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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §50.10.1.pr-50.10.1.1

Liability of Heirs of Public Works Curators and Dual Office Exemption

Passage 8774 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

The passage discusses the scope of heirs' liability when a curator of public works dies after neglecting his duties, and the proper order of claiming exemption when a person is burdened with two public offices.

[ULPIANUS libro secundo opinionum. ] §50.10.1.prCurator operum creatus praescriptione motus ab excusatione perferenda sicuti cessationis nomine, in qua quoad uiuit moratus est, heredes suos obligatos reliquit, ita temporis, quod post mortem eius cessit, nullo onere eos obstrinxit.
[SCAEVOLA in the first book of the Digests.] A person appointed as a curator of public works, who had been excluded from obtaining an exemption because of the expiration of the time-limit, left his heirs bound under the head of delay for as long as he remained inactive while alive; but he bound them by no burden for the time which passed after his death.
§50.10.1.1Curam operis aquae ductus in alio iam munere constitutus postea susceperat.
A person who had already been established in another public office subsequently undertook the care of the construction of an aqueduct.
praepostere uisus est petere exonerari priore utrisque iam implicitus, quando, si alterum tantum sustinere eum oportuisset, ante probabilius impetrasset propter prius munus a sequenti excusationem.
Having already become involved in both, he was seen to seek inappropriately to be relieved of the prior one, since, if he ought to have sustained only one of them, he would more probably have obtained beforehand, on account of his prior office, an exemption from the subsequent one.

Notes

  1. 50.10.1.prpraescriptione motus ab excusatione perferenda — motus is the perfect passive participle of movere ('to remove', 'to exclude'). praescriptione is an ablative of means representing 'limitation of time' or 'expiration of the time-limit'. ab excusatione perferenda is a gerundive construction in the ablative, meaning 'from carrying through (obtaining) an exemption'.
  2. 50.10.1.1praepostere uisus est petere exonerari priore — The subject of uisus est is the person appointed to the offices. priore is the ablative singular of prior (referring to the first office), acting as an ablative of separation required by the passive infinitive exonerari ('to be relieved of'). Seeking release from the first office while already involved in both (utrisque iam implicitus) was deemed preposterous (praepostere) because it inverted the logical order of exemptions.
  3. 50.10.1.1quando, si alterum tantum sustinere eum oportuisset, ante probabilius impetrasset propter prius munus a sequenti excusationem. — The clause si oportuisset... impetrasset is a past contrafactual conditional using the pluperfect subjunctive. alterum tantum means 'only one of the two'. a sequenti (sc. munere, 'from the subsequent office') modifies excusationem. The logic is that if he were only supposed to hold one office, he should have used his prior office (propter prius munus) to obtain an exemption from the second one (a sequenti) at the time it was imposed, rather than accepting both and then asking to be released from the first.

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §50.10.1.pr-50.10.1.1. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:50.10.1.pr-50.10.1.1

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