excusare. Item si quis status controversiam a pupillorum 12 patre passus est, excusatur a tutela. Item maior septuaginta 13 annis a tutela vel cura se potest excusare. minores autem viginti et quinque annis olim quidem excusabantur: a nostra autem constitutione prohibentur ad tutelam vel curam aspirare, adeo ut nec excusatione opus fiat. qua constitutione cavetur, ut nec pupillus ad legitimam tutelam vocetur nec adultus: cum erat incivile eos, qui alieno auxilio in rebus suis administrandis egere noscuntur et sub aliis reguntur, aliorum tutelam vel curam subire. Idem et in milite observandum 14 est, ut nec volens ad tutelae munus admittatur. Item Romae 15

§ 12. A suit relating to a person's status (status controversia) might be undertaken on political grounds (quaestio de civitate) by reason of the public rights which citizenship conferred: more often it arose through the connection between it and some private right, to enjoy which the civitas of some individual was asserted or denied. In this case the controversia was usually made up into an independent issue in the form of a praeiudicium, though in effect only incidental to another (and the main) question. Thus (e.g.) the validity of a will might be disputed on the ground that the testator was no civis. Sometimes the status controversia was in reality, as well as in show, an independent suit, undertaken to establish dominium over a slave, or potestas over a filiusfamilias; and here the person whose status was in question could not appear personally, but must be represented (as e. g. the slave by an adsertor libertatis). Another not uncommon subject of this kind of suit was free birth, ingenuitas.

§ 13. If, before Justinian's enactment (Cod. 5. 30. 5), a minor became tutor (e. g. legitimus or testamento) he was not disqualified, but a tutor praetorius was put in until he came of age, Dig. 27. 3. 9. 1. The result of his law (nemo in tutelam vocetur, antequam quintum et vicesimum suae aetatis annum impleat) was that, if the nearest agnate was a minor, he was completely passed over in favour of the next legitimus who was of age. Yet if a minor were appointed by will a tutor dativus was still nominated ad interim, as is clear from Tit. 4. 2 supr., and Dig. 26. 2. 32. 2.

§ 14. Soldiers on actual service, i. e. before discharge, were absolutely disabled from being tutors or curators, Cod. 5. 34. 4. If honourably discharged at the end of the full term of service (twenty years) they were permanently entitled to exemption, except from the tutela or cura of children of soldiers, as to whom their excusatio lasted one year only. In case of honourable discharge after less than five years' service no exemption was allowed: after five years they were excused for one year, after eight for two, after twelve for three, and after sixteen for four, Dig. 27. 1. 8.

§ 15. 'Grammatici sunt, qui aliquid diligenter et acute scienterque

16

grammatici rhetores et medici et qui in patria sua id exercent et intra numerum sunt, a tutela vel cura habent vacationem. Qui autem se vult excusare, si plures habeat excusationes et de quibusdam non probaverit, aliis uti intra tempora non prohibetur. qui excusare se volunt, non appellant: sed intra dies quinquaginta continuos, ex quo cognoverunt, excusare se debent (cuiuscumque generis sunt, id est qualitercumque dati fuerint tutores), si intra centesimum lapidem sunt ab eo loco, ubi tutores dati sunt: si vero ultra centesimum habitant, dinumeratione facta viginti millium diurnorum et amplius triginta dierum. quod tamen, ut Scaevola dicebat, sic debet compu

possint aut dicere aut scribere, proprie poetarum interpretes' (Corn. Nepos apud Suet. de ill. gramm. 4), 'grammatica professio recte loquendi scientia et poetarum enarratio' Quintil. Inst. or. 1. 4. 2, 'grammatica circa curam sermonis versatur, circa historias, circa carmina' Seneca, ep. 88. 2. The 'numerus' was determined by the size of the town, and a grammaticus, physician, or rhetorician, was admitted into it by magisterial decree: 'est autem etiam numerus definitus eorum, qui in singulis civitatibus immunitatem habeant, et condiciones quaedam adiectae in lege quod intelligitur ex epistola Antonini quae data est ad commune Asiae, sed pertinet ad orbem universum, cuius est caput infra scriptum : civitates minores possunt habere immunes medicos quinque et sophistas tres eodemque numero grammaticos: maiores civitates septem qui medeantur, quattuor sophistas, quattuor qui doceant literas utrasque : maximae vero medicos decem et rhetores quinque eodemque numero grammaticos, super hunc autem numerum ne maxima quidem civitas immunitatem confert' Dig. 27. 1. 6. 2-3.

