The Transylvanian Documents

style='font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%'>The 25 documents found in the Transylvanian goldmines are all triptychs or part of triptychs: 5 are complete; in 4 cases there are 2 surviving tablets, and in 16 there is 1.

Four of the documents which are completely preserved attest sales and their completion. They come from AD 139, 142, 159, and 160 and relate to the sale of a slave-girl, a slave-boy, a house, and a slave-woman.¹⁸ They follow the same formula,¹⁹ and they document the sale, conveyance of the object sold, and a warranty that it is free from defects (these are listed individually in the case of the slave-girl and slave-boy, but for the slave-woman are confined to a statement that she is in good health). In the case of the slave sales this warranty is incorporated in the warranty against eviction. In the two earlier documents that warranty is for double the value; and in the two later ones simply for the amount of the buyer’s interest. The warranty in the case of the house covers its fencing, various ancillary items, and its freedom from servitudes. Then comes a declaration by the seller that he has received the price and, in the cases of the slave-boy and slave-woman,²⁰ the appointment of a surety. Conveyance is by means of the formal conveyance of mancipatio, although in the case of provincial land this was unnecessary, as traditio would have sufficed.

The two completely preserved documents of loan also have their peculiarities. One,²⁴ dated 20 June 162, first sets out a stipulatio, by means of which the debtor promises repayment of the amount of the loan together with interest; it then provides that the debtor is bound to repay the loan and the interest on the date of demand by the creditor; finally, it again sets out the promise made at the outset. The other document,²⁵ a diptych dated 19 October 162, first sets out the promise to repay the amount of the loan on the date of demand by the creditor; next there is a declaration by the debtor that he has received the loan in cash and owes it; then a specific promise relating to interest; and finally a guarantee obliga­tion by a third party for repayment of the loan and the interest. Apart from this last declaration, which was not sufficient to prove a guarantee obli­gation before a Roman court,²⁶ the contents of the two documents do provide evidence for the transaction that had occurred. Compared with the formulae in use in the new Pompeian documents of the first century AD, the formulation in these documents - such as the repetition of the stipulation or the omission of a declaration that the loan has been received - is rather imprecise and amateurish, even unpredictable. Here too the names and the form of the promise (fide rogavit or fide promisit) suggest that at least the creditor in the first case (Anduenna Batonis) and the debtor in the second (Alexander Caricci) were foreigners.²⁷

A triptych of 28 May 167²⁸ documents clearly and simply a decla­ration by Lupus Carentis that he has received by way of loan 50 denarii from Iulius Alexander,²⁹ as well as the transfer of the 50 denarii, and declares that Lupius Carentis owes their repayment without any dispute.

Two contracts for work from AD 164 and a third which is undated are formulated as chirographs.³⁰ They follow the same formula: the hirers (Memmius Asclepis; Restitutus Senior; and possibly Lucius Ulpius Valerius) bind themselves to work in the goldmines for a year, in each case until 13 November 165. The agreed wage is probably to be paid at the end of the contract. These chirographs were written not by the hirers themselves, who are stated not to be literate, but at their request, in the case of the dated documents by Flavius Secundinus and an assistant called Macari. The employers are Aurelius Adiutor, probably a slave who worked for an employee of the state administration of mines, and Socrationis Socates, probably the tenant ofa mine.³¹ All of these documents are clearly structured, and their drafting is precise and legally correct.

Finally, mention should be made of a contract of partnership (soci­etas) of 28 March 167. It too is clearly structured, legally correct, and precise.³² Cassius Frontinus and Iulius Alexander agreed to carry out banking transactions in partnership for the period from 23 December 166 to 12 April 167.³³ The date of the contract, shortly before it was due to terminate, was no doubt only the date of execution rather than of the conclusion of the contract. It provided that the partners would share profits and losses, as well as setting out the contributions that each must make: Alexander was to provide 500 denarii in cash or kind; for Frontinus, his agent Secundus was to provide 267 denarii. There was also provision for a fine to be paid by one to the other if he were found to have done anything fraudulently or in bad faith. At the end of the contract each was to have his contribution returned to him, and the remainder was to be divided. At the end of the document Frontinus obtains a promise from Alexander that all of this should be done and observed.

These documents do not provide a single view of legal or docu­mentary practice in Dacia Superior. Clearly Roman law applied. Whether Roman succession, family, and property law with all their institutions also applied, or just the law of commerce attested in these documents, can remain an open question. But even the applicability of this part of the law is remarkable: it was only in 105 and 106, during the second Dacian war, that the emperor Trajan conquered the northern part of Dacia, including the gold mines around Apulum, and only in 106 that the whole of the conquered land was made a Roman province.³⁴ The application of the law of commerce shows the romanization of the new province, one of whose principal means was imposing the obligation to make use of the Roman legal order. This may perhaps have been made easier as a result of the depopulation of the area owing to the bloody wars of the 80s, followed by the settlement of colonists from all over the empire and from neighbouring Asiatic states;³⁵ in the mining region this applied above all to the Pirustae, who came from Dalmatia and were known for their experience in mining.

But Roman law was not always applied with adequate knowledge or practical experience. The sales of the slaves and the house, as well as the two loans, were evidently conducted by private individuals without the assistance of experts: they probably just followed standard documentary formulae as a guide. The contracts for work and the partnership agree­ment are quite different: in every respect they are correct; the drafting would have been no different in Italy, the centre of Roman law. So far as the contracts for work are concerned, this is probably because the employer was ultimately the state administration of mines and in the other probably a tenant of mines, so in each case the contract would be just one of many identical contracts, which would have been drafted by experts for the use of the mining enterprise. In the case of the partnership, it is likely that bankers would have secured legal advice in this as in all their transactions.

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