The formula will often work well, but is by no means ideal. The problems are obvious. For instance, I have a not very useful, but pretty, slave girl worth in my dull employment sesterces. You fall in love with her, perhaps as a result of her wretched cooking, and make her your heir by will. Then you die, perhaps as a result of her wretched cooking, and I order her to accept the inheritance of ,, sesterces. I get the property. Six months later, Hansiaticus, a clumsy fellow, negligently kills her. I bring an action against him on the lex Aquilia. My award of damages will be ,,, but I have only lost . The result is absurd. For an actual text we can useD. ...: But the owner would have already received full compensation for the cutting off of the thumb. Again, on Julian’s approach the slave is to be regarded as killed at the time of the fatal wounding. Thus, to return to my hypothetical example: you fatally wound my slave girl, then before she dies the besotted Hansiaticus appoints her as his heir and dies. I order her to accept the inheritance, but before she can do so she dies, so I am not entitled to inherit. And on Julian’s approach I cannot claim Hansiaticus’ estate as a part of my damages, though already I have lost it. On Celsus’ approach the slave is to be regarded as killed at the moment of death. You fatally wound my slave girl, then before she dies Hansiaticus appoints her as his heir. I order her to accept the inheritance and she does so, so I receive the inheritance, Julian also writes that the valuation of the dead slave is made as at that time in the preceding year when he was worth most; and accordingly, if the thumb of a most valuable painter had been cut off beforehand and within a year of its loss he is killed, the Aquilian action lies and he must be valued at his price before he lost his skill together with his thumb. reason; because the truth is that in the latter case he was killed by you when you were wounding him, which only became apparent later by his death; but in the former case the collapse of the house did not allow it to emerge whether or not he was killed.
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