We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 June 2012
In this article David Ibbetson takes a perspective from the ancient world. A number of texts of Roman law are concerned with injuries arising in the course of athletics. They are particularly concerned with blameworthy killings, and constitute some of the most fundamental texts at the historical base of modern negligence liability. Behind them there may lie questions discussed by Greek orators, where they were fitted into a rather different framework from that of the Romans.
1 See in particular A. Wacke, “Accidents in Sports and Games in Roman and Modern German Law” (1979) 42 Tydskrif vir Hedendaagse Romeins-Hollandse Reg 273.
2 Digest of Justinian; available at http://www.fordham.edu/hassall/Source/Corpus1.a9.2.52.4.
3 Wacke, op cit, 278.
4 Digest, op.cit 9.2.11.pr.
5 Wacke, op cit, 277.
6 Digest, op.cit 9.2.7.4.
7 Demosthenes Against Aristokrates, 53; available at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Dem.+23+53&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0074.
8 Digest, op.cit 9.2.9.4.
9 Institutes 4.3.2, 3; available at http://www.fordham.edu/hassell/basis/535institutes.asp
10 Plutarch, Pericles 36; available at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Plut.+Per.+36&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.018.
11 Antiphon, Second Tetralogy, 3; available at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0020:speech=3&default.scheme=speech:tetralogy:section&default.type=speech.
12 We should note that this case fell outside the exclusion of liability for killing in the course of an athletic contest referred to above.
13 MacDowell, D M, Athenian Homicide Law in the Age of the Orators (Manchester University Press, 1963)Google Scholar.
14 Daube, D, Roman Law: Linguistic, Social, and Philosophical Aspects (Edinburgh University Press, 1969)Google Scholar, 148; 1 Kings 3.16 ff.
15 Pausanias, Description of Greece, 5.21; available at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D5%3Achapter%3D21.
