ORIGIN OF THE ACTIO FUNERARIA
Keywords:
Actio funeraria. – Actio negotiorum gestorum. – Actio de dolo. – Reimbursement of funeral costs. – Epidemic.Abstract
The Roman funeral supposed to ensure the peaceful transition of the deceased’s soul to eternity. However, it also gave birth to obligations for those who were obliged to perform and rights for those who organized it, although they were not obliged to do so. Ensuring that they did not bear the burden of the funeral costs, the praetor created a special lawsuit – actio funeraria, which enabled the funeral organizer to reimburse its costs. The aim of this paper is to investigate the reasons that led to the emergence of lawsuit, as well as to try to determine when it arose.
Results indicate the following. The previous legal solution of the reimbursement of funeral costs problem was the institute of negotiorum gestio, which influenced the formation of action funeraria. However, negotiorum gestio appeared to be inadequate and inapplicable to emerging legal and social challenges. Actio funeraria had a wider application than a lawsuit from negotiorum gestio for two reasons. First, it could have been raised by the prosecutor who considers that he was performing his duty, i.e., that he was obliged to organize the funeral. Second, the costs were suable even when they were incurred against the will of the person obliged to bear them. The motives of praetor in the establishing the actio funeraria were that no one is buried at "someone else's" cost, but also that the bodies do not remain unburied for fear that the funeral expenses cannot be reimbursed.
Based on the views of the Roman jurist Mela, it follows that the actio funeraria originated after the actio de dolo, which was introduced in 66 BC. On the other hand, based on the preserved views of Trebatius, Proculus and Labeon, we certainly know that the actio funeraria existed as an independent praetorian lawsuit during their lives. The defining moment in which the lawsuit arose was probably the 23 and 22 BC. Mass deaths in Rome and Italy as a consequence of the epidemic and floods those years, influenced the praetor to expand responsibility for reimbursement of funeral costs and to affect his fellow citizens to bury the dead as soon as possible.
The paper uses linguistic, historical and systematic interpretation of passages D.11.7.12.2‒3, D.11.7.14.2. and D.11.7.14.11‒13.
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