this event is uncertain (Strabo vii. 317). In 376 a large band of Triballi crossed Mt Haemus and advanced as far as Abdera; they were preparing to besiege the city, when Chabrias appeared off the coast with the Athenian fleet and compelled them to retire. In 339, when Philip II. of Macedon was returning from his expedition against the Scythians, the Triballi refused to allow him to pass the Haemus unless they received a share of the booty. Hostilities took place, in which Philip was defeated and nearly lost his life (Justin ix. 3), but the Triballi appear to have been subsequently subdued by him. After the death of Philip, the Triballi having taken up arms again, Alexander the Great in 334 crossed the Haemus and drove them to the junction of the Lyginus with the Danube. Their king Syrmus took refuge in Peuce (Peukē, an island in the Danube), whither Alexander was unable to follow him. The punishment inflicted by him upon the Getae, however, induced the Triballi to sue for peace (Arrian, Anabasis, i. 1, 4; 2, 2–4; 4, 6). About 280 a host of Gauls under Cerethrius defeated the Getae and Triballi (Justin xxv. 1; Pausanias x. 19, 7). Nevertheless, the latter for some fiity years (135–84) caused trouble to the Roman governors of Macedonia. In the time of Ptolemy their territory is limited to the district between the Ciabrus (Tzibritza) and Utus (Vid), in the modern Bulgaria, their chief town being Oescus (Οῖσκος Τριβαλλῶν). Under Tiberius mention is made of Treballia in Moesia, and the Emperor Maximin (235–237) had been commander of a squadron of Triballi. The name occurs for the last time during the reign of Diocletian, who dates a letter from Triballis. The Triballi are described as a wild and warlike people (Isocrates, Panathenaicus, 227), and in Aristophanes (Birds, 1565–1693) a Triballian is introduced as a specimen of an uncivilized barbarian.
See W. Tomaschek, “Die alten Thraker" in Sitzungsberichte der k. Akad. der Wissensehaften, cxxviii. (Vienna, 1893).
TRIBE (Lat. tribus, from tres, three), a word which is believed to have originally meant a “third part” of the people, in reference to the three patrician orders or political divisions of the people of Ancient Rome, the Ramnes, Tities and Luceres, representing the Latin, Sabine and Etruscan settlements. Its ethnological meaning has come to be any aggregate of families or small communities which are grouped together under one chief or leader, observing similar customs and social rules, and tracing their descent from one common ancestor. Examples of such “enlarged families” are the twelve tribes of Israel. In general the tribe is the earliest form of political organization, nations gradually being constituted by tribal amalgamation. (See Family.)
TRIBERG, a town and health resort of Germany, in the grand duchy of Baden, in the Black Forest, pleasantly situated on the Gutach and surrounded by well-wooded hills, 2250 ft. above the sea, 35 m. by rail S.E. of Offenburg. Pop. (1905), 3717. It has four churches, one of them Anglican. Triberg is one of the chief centres of the Black Forest clock-making industry. Straw-plaiting, saw-milling, brewing, and the manufacture of wooden wares are also carried on, and the town has a permanent industrial exhibition. Triberg is what is called a Luftkurort, a place to which convalescents resort after a course of baths elsewhere. Near the town is the fine waterfall formed by the Gutach. Triberg came into the possession of Austria in 1654 and into that of Baden in 1806.
