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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §18.7.8.pr

Seller's Change of Mind on Manumission and Loss of Action

Passage 2761 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

The text examines whether a seller who agreed to a slave's manumission but changed his mind can still sue the buyer who manumitted the slave anyway, concluding that the action is extinguished.

[IDEM libro uicesimo septimo quaestionum. ] §18.7.8.prQuaesitum est, si quis proprium seruum uendidisset et ut manumitteretur intra certum tempus, praecepisset ac postea mutasset uoluntatem et emptor nihilo minus manumississet, an aliquam eo nomine actionem haberet.
[THE SAME in the twenty-seventh book of Questions.] The question was asked, if a person had sold his own slave and had directed that he be manumitted within a certain time, and afterwards had changed his mind, and the buyer had nevertheless manumitted him, whether he would have any action on that account.
dixi ex uendito actionem manumisso seruo uel mutata uenditoris uoluntate euanuisse.
I said that the action on the sale vanished either by the manumission of the slave or by the change of the seller's mind.

Notes

  1. §18.7.8.prQuaesitum est, si... an... — A construction where the impersonal passive 'Quaesitum est' (it was asked) is followed by a conditional 'si' clause setting up the factual scenario, and an indirect question introduced by 'an' (whether he would have any action).
  2. §18.7.8.prmanumisso seruo uel mutata uenditoris uoluntate — Two ablative absolute phrases connected by the disjunctive 'uel' (either... or), expressing the cause or circumstance under which the action vanished (euanuisse).

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §18.7.8.pr. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:18.7.8.pr

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