- Source
- Digesta Iustiniani Augusti. Mommsen, Theodor & Krueger, Paul, editors. Berlin: Weidmann, 1870.
- Translation
- AI-generated (gemini-3.5-flash) — machine translation; may contain errors
- Languages
- 日本語 · English · 简体中文 · 한국어
- CTS URN
- urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:3.5.48.pr
- Generated
- Humanitext Reader · reader.humanitext.ai · 2026-11-07
This section discusses the granting of an action on business managed for the price when a sold slave steals a thing and the buyer resells it before it perishes, comparing it with a case where one mistakenly pays one's own property as a legacy believing a foreign inheritance to be one's own.
[AFRICANUS libro octauo quaestionum.]
[AFRICANUS, Questions, Book VIII]
Si rem, quam seruus uenditus subripuisset a me uenditore, emptor uendiderit eaque in rerum natura esse desierit,1 de pretio negotiorum gestorum actio mihi danda sit, ut dari deberet,2 si negotium, quod tuum esse existimares, cum esset meum, gessisses: sicut ex contrario in me tibi daretur, si, cum hereditatem quae ad me pertinet tuam putares, res tuas proprias legatas soluisses, quandoque de ea solutione liberarer.3
If the buyer has sold a thing which the sold slave had stolen from me, the seller, and that thing has ceased to exist in the nature of things, an action on business managed should be granted to me for the price, just as it ought to be granted if you had managed a business which you believed to be yours, although it was mine; just as, on the contrary, it would be granted to you against me if, while you believed an inheritance belonging to me to be yours, you had paid your own proper things that had been bequeathed, whenever I should be released by that payment.
- 3.5.48.prin rerum natura esse desierit
Literally 'ceases to exist in the nature of things,' which is a standard legal expression in Roman law to denote the physical destruction or loss of a specific object.
- 3.5.48.prut dari deberet
Imperfect subjunctive. Together with si... gessisses (pluperfect subjunctive) in the conditional clause, it forms a contrary-to-fact conditional construction, serving as a hypothetical comparison to the main clause's danda sit.
- 3.5.48.prquandoque de ea solutione liberarer
Accompanied by the imperfect subjunctive liberarer. quandoque (whenever) introduces the conditional or consequential circumstance upon which the action is based, namely that the true heir ('I') is released from liability by the payment.