Tag: Ulpian

Gigni

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Praeterea ego de partu humano, praeterquam quae scripta in libris legi, hoc quoque usu venisse Romae comperi: feminam bonis atque honestis moribus, non ambigua pudicitia, in undecimo mense post mariti mortem peperisse, factumque esse negotium propter rationem temporis, quasi marito mortuo postea concepisset, quoniam decemviri in decem mensibus gigni hominem, non in undecimo scripsissent; sed divum Hadrianum causa cognita decrevisse in undecimo quoque mense partum edi posse; idque ipsum eius rei decretum nos legimus. in eo decreto Hadrianus id statuere se dicit requisitis veterum philosophorum et medicorum sententiis.
(Aulus Gellius, Noct. Att. 3.16.12)

Furthermore, besides what I have read in books about human gestation, I also heard of the following case, which occurred in Rome: A woman of good and honourable character, of undoubted chastity, gave birth to a child in the eleventh month after her husband’s death, and because of the reckoning of the time the accusation was made that she had conceived after the death of her husband, since the decemvirs had written* that a child is born in ten months and not in the eleventh month. The deified Hadrian, however, having heard the case, decided that birth might also occur in the eleventh month, and I myself have read the actual decree with regard to the matter. In that decree Hadrian declares that he makes his decision after looking up the views of the ancient philosophers and physicians.

* XII Tab. iv. 4, Schöll. The fragment is not extant, but it is cited also by Ulpian, Dig. xxxviii. 16. 3. 11: post decem menses mortis natus non admittetur ad legitimam hereditatem.

(tr. John C. Rolfe, with his note)

Abstinere

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Feminae ab omnibus officiis civilibus vel publicis remotae sunt et ideo nec iudices esse possunt nec magistratum gerere nec postulare nec pro alio intervenire nec procuratores exsistere. item impubes omnibus officiis civilibus debet abstinere.
(Ulpian, Dig. 50.17.2)

Women are excluded from all civil and public offices; hence they cannot sit on juries or hold any civic magistracy or bring actions in court or act on someone else’s behalf or act as procurators. In the same way children ought not to hold any public office. (tr. Jane F. Gardner & Thomas Wiedemann)

Familia

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“Familiae” appellatio qualiter accipiatur, videamus. et quidem varie accepta est. nam et in res et in personas diducitur; in res, ut puta in lege duodecim tabularum his verbis: “adgnatus proximus familiam habeto”. ad personas autem refertur familiae significatio ita, cum de patrono et liberto loquitur lex: “ex ea familia,” inquit, “in eam familiam”; et hic de singularibus personis legem loqui constat. familiae appellatio refertur et ad corporis cuiusdam significationem, quod aut iure proprio ipsorum aut communi universae cognationis continetur. iure proprio familiam dicimus plures personas, quae sunt sub unius potestate aut natura aut iure subiectae, ut puta patrem familias, matrem familias, filium familias, filiam familias quique deinceps vicem eorum sequuntur, ut puta nepotes et neptes et deinceps. pater autem familias appellatur, qui in domo dominium habet, recteque hoc nomine appellatur, quamvis filium non habeat: non enim solam personam eius, sed et ius demonstramus: denique et pupillum patrem familias appellamus. et cum pater familias moritur, quotquot capita ei subiecta fuerint, singulas familias incipiunt habere: singuli enim patrum familiarum nomen subeunt. idemque eveniet in eo, qui emancipatus est, nam et hic sui iuris effectus propriam familiam habet. communi iure familiam dicimus omnium adgnatorum: nam etsi patre familias mortuo singuli singulas familias habent, tamen omnes, qui sub unius potestate fuerunt, recte eiusdem familiae appellabuntur, qui ex eadem domo et gente proditi sunt. servitutium quoque solemus appellare familias, ut in edicto praetoris ostendimus sub titulo de furtis, ubi praetor loquitur de familia publicanorum. sed ibi non omnes servi, sed corpus quoddam servorum demonstratur, huius rei causa paratum, hoc est, vectigalis causa. alia autem parte edicti omnes servi continentur, ut de hominibus coactis, et vi bonorum raptorum; item redhibitoria, si deterior res reddatur emptoris opera, aut familiae eius, et interdicto “unde vi” familiae appellatio omnes servos comprehendit; sed et filii continentur. item appellatur familia plurium personarum, quae ab eiusdem ultimi genitoris sanguine proficiscuntur (sicuti dicimus familiam Iuliam), quasi a fonte quodam memoriae. mulier autem familiae suae et caput et finis est.
(Ulpian, Dig. 50.16.195)

