[IDEM libro secundo de iure fisci. ] §49.14.2.prEx quibusdam causis delatione suscipientium fama non laeditur, ueluti eorum, qui non praemii consequendi, item eorum, qui ulciscendi gratia aduersarium suum deferunt, uel quod nomine rei publicae suae quis exsequitur causam: et haec ita obseruari plurifariam principalibus constitutionibus praecipitur.
[IDEM libro secundo de iure fisci.] For certain causes, the reputation of those who undertake a notification is not injured, such as of those who report their adversary not for the sake of obtaining a reward, and likewise of those who do so for the sake of taking revenge, or because someone prosecutes a case in the name of his own municipality; and that these rules are to be observed is prescribed in many places by imperial constitutions.
§49.14.2.1Diuus Hadrianus Flauio Arriano in haec uerba rescripsit: 'Quin ei, qui instrumenta ad causam fisci pertinentia, cum possit exhibere, non exhibet, nocere debeat, si uerum aliter non inuenitur, ea subtracta esse credantur, quae nocitura causae eius fuerint, dubitatum non est.
The deified Hadrian wrote back to Flavius Arrianus in these words: 'There is no doubt that injury ought to be done to him who, although he is able to produce documents pertaining to a case of the treasury, does not produce them; if the truth is not otherwise found, those documents which would have been injurious to his case are believed to have been concealed.
sed nec alias dubitari oportet, quin non in aliam rem nocere debeant, quam in eam qua desiderata sunt'.
But neither in other respects ought it to be doubted that they ought not to injure in any other matter than in that for which they were required'.
§49.14.2.2Item diui fratres ad libellum Cornelii Rufi rescripserunt totiens edenda esse instrumenta, quotiens de iure capiendi uel de iure dominii uel de aliqua causa simili re nummaria quaeratur, non si de capitali causa agatur.
Likewise, the deified brothers wrote back to the petition of Cornelius Rufus that documents must be produced as often as there is a question concerning the right of taking or the right of ownership or some similar pecuniary cause, but not if a capital cause is being tried.
§49.14.2.3Senatus censuit, ut, si neque delator neque possessor tribus edictis euocati adfuerint, delatoris quidem fideiussores teneantur et ei postea publicam causam deferendi ius adimatur, possessoris autem ius idem esset, quod si delatus omnino non esset.
The senate decreed that if neither the notifier nor the possessor, having been summoned by three edicts, should appear, the sureties of the notifier indeed shall be held liable and the right of reporting a public case thereafter shall be taken away from him, but the right of the possessor shall be the same as if he had not been notified at all.
§49.14.2.4Quotiens tamen delator adesse iussus cessat nec hoc fraude possessoris factum esse probabitur, diuus Hadrianus rescripsit secundum possessorem pronuntiari oportere, ita ut sententia comprehendatur etiam delatores edicto id comprehendisse.
Whenever, however, the notifier, having been ordered to appear, fails to do so, and it is not proved that this was done by the fraud of the possessor, the deified Hadrian wrote back that judgment ought to be pronounced in favor of the possessor, in such a way that the judgment also comprehends that the notifiers had understood this by the edict.
§49.14.2.5Diuus Pius Caecilio Maximo rescripsit constitutionem patris sui, qua compelleretur delator edere mandatorem ac, nisi edidisset, ut in uincula deduceretur, eo pertinere, non ut delator poena subduceretur, si mandatorem haberet, sed ut mandator quoque perinde atque si ipse detulisset puniretur.
The deified Pius wrote back to Caecilius Maximus that the constitution of his father—by which a notifier was compelled to disclose his principal, and, unless he disclosed him, was to be led into chains—pertains to this: not that the notifier should be withdrawn from punishment if he had a principal, but that the principal also should be punished just as if he himself had made the notification.
§49.14.2.6Imperator noster Seuerus Augustus constituit, ne serui delatores dominorum audiantur, sed ut poena coerceantur: libertos quoque causae mandatores contra patronos a praesidibus prouinciarum poenae plectendos.
Our Emperor Severus Augustus decreed that slave-notifiers of their masters should not be heard, but should be restrained by punishment; and that freedmen also who are instigators of a case against their patrons should be punished with penalty by the governors of provinces.
§49.14.2.7Complura sunt rescripta principalia, quibus cauetur non obesse errorem cuiquam, quod ignotus iuris sui ipse se detulerit.
There are several imperial rescripts in which it is provided that an error does not prejudice anyone because, being ignorant of his own right, he reported himself.
sed extat eorundem principum rescriptum, ex quo uidetur posse defendi ita demum non nocere cuiquam se detulisse, si ea persona sit, quae ignorare propter rusticitatem uel propter sexum femininum ius suum possit.
But there exists a rescript of the same emperors from which it seems possible to be defended that his having reported himself only then does not prejudice anyone, if he is such a person who, on account of rusticity or on account of the female sex, can be ignorant of his own right.