Intestabilis
Intestabilis In the Twelve Tables it was declared qui se sierit testarier, libripensve fuerit, ni testimonium fateatur, improbus intestabilisque esto
(Gel. 15.13.11; cf. id. 6.71, 7.7.4). According to this passage, a person who had been a witness on any solemn occasion, such as the making of a will by mancipium, and afterwards refused to give his testimony, was intestabilis; that is, disqualified from being a witness on any other occasion.
Thus, in the Twelve Tables and in subsequent law, a person was said to be intestabilis, who was incapable of being a witness to a solemn legal transaction. (Dig. 28, 1, 26: Quum lege quis intestabilis jubetur esse, eo pertinet, ne ejus testimonium recipiatur.
Inst. Just. 2.10, 6: Neque mulier, neque impubes... nec cui bonis interdictum est, nec is quem leges jubent improbum intestabilemque esse, possunt in numero testium adhiberi:
cf. Hor. Sat. 2.3, 181.)
The word had its meaning extended in the time of the Emperors, being used to express one who could not summon witnesses to attest his will; that is to say, one who was incapable of making a will (Dig. 28, 1, 18.1; Theoph. Par. 2.10, 6). The punishment of declaring an offender intestabilis was imposed by various statutes: e. g. by the Lex Cornelia injuriarum, the Lex Julia de adulteriis, the SC. Augusti de famosis libellis. (Marezoll, Von der bürgerl. Ehre, p. 85 ff.; Burchardi, de Infamia, 22; Danz, Lehrbuch der Geschichte d. R. R. 2.15, 107; Voigt, Die Zwölf Tafeln, 1.27, n. 5.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.