Institutes of Roman Law. Gaius
over a person or thing recovered from hostile possession. The word postliminium seems to be derived from pot, the root of potestas or possessio, and limen or stlimen = ligamen, and therefore would denote the bridging over of the interval of captivity by a fiction of continued capacity or possession, or a doorway is bridged over by a lintel (limen).
§ 130. In imitation of the ancient law Justinian enacted that certain dignities should release from patria potestas; for instance, patriciatus and the episcopate, the latter because it made a man spiritual father of all mankind, Novella, 81.
§ 131. The Latini or members of coloniae Latinae were an intermediate class between cives and peregrini. They differed from peregrini in that they had commercium, i. e. capacity of Quiritary ownership with its incidents, and they differed from cives in not having connubium, and consequently being incapable of patria potestas, Cic. Pro Caecina, 35. Cf. § 22, comm. A Roman citizen could only become a Latin with his own consent. Qui cives Romani in colonias Latinas proficiscebantur, fieri non poterant Latini ni erant auctores facti nomenque dederant, Cic. De Domo, 30. ‘Roman citizens who went to Latin colonies did not lose their citizenship without voluntary enrolment among the colonists.’ See also Cic. Pro Balbo, 11.
§ 132. The epitome of Gaius, 1, 6, 3, which throws light on this passage, mentions as present at an emancipation, besides the five witnesses and libripens, a seventh person called antestatus, who is also mentioned in the bronze tablet referred to in the remarks on pignus and fiducia. Book 3, §§ 90, 91, comm. His duty may have been to ask the witnesses whether they were bearing witness to the transaction (antestari). Cf. Roby, Private Law, pp. 180, n. 2, 423, n. 3.
The vindicta or wand used in manumission, as already stated, was the rod or verge symbolizing a lance carried by the parties in a real action, 4 § 13. The status of freedom (libertas) whether as opposed to slavery or to bondage (mancipii causa) was a real right (jus in rem). and therefore a subject to be contested in a vindicatio. Manumission by vindicta was a collusive vindicatio, in other words, an in jure cessio. Cf. Roby, 1, p. 26, n. 1.
The epitome of Gaius (l. c.) calls the person, to whom the son was mancipated by pater naturalis, pater fiduciarius, which implies that the mancipation was accompanied by a fiducia or declaration of trust. The trust would be that the pater fiduciarius should make default or confess in the subsequent in jure cessio.
§ 134. Assuming that in adoption, as in emancipation, the person to whom the son was mancipated was called pater fiduciarius, we find in adoption three fathers in the field, pater naturalis, pater fiduciarius, and pater adoptivus. Remancipation to the natural father added a stage to the process; but is described as more convenient, because it reduced the number of actors from three to two; for it enabled the part of pater fiduciarius to be played by pater adoptivus. It appears from § 135 (cf. however § 141) that though the status of bondage was purely formal, yet perhaps to give an air of reality to the drama, the status was sometimes made to have a certain duration. So when a prince is advanced from the rank of private to that of general, a certain interval is interposed between the intermediate promotions for the sake of decorum, though, the whole proceeding being unreal, all the steps, if the authorities were so disposed, might be compressed into a single day. Ihering, § 46.
The status of paterfamilias or of filiusfamilias being, like other kinds of status, a real right, the claim of a person as filiusfamilias was a matter to be contested in a real action or vindicatio brought against the person in whose possession he was. This would seem the more obvious in primitive times, when probably no distinction was made between patria potestas and dominica potestas, i. e. between paternal power and absolute proprietorship. Such vindicatio was sometimes a matter of contentious (not voluntary) jurisdiction, i. e. of genuine litigation. Cf. Dig. 6. 1, 1, 2, where we are told that the ground of making a claim of this kind must be particularly specified (adfecta causa) in the vindication. The ordinary mode of judicially determining the status of a child in case of dispute was by a praejudicium, 4 § 44, comm. The father could compel any one, who had possession of his child, to produce him by the interdictum de liberis exhibendis or de liberis ducendis 4 §§ 138-170, comm. In case of dispute between paterfamilias and filiusfamilias inter se, recourse might be had to the extraordinaria cognitio of the magistrate. Sohm’s Inst. § 101.
