3.1.248 to 3.1.250

(219) Moreover, it was decided that an action will only lie under this law where the party caused the damage by means of his own body, and hence where damage has resulted in some other way, equitable actions should be granted; for instance, where anyone shuts up a slave or a head of cattle belonging to another, and kills him or it by starvation; or where a beast of burden is driven so hard that it perishes; and also where anyone persuades the slave of another to climb a tree, or descend into a well, and, in doing so, he falls, and is either killed or sustains some bodily injury. If, however, anyone pushes a slave off of a bridge or bank into a stream, and he is drowned, the party who pushed him may readily be understood to have caused the damage by means of his body. (220) Injury is committed, for example, not only where anyone strikes another with his fist, or with a stick or a whip, but where he reviles him in a loud voice, or where well knowing, that nothing is due to himself, he seizes and advertises for sale the property of another as his debtor; or where he writes prose or poetry defaming another; or persistently follows the mother of a family or a boy wearing the prætexta ; and finally in many other ways. (221) We consider that injury may be suffered not only by ourselves, but also in the persons of our children who are subject to our authority, as well as by our wives, although they may not be in our hand. Hence if you commit an outrage against my daughter, who is married to Titius, an action for injury can (not) only be brought against you in her name, but also in that of mine, as well as in that of Titius.