By injury, in a general sense, is meant anything which is done without any right. Besides this, it has three special significations; for sometimes it is used to express outrage, the proper word for which—contumely—is derived from the verb 'to contemn,' and so is equivalent to the Greek 'ubris': sometimes it means culpable negligence, as where damage is said to be done (as in the lex Aquilia) 'with injury,' where it is equivalent to the Greek 'adikema'; and sometimes iniquity and injustice, which the Greeks express by 'adikia'; thus a litigant is said to have received an 'injury' when the praetor or judge delivers an unjust judgement against him.

1 An injury or outrage is inflicted not only by striking with the first, a stick, or a whip, but also by vituperation for the purpose of collecting a crowd, or by taking possession of a man's effects on the ground that he was in one's debt; or by writing, composing, or publishing defamatory prose or verse, or contriving the doing of any of these things by some one else; or by constantly following a matron, or a young boy or girl below the age of puberty, or attempting anybody's chastity; and, in a word, by innumerable other acts.

2 An outrage or injury may be suffered either in one's own person, or in the person of a child in one's power, or even, as now is generally allowed, in that of one's wife. Accordingly, if you commit an 'outrage' on a woman who is married to Titius, you can be sued not only in her own name, but also in those of her father, if she be in his power, and of her husband. But if, conversely, it be the husband who is outraged, the wife cannot sue; for wives should be protected by their husbands, not husbands by their wives. Finally, a father-in-law may sue on an outrage committed on his daughterinlaw, if the son to whom she is married is in his power.

3 Slaves cannot be outraged themselves, but their master may be outraged in their person, though not by all the acts by which an outrage might be offered to him in the person of a child or wife, but only by aggravated assaults or such insulting acts as clearly tend to dishonour the master himself: for instance, by flogging the slave, for which an action lies; but for mere verbal abuse of a slave, or for striking him with the fist, the master cannot sue.

4 If an outrage is committed on a slave owned by two or more persons jointly, the damages to be paid to these severally should be assessed with reference not to the shares in which they own him, but to their rank or position, as it is to the reputation and not to the property that the injury is done;

5 and if an outrage is committed on a slave belonging to Maevius, but in whom Titius has a usufruct, the injury is deemed to be done to the former rather than to the latter.

6 But if the person outraged is a free man who believes himself to be your slave, you have no action unless the object of the outrage was to bring you into contempt, though he can sue in his own name. The principle is the same when another man's slave believes himself to belong to you; you can sue on an outrage committed on him only when its object is to bring contempt upon you.

7 The penalty prescribed for outrage in the Twelve Tables was, for a limb disabled, retaliation, for a bone merely broken a pecuniary mulct proportionate to the great poverty of the age. The praetors, however, subsequently allowed the person outraged to put his own estimate on the wrong, the judge having a discretion to condemn the defendant either in the sum so named by the plaintiff, or in a less amount; and of these two kinds of penalties that fixed by the Twelve Tables is now obsolete, while that introduced by the praetors, which is also called 'honorary,' is most usual in the actual practice of the courts. Thus the pecuniary compensation awarded for an outrage rises and falls in amount according to the rank and character of the plaintiff, and this principle is not improperly followed even where it is a slave who is outraged; the penalty where the slave is a steward being different from what it is when he is an ordinary menial, and different again when he is condemned to wear fetters.

8 The lex Cornelia also contains provisions as to outrages, and introduced an action on outrage, available to a plaintiff who alleges that he has been struck or beaten, or that a forcible entry has been made upon his house; the term 'his house' including not only one which belongs to him and in which he lives but also one which is hired by him, or in which he is received gratuitously as a guest.

9 An outrage becomes 'aggravated' either from the atrocious character of the act, as where a man is wounded or beaten with clubs by another; or from the place where it is committed, for instance, in the theatre or forum, or in full sight of the praetor; or from the rank of the person outraged,—if it be a magistrate, for instance, or if a senator be outraged by a person of low condition, or a parent by his child, or a patron by his freedman; for such an injury done to a senator, a parent, or a patron has a higher pecuniary compensation awarded for it than one done to a mere stranger, or to a person of low condition. Sometimes too the position of the wound makes an outrage aggravated, as where a man is struck in the eye. Whether the person on whom such an outrage is inflicted is independent or in the power of another is almost entirely immaterial, it being considered aggravated in either case.

10 Finally, it should be observed that a person who has been outraged always has his option between the civil remedy and a criminal indictment. If he prefers the former, the penalty which is imposed depends, as we have said, on the plaintiff's own estimate of the wrong he has suffered; if the latter, it is the judge's duty to inflict an extraordinary penalty on the offender. It should be remembered, however, that by a constitution of Zeno persons of illustrious or still higher rank may bring or defend such criminal actions on outrage by an agent, provided they comply with the requirements of the constitution, as may be more clearly ascertained by a perusal of the same.

11 Liability to an action on outrages attaches not only to him who commits the act,—the striking of a blow, for instance—but also to those who maliciously counsel or abet in the commission, as, for instance, to a man who gets another struck in the face.

12 The right of action on outrage is lost by condonation; thus, if a man be outraged, and takes no steps to obtain redress, but at once lets the matter, as it is said, slip out of his mind, he cannot subsequently alter his intentions, and resuscitate an affront which he has once allowed to rest.