Justinian simplified the formalities of emancipation and adoption. He allowed the former to be accomplished by a simple declaration of the father before a competent judge or magistrate (Emancipatio Justinianea); and the latter after appearance of all the parties before such a judge, insinuatio, i. e. a memorandum of the transaction in the public records (actis intervenientibus) being in both cases required. Emancipation by imperial rescript had been previously instituted by the Emperor Anastasius (Emancipatio Anastasiana). Imperial rescript was required for effecting an arrogation.
In English law children are enfranchised, and the limited power of the father over their person and property is terminated by two events which did not operate emancipation in Roman law, marriage and arrival at years of discretion, that is, attainment of majority by the completion of twenty-one years of age. At these points, under English law, the empire of the father or other guardian gives place to the empire of reason; whereas neither marriage nor majority released the Roman son or daughter from potestas.
§ 136. Cf. §§ 108-115 b, comm. Q. Aelius Tubero and Paulus Fabius Maximus were consuls b. c. 11, the year in which the office of flamen dialis was re-established. This cannot therefore be the law a. d. 23 referred to by Tacitus, Ann. 4, 16 (see note to Muirhead’s Gaius).
§ 137. Dissolution of marriage (divortium) could be effected either by the consent of both parties or by the act of one. The message of repudiation (repudium) contained the formula, Tuas res tibi habeto, ‘Take away thy property.’ Mimam illam suam suas res sibi habere jussit, claves ademit, exegit, Cic. Phil. 2, 28. ‘The actress was ordered to pack, deprived of the keys, turned out of the house.’ The lex Julia de adulteriis prescribed a form for repudium, and required the message to be delivered by a freedman of the family, in the presence of seven witnesses above the age of puberty and citizens of Rome. The party who made a causeless repudium, or whose misconduct justified a repudium, was punished by pecuniary losses in respect of dos and propternuptial donations. After much veering legislation under the Christian Emperors, Justinian enacted that a man or woman who divorced without a cause should retire to a cloister and forfeit all his or her estate, one moiety to his or her successors, and the other moiety to the cloister. Nov. 134, 11. But it was not till later times that the Church succeeded in making marriage indissoluble by law.
§ 140. Ihering, § 32, infers from this that the census, like a year of jubilee, freed all but noxal and fictitious bondsmen at the end of five years: and that the Twelve Tables, in limiting a father to three mancipations, disabled him from selling the services of his son for more than fifteen years. As to noxal surrender of filiifamilias see 4 §§ 75-81.
§ 141. Whereas no injuria could be done to a slave. 4 § 222.
DE TVTELIS.
§ 142. Let us now proceed to another classification: persons not subject to power, nor to hand, nor held in mancipation, may still be subject either to tutelary guardianship or to curatorship, or may be exempt from both forms of control. We will first examine what persons are subject to tutelary guardianship and curatorship, and thus we shall know who are exempt from both kinds of control.
§ 143. And first of persons subject to tutelary guardianship or tutelage.
§ 144. The law allows a parent to appoint guardians in his will for the children in his power, below the age of puberty, if they are males; whatever their age, and notwithstanding their marriage, if they are females; for, according to our ancestors, even women who have attained their majority, on account of their levity of disposition, require to be kept in tutelage.
§ 145. Accordingly, when a brother and sister have a testamentary guardian, on attaining the age of puberty the brother ceases to be a ward, but the sister continues, for it is only under the lex Julia and Papia Poppaea by title of maternity that women are emancipated from tutelage; except in the case of vestal virgins, for these, even in our ancestors’ opinion, are entitled on account of the