BASILICS, in literary history, a name supposed to have been given by the emperor Leo to a collection of laws in honour of his father Basilus Macedo, who began it in the year 867, and in the execution chiefly made use of Sabbathius Protospatharius, who carried the work as far as 40 books. Leo added 20 books more, and published the work in 880. The whole, 30 years after, was corrected and improved by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, son of Leo; whence many have held him the author of the Basilica. Six books of the Basilica were translated into Latin in 1557, by Gentian Hervetus. An edition of the Greek Basilics, with a Latin version, has been since published at Paris, in 1647, by Annib. Fabrottus, in 7 volumes. There are still wanting 19 books, which are supposed to be lost. Fabrottus has endeavoured to supply in some measure the defect from the synopsis of the Basilica, and the glosses; of which several had been made under the succeeding emperors, and contained the whole Justinian law, excepting the superfluities, in a new and more consistent order, together with the later constitutions of the emperors posterior to Justinian.