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Lost Roman Codex Fragments Found in Book Binding
from National Geographic News
Fragments of a lost ancient Roman law text have been rediscovered in the scrap paper used to bind other books. The Codex Gregorianus, or Gregorian Code, was compiled by an otherwise unknown man named Gregorius at the end of the third century A.D. It started a centuries-long tradition of collecting Roman emperors' laws in a single manuscript.
The Codex Gregorianus covered the laws of Hadrian, who ruled from A.D. 117 to 138, to those of Diocletian, ruler from A.D. 284 to 305.
Later codices excerpted the laws that were still relevant and added new ones, so only parts of the first codex survived as passages in other editions. All copies of the original collection of laws were thought to have been lost. Luckily, in the 16th century it was common to use scraps of paper to reinforce the bindings of new books.
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