the constitutions contained in the Code. He was not satisfied with taking the constitutions as they appear in the Code, but he consulted the texts of the original constitutions; for instance, he gives the constitution I. (Cod. 2. tit. (9) 10, De Errore Advocat.) more complete than it is in the Corpus Juris; and upon Constit. I. (Cod. 2. tit. 9. De Advoc. Fisci), he quotes a text of Paulus, which is found nowhere else.

Editions

This commentary was first published in Meerman's Thesaurus, iii. and v., and since by Heimbach, Basil. 1.323-424.

Purpported work on the Novellae and Pandect

It is sometimes said that Thalelaeus wrote a commentary on the Novellae, but this notion is only founded on a mistake of a copyist, who in a scholium of the Basilica on Nov. 115. 5.1, has written Thalelaeus for Theodorus. There appears also to be no ground for the opinion that Thalelaeus translated the Pandect, or that he wrote a commentary on it.

Further Information

Mortreuil, Histoire du Droit Byzantin, vol. i.)

[G.L]