except these classical elementary books. They seem not to have looked at the first Code or writings on the Digest. When the classical elementary works had nothing apropos, the compilers relied on their memories, sometimes with disastrous results. hus, J. .. gives the function of the interdictum Salvianum47 to the actio Serviana. Both remedies concern real security, but they are very different. Contrary to the Digest (D. ..., ), the main action, actio de pauperie, for injury caused by an animal lay in the Institutes only when the animal acted contra naturam, contrary to nature (J. . pr).48 The Digest allows the action where two rams fight and the aggressor kills the other: behavior scarcely contrary to nature. J. . pr., gives a very different account of arra, earnest money in sale, fromC. .. of from which it derives. Above all, the very long J. ., dealing with actions, is a mixture of classical and Byzantine notions, and is quite incomprehensible. Students could not possibly learn the law of procedure from it. The explanation is that the order to compile the elementary textbook was given only when the Digest was completed49 and both works were to come into force on the same day, December . The compilers of the Institutes were under enormous time constraints50 In all of the peculiarities of the Corpus Iuris there is remarkable historical irony. Without them, the work could not have had the impact on civilization that it had. Without the Institutes, the Reception of Roman law would have been much more difficult, if it could have occurred at all. Certainly, modern civil codes would be very different.51 47 D.43.33 48 The interpretation of contra naturamgives rise to difficulties. In modern South African law it is taken to mean “contrary to the nature of the species:” O’Callagan v. Chaplin 1927 A.D. 310; Hamse v. Hoffman1925 T.P.D. 572; S.A.R. v. Edwards 1930 A.D. 3. 49 Imperatoriam maiestatem, 3. 50 See e.g. Alan Watson, Legal History, pp. 54 ff. 51 See e.g. Alan Watson, The Making of the Civil Law(Cambridge, Mass., 1981).
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