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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §37.14.10.pr

Exclusion of Patrons Prosecuting Freedmen on Capital Charges

Passage 5860 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

The text discusses the exclusion of a patron who prosecuted his freedman on a capital charge from the possession of property contrary to the will, along with juristic views on the definition of a capital charge and what constitutes a prosecution.

[TERENTIUS CLEMENS libro nono ad legem Iuliam et Papiam. ] §37.14.10.prEum patronum, qui capitis libertum accusasset, excludi a bonorum possessione contra tabulas placuit.
[TERENTIUS CLEMENS, in the ninth book on the Lex Julia et Papia.] It was decided that a patron who had prosecuted his freedman on a capital charge should be excluded from the possession of property contrary to the will.
Labeo existimabat capitis accusationem eam esse, cuius poena mors aut exilium esset.
Labeo was of the opinion that a capital charge was one of which the punishment was death or exile.
qui nomen detulit, accusasse intellegendus est, nisi abolitionem petit: idque etiam Proculo placuisse Seruilius refert.
A person who has handed in the name of the accused is to be understood to have prosecuted him, unless he seeks an annulment of the accusation; and Servilius reports that this was also acceptable to Proculus.

Notes

  1. 37.14.10.prcapitis — Genitive of charge/punishment used with the verb of accusing (`accusasset`). In Roman law, it refers to a "capital charge/crime" affecting the `caput` (life or civic status), which, as Labeo notes, involves death or exile.
  2. 37.14.10.prnomen detulit — "Handed in the name." A technical expression in Roman criminal procedure (nomen deferre) referring to the formal act of registering the name of the accused and the charge with the magistrate.
  3. 37.14.10.printellegendus est — A personal construction of the passive periphrastic conjugation using the gerundive `intellegendus` with the omitted antecedent `is` of the relative pronoun `qui` as its subject. Combined with the perfect infinitive `accusasse`, it means "he is to be understood to have prosecuted."

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §37.14.10.pr. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:37.14.10.pr

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