In Roman law, obligatio ex delicto is an obligation created as a result of a delict. While "delict" itself was never defined by Roman jurisprudents, delicts were generally composed of injurious or otherwise illicit actions, ranging from those covered by criminal law today such as theft (furtum) and robbery (rapina) to those usually settled in civil disputes in modern times such as defamation, a form of iniuria.Kolańczyk, p. 426 Obligationes ex delicto therefore can be characterized as a form of private punishment, but also as a form of loss compensation.
