4. Consequently, if anyone playing or practicing with a javelin pierces with it your slave as he goes by, there is a distinction made; if the accident befalls a soldier while in the camp, or other places appropriated to military exercises, there is no fault in the soldier, but there would be in anyone else besides a soldier, and the soldier himself would be in fault if he inflicted such an injury in any other place than one appropriated to military exercises.
5. If, again, anyone, in pruning a tree, by letting a bough fall, kills your slave who is passing, and this takes place near a public way, or a way belonging to a neighbor, and he has not cried out to make persons take care, he is in fault; but if he has called out, and the passer-by would not take care, he is not to blame.
He is also equally free from blame if he was cutting far from any public way, or in the middle of a field, even though he has not called out, for by such a place no stranger has a right to pass.
6. So, again, a physician who has performed an operation on your slave, and then neglected to attend to his cure, so that the slave dies, is guilty of a fault.
7. Unskillfulness is also a fault, as, if a physician kills your slave by unskillfully performing an operation on him, or by giving him wrong medicines.
8. So, too, if a muleteer, through his want of skill, cannot manage his mules, and runs over your slave, he is guilty of a fault. As, also, he would be if he could not hold them on account of his weakness, provided that a stronger man could have held them in. The same decisions apply to an unskillful or infirm horseman, unable to manage his horse.
Within a year previously
9. The words above quoted “the greatest value the thing has possessed at any time within a year previously,” mean that if your slave is killed, being at the time of his death lame, maimed, or one-eyed, but having been within a year quite sound and of considerable value, the person who kills him is bound to pay not his actual value, but the greatest value he ever possessed within the year.
Hence, this actio may be said to be penal, as a person is bound under it not only for the damage he has done, but for much more; and, therefore, the actio does not pass against his heir, as it would have done if the condemnation had not exceeded the amount of the actual damage.
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