Mosaycarum et Romanarum legum collatio

TITVLVS I.

of Baetica, was [approved] by the Divine Hadrian, because he had relegated him for five years. The words of the consultation and rescript are as follows: "Between Clodius, Best Emperor, and Evaristus, you have examined, because Clodius, son of Lupus, while being tossed in a cloak at a banquet, through the fault of Marius Evaristus was so badly received that he died after the fifth day. To which it appeared there was no enmity with Evaristus, nor did he believe that through guilt of desire he should be restrained, so that others of the same age might be corrected." Therefore he interdicted Marius Evaristus from the city and the province of Baetica for five years: he decreed also that Evaristus should pay two thousand to his father for the sake of expense, because his poverty was manifest, or the matter [was such]. The words of the rescript: "You have rightly moderated the penalty of Marius Evaristus, Taurinus, according to the measure of the guilt. For it matters also in greater delicts whether something is admitted by intent, or by accident. And indeed in all crimes this distinction ought to provoke either justice or admit a tempering of the penalty."

MODESTINUS in the sixth book of his "Differences," under the title "On those who know and those who are ignorant," speaks generally: SOMETIMES mercy is accustomed to be granted by civil law to those who transgress through ignorance, provided that one is ignorant of a matter of fact, not of law, which indeed is not accustomed to be granted to those transgressing by counsel. For which reason it is necessary, with the distinction added, to consider whether something is proposed as having been done while knowing or while ignorant. And so on.