ACCESSIO
ACCESSIO
addition, is not strictly a technical word, but is used
frequently in certain connexions in a somewhat technical manner. The verb
accedere is similarly used.
1. In some bargains it was not unusual, besides the price, to stipulate for
certain extra payments (
accessiones). In the
draft contracts given by Cato we have mention of allowances both in money
and kind made to a contractor for gathering the olives (
R. R.
144) ; of allowances of oil and salt to the contractor for pressing the oil,
besides a small sum for the use of vessels (
vasarium, ib. 145). If the olive-harvest was sold before
gathering (
olea pendens), one of the conditions
of sale was that the buyer should pay the auctioneer's fee (
praeconium) and 1 per cent. more than the price
(
amplius quam quanta emerit omnis pecuniae centesima
accedet, ib. 146). This was a commission paid to the banker or
collector of the sale-moneys (cf.
Cic.
Rab. P. 11; Lex Metall. Vipasc. init.
apud Bruns, p. 141). Such a commission may probably
have been the pretext for the considerable sums of money which Verres'
agents extorted from the Sicilian farmers over and above (
accessionis) the quantity of corn due or demanded (
Cic. Ver. 3.32,
36,
49,
50). Columella (1.7.2) speaks of wood and other extras, besides the
rent, due from farming tenants (
coloni). And
among the regulations for market-sales issued by the aediles is a provision
that, in case a sale is annulled, the buyer should recover besides the price
any money he has given
accessionis nomine
(
Dig. 21,
1,
25.9; cf. ss. 27, 33, &c.). An auctioneer
is said by Pliny to have sold a candelabrum for 50,000 sesterces and thrown
a humpback into the bargain:
accessio candelabri
fuit (
H. N. 34.11).
2. In the law writers both noun and verb are used in speaking of such
appurtenances and accessories as share the legal fate of the principal
(
accessio cedit principali). It is
especially used to include accretions from without as opposed to growths
(cf.
fructibus et causis et omneibus accessionibus,
in the heading of
Dig. 22,
1). Such accretions are buildings erected on land, trees planted in
gradual deposits on a river bank, writing on paper, gold setting of a jewel,
embroidery on dresses (
Dig. 4,
1,
23). A controversy existed whether a
painting by one man on another's panel should be regarded as principal or
accessory. Justinian decided in favour of the painter, who, as in other
similar cases, would have to reimburse the owner of the panel (Inst. 2.1,
§ § 29-38). But not only such secondary objects as are in
physical connexion with a thing (to which class
of appurtenances modern lawyers would confine the term: cf.
[p. 1.7]Wächter,
Pand. § 65;
Böcking,
Pand. § §78, 81) are
called
accessiones, but even such as the terms
of a bargain or the intention of a testator may have made accessory (
Dig. 21,
1,
1.1 ; ss. 32, 33; 30, 1, 63, &c.). For the
general law see also Keller,
Inst. § 67.
Accessio is also specially used (3) in reckoning
the length of time necessary for resuccession, when a possessor has the
benefit of the addition of the time during which another person (e. g. a
vendor or donor or testator) to whose rights he succeeds had the possession
(
Dig. 41,
2,
13;
44,
3,
6,
14-
16); and (4) of
fidejussores and other sureties who were regarded as accessories
to the principal debtor (Gai. 3.126;
Dig. 46,
1, s. 3; s. 34, &c.).
[
H.J.R]
