Humanitext Reader

Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §34.9.16.pr-34.9.16.2

Deprivation for False Accusation and Concubine's Legacy

Passage 5321 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

This section discusses the deprivation of inheritance shares when nephews designated as substitutes unsuccessfully accuse a pupil's mother of substituting a child, the validity of legacies to freeborn concubines, and the treasury's assumption of legacy duties when an heir's name is erased from the tablets.

[IDEM libro octauo responsorum. ] §34.9.16.prCum tabulis secundis pater impuberi filio fratris tilios coheredibus datis substituisset ac substituti fratris filii post mortem pueri matrem eius partus subiecti ream postulassent, ut hereditatem patrui legitimam optinerent: uictis auferendam esse partem hereditatis ex causa substitutionis respondi, quia ex testamento sententiam secundum se dictam non haberent.
[THE SAME, in the eighth book of Responses.] When a father, by a pupillary substitution, had substituted for his minor son his brother's sons, who had been given as co-heirs, and the substituted brother's sons, after the boy's death, had prosecuted his mother on the charge of substituting a child, in order to obtain their uncle's intestate inheritance: I responded that, upon their defeat, the share of the inheritance coming from the cause of substitution must be taken away from them, because they did not have a judgment pronounced in their favor based on the testament.
§34.9.16.1Quoniam stuprum in ea contrahi non placuit, quae se non patroni concubinam esse patitur, eius, qui concubinam habuit, quod testamento relictum est, actio non denegabitur.
Since it has been decided that stuprum is not committed in the case of a woman who permits herself to be the concubine of one who is not her patron, the action for what was left by the testament of the man who had her as a concubine will not be denied.
idque in testamento Coccei Cassiani clarissimi uiri, qui Rufinam ingenuam honore pleno dilexerat, optimi maximique principes nostri iudicauerunt: cuius filiam, quam alumnam testamento Cassianus nepti coheredem datam appellauerat, uulgo quaesitam apparuit.
And our best and greatest emperors so decided in the case of the testament of Cocceius Cassianus, a man of illustrious rank, who had loved Rufina, a freeborn woman, with full respect; whose daughter, whom Cassianus in his testament had called his foster-child and given as co-heir to his granddaughter, appeared to have been born out of wedlock.
§34.9.16.2Cum heredis nomen mutata uoluntate pater familias incisis tabulis induxisset atque ideo fisco portionis emolumentum adiudicatum fuisset, eam rem legatariis non obesse, qui retinuerant uoluntatem, diuo Marco placuit, et ideo cum suo onere fiscum succedere.
When a father of a family, having changed his mind, had erased the name of the heir by scraping the tablets, and therefore the benefit of that share had been awarded to the treasury, the deified Marcus decided that this circumstance did not prejudice the legatees, towards whom the testator had retained his goodwill, and therefore the treasury succeeds to the inheritance with its burden.

Notes

  1. §34.9.16.pruictis — A perfect passive participle with the relative pronoun omitted, referring here to the "brother's sons" who lost their prosecution against the mother. It functions as a dative of disadvantage with `auferendam esse` (to be taken away from).
  2. §34.9.16.1eius, qui concubinam habuit, quod testamento relictum est, actio non denegabitur — The structure is somewhat complex. `eius` is the antecedent of the `quod` clause, and `eius quod testamento relictum est` forms a single noun phrase meaning "that which was left by the testament," serving as an objective genitive modifying `actio`. `qui concubinam habuit` refers to the man who kept the concubine, indicating his testament.
  3. §34.9.16.2qui retinuerant uoluntatem — The antecedent of the relative pronoun `qui` is `legatariis`. The verb `retinuerant` is a third-person plural pluperfect, which literally translates as "the legatees who had retained the goodwill." However, since the context implies that the testator (pater familias) had retained his goodwill (uoluntatem) toward them, it is commonly read as an error for the third-person singular `retinuerat`. The translation follows this contextual reading.

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §34.9.16.pr-34.9.16.2. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:34.9.16.pr-34.9.16.2

Please note the AI-draft status of the translation and the date accessed.

Translation, notes and summary are AI-generated drafts, revised through reader feedback.