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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §31.0.15.pr

Performance of Alternative Legacies by Co-Heirs

Passage 4741 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

The passage explains that when an alternative bequest (a slave or money) is imposed on two heirs, they cannot divide the performance by each delivering a different object, but each must perform the same alternative.

[CELSUS libro sexto digestorum. ] §31.0.15.prSi quis duobus heredibus institutis ita legauerit: 'Stichum aut decem heredes danto', non potest alter heredum quinque, alter partem Stichi dare, sed necesse est utrumque aut Stichum totum aut decem soluere.
[CELSUS, in the sixth book of his digests.] If anyone, having instituted two heirs, should have bequeathed thus: 'Let the heirs give Stichus or ten,' one of the heirs cannot give five and the other a part of Stichus, but it is necessary that each of them perform either the whole of Stichus or ten.

Notes

  1. §31.0.15.prdanto — The third-person plural future imperative of the verb dare, commonly used in legal texts or testamentary formulas to express an obligation ('they shall give'). Its subject is the nominative plural heredes.
  2. §31.0.15.prquinque — Refers to 'five,' which is half of the 'ten' (decem) specified by the testator. It indicates that the split performance of an alternative obligation—where one heir performs 'five' and the other performs a share (half) of the slave Stichus—is not permitted.
  3. §31.0.15.prutrumque — The masculine accusative singular of the pronoun uterque ('each of the two'). It is the logical subject of the accusative-and-infinitive construction (with the infinitive soluere) introduced by the impersonal expression necesse est, requiring that 'each of them perform' the same object as a whole.

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §31.0.15.pr. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:31.0.15.pr

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