§ 16. So, too, Ulpian says in Dig. 49. 4. 1. 5 'si quis tutor datus fuerit vel testamento vel a quo alio qui ius dandi habet, non oportet eum provocare; hoc enim divus Marcus effecit: sed intra tempora praestituta excusationem allegandam habet, et si fuerit pulsa, tunc demum appellare debebit, caeterum ante frustra appellatur.' It must not be inferred from 'datus' in this passage, or from 'id est, qualitercunque dati fuerint' in the text, that the exemptions did not extend to tutores legitimi. Theophilus explains τεσταμεντάριοι . . λεγίτιμοι . . ὑπὸ ἄρχοντος διδόμενοι. For the time within which the excuse must be proved cf. Dig. 27. 1. 38 'quinquaginta dierum spatium tantummodo ad contestandas excusationum causas pertinet: peragendo enim negotio ex die nominationis continui quattuor menses constituti sunt.'

Besides the classes of persons mentioned in this Title, the following could claim exemption: (1) Spiritual persons who were not already incapacitated (bishops and monks, Nov. 123. 5) Cod. 1. 3. 52. (2) Jurists who belonged to the emperor's consilium, Dig. 27. 1. 30; 4. 4. II. 2. (3) Persons not domiciled in the place where their tutorial functions

169 tari, ne minus sint quam quinquaginta dies. Datus autem 17 tutor ad universum patrimonium datus esse creditur. Qui 18 tutelam alicuius gessit, invitus curator eiusdem fieri non compellitur, in tantum ut, licet pater, qui testamento tutorem dederit, adiecit se eundem curatorem dare, tamen invitum eum curam suscipere non cogendum divi Severus et Antoninus rescripserunt. Idem rescripserunt maritum uxori suae cura- 19 torem datum excusare se posse, licet se immisceat. Si quis 20 autem falsis allegationibus excusationem tutelae meruit, non est liberatus onere tutelae.

XXVI.

DE SUSPECTIS TUTORIBUS ET CURATORIBUS.

Sciendum est suspecti crimen e lege duodecim tabularum 1 descendere. Datum est autem ius removendi suspectos tutores Romae praetori et in provinciis praesidibus earum et legato proconsulis. Ostendimus, qui possunt de suspecto cognoscere : nunc videamus, qui suspecti fieri possunt. Et quidem omnes tutores possunt, sive testamentarii sint sive non, sed alterius generis tutores. quare et si legitimus sit tutor, accusari poterit. quid si patronus? adhuc idem erit dicendum: dummodo meminerimus famae patroni parcendum, licet ut suspectus remotus fuerit. Consequens est, ut videamus, qui possint sus- 3 pectos postulare. et sciendum est quasi publicam esse hanc actionem, hoc est omnibus patere. quin immo et mulieres were to be exercised, Dig. 27. I. 46. 2. Similarly a tutor or curator could claim to be excused from the management of property in another province, or at least 100 miles from his usual place of residence, Dig. ib. 10. 4. (4) Members of a corporation on which this privilege had been conferred by special enactment, Dig. ib. 17. 1. Finally, a tutor or curator could lay down an office which he had already begun to administer (1) when he was made a member of the imperial council, Dig. 4. 4. II. 2; (2) when he changed his domicile with the emperor's sanction, provided the latter knew he was a tutor or curator, Dig. 27. 1. 12. 1; (3) on occasion of illness so severe as to entirely incapacitate him for the discharge of his duties, Dig. ib. 10. 8; ib. 45. 4.

§ 19. Immixtio was an implied promise to undertake the office, and those who had promised were as a rule debarred from urging any ground of excuse whatever, see on § 9 supr.

