Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

say, cases of contract law. Also (and again in common with the criminal law), not only the criminal himself was liable, but also persons who gave significant aid in planning or carrying out the action, so long as they too had the same intent, and all the par ticipants in the act were individually liable for the full amount of damages. The criminal’s heirs, however, were not liable, as they would have been in, say, a contractual matter.

Damnum Iniuria Datum (Property Damage)

Damnum iniuria datum (“damage wrongfully done”) is the sub ject matter of a delict originally defined by a mid-Republican statute called the lex Aquilia . Originally, the reach of the stat ute was limited to certain kinds of property damage. It applied to the killing of a slave or herd animal and to the “burning, breaking, or rending” of any property not covered by the kill ing provision. Over time, however, the jurists “interpreted” the statute so as to cover damage to essentially any property by any means. The remaining limitations can generally be seen as stem ming directly from the definition. “Damage” ( damnum ) required both physical harm and loss of market value. Thus injury to a slave was covered, but personal injury to a free person (who had no cash value to start with) was not. Damage that did not reduce value was not covered – for example, castration of slaves or of animals not destined for breeding would not hurt (and might even increase) their market value. Nor was loss of value

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