The Name of the Delict

We have already encountered the word �iniuria in the lex Aquilia, where it was used in the ablative with adverbial effect: �by a wrong' and hence �wrongfully'. Here the noun stands alone as the name of one delict, albeit one whose content is not homogeneous.

It is a puzzle to know how such a general word could ever come to denote a single category of liability. It is not obviously better fit for specialisation than �delict' itself. But this kind of thing can happen in any number of unplanned ways. The common law uses �tort', the French word for �wrong', to do the work of �delict' as the generic term for actionable civil wrongs. That is because its first generic word, trespass, was pushed into specialised service: �Forgive us our trespasses.' Back in the fourteenth century, when the common law was being built up, nobody thought that a trespass was or would be something narrow and technical. With a different fall of the evolutionary dice �Tort' might be �Trespass' now.

In fact it is extraordinarily tempting to translate �iniuria’ as �trespass'. That would convey the right impression of a wide word for �wrong’ used in an artificially narrow sense. The drawback would be that it would suggest a coincidence between the two technical senses. That would be misleading.

Even though the delict is called �iniuria’, the use of the plural is strikingly prominent. The edictal rubric is �De iniuriis' (Concerning wrongs). So also the title ofJustinian's Institutes. The Digest title is �De iniuriis etfamosis libellis' (Concerning wrongs and written defamations). More importantly the action is the �actio iniuriarum (the claim for wrongs). This use of the plural is an indication of variety within, even of variety not in perfect unity.

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