Humanitext Reader

Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §46.3.32.pr

Payment to a Slave in Ignorance of Death or Manumission

Passage 7687 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

Julian explains the releasing effect of a debtor's payment to a slave in relation to his peculium, when the debtor is ignorant of the master's death or the slave's manumission without the peculium, comparing it to payment to a designated third party after the creditor's death.

[IULIANUS libro tertio decimo digestorum. ] §46.3.32.prSi seruus peculiari nomine crediderit eique debitor, cum ignoraret dominum mortuum esse, ante aditam hereditatem soluerit, liberabitur.
[JULIANUS in the thirteenth book of Digests.] If a slave has given credit in the name of his peculium, and the debtor, while being ignorant that the master is dead, has paid him before the inheritance is accepted, he will be released.
idem iuris erit et si manumisso seruo debitor pecuniam soluerit, cum ignoraret ei peculium concessum non esse.
The same rule of law will apply even if the debtor has paid money to a manumitted slave, while being ignorant that the peculium had not been granted to him.
neque intererit, uiuo an mortuo domino pecunia numerata sit: nam hoc quoque casu debitor liberatur, sicut is, qui iussus est a creditore pecuniam Titio soluere, quamuis creditor mortuus fuerit, nihilo minus recte Titio soluit, si modo ignorauerit creditorem mortuum esse.
Nor will it matter whether the money was paid while the master was alive or after he was dead; for in this case too the debtor is released, just as one who has been ordered by a creditor to pay money to Titius, even though the creditor has died, nevertheless correctly pays Titius, provided only that he was ignorant that the creditor is dead.

Notes

  1. §46.3.32.prante aditam hereditatem — An expression related to the legal concept of accepting or entering upon an inheritance (adire hereditatem). During the interval between the master's death and the heir's acceptance (aditio), the estate is considered 'lying' (hereditas iacens), and a payment made in good faith by the debtor, ignorant of the master's death, is valid and releases the debtor.
  2. §46.3.32.prmanumisso seruo — Dative complement (indirect object) of the verb soluerit, meaning 'to the manumitted slave.' Although grammatically possible to interpret as an ablative absolute ('when the slave was manumitted'), it is more natural to understand it as a dative since the verb soluerit requires a recipient of the payment in this context.
  3. §46.3.32.pruiuo an mortuo domino — A disjunctive ablative absolute connected by the conjunction an ('or'). Since Latin lacks a present participle for the verb esse, the noun (domino) and the adjectives (uiuo, mortuo) alone form this phrase, representing the time or circumstance: 'whether while the master was alive or when he was dead.'

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §46.3.32.pr. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:46.3.32.pr

Please note the AI-draft status of the translation and the date accessed.

Translation, notes and summary are AI-generated drafts, revised through reader feedback.