The Theodosian Code was written by the combined efforts of the legal bureaucracy of Theodosius II’s court in Constantinople and was meant as a major reform of the system of law in the Roman Empire. This was needed especially to support the faltering Western Roman Empire. The Theodosian Code reveals the actual operation of the Roman Empire in the communication between the center and the periphery on dayto- day matters of government and law, with more than twenty-five hundred imperial rescripts issued between 313 and 437. At the same time, the Theodosian Code is one of the elementary bases for the system of Roman law that is still used as the foundation for jurisprudence throughout the world outside the United States and the Commonwealth.