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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §39.5.27.pr

Habitation Granted for Teaching Services and Its Posthumous Validity

Passage 6242 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

In a dispute over the right of habitation in an apartment granted by Aquilius Regulus to a rhetorician, Papinianus advised that because it was not a pure donation but a reward for the teacher's services, it remained valid after Regulus's death, and the rhetorician should be defended as if he were a possessor.

[PAPINIANUS libro uicensimo nono quaestionum. ] §39.5.27.prAquilius Regulus iuuenis ad Nicostratum rhetorem ita scripsit: 'quoniam et cum patre meo semper fuisti et me eloquentia et diligentia tua meliorem reddidisti, dono et permitto tibi habitare in illo cenaculo eoque uti'. defuncto Regulo controuersiam habitationis patiebatur Nicostratus et cum de ea re mecum contulisset, dixi posse defendi non meram donationem esse, uerum officium magistri quadam mercede remuneratum Regulum ideoque non uideri donationem sequentis temporis irritam esse.
[PAPINIANUS, in the twenty-ninth book of Questions.] The young Aquilius Regulus wrote to the rhetorician Nicostratus as follows: "Since you have always been with my father, and have made me a better man by your eloquence and diligence, I donate and permit you to inhabit that apartment and to use it." After Regulus died, Nicostratus faced a dispute regarding the habitation, and when he had consulted me on this matter, I said it could be maintained that this was not a pure donation, but that Regulus had rewarded the service of his teacher with a kind of recompense, and therefore the donation for the subsequent period was not seen to be void.
quod si expulsus Nicostratus ueniat ad iudicem, ad exemplum interdicti, quod fructuario proponitur, defendendus erit quasi loco possessoris constitutus, qui usum cenaculi accepit.
And if, having been expelled, Nicostratus should come before a judge, he should be defended, after the example of the interdict which is offered to a usufructuary, as if placed in the position of a possessor who has received the use of the apartment.

Notes

  1. §39.5.27.profficium magistri quadam mercede remuneratum Regulum — The participle remuneratum (from the deponent remuneror, 'to reward') here has an active meaning, with the accusative Regulum acting as its subject accusative and officium magistri ('the service of the teacher') as its direct object. The phrase forms an accusative with infinitive clause (with esse omitted) meaning 'that Regulus had rewarded the service of the teacher with a kind of recompense,' which depends on posse defendi.
  2. §39.5.27.prsequentis temporis — The genitive phrase sequentis temporis ('of the subsequent time') modifies donationem, referring to the continuation of the donation in the period following the donor Regulus's death.

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §39.5.27.pr. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:39.5.27.pr

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