This investigation follows the main contributions to the doctrinal history of the antinomy between D.9.2.11.3 and D.9.2.51. Both texts concern the liabilities, under the lex Aquilia, of two offenders: the first mortally wounds a victim and the second finishes him off. According to the former text, the second attacker is liable for killing, whereas the first attacker is liable for wounding; the author of the text, Domitius Ulpianus (ca 170-223), attributes this view, of which he approves, to Juventius Celsus (67-130). The latter text by Julian (ca 110-ca 175) advocates holding both attackers liable as killers and is thus taken as marking a contrarian view.

In the evolution of Roman legal scholarship, the following solutions to this problem have been suggested. (1) The Digest allows us to spot a disagreement between Celsus (followed by Ulpian) and Julian. From this starting point, secondary questions emerge, most importantly concerning the precise legal point about which Celsus and Julian disagree. Or (2), the cases can be distinguished. The distinguishing element has been found in (a) the different quality of the first blow (the degree of certainty with which the first act could be expected to result in the victim's death), as assumed by the Ordinary Gloss and many others, or (b) the different quality of the second blow (deadly as such or deadly only because directed against an already mortally wounded man). In a variant of the last distinction, the second blows are distinguished as to the immediacy of their effect: they are either instantly deadly (D.9.2.11.3) or a mere accelerating contribution to a dying process still continuing (D.9.2.51). (3) Last but not least, the licence to strike out and/or replace words and passages, as claimed by the 20th-century authors of the interpolationist persuasion, allowed our texts to be liberally morphed into variants which are free of contradictions.

The development of the various interpretations that have been provoked by the tension between two passages of the Digest shall, in a nutshell, make for a case study on the history of Roman law research, from its medieval beginnings to our day. The contributions will be reported in chronological order. Along the way, we shall find the classical lawyers’ texts mirrored in a colourful spectrum of intellectual responses.