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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §48.19.17.pr-48.19.17.1

Legal Status of Slaves of Punishment and the Stateless

Passage 8398 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

Marcianus explains that certain convicts become "slaves of punishment" and lose their capacity to receive legacies, and that those deprived of citizenship lose their civil law rights while retaining their rights under the law of nations.

[MARCIANUS libro primo institutionum. ] §48.19.17.prSunt quidam serui poenae, ut sunt in metallum dati et in opus metalli: et si quid eis testamento datum fuerit, pro non scriptis est, quasi non Caesaris seruo datum, sed poenae.
[MARCIANUS, from the first book of Institutes.] Certain persons are "slaves of punishment," such as those condemned to the mines and to labor in the mines; and if anything should be left to them by a will, it is regarded as not written, as if it were given not to a slave of the Emperor, but to a slave of punishment.
§48.19.17.1Item quidam ἀπόλιδες sunt, hoc est sine ciuitate: ut sunt in opus publicum perpetuo dati et in insulam deportati, ut ea quidem, quae iuris ciuilis sunt, non habeant, quae uero iuris gentium sunt, habeant.
Likewise, certain persons are "apolides," that is, without citizenship, such as those condemned to perpetual public labor and those deported to an island, with the result that they do not possess those rights which belong to the civil law, but they do possess those which belong to the law of nations.

Notes

  1. §48.19.17.prserui poenae — poenae is a genitive of possession, designating a "slave of punishment," where punishment itself is personified as the master. Unlike ordinary slaves who belong to an individual or the Emperor (Caesaris) and can acquire property for their masters, a "slave of punishment" has no master and is completely stripped of civil capacity.
  2. §48.19.17.prpro non scriptis — A plural variant of the standard Roman legal formula pro non scripto (regarded as not written, i.e., void). Here, the plural is used because it refers to whatever acts of legacy (quid) might have been left to them (eis).
  3. §48.19.17.1ut ea quidem, quae iuris ciuilis sunt, non habeant — The ut clause with the subjunctive (habeant) expresses the result concerning the status of those deprived of citizenship. iuris ciuilis and iuris gentium are possessive genitives (genitives of belonging) meaning "belonging to civil law" and "belonging to the law of nations" respectively.

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §48.19.17.pr-48.19.17.1. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:48.19.17.pr-48.19.17.1

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