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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §37.14.9.pr-37.14.9.1

Children's Rights over Freedmen and Disqualification Grounds

Passage 5859 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

This text rules on the rights of children who abstain from their father's inheritance or are emancipated over their father's freedmen, and lists the categories of persons excluded by law from claiming a freedman's property due to capital crimes or accusations.

[IDEM libro nono regularum. ] §37.14.9.prFilii hereditate paterna se abstinentes ius, quod in libertis habent paternis, non amittunt: idem et in emancipato.
[THE SAME, in the ninth book of Rules.] Children who abstain from their father's inheritance do not lose the right which they have over their father's freedmen; the same applies also to an emancipated child.
§37.14.9.1Ut in bonis liberti locum quidam non haberent, lege excipiuntur: rei capitalis damnatus, si restitutus non est: si index cuius flagitii sit fueritue uel maior annis uiginti quinque cum esset, capitis accusauerit libertum paternum.
In order that certain persons should not have a claim to the property of a freedman, they are excluded by law: a person condemned for a capital crime, if he has not been restored; a person who is or has been an informer of any crime; or one who, when he was over twenty-five years of age, has prosecuted his father's freedman on a capital charge.

Notes

  1. §37.14.9.prhereditate paterna se abstinentes — The verb abstinere, accompanied by the reflexive pronoun (here se), means "to abstain from" or "to refrain from" and takes the ablative (here hereditate paterna) to indicate the object of abstention (ablative of separation).
  2. §37.14.9.1Ut in bonis liberti locum quidam non haberent — Although negative purpose clauses are usually introduced by ne, here an ut... non clause containing the negative particle non is used. Additionally, locum habere is a legal idiom meaning "to have a place" or "to have a claim/right" in an inheritance context.
  3. §37.14.9.1rei capitalis damnatus — damnatus (perfect passive participle of damnare, "to condemn") takes a genitive (here rei capitalis, "capital crime/charge") to express the charge or the punishment incurred (genitive of charge or penalty).
  4. §37.14.9.1maior annis uiginti quinque cum esset — maior is a comparative adjective taking the ablative of comparison annis uiginti quinque ("twenty-five years"), meaning "older than twenty-five years." cum is used with the subjunctive (cum-historical / circumstantial) with esset in the imperfect subjunctive.

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §37.14.9.pr-37.14.9.1. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:37.14.9.pr-37.14.9.1

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