[MAECIANUS libro undecimo de publicis iudiciis. ] §29.5.14.prExcipiuntur senatus consulto Silaniano impuberes serui.
[MAECIANUS, in the eleventh book On Public Trials.] Under the Silanian senatus consultum, impuberal slaves are exempted.
Trebius autem Germanus legatus etiam de impubere sumi iussit supplicium et tamen non sine ratione: nam is puer nec multum a puberi aetate aberat et ad pedes domini cubuerat cum occideretur nec postea caedem eius prodiderat.
However, Trebius Germanus, the legate, ordered the death penalty to be inflicted even on an impuberal slave, and yet not without reason: for that boy was not far from puberal age and had lain at his master's feet when he was killed, nor had he afterwards revealed his murder.
ut enim opem ferre eum non potuisse constabat, ita silentium praestitisse etiam postea certum erat, et his dumtaxat impuberibus senatus consulto parci credebat, qui tantum sub eodem tecto fuissent: qui uero ministri uel participes caedis fuissent et eius aetatis, quamquam nondum puberis, ut rei intellectum capere possent, his non magis in caede domini quam in ulla alia causa parci oportere.
For just as it was clear that he could not have brought assistance, so it was certain that he had maintained silence even afterwards, and he [Trebius] believed that those impuberal slaves only were to be spared by the senatus consultum who had merely been under the same roof; whereas those who had been ministers or accomplices in the murder, and were of such an age that, although not yet puberal, they could understand the nature of the deed, ought not to be spared in the case of a master's murder any more than in any other case.