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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §39.4.5.pr-39.4.5.1

Restoration of Property and Penalty in Double-Value Suits

Passage 6204 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

The text explains the rules regarding the restoration of property and the survival of penalties before and after the acceptance of a trial, and addresses whether the recovery of the actual thing is included within the double-value penalty.

[GAIUS ad edictum praetoris urbani titulo de publicanis. ] §39.4.5.prHoc edicto efficitur, ut ante acceptum quidem iudicium restituta re actio euanescat, post acceptum uero iudicium nihilo minus poena duret.
[GAIUS on the Edict of the Urban Praetor, under the title "On Publicans".] By this edict, it is brought about that, indeed, before the acceptance of the trial, if the thing is restored, the action vanishes; but after the acceptance of the trial, the penalty nevertheless endures.
sed tamen absoluendus est etiam qui post acceptum iudicium restituere paratus est.
However, even he who is ready to restore after the acceptance of the trial is to be acquitted.
§39.4.5.1Quaerentibus autem nobis, utrum duplum totum poena sit et praeterea rei sit persecutio, an in duplo sit et rei persecutio, ut poena simpli sit, magis placuit, ut res in duplo sit.
But when we inquire whether the whole double amount is a penalty and in addition there is a recovery of the thing, or whether the recovery of the thing is included in the double amount so that the penalty is only the single amount, the view has rather prevailed that the thing is included in the double amount.

Notes

  1. §39.4.5.pracceptum iudicium — This does not mean "the accepted trial" but rather "the acceptance of the trial" (litis contestatio). This is an instance of the dominant participle construction (often called the *ab urbe condita* construction), where the passive perfect participle expresses the action itself. It is governed by the prepositions `ante` and `post` to indicate temporal reference points.
  2. §39.4.5.1Quaerentibus autem nobis — The participle `quaerentibus` modifies the personal pronoun `nobis`. While this might at first glance look like an ablative absolute, it is more naturally understood as the dative complement of the impersonal main verb `placuit` ("it pleased us" or "we resolved"). Thus, it translates to "when we inquired..., the view rather approved itself to us that...".

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §39.4.5.pr-39.4.5.1. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:39.4.5.pr-39.4.5.1

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