Humanitext Reader

Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §45.2.12.pr-45.2.12.1

Delayed Answers and Co-Promisors Lacking Capacity

Passage 7501 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

The jurist discusses the non-establishment of joint liability when two promisors answer on different days, and how a stipulation with an unauthorized pupil or a slave binds only the other co-promisor, noting the applicability of the action on peculiar property for slaves.

[UENULEIUS libro secundo stipulationum. ] §45.2.12.prSi ex duobus, qui promissuri sint, hodie alter, alter postera die responderit, Proculus non esse duos reos ac ne obligatum quidem intellegi eum, qui postera die responderat, cum actor ad alia negotia discesserit uel promissor, licet peractis illis rebus responderit.
[VENULEIUS in the second book on Stipulations.] If of two persons who are to promise, one answers today and the other on the following day, Proculus holds that they do not become two joint promisors, and indeed that the one who answered on the following day is not even understood to be bound, when the stipulator or the promisor has departed to other business, even though he answered after those matters were concluded.
§45.2.12.1Si a Titio et pupillo sine tutoris auctoritate stipulatus fuero eadem decem, uel a seruo, et quasi duos reos promittendi constitui, obligatum Titium solum Iulianus scribit, quamquam, si seruus spoponderit, in actione de peculio eadem obseruari debent, ac si liber fuisset.
If I stipulate for the same ten aurei from Titius and a pupil without his tutor's authority, or from a slave, and establish them as it were as two joint promisors, Julian writes that Titius alone is bound; although, if a slave has promised, the same rules ought to be observed in an action concerning the peculiar property as if he had been a free man.

Notes

  1. §45.2.12.prnon esse duos reos ac ne obligatum quidem intellegi eum — An accusative with infinitive clause dependent on the implicit verb of thinking (e.g., Proculus [existimat]). The subject of non esse is duos reos ("that they are not two joint debtors"), and the subject of intellegi is eum ("that he is understood"), with obligatum acting as a predicative participle modifying eum ("to be bound").
  2. §45.2.12.1eadem obseruari debent, ac si liber fuisset — The conjunction ac si ("as if") takes the subjunctive pluperfect fuisset to express a past contrary-to-fact condition ("as if he had been a free man"). The main clause eadem obseruari debent means "the same things ought to be observed."

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §45.2.12.pr-45.2.12.1. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:45.2.12.pr-45.2.12.1

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