Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The Iconoclastic epoch (717-867)

The internal activities of the emperors of the Isaurian dynasty 

Page 9

In style the Maritime Law is of a rather official character, while in contents it differs greatly from the Digest of Justinian because it apparently reflects some influence of later times. Thus, for example, this law fixes the liability on the part of the shipowner, the lessee merchant, and the passengers for the safety of the ship and the cargo. In case of storm or piracy they were all expected to make good the losses. This provision was intended to serve as a sort of insurance, and, together with other peculiar rulings, resulted from the fact that from the time of Heraclius in the seventh century maritime commerce and navigation in general were greatly endangered by the sea raids of Arabian and Slavic pirates. Piracy became such a habitual phenomenon that the shipowners and merchants could continue their commercial enterprises only by assuming a common risk.

The time of the compilation of the Sea Law can be determined only approximately. It was probably put together unofficially between 600 and 800 A.D. In any case, there is no reason for attributing a common origin to the three books, the Sea Law, the Rural Code, and the Soldiers Law.

In spite of the return of the Macedonian dynasty to the standards of the Justinian law, the Sea Law persisted in actual practice and influenced some of the Byzantine jurists of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries. This survival indicates that Byzantine trade navigation did not recover after the seventh and eighth centuries. The Italians, who later monopolized the trade of the Mediterranean Sea, had their own sea statutes. With the decline of Byzantine sea commerce the Maritime Law became obsolete, so that there are no references to it in the juridical documents of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

The Military Law or Soldiers Law (νόμος στρατιωτικός, leges militares) is an extract from the Greek paraphrases of Justinian's Digest and Code, the Ecloga, and several other sources which were added to the law in later times. It consists mainly of an enumeration of penalties inflicted upon men in military service for such offenses as mutiny, disobedience, flight, adultery. The punishments provided are extremely harsh. If the opinion of scholars that it belongs to the time of the Isaurian dynasty were correct, it would give an excellent indication of the strictness of the military discipline introduced by Leo III. But unfortunately the scanty information does not support a positive statement that the law belongs to this period. In fact, all that has been said on the Rural Code, the Sea Law, and the Military Law must be summed up by stating that not one of these three small codes can be regarded with certainty as the work of the Isaurian emperors.

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