Coire societatem

The word coeo in all its declensions, combined to the word societas, gives life to evocative expressions (extremely recurring in the Latin literature and in the jurisprudence) that efficaciously represent the strict and intense relationship between two or more persons that have common intents and interests, sharing their intellectual and physical assets to obtain it. This framework – that emerges from the literature – is very various and it isn’t only related to the societas for the bargaining of the contract and for the splitting of profit and loss. Hence coire societatem denotes an huge semantic reach. These inflected expressions recur in a lot of passages of the prudentes, assuming a more restricted and vocational acceptation, intended to state the existence of a societas, hinting at its structure. The word coire combined with societas is found in the lexicon of the imperial constitutions. It is enrolled in a measure of Leone, of the 472 a.D., in which, for proposing an actio in personam, it is recognized the validity of the private deeds by which the societas (societas coeundi gratia) and other deals [C. 8.17(18). 11 pr.] are settled. The images of the contrahere societatem and of the societas as contractus are less infrequent, instead. Through the analysed sources, it is possible to gather an essential element, useful to distinguish the various phenomenon of the societas: i.e. the act or fact that gives rise to the relation. When that lies in an original and legal bargain between more persons in the fields of private interests, we have a contractual societas. And for its validity, the agreement is just enough: consensus sufficit, Gaius says in 3.136. The jurist portrays the societas by the consensual element that stands out in the locution consensus sufficit (Gai 3.135-136, 3.148.) It is the societas that takes out by the mere agreement (quae consensu contrahiutur nudo). As Gaius infers in 3.154, it is a genus in itself and it is iuris gentium. However, it isn’t the only category of societas since there is also an aliud genus societatis, that is a proprium civium Romanorum, instead. The first is a wide category, accessible for everyone (inter omnes homines naturali ratione consisti) while the latter is circumscribed only to the Roman citizen, as the jurist manifests in 3.154, which conceives a categorisation in two genera. Comparing the two genera, the merely consensual societas and the aliud genus composed by the consortium and by the societas, similar to the first, between the not fratres sui, Gaius shows the affinity and dissimilarity between them, and at the same time he shows also the difference between the two categories that constitute the other category of societas. The consortium between the sui is constituted regardless of their will, while the imitative societas derives from the will of the alii, as it is deduced from the verb volebant. However, it is not possible to gather a connection with the nudus consensus that typifies the societas iuris gentium since, if that were the case, the imitative societas would coincide with the consortium, being part of the first genus (iuris gentium) only composed of merely consensual societas. It seems that the verb volebant pertains to the generic agreement instead, that determines to a greater or lesser extent all the negotiation phenomenon.