— Also termed Macedonian Decree.
“The senatus consultum Macedonianum reads as follows: ‘Whereas Macedo’s borrowings gave him an added incentive to commit a crime to which he was naturally predisposed and whereas those who lend money on terms which are dubious, to say the least, often provide evil men with the means of wrongdoing, it has been decided, in order to teach pernicious moneylenders that a son’s debt cannot be made good by waiting for his father’s death, that a person who has lent money to a son-in-power is to have no claim or action even after the death of the person in whose power he was.’ ” Digest of Justinian 14. 6.1 (Ulpian, Ad Sabinum 49).
“In the principate of Vespasian, 69–79 A.D., a senatus consultum was passed which forbade loans to a filius-familias. It was called the senatus consultum — Macedonianum, after one Macedo, a usurer who had made such a loan and thereby instigated a hard-pressed debtor to kill his father in order to enter into his inheritance. To prevent tragic possibilities like these, the senatus consultum declared that no action would lie to recover money lent to a filius-familias.” Max Radin, Handbook of Roman Law 188–89 (1927).
