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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §11.1.15.pr-11.1.15.1

Confessions on Unaccepted Slaves and Release upon Death

Passage 1761 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

It discusses the liability incurred when declaring a slave of an unaccepted inheritance as one's own, and the release from liability for the respondent if the confessed slave dies.

[POMPONIUS libro octauo decimo ad Sabinum. ] §11.1.15.prSi ante aditam hereditatem seruum hereditarium meum esse respondeam, teneor, quia domini loco habetur hereditas.
[POMPONIUS, from the eighteenth book on Sabinus.] If, before the inheritance is accepted, I should answer that a slave belonging to the inheritance is mine, I am liable, because the inheritance is held in the place of an owner.
§11.1.15.1Mortuo seruo, quem in iure interrogatus suum esse confessus sit, non tenetur is qui respondit, quemadmodum, si proprius eius fuisset, post mortem eius non teneretur.
When a slave is dead, whom one, upon being interrogated in court, confessed to be his own, he who answered is not liable, just as, if the slave had been his own, he would not be liable after his death.

Notes

  1. §11.1.15.prante aditam hereditatem — The preposition `ante` is followed by the noun `hereditatem` and the perfect passive participle `aditam` in agreement, forming an ab urbe condita construction that denotes the action itself: "before the acceptance of the inheritance."
  2. §11.1.15.prdomini loco habetur — The passive verb `habetur` is used in the sense of "is regarded as," taking the ablative phrase `domini loco` ("in the place of an owner"). This indicates the legal principle that the unaccepted inheritance itself temporarily substitutes for the owner.
  3. §11.1.15.1Mortuo seruo, quem in iure interrogatus suum esse confessus sit — The opening phrase `Mortuo seruo` is an ablative absolute. The relative pronoun `quem` has `seruo` as its antecedent and functions as the subject accusative of the infinitive clause `suum esse` within the relative clause.
  4. §11.1.15.1si proprius eius fuisset, post mortem eius non teneretur — A contrary-to-fact conditional sentence. While the conditional clause is in the pluperfect subjunctive (`fuisset`) referring to a past hypothesis, the main clause is in the imperfect subjunctive (`teneretur`) denoting a present or continuous state of non-liability, resulting in a mixed conditional structure.

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §11.1.15.pr-11.1.15.1. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:11.1.15.pr-11.1.15.1

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