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The problems of reconstructing the development of liability for animals in Roman law are considerable. Each of the remedies is attended by major difficulties for the historian. We have the following: (1) A Twelve Tables remedy for pauperies —an archaic term, the meaning of which is obscure; (2) A Twelve Tables remedy for depasturation, of which there is no surviving quotation, but only a small number of allusions; (3) An edictum on dogs and certain wild animals, undated and surviving in two versions with hardly any juristic interpretation; (4) A “ lex Pesolania ” concerning dogs, the very existence of which has been questioned; (5) The classical actio de pauperie , the basis, extent, and remedy for which have all been assailed by the interpolationists; (6) The classical actio de pastu , evidently superseded by Justinian's day and thus leaving but few traces. The Common Lawyer, to whom these remedies may reasonably evoke the types of damage represented by scienter and cattle-trespass and the special rules for dogs and ferae , will not be surprised to find, in addition, the application of general culpa principles by the extension of the actio legis Aquiliae . I. T he D ecemviral R emedies Some strands of ancient tradition maintain that the Decemvirs adopted an eclectic method, incorporating within the Twelve Tables both ancestral custom and foreign law.
Bernard S. Jackson (Sat,) studied this question.