Tit. XXVI. 3. The actio suspecti tutoris was not a genuine crimen

admittuntur ex rescripto divorum Severi et Antonini, sed hae solae, quae pietatis necessitudine ductae ad hoc procedunt, ut puta mater: nutrix quoque et avia possunt, potest et soror: sed et si qua mulier fuerit, cuius praetor perpensam pietatem intellexerit non sexus verecundiam egredientis, sed pietate productam non continere iniuriam pupillorum, admittit eam ad 4 accusationem. Impuberes non possunt tutores suos suspectos postulare: puberes autem curatores suos ex consilio necessa5 riorum suspectos possunt arguere: et ita divi Severus et Antoninus rescripserunt. Suspectus est autem, qui non ex fide tutelam gerit, licet solvendo est, ut et Iulianus quoque scripsit. sed et ante, quam incipiat gerere tutelam tutor, posse eum quasi suspectum removeri idem Iulianus scripsit et secundum 6 eum constitutum est. Suspectus autem remotus, si qui7 dem ob dolum, famosus est: si ob culpam, non aeque. Si quis autem suspectus postulatur, quoad cognitio finiatur, inter8 dicitur ei administratio, ut Papiniano visum est. Sed si sus9 pecti cognitio suscepta fuerit posteaque tutor vel curator decesserit, extinguitur cognitio suspecti. Si quis tutor copiam

publicum (for which see Bk. iv. 18 inf.), and though it resembles the actiones populares in lying at the suit of any one (except infames) the object of these was properly rather the recovery of a penalty, see Bk. iv. 5. 1; ib. 9. 1 inf. There is evidence, however, that the magistrate sometimes inflicted a fine, of which a half went to the accuser. Colleagues of the tutor gerens were legally bound to accuse him as suspectus, if they saw cause; and in default of an accuser the magistrate might take measures for his deposition virtute officii, Dig. 26. 10. 3. 4.

Some further information as to the meaning of suspectus is given in §§ 9 and 13 inf. Ulpian thought that a person proposed as tutor might be rejected on the ground of some misconduct of which he had been guilty before entering on the office, but that until he had done so he could not be proceeded against as suspectus, even though the wrong had affected the pupils' interests, Dig. 26. 10. 3. 4 and 5. Julianus (Dig. 27. 1. 20) held the opinion maintained in the text, that even before entering on his duties he could be charged as suspectus.

§ 6. Suspectos tutores ex dolo, non etiam eos, qui ob negligentiam remoti sunt, infames fieri manifestum est' Cod. 5. 43. 9. It seems, however, that removal for lata culpa entailed infamia: 'si fraus non sit admissa, sed lata negligentia, quia ista prope fraudem accedit, removeri hunc quasi suspectum oportet' Dig. 26. 10. 7. I, 'si negligentia et nimia cessatio obiciatur . . . removendum eum, qui dignus tali nota videbitur' Dig. 27. 2. 6.

sui non faciat, ut alimenta pupillo decernantur, cavetur epistula divorum Severi et Antonini, ut in possessionem bonorum eius pupillus mittatur: et quae mora deteriora futura sunt, dato curatore distrahi iubentur. ergo ut suspectus removeri poterit qui non praestat alimenta. Sed si quis praesens negat propter 10 inopiam alimenta posse decerni, si hoc per mendacium dicat, remittendum eum esse ad praefectum urbis puniendum placuit, sicut ille remittitur, qui data pecunia ministerium tutelae redemit. Libertus quoque, si fraudulenter gessisse tutelam 11 filiorum vel nepotum patroni probetur, ad praefectum urbis remittitur puniendus. Novissime sciendum est eos, qui frau- 12 dulenter tutelam vel curam administrant, etiamsi satis offerant, removendos a tutela, quia satisdatio propositum tutoris malevolum non mutat, sed diutius grassandi in re familiari facultatem praestat. Suspectum enim eum putamus, qui moribus 13 talis est, ut suspectus sit: enimvero tutor vel curator quamvis pauper est, fidelis tamen et diligens, removendus non est quasi suspectus.

§ 9. It has been already mentioned that as a general rule the tutor had nothing to do with the rearing and education of his pupil; this was entrusted to the latter's nearest relations, to whom the tutor made a payment of so much per annum for this purpose, the precise sum being fixed by the magistrate in proportion to the pupil's fortune as estimated by the tutor himself. If, after the annual allowance being thus fixed, the tutor failed to provide it regularly, there was prima facie evidence of maladministration sufficient to warrant removal. The object of the pupil's being 'missus in possessionem' of the tutor's property was partly to induce the latter to appear, partly to guarantee the former against losses which might have occurred in his fortune through the tutor's fraud or carelessness, Dig. 26. 10. 7. 2.