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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §48.8.9.pr

Conditions for Exemption from Punishment in Killing a Night Thief

Passage 8248 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

It stipulates that a person who kills a night thief shall escape punishment only if they could not have spared the thief without facing personal danger.

[IDEM libro trigensimo septimo ad edictum. ] §48.8.9.prFurem nocturnum si quis occiderit, ita demum impune feret, si parcere ei sine periculo suo non potuit.
[THE SAME, On the Edict, Book 37] If anyone kills a night thief, he shall go unpunished only if he could not have spared him without danger to himself.

Notes

  1. §48.8.9.prFurem nocturnum — A hyperbaton occurs where the object is placed before the conditional conjunction si. Syntactically, the underlying structure is si quis furem nocturnum occiderit.
  2. §48.8.9.prita demum — Correlative with the following conditional clause (si parcere...), expressing a strict limitation ('only then', 'only on the condition that').
  3. §48.8.9.primpune feret — The idiom impune ferre means 'to go unpunished' or 'to escape punishment' as a result of an action. feret is the third-person singular future of ferre (to bear, obtain).

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §48.8.9.pr. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:48.8.9.pr

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