Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Documents

The general idea is to consolidate all the business affairs • between Prudens and his associates and Cinnamus and his associates into a single set of obligations of Prudens to Cinnamus. Parts of this (especially having to do with the slaves) seem redundant, and other parts perhaps would not take effect quickly enough. There is debate among scholars today about whether this represents poor legal work by the parties, or whether it just illustrates their extra caution. The clear gap in the text makes it even harder than usual to resolve this kind of question. The clause at the end about fraud is a standard provision. • 11 January 49. I, Purgias, son of Alexander, have written that I made a request of Gaius Sulpicius Cinnamus and entrusted to him that he make over … African and Italian … to Trophimus, vicarius of Cerinthus, slave of the emperor, as security, at the rate of HS 1 per HS 125,000.… The “security” mentioned in this passage involved transfer- • ring the actual ownership of collateral to the creditor, then recovering it later, after the debt had been paid. The form of security in most of these documents (see above on “pledge”) instead gave the creditor the right to collect in the future, in case of default. Pledge seems to have been a more “modern” development, but it apparently did not drive out the older form entirely. [8] TPSulp 49

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