TRIBONIAN, the famous jurist and minister of Justinian, was born in Pamphylia in the latter part of the 5th century. Adopting the profession of an advocate, he came to Constantinople and practised in the prefectural courts there, reaching such eminence as tojattract the notice of the emperor Justinian, who appointed him in 528 one of the ten commissioners directed to prepare the first Codex of imperial constitutions. In the edict creating this commission (known as Haec quae) Tribonian is named sixth, and is called “virum magnificum, magisteria dignitate inter agentes decoratum” (see Haec quae and Summa republicae, prefixed to the Codex.) When the commission of sixteen eminent lawyers was created in 530 for the far more laborious and difficult duty of compiling a collection of extracts from the writings of the great jurists of the earlier empire, Tribonian was made president and no doubt general director of this board. He had already been raised to the office of quaestor, which at that time was a sort of ministry of law and justice, its holder being the assessor of the emperor and his organ for judicial purposes, something like the English lord chancellor of the later middle ages. The instructions given to these sixteen commissioners may be found in the constitution Deo auctore (Cod. i. 17, 1), and the method in which the work was dealt with in the constitution Tanta (Cod. i. 17, 2), great praise being awarded to Tribonian, who is therein called ex-quaestor and ex-consul, and also as magister officiorum. This last constitution was issued in December 533, when the Digest was promulgated as a law-book. During the progress of the work, in January 532, there broke out in Constantinople a disturbance in the hippodrome, which speedily turned to a terrible insurrection, that which goes in history by the name of Nika, the watchword of the insurgents. Tribonian was accused of having prostituted his office for the purposes of gain, and the mob searched for him to put him to death (Procop. Pers. i. 24–26). Justinian, yielding for the moment, removed him from office, and appointed a certain Basilides in his place. After the suppression of the insurrection the work of codification was resumed. A little earlier than the publication of the Digest, or Pandects, there had been published another but much smaller law-book, the Institutes, prepared under Justinian's orders by Tribonian, with Theophilus and Dorotheus, professors of law (see Preface to Institutes). About the same time the emperor placed Tribonian at the head of a fourth commission, consisting of himself as chief and four others—Dorotheus, professor at Beyrut, and three practising advocates, who were directed to revise and re-edit the first Codex of imperial constitutions. The new Codex was published in November 534 (see constitution Cordi nobis prefixed to the Codex). With it Tribonian's work of codification was completed. But he remained Justinian's chief legal minister. He was reinstated as quaestor some time after 534 (Procop. Pers. i. 25; Anecd. 20) and seems to have held the office as long as he lived. He was evidently the prime mover in the various changes effected in the law by the novels of Justinian (Novellae constitutiones), which became much less frequent and less important after death had removed the great jurist. The date of his death has been variously assigned to 545, 546 and 547. Procopius says (Anecd. 20) that, although he left a son and many grandchildren, Justinian confiscated part of the inheritance.
The above facts, which are all that we know about Tribonian, rest on the authority of his contemporary Procopius and of the various imperial constitutions already cited. There are, however, two articles in the Lexicon of Suidas under the name “Tribonianos.” They appear to be different articles, purporting to refer to different persons, and have been generally so received by the editors of Suidas and by modern legal historians. Some authorities, however, as for instance Gibbon, have supposed them to refer to the same person. The first article is unquestionably meant for the jurist. It is based on Procopius, whose very words are to some extent copied, and indeed it adds nothing to what the latter tells us, except the statement that Tribonian was the son of Macedonianus, was ἀπό δικηγόρων τῶν ὑπάρχων, and was a heathen and atheist, wholly averse to the Christian faith. The second article says that the Tribonian to whom it refers was of Side (in Pamphylia), was also ἀπό δικηγόρων τῶν ὑπάρχων, was a man of learning and wrote various books, among which are mentioned certain astronomical treatises, a dialogue On Happiness, and two addresses to Justinian. None of these books relate to law; and the better opinion seems to be that there were two Tribonians, apparently contemporaries, though possibly some of the attributes of the jurist have been, by a mistake of the compilers or transcribers of the Lexicon of Suidas, extended to the man of letters of the same name.
The character which Procopius gives to the jurist, even if touched by personal spite, is entitled to some credence, because it is contained in the Histories and not in the scandalous and secret Anecdota. It is as follows: “ Tribonian was a man of great natural powers, and had attained as high a culture as any one of his time; but he was greedy of money, capable of selling justice for gain, and every day he repealed or enacted some law at the instance of people who purchased this from him according to their several needs. . . . He
