[IDEM libro octauo epistularum. ] §41.1.56.prInsula est enata in flumine contra frontem agri mei, ita ut nihil excederet longitudo regionem praedii mei: postea aucta est paulatim et processit contra frontes et superioris uicini et inferioris: quaero, quod adcreuit utrum meum sit, quoniam meo adiunctum est, an eius iuris sit, cuius esset, si initio ea nata eius longitudinis fuisset.
[THE SAME, from the eighth book of Epistles.] An island arose in a river opposite the front of my land, in such a way that its length did not at all exceed the extent of my estate. Afterward, it gradually increased and extended opposite the fronts of both my upper neighbor and my lower neighbor. I ask whether the part which accrued is mine, since it was joined to mine, or whether it belongs to the same ownership to which it would have belonged if it had arisen of that length in the beginning.
Proculus respondit: flumen istud, in quo insulam contra frontem agri tui enatam esse scripsisti ita, ut non excederet longitudinem agri tui, si alluionis ius habet et insula initio propior fundo tuo fuit quam eius, qui trans flumen habebat, tota tua facta est, et quod postea ei insulae alluione accessit, id tuum est, etiamsi ita accessit, ut procederet insula contra frontes uicinorum superioris atque inferioris, uel etiam ut propior esset fundo eius, qui trans flumen habet.
Proculus replied: In that river in which you wrote that an island arose opposite the front of your land in such a way that it did not exceed the length of your land, if it has the right of alluvion, and the island in the beginning was closer to your estate than to that of the person who had land across the river, it became entirely yours; and that which afterward accrued to that island by alluvion is yours, even if it accrued in such a way that the island extended opposite the fronts of your upper and lower neighbors, or even so that it became closer to the estate of the person who has land across the river.
§41.1.56.1Item quaero, si, cum propior ripae meae enata est insula et postea totum flumen fluere inter me et insulam coepit relicto suo alueo, quo maior amnis fluerat, numquid dubites, quin etiam insula mea maneat et nihilo minus eius soli, quod flumen reliquit, pars fiat mea? rogo, quid sentias scribas mihi.
I also ask: if, when an island arose closer to my bank, and afterward the entire river began to flow between me and the island, leaving its own bed in which the larger river had flowed, would you have any doubt that the island remains mine, and nevertheless a part of that ground which the river left becomes mine? I ask that you write to me what you think.
Proculus respondit: si, cum propior fundo tuo initio fuisset insula, flumen relicto alueo maiore, qui inter eam insulam fuerat et eum fundum uicini, qui trans flumen erat, fluere coepit inter eam insulam et fundum tuum, nihilo minus insula tua manet.
Proculus replied: If, when the island had been closer to your estate in the beginning, the river, leaving the larger bed which had been between that island and the estate of the neighbor who was across the river, began to flow between that island and your estate, the island nevertheless remains yours.
set alueus, qui fuit inter eam insulam et fundum uicini, medius diuidi debet, ita ut pars propior insulae tuae tua, pars autem propior agro uicini eius esse intellegatur.
But the bed which was between that island and the neighbor's estate ought to be divided down the middle, so that the part closer to your island is understood to be yours, and the part closer to the neighbor's land is understood to be his.
intellego, ut et cum ex altera parte insulae alueus fluminis exaruerit, desisse insulam esse, sed quo facilius res intellegeretur, agrum, qui insula fuerat, insulam appellant.
I understand that, when indeed on the other side of the island the bed of the river has dried up, it has ceased to be an island; but so that the matter might be more easily understood, they call the land which had been an island an "island."