Herennius Modestinus

Herennius Modestinus, known simply as Modestinus, was a civil servant and celebrated Roman jurist, a student of Ulpian, who flourished about 250 AD and appears to have been a native of one of the Greek-speaking provinces, probably Dalmatia. He served as secretary a libellis under Emperor Alexander Severus, possibly from 223 to 225 AD, and as praefectus vigilum around 228, and he is mentioned in a rescript of Gordian III in the year 240 in connection with a legal opinion he had given. In Valentinian's Law of Citations he was classed with Papinian, Paulus, Gaius and Ulpian as one of the five jurists whose recorded views were considered decisive, and he is considered the last great jurist of the classic age of Roman law; no fewer than 345 passages in the Digest of the Corpus Juris Civilis are drawn from his writings, which include a collection of Responsa and Digesta in twelve books.