The play Truculentus by Plautus is the oldest known source in which the word “obligare” is used, the root ‘lig’ indicates the binding of something or someone. The subject of law of obligations was introduced in Justinians Institutes by the following definition: “obligatio est iuris vinculum, quo necessitate adstringimur alicuius solvendae rei secundum nostrae civitatis iura”. This translates to the legal bond whereby an individual is constrained to perform an action according to the law of state. In A Historical Introduction to the Law of Obligations the author states that by the middle of the second century AD, basic separation between obligations arising out of delict and obligations arising out of contract had been established. …show more content…
In Gaius’s Digest the statement that all law relates either to persons, things or actions contributed to the organisation of body of laws and laid the foundation for the science of law also known as scientia iuris. Geoffrey Samuel states that the development of the scientific approach to law had a great impact during the 16th century institutional scheme subjected by humanist jurists to extreme diligence. This led to a switch from the law being objective towards subjective rights, law focussing on the individual. With law becoming a matter of rights, the law of things category consisted of two different rights, namely rights in rem and rights in personam. As a result of the previously mentioned rights the law of actions category was no longer applicable, due to rights being subjective remedies were removed into a separate category and actions category became law of obligations. The new institutional scheme possesses a three fold division consisting of persons, property and …show more content…
The development of legal actions during Roman law focussed on creating a category in which the general foundation was developed out of Gaius’s notion of wrongfulness in order to create a separation from the category of contract. It is important to be aware that during early Roman times criminal law was not strongly developed, due to the lack of recognition of criminal acts being limited to “exceptional invasions of public security or of the general order of society” as well as the vague distinction between a crime and a delict. The nature of a delict was considered to be a violation of individuals property right, their right to a thing therefor a delict can clearly be distinguished from the notion of contract. Four specific delicts was identified in Justinian’s Institutes, these delicts were as follows: theft (ex furto), robbery(ex rapina), causing wrongful loss (ex damno) and outrageous behaviour (ex injuria) in addition to the delicts evil intent also known as dolus malus was a vital element in all of the above named delicts excluding