Lost Roman law code discovered in London

Simon Corcoran and Benet Salway made the breakthrough after piecing together 17 fragments of previously incomprehensible parchment. The fragments were being studied at UCL as part of the Arts & Humanities Research Council-funded 'Projet Volterra' ? a ten-year study of Roman law in its full social, legal and political context. Corcoran and Salway found that the text belonged to the Codex Gregorianus, or Gregorian Code, a collection of laws by emperors from Hadrian (AD 117-138) to Diocletian (AD 284-305), which was published circa AD 300. Little was known about the codex's original form and there were, until now, no known copies in existence. 'The fragments bear the text of a Latin work in a clear calligraphic script, perhaps dating as far back as AD 400,' said Dr Salway. ?It uses a number of abbreviations characteristic of legal texts and the presence of writing on both sides of the fragments indicates that they belong to a page or pages from a late antique codex book - rather than a scroll or a lawyer's loose-leaf notes. 'The fragments contain a collection of responses by a series of Roman emperors to questions on legal matters submitted by members of the public,' continued Dr Salway.