might agree to have all their property, with all their acquisitions and liabilities, in common: that was a societas totorum bonorum. Or they might contribute only certain parts of their property to the common stock; and they might limit their common operations to some particular kind or kinds of business; that was a societas alicujus negotiationis. The contributions of the parties to the common stock might be very unequal: it might even be that a party contributed nothing, the others being perhaps induced to receive him by the expectation of valuable services. But whatever the ratio of their contributions, it was always assumed in law, unless otherwise expressed in the contract, that the parties were all equally interested in the societas, all entitled to equal shares in its gains if it was successful, or bound to equal shares in its losses if it was unsuccessful. Yet by express statement in the contract, any proportions of gain or loss might be established among the parties. Thus, it might be arranged that one party should have three-fourths of the gain, but only one-fourth of the loss; or even that one should have three-fourths of the gain, but none of the loss. But an arrangement by which one party should have all the gain was not recognized as binding; it was considered as contrary to the nature and purposes of the societas, the aim of which was gain for all the parties concerned. Such an arrangement the lawyers called societas leonina, a partnership like that which

the lion in the fable imposed upon the cow, the sheep, and the she-goat, his associates in the chase.

Fourth, mandatum (commission). This was an agreement by which one party engaged to fulfil without compensation some mandate or order given to him by the other party. I say, "without compensation.' It will be understood, of course, that the giver of the mandate could make any return he pleased for the service rendered him. He might even bind himself in other ways, as by a formal stipulation, to make some return. But he could not bind himself to this in the contract of mandate; or rather the contract, if it contained such an engagement, was a mandate no longer: it might be a case of locatio conductio (a case of hired labor), or it might be one of those real contracts without special name which became binding only by the fulfilment of one party. The mandatary (as he was called), the receiver of the order, was bound of course to execute the service which he promised; and on the other hand, the mandator (the giver of the order) was bound to pay all expenses necessarily and properly incurred by the mandatary in the discharge of his trust. The mandate was employed among the Romans for a great variety of business purposes. In law-proceedings especially its employment was very extensive. If Aulus had a suit at law, whether as plaintiff or defendant, and was unable to conduct it in person, from necessary absence, or pressure of occupation, or lack

of legal knowledge, or from any other cause, he could give Titius a mandate to conduct the case as procurator: security was then offered to the court that Aulus would accept and ratify the acts of his procurator Titius. And Titius might also be appointed by mandate procurator in rem suam (manager for his own interest); and by accepting such appointment he made the case his own, with all its chances of gain or loss. If Aulus had a claim against Seius, even though he had never brought it to a prosecution, he could transfer it to Titius by a mandate of this kind, appointing him procurator in rem suam; and Titius then had all the same rights and liabilities in the matter that Aulus had had before. If Aulus had obtained by stipulation from Seius the promise of a hundred aurei, he could by such a mandate transfer or cede the obligation, make it over to Titius, so that practically Titius instead of Aulus should become creditor by the stipulation. This, in fact, was the process already alluded to, as the one oftenest used for escaping the difficulty, which the requirement of personal presence in stipulations occasioned in business affairs.

The most important obligations have now been enumerated and described. The few which remain must be taken up in the next lecture, after which we shall attend to the general nature of obligations, and to some special classes which need to be distinguished among them.

LECTURE X.

LAW OF OBLIGATIONS (CONTINUED).

As in the four consensual contracts the mere agreement of parties created a perfect obligation, so also it did in pacta adjecta, subordinate agreements annexed to any binding contract (never to stipulation or mutuum); so also in constitutum, agreement to fulfil a previous (even imperfect) obligation.

Obligations quasi ex contractu arose from various causes, as guardianship; joint ownership of undivided property; solutio indebiti (payment of a mistakenly supposed debt); negotiorum gestio (service rendered in a sudden emergency, which forbade waiting for a mandate), etc.

Obligations from DELICT. Besides the punishment of his crime, the wrong-doer was liable to the injured party in damages, which might exceed the amount of injury, and thus be a poena (private-law penalty).— (a) Furtum: the thief must restore the property stolen or an equivalent, and pay as poena its quadruple or double value, according as the furtum was manifestum or nec manifestum (reason for the difference).—(b) Rapina: the robber must pay fourfold, which included the value of the property taken and a threefold poena.—(c) Damnum injuria datum (wrongful injury to property): the offender, by the Lex Aquilia, must pay the highest price which the injured property would have brought within thirty days before the act; or if a slave was killed, or a domestic quadruped, the highest within twelve months before. Same liability for culpable carelessness as for design.—(d) Injuria (outrage to one's person) might consist in violence (to man himself or members of his household), or in slander, or in mere insult. Roman sensitiveness to ridicule.

Master liable, by actio noxalis, for delict of slave: might escape by giving up slave. Compare actio de pauperie against owner of vicious animal.-Obligation quasi ex delicto, on a judex for unjust decision, etc.

GENERAL PRINCIPLES.-The obligation was a personal relation between two parties, a debtor bound to render some service, a creditor to receive it (though in some contracts, especially the consensual, there were mutual services). The debt was a binding (obligatio), the payment a releasing (solutio), of the person. The creditor's hold was on the person (only later on the property) of his debtor. The nexum of early Roman law was in form a conditional sale by the debtor of his own person, which thus became liable to summary and severe treatment by the creditor.

The service required by the obligation did not encroach far on individual freedom, as it related to only one, or at most a few definite acts; and was thus unlike the extensive and undefined service due from son to father, wife to husband, citizen to state.-It must have a money value, making larger the creditor's estate. But some valuable services it seemed wrong to degrade by putting a price on them. Hence a promise of professional services was not enforceable as an obligation; so too in Roman (not Latin) law, a promise of marriage.

The law recognized an imperfect obligatio (naturalis), which could not, like the perfect (civilis), be enforced by a direct action, but might have force in indirect ways, as ground for a soluti retentio, a constitutum, a novatio, a pignus, a compensatio. The natural obligations arose in general from transactions which would have created civil ones, but for some defect in form or in legal capacity. Loan contrary to senatus consultum Macedonianит.

Civil obligations were divided into those stricti juris (stipulation, mutuum, delict obligations), subject to a literal and rigorous construction, and those bonae fidei (as most real, and all consensual contracts), in which the judge must consider the aims of the parties and the demands of reason and equity.

Where several debtors bound themselves to one creditor, or several creditors accepted one debtor, there was often a plurality of obligations, each debtor being liable for, each creditor entitled to, his own part merely. But there might be only one obligation, called correal, each debtor being liable for the whole, but released if one of them paid, and each creditor entitled to the whole, but satisfied if one was paid. Usually this was created by a common stipulation, but it could arise in any way by which several persons were made to owe an indivisible service.

THE four consensual contracts-of buying and selling, letting and hiring, society and mandate-were