[ULPIANUS libro nono de officio proconsulis. ] §37.14.1.prPatronorum querellas aduersus libertos praesides audire et non translaticie exsequi debent, cum, si ingratus libertus sit, non impune ferre eum oporteat.
[ULPIANUS, in the ninth book on the Office of the Proconsul.] Governors of provinces ought to hear the complaints of patrons against their freedmen and execute them in no perfunctory manner, since, if a freedman is ungrateful, he should not escape unpunished.
sed si quidem inofficiosus patrono patronae liberisue eorum sit, tantummodo castigari cum sub comminatione aliqua seueritatis non defuturae, si rursum causam querellae praebuerit, et dimitti oportet.
But if indeed he is only disrespectful to his patron, patroness, or their children, he ought merely to be chastised under some threat of severity that will not be lacking if he should again provide cause for complaint, and then be dismissed.
enimuero si contumeliam fecit aut conuicium eis dixit, etiam in exilium temporale dari debebit: quod si manus intulit, in metallum dandus erit: idem et si calumniam aliquam eis instruxit uel delatorem subornauit uel quam causam aduersus eos temptauit.
On the other hand, if he has committed an insult or spoken abusively to them, he must even be sentenced to temporary exile; but if he has laid hands upon them, he must be condemned to the mines; the same shall apply if he has engineered some false accusation against them, or suborned an informer, or attempted any lawsuit against them.