/1/ Gains and Ulpian showed an inclination to cut
the noxoe deditio down to a privilege of the owner in case of
misdeeds committed without his knowledge; but Ulpian is obliged
to admit, that by the ancient law, according to Celsus, the
action was noxal where a slave was guilty even with the privity
of his master. /2/
All this shows very clearly that the liability of the owner was
merely a way of getting at the slave or animal which was the
immediate cause of offence. In other words, vengeance on the
immediate offender was the object of the Greek and early Roman
process, not indemnity from the master or owner. The liability of
the owner was simply a liability of the offending thing. In the
primitive customs of Greece it was enforced by a judicial process
expressly directed against the object, animate or inanimate. The
Roman Twelve Tables made the owner, instead of the thing itself,
the defendant, but did not in any way change the ground of
liability, or affect its limit. The change was simply a device to
allow the owner to protect his interest. /3/
But it may be asked how inanimate objects came to be [11] pursued
in this way, if the object of the procedure was to gratify the
passion of revenge. Learned men have been ready to find a reason
in the personification of inanimate nature common to savages and
children, and there is much to confirm this view.
Pages:
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32