obligation to fulfill the terms of the vow. The difference between the contract and the vow is that inevitably the speech act in the vow is only that of the promissor. In LectureI return to Roman and Byzantine law, to thelex Aquilia which, much later, set the standard for liability for negligence in most of the western world. The importance of the statute for subsequent development of the law of torts cannot be exaggerated. I concentrate on chapter that dealt with the wrongful killing of slaves and fourfooted herd animals. My interest is in the measure of damages which was the highest value the slave or animal had in the past year. We are not told the rationale of this, a fact that is typical of the Roman jurists. They seem not to be interested in discussing the motivation behind legal rules. For me, a reasonable explanation would be that in an early agricultural society the value of a slave or herd animal could fluctuate greatly from season to season -- in winter an agricultural slave could work less, and the risk of death was greater -- and the statute sought to protect the owner against loss. Still, a more rational approach would have been to award as damages the cost of a replacement, plus interim loss of income. But absurdities in the statute became clear in at least three situations. First, the slave had been previously injured and lost a great deal of his value, the owner recovered for the loss, then within a year the wretched slave got himself killed. The owner would get the highest value the slave had in the past year, notwithstanding what had already been received by the owner. Secondly, an outsider appointed the slave his heir by will. The owner ordered the slave to accept the inheritance which he did, so the inheritance became the property of the owner. Then the slave was killed. If one counted back a year, the slave was much more valuable between the death of the testator and the slave’s acceptance of the inheritance. Thirdly, the slave is wounded mortally and is subsequently polished off by some-
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