_op. cit_. vi. pp. 519-520.]

Such were the political achievements of the decree. Nor were its
financial provisions less far-reaching. Something had to be done to
meet the crisis resulting from the enormous quantity of debt.
Everywhere Justinian undertook great public works, and tried to repair
the destruction caused by the war; but it is probable that in reality
he achieved very little. He had enriched the Church; he had
re-established the great proprietors in their lands and their rights,
but the industry and commerce of Italy, save perhaps at Ravenna and at
Naples, he could not restore. And we seem to understand that the mere
lack of men left whole districts of Italy uncultivated and desert.

As for the administrative and legal clauses of the decree, they gave
the Italian--the Roman as he is called--the right to have his suit
heard by a civil judge instead of a military official. This
established the security of the Italian against the barbaric hosts the
imperial armies had brought into the country. But perhaps more
important, and certainly more significant, is the twelfth clause of
the decree which relates to the way in which the _Judices
Provinciarum_ are to be appointed. "We order," says Justinian, "that
only fit and proper persons able to administer the local government
shall be chosen, and this by the bishops and chief persons of each
province from the inhabitants of that province." This clause was soon
proved to contain so much wisdom that in 569 by Justinian's successor
it was extended to the provinces of the Eastern empire.

In all this we recognise the work of the great reformer who had
already produced the _Corpus Juris Civilis_, consisting of the
Institutes, Digest, Code, and Novellae, which more than anything else
he did--and he did everything--determined that Europe, which he had
secured for ever, should be a Roman thing established upon Roman Law.
But are we also to see in this great man the creator of the exarchate,
that citadel of the empire in Italy which was to endure, though almost
all else perished, till Charlemagne appeared and the empire itself
suddenly re-arose, armed at all points and ready for battle? It might
seem that we are not to attribute that great scheme to Justinian, but
rather to a later recognition of the force and reality of the
disasters that so few years after his death descended once more upon
Italy.

When Narses at the head of the armies of Justinian had in 554
conquered t