Let us see how the term familia is to be understood. It has various meanings, for it is applied both to property and to persons. To property: as, for example, in a law of the Twelve Tables in these words: ‘Let the nearest agnate have the familia.’ It has the meaning applying to persons when, e.g., a law says of patron and freedman ‘from that familia‘, ‘into that familia‘ and here it is understood that the law speaks of particular persons.
The term ‘familia‘ is also used to mean a certain body of persons, defined either by a strict legal bond between the persons themselves or in a general sense of people joined by a looser relationship of kinship.
In the strict legal sense we call a familia a number of people who are by birth or by law subjected to the potestas (power) of one man, e.g. paterfamilias (father of a familia), mater (mother of a familia), son or daughter of a familia, and so on in succession, e.g. grandsons, granddaughters, etc. Paterfamilias (head of a household) is the title given to the person who holds sway in the house, and he is correctly so called even if he has no children, for we are designating not only him as a person, but his legal right: indeed, we call even a minor paterfamilias. When a paterfamilias dies, all the persons subject to him begin each to have a separate familia; for each individual takes on the title paterfamilias. The same will happen when someone is emancipated, for he becomes sui iuris (legally independent) and begins to have his own familia.
In the wider sense we use familia legally of all agnates: for even though on the death of the paterfamilias each one has a separate familia, all the same all those who were under the power of one man will correctly be said to belong to the same familia, since they issued from the same gens (kin group) and the same house.
We also habitually use familia of slaves, e.g. in the praetorian edict under the heading ‘on theft’, where the praetor talks about the familia of tax-farmers. In that passage, not all slaves are meant, but a particular body of slaves got together for that purpose, that is, for tax-collecting. Elsewhere in the edict, however, it is used of all slaves, e.g., in the section ‘On armed assemblage and robbery by force’, or again in ‘Action for recovery’: ‘should the condition of the goods be impaired by the activity of the buyer or his familia‘.
In the interdict ‘On violence’, the term familia includes all the slaves, and sons as well.
Again, familia is used of several persons who all descend by blood from a single remembered source (e.g., we speak of the Julian family). A woman, however, is both the beginning and end of her own familia. (tr. Jane F. Gardner & Thomas Wiedemann)

Meretricia

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Si quis virgines appellasset, si tamen ancillari veste vestitas, minus peccare videtur: multo minus, si meretricia veste feminae, non matrum familiarum vestitae fuissent. si igitur non matronali habitu femina fuerit et quis eam appellavit vel ei comitem abduxit, iniuriarum non tenetur.
(Ulpian, Dig. 47.10.15.15) 

If someone accosts respectable young girls, even though they are in slaves’ clothing, he is understood to commit a lesser offense: a much lesser offense, if the women were dressed as prostitutes and not as respectable women. Therefore, if a woman has not been wearing respectable clothing and someone has accosted her or abducted her compagnion, he is not liable to the action on outrage. (tr. Thomas A.J. McGinn)

Obdormivit

Ernest Hebert, Sleeping Slave

Si fornicarius servus coloni ad fornacem obdormisset et villa fuerit exusta, Neratius scribit ex locato conventum praestare debere, si neglegens in eligendis ministeriis fuit: ceterum si alius ignem subiecerit fornaci, alius neglegenter custodierit, an tenebitur qui subiecerit? nam qui custodit, nihil fecit, qui recte ignem subiecit, non peccavit: quid ergo est? puto utilem competere actionem tam in eum qui ad fornacem obdormivit quam in eum qui neglegenter custodit, nec quisquam dixerit in eo qui obdormivit rem eum humanam et naturalem passum, cum deberet vel ignem extinguere vel ita munire, ne evagetur.
(Ulpian, Dig. 9.2.27.9)

Where a tenant has a slave whose duty it is to look after a furnace, but the man goes to sleep at the fireside and the house is burnt down, Neratius tells us that, if an action is brought against the tenant on his lease, he is bound to make it good, if he was negligent in the selection of men to do the work; if, however, one man lit the fire in the furnace, and another was negligent in attending to it, will the man who lit the fire be liable? The fact is that the one who had to attend to the fire did nothing at all, and the one who lit the fire in the proper way did nothing wrong. What is the upshot? I should say there is an utilis actio both against the man who went to sleep beside the furnace and the man who was negligent in looking after the fire; and no one ought to say, in the case of the man going to sleep, that he was overtaken by a natural human weakness, as his duty was either to put the fire out or else to guard it in some way that would prevent it from spreading. (tr. Charles Henry Monro)

Paedagogia

Idem Celsus eodem libro ait etiam suppellecticarios et ceteros hoc genus servos contineri, id est ministeria, quibus instructus erat in eo fundo (extra ea quae libertatem acceperunt), et qui rure morari solebant.
si instructum fundum legasset, ea paedagogia, quae ibi habebat, ut, cum ibi venisset, praesto essent in triclinio, legato continentur.
contubernales quoque servorum, id est uxores, et natos, instructo fundo contineri verum est.
instructo autem fundo et bibliothecam et libros, qui illic erant, ut quotiens venisset uteretur, contineri constat. sed si quasi apotheca librorum utebatur, contra erit dicendum.
(Ulpian, Dig. 33.7.12.31-34)

Celsus also says, in the same Book, that slaves who have care of the furniture and other slaves of this kind are included; that is to say, household slaves, who are employed on the land, with the exception of those who have received their freedom, and who are accustomed to reside in the country.
If a testator should devise land already provided with the means of cultivation, young slaves who are being instructed in the service of the table, and whom the testator was accustomed to have there, whenever he came, are embraced in the legacy.
The members of the slaves’ families, that is, their wives and children, are undoubtedly included in the devise of land with its equipment.
Where land with its equipment is devised, it is well established that the library, and any books upon the premises, which the head of the household made use of whenever he came, are included. If, however, a warehouse should be used for the storage of the books, the contrary opinion must be held. (tr. Samuel P. Scott)

Morbosus

Halitosis

Is cui os oleat an sanus sit quaesitum est: Trebatius ait non esse morbosum os alicui olere, veluti hircosum, strabonem: hoc enim ex illuvie oris accidere solere. Si tamen ex corporis vitio id accidit, veluti quod iecur, quod pulmo aut aliud quid similiter dolet, morbosus est.
(Ulpian, Digesta 21.1.12.4)

The question arose whether a slave who has a bad breath is sound. Trebatius says that a person whose breath smells is not diseased any more than one who smells like a goat, or who squints; for this may happen to anyone on account of a filthy mouth. But, however, where this occurs through some bodily defect, for example, from the liver or the lungs, or from any other similar cause, the slave is diseased. (tr. Samuel P. Scott)