General1
A delict in Roman law was reprehensible behaviour which the law punished by imposing an obligation on the perpetrator towards the victim.
The imposition of the obligation was a punishment and so could be directed only at the perpetrator, but the obligation itself could consist of a filang=EN-US>ne, compensation for the loss, or a combination of the two.2 In contrast to public crimes, for which anybody could sue, only the victim of a delict (or on his death his heir) could sue the perpetrator. Delictual actions were penal actions in the sense too that, just as with public crimes, once the perpetrator had died, no action was possible against his heir. However, in some cases where compensation was the sanction, the delinquent’s heirs could be sued to the extent to which through succession they had been enriched by the delict.The penal nature of delicts can also be seen in the fact that they were cumulative. They could be cumulative against one person, who could be sued and condemned for more than one delict committed in a single act (such as wounding a slave and in doing so at the same time insulting his owner), or they could be cumulative against several people, so that if two people jointly stole something both could be sued and condemned, each for the full amount.3 Delicts are mentioned as early as the regal laws (between 753 and 509 BC) and the XII Tables (c. 455 BC, the Decemviral period). The regal laws imposed the sanction sacer esto for, for example, the intentional killing of a free man (Numa Pompilius i2)4 and for a child who flogged his parents (Servius Tullius 1).5 Sacer esto most likely meant that the perpetrator was outlawed and might be killed by the relatives of the killed person without their being liable to revenge.
The implication may be that the relatives could ask for whatever compensation they wanted; whereas for the negligent killing of a man the perpetrator was liable to surrender a ram to the agnates of the deceased (Numa Pompilius 13).6 Yet the distinction with (public) crimes remains unclear, by contrast to the situation under the XII Tables. Under the XII Tables singing a shaming song was a delict (table 8. 1), as was casting a spell on another’s crops (table 8.8); cutting another’s crops by night was punishable by death or, in the case of a perpetrator who was under age (impubes), by flogging and a double indemnity (table 8.9); burning down a granary was punished by flogging and death on the stake if intentional, or, if done negligently, by paying an indemnity or being castigated (table 8.10). Accidental killing incurred liability for payment of a ram (table 8.24a, a reprise of the regal law). The XII Tables also contained several other rules on wrongful loss, injury, andfurtum (see 248, 254, 258). These and other crimes and delicts remained in force so far as not set aside wholly or partly by later legislation.For the early Principate there are around 30 delicts known to Roman law (they cannot all be dealt with here). About five have a sanction in the form of compensation for loss caused by damage. The remainder have one in the form of a fine. Some delicts were considered more important or complicated than others. Wrongful loss, injury, andfurtum (theft in a wide sense) were apparently considered the most important. In late antiquity and inJustinian’s times (AD 527—565), owing to the shift from the formula to the cognitio procedure, the private delicts lost much of their private character.7
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