Secondly, we may date from Hadrian’s reign the beginning of the consolidation of Roman law, and the rise of a school of great lawyers such as the world has never known since. Apart from the defence of Mediterranean civilisation, to which, indeed, its indirect contribution was not small, this was the most valuable legacy of Rome to modern Europe. Law had originally consisted mainly of the old legal rules of the city-state of Rome, embodied in the Twelve tables, and a few statutes; but, in course of time, through the need of interpreting these, and adjusting them to the customs of other peoples in the Empire, an immense body of what we may call _judge-made law_ had arisen in the form of edicts or public notices of magistrates, issued both in Italy and the provinces. As these customs were now well known, and as the Empire had reached its limits, it was possible to close and consolidate this huge body of official decisions and precedents; and this was done under Hadrian’s direction. The other two sources of law were still to grow largely before they could be welded into the great “Body of Law” (_Corpus Juris_) compiled under the orders of Justinian in the sixth century, which is still the chief European textbook of legal studies. These two sources were the delivered opinions of wise lawyers on points of law, and the decisions of the Cæsars in various forms, all of which had the force of law. The death of Hadrian in A.D. 138 brings us to the third of the great Cæsars of this age, Titus Antoninus, a man who, at fifty-two, had already done excellent work for the Empire. He is known to history as Antoninus Pius, and this last name, given him apparently on his accession, may be a reminiscence of Virgil’s epithet for his hero, and may be due to the strong sense of duty which marked his whole life, public and private. He seems, indeed, vividly to recall the ideal of the Roman character as we traced it in the third chapter of this book; yet he was not Italian by birth. His family belonged to Nismes in southern Gaul, and that ancient city still honours him with a “Place Antonin,” in which his statue stands. His features, as they appear on portrait busts, entirely confirm the account of him left us by his nephew and successor. Grave and wise, gentle yet firm, religious in the true old Roman sense, pure in life, and simple in all his needs and pleasures, he ruled over a peaceful and contented empire, devoting himself to the work of humanising and softening the life and lot of his subjects.