[POMPONIUS libro septimo ex Plautio. ] §40.7.21.prLabeo libro posteriorum ita refert: 'Calenus dispensator meus, si rationes diligenter tractasse uidebitur, liber esto sua 'que omnia et centum habeto'. diligentiam desiderare eam debemus, quae domino, non quae seruo fuerit utilis.
[POMPONIUS, book seven on Plautius.] Labeo reports in his book of Posthumous Works as follows: 'Let my steward Calenus, if he is seen to have managed the accounts diligently, be free and have all his own things and one hundred.' We ought to require that diligence which was useful to the master, not that which was useful to the slave.
erit autem ei diligentiae coniuncta fides bona non solum in rationibus ordinandis, sed etiam in reliquo reddendo.
Moreover, with that diligence, good faith must be connected, not only in arranging the accounts, but also in returning the remainder.
et quod ita scriptum est 'uidebitur', pro hoc accipi debet 'uideri poterit': sic et uerba legis duodecim tabularum ueteres interpretati sunt 'si aqua pluuia nocet', id est 'si nocere poterit'.
And what is written as 'he is seen' ought to be accepted for 'he can be seen': so too the ancients interpreted the words of the Law of the Twelve Tables, 'if rainwater does harm', that is, 'if it can do harm'.
et si quaereretur, cui eam diligentiam probari oporteat, heredum arbitratum uiri boni more agentium sequi debebimus, ueluti si is, qui certam pecuniam dedisset, liber esse iussus est, non adscripto eo, cui si dedisset, eo modo poterit liber esse, quo posset, si ita fuisset scriptum 'si heredi dedisset'.
And if it were asked to whom that diligence ought to be approved, we shall have to follow the judgment of the heirs acting in the manner of a good man; just as if one who had given a certain sum of money was ordered to be free, without it being added to whom he should give it, he will be able to be free in the same way as he could have been if it had been written 'if he had given it to the heir'.
§40.7.21.1Pactumeius Clemens aiebat, si ita sit fideicommissum relictum 'cui eorum uoles, rogo restituas', si nullum elegisset cui restitueret, omnibus deberi imperatorem Antoninum constituisse.
Pactumeius Clemens used to say that, if a trust is left in this way, 'I ask that you restore it to whichever of them you wish', if the heir had chosen no one to whom to restore it, the Emperor Antoninus established that it is owed to all of them.