Athanasios of Emesa

Athanasios of Emesa was a Byzantine jurist of the sixth century, from the first generation of jurists to practice after Justinian completed the codification of Roman law, who worked as a teacher of law, a rhetor and an advocate. His principal work is the Syntagma, written between 572 and 577, a practical lawyer's edition of Justinian's Novellae in which he organized the Novellae into twenty-two titles and pioneered the use of paratitla, footnote-like references to other legal sources. The Syntagma was highly popular in its day but fell out of practical use, along with the Novellae themselves, during the seventh century.