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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §3.5.16.pr

Accounting for Management Conducted Prior to Manumission

Passage 588 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

Discusses that a manumitted person is generally not required to account for transactions conducted during slavery, except when they are inseparable from those conducted after manumission.

[ULPIANUS libro trigensimo quinto ad edictum. ] §3.5.16.prEum actum, quem quis in seruitute egit, manumissus non cogitur reddere.
[ULPIANUS, on the Edict, book thirty-five] A manumitted person is not compelled to render an account of that transaction which he conducted while in slavery.
plane si quid conexum fuit, ut separari ratio eius quod in seruitute gestum est ab eo quod in libertate gessit non possit: constat uenire in iudicium uel mandati uel negotiorum gestorum et quod in seruitute gestum est.
Clearly, if anything was so connected that the account of what was managed in slavery cannot be separated from what he managed in freedom, it is established that what was managed in slavery also comes into the action of either mandate or of business management.
denique si tempore seruitutis aream emerit et in ea insulam aedificauerit eaque corruerit, deinde manumissus fundum locauerit: sola locatio fundorum in iudicio negotiorum gestorum deducetur, quia ex superioris temporis administratione nihil amplius in iudicio deduci potest quam id, sine quo ratio libertatis tempore administratorum negotiorum expediri non potest.
For example, if during the time of slavery he bought a vacant plot and built an apartment block on it, and it collapsed, and then after being manumitted he leased out the land: only the lease of the land will be brought into the action for business management, because from the administration of the earlier period nothing more can be brought into the lawsuit than that without which the account of the affairs managed during the time of freedom cannot be settled.

Notes

  1. §3.5.16.prreddere — The verb reddere (normally 'to return' or 'to render') is used here with eum actum (transaction/management) as its object to mean 'to render an account' (equivalent to rationem reddere).
  2. §3.5.16.preius quod in seruitute gestum est ab eo quod in libertate gessit — A contrastive structure within the consecutive clause introduced by ut. The phrase eius quod... is a genitive modifying ratio (neuter singular demonstrative pronoun eius with a relative clause), while ab eo quod... is an ablative of separation dependent on the passive infinitive separari.
  3. §3.5.16.prnihil amplius... quam id, sine quo... — A restrictive construction where quam corresponds to the comparative amplius. The pronoun id is modified by the relative clause sine quo ('without which... not'), together expressing a strong limitation: 'nothing more... than that without which... cannot be settled'.

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §3.5.16.pr. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:3.5.16.pr

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