28 RENAISSANCES by the foundation of an Imperial School of Law at Constantinople in A.D. I045.1 , , The ninth-century Vasiliean ghost of a sixth-century Corpus lustwtti- neum resembles its original in presenting an imposing first appearance which it is incapable of sustaining under closer examination .The only touch of originality in the coclificatory work of the Emperor Lni VI in his substitution, in the Vasilikd, of a single unitary system of classifica- tion for Justinian's dispersion among four works (Cmic^Digrnt. Insti- tutes, and Novels) of materials concerning the same 8ubji*r.tH,* Hut 'within the titles, the laws (or chapters) arc not the iHTsnnal \vt»rk <>f Leo; their text was in no way revised by the eoimmasiowrH fur ihr Basilics. They were all drawn from earlier worktt* chiHly from tin* <'otJt* and the Digest, a very few from the Institute, many from the Novels* of Justinian and his successors, a few also from the /VwArtVwi. 'I lie IIIXVM tirr all given in Greek; when they are derived from the three Latin wtti'ktt ot' Justinian, they have been extracted, not from the ^oriwnuh*, Imt from Greek commentaries of the sixth and seventh * To quarrel with a renaissance for being unoriginal in n cnttctHin that might perhaps be discounted as captious; but the mdlVt'tivewNH thut m racteristic of the Macedonian Dyrwwy's attempt to ivmata another characteristic of the Mac the Roman Law is a more serious weakness ; for u ghont, after all, is only distinguishable from a nonentity in so far u» he ftwcmlrt in milking im impression on the living men and women whom he UtitmtH. The ninth- century renaissance of Roman Law in Orthodox Chrwtrndwn nhowetl itself conspicuously impotent to supersede in reality the leuntie.htMt Emperors' new Christian Law which it was abrogating verbally, ttmt even impotent to exorcise the rival ghost of a Mtmuic t*«w which \va» re-emerging out of the Christian Law's Pentatcuchul erypt. It is significant that the Iconodulc kgislutor Himil I'n 'Hnndbook* (rrp($xGipQ$ vd/io?) 'in its second part atao reproduced the provinioiw of the Ecloga, in spite of the abuse of its authors in the prologue/4 nnd tlwt in Basil's 'Second Edition* (eVavaytoyri), which profcKHcd to have abolished the Ecloga> no longer just partially* but entirely, the Keltyttt was actually followed even more closely than it had been in *the Hand- book'.5 The strength of the Ecloga, in its encounter with a rrtumcititteti Roman Law, lay in the fact that the flcfaga wua a faithful rrfkvtion of the Orthodox Christian Mos— partly because it had ftuceeaftfully caught Emperof jfuatinian's codification. The work had m» nownfp hrrn itftunnptiNhr*! flmn it was left high and dry by a catastrophe that nwcpt «w«y it eontpUi'iitvii »ntl xuplu^tt. Bird social life which waa both the ration fttrt *mi the n'mr qua nnn «f « rvttaeit IfjiHl ttpn»ir«ifUH. The foundation of the Hast Roman Imperial Law S«.-hu