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"The State," he said, speaking at least as haughtily as Dea Flavia herself, "hath agreed to accept the sum of twenty aurei for this slave. 'Tis too late now to make further bids for her." But a pair of large blue eyes, cold as the waters of the Tiber and like unto them mysterious and elusive, were turned fully on the speaker.
The crowd seemed inclined to wait just a brief while longer in order to see Nola put up on the catasta and to hear the bid of twenty aurei made for her by her mother a bid which, at the praefect's commands, was to be final and undisputed. Just to see the hammer come clashing down as an epilogue to the palpitating drama was perhaps worth waiting for.
But this is no place for the delivery of my judgment upon thee, and the sale must proceed as the law directs; thy daughter must stand upon the catasta, thou canst renew thy bid of twenty aurei for her, and," he added with unmistakable significance, as throwing his head back his imperious glance swept over the assembled crowd, "as there will be no higher bid for Nola, daughter of Menecreta, she will become thy property as by law decreed."
"There, give him the gold, Davus; he is a regular usurer. Give him three aurei, and then buckle these to my heel. Ha! that is well, my Paullus, here come your fellows with black Aufidus, and our friend Geta on the Numidian. They have made haste, yet not sweated Nanthus either. Aristius, your groom is a good one; I never saw a horse that shewed his keeping or condition better.
Tall, imperious and majestic, Dea Flavia unconscious alike of the deference of the crowd and the timorous astonishment of the slaves looked up at Cheiron, the auctioneer, and resumed with a touch of impatience in her rich young voice: "I said that I would bid thirty aurei for this girl!" Less than a minute had elapsed since Dea Flavia's sudden appearance on the scene.
4 A stipulation is conditional, when performance is made to depend on some uncertain event in the future, so that it becomes actionable only on something being done or omitted: for instance, 'Do you promise to give five aurei if Titius is made consul? If, however, a man stipulates in the form 'Do you promise to give so and so, if I do not go up to the Capitol? the effect is the same as if he had stipulated for payment to himself at the time of his death.
34 If the plaintiff in his statement of claim demands less than is his due, as for instance by alleging a debt of five aurei, when in fact he is owed ten, or by claiming only half of an estate the whole of which really belongs to him, he runs no risk thereby, for, by the constitution of Zeno of sacred memory, the judge will in the same action condemn the defendant in the residue as well as in the amount actually claimed.
"And how many aurei didst promise to Hun Rhavas for helping thee to defraud the State?" "Only five, my lord," she murmured. "Then," he said sternly, "not only didst thou conspire to cheat the State for whose benefit the sale of the late censor's goods was ordered by imperial decree, but thou didst bribe another a slave of the treasury to aid and abet thee in this fraud."
A penal legacy is one given in order to coerce the heir into doing or not doing something; for instance, the following: 'If my heir gives his daughter in marriage to Titius, or, conversely, 'if he does not give her in marriage to Titius, let him pay ten aurei to Seius'; or again, 'if my heir parts with my slave Stichus, or, conversely, 'if he does not part with him, let him pay ten aurei to Titius. And so strictly was this rule observed, that it is declared in a large number of imperial constitutions that even the Emperor will accept no legacy by which a penalty is imposed on some other person: and such legacies were void even when given by a soldier's will, in which as a rule so much trouble was taken to carry out exactly the testator's wishes.
Thus, if out of ten aurei which your slave borrows from Titius, he pays your creditor five, and spends the remainder in some other way, you are liable for the whole of the five, and for the remainder to the extent of the peculium: and from this it is clear that if the whole ten were applied to your uses Titius could recover the whole from you.
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