or in the middle of a field, even if he did not call out; for
strangers had no business to be there.

6 Again, if a surgeon operates on your slave, and then neglects
altogether to attend to his cure, so that the slave dies in consequence,
he is liable for his carelessness.

7 Sometimes, too, unskilfulness is undistinguishable from
carelessness--as where a surgeon kills your slave by operating upon him
unskilfully, or by giving him wrong medicines;

8 and similarly, if your slave is run over by a team of mules, which
the driver has not enough skill to hold, the latter is suable for
carelessness; and the case is the same if he was simply not strong
enough to hold them, provided they could have been held by a stronger
man. The rule also applies to runaway horses, if the running away is due
to the rider's deficiency either in skill or strength.

9 The meaning of the words of the statute 'whatever was of the highest
value thereof within the year' is that if any one, for instance, kills
a slave of yours, who at the moment of his death is lame, or maimed, or
blind of one eye, but within the year was sound and worth a price, the
person who kills him is answerable not merely for his value at the time
of his death, but for his highest value within the year. It is owing to
this that the action under this statute is deemed to be penal, because
a defendant is sometimes bound to pay a sum not merely equivalent to the
damage he has done, but far in excess of it; and consequently, the right
of suing under the statute does not pass against the heir, though it
would have done so if the damages awarded had never exceeded the actual
loss sustained by the plaintiff.

10 By juristic construction of the statute, though not so enacted in its
terms, it has been settled that one must not only take account, in the
way we have described, of the value of the body of the slave or animal
killed, but must also consider all other loss which indirectly falls
upon the plaintiff through the killing. For instance, if your slave
has been instituted somebody's heir, and, before he has by your order
accepted, he is slain, the value of the inheritance you have missed must
be taken into consideration; and so, too, if one of a pair of mules,
or one of four chariot horses, or one of a company of slave players is
killed, account is to be taken not only of what is killed, but also of
the extent to which the others have been depreciated.

11 The owner whose s