Imperitia: The Responsibility of Skilled Workers in Classical Roman Law

By the early second century a.d., the Roman jurists were invok? ing the term imperitia, lack of skill or experience, as a basis for the legal responsibility of skilled individuals who damaged another's property in the course of their work. The term is invoked in a broad range of situa? tions and doubtless was applicable in innumerable others of similar type. For example, you entrust a gem to a jeweler to be set. It breaks in the process. A doctor, hired to perform surgery, further harms the patient. You give a cup to an artisan to be carved. The cup shatters.1 All of these examples, taken from the Digest, presuppose a similar situation: A per? son is employed to do a job and is entrusted with the material necessary for the completion of the work, usually a moveable object, a slave, or an animal. In the course of the work, this material, whether inanimate or animate, sustains damage. Who should be responsible and on what grounds? A series of texts preserved in the Digest illustrates how, over the course of the classical period of Roman jurisprudence, the jurists articulated and interpreted imperitia as a key concept for use in legal disputes dealing with a broad range of individuals employed in the workforce of the empire. As increased scholarly attention is devoted to the study of the Roman working population from a legal perspective, an examination of imperitia will shed light on one of the principal substantive tools developed to regulate artisans and skilled workers of all kinds.2 The surviving Digest texts permit the reconstruction of key elements of the