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Justinian I · The Digest of Justinian §40.4.48.pr

Manumission of a Common Slave Conditioned on Co-Owner

Passage 6396 of 9271 · Latin

Summary

The opinion of Servius that if one co-owner grants freedom to a slave conditional on the other co-owner's manumission, the slave becomes a common freedman of the testator's family and the manumitting co-owner.

[IDEM libro decimo quaestionum. ] §40.4.48.prSi socius testamento libertatem ita dederit: 'Pamphilus, si eum socius manumiserit, liber esto', Seruius respondit socio manumittente communem fieri libertum familiae atque manumissoris: neque enim nouum aut incognitum est uario iure communi mancipio libertatem optingere.
[THE SAME AUTHOR in the tenth book of Questions.] If a co-owner has granted freedom in his testament as follows: "Let Pamphilus, if my co-owner manumits him, be free," Servius answered that when the co-owner manumits him, he becomes a common freedman of the family and of the manumitter; for indeed it is neither new nor unknown that freedom falls to a common slave under various rules of law.

Notes

  1. §40.4.48.prsocio manumittente — An ablative absolute construction, expressing a temporal and conditional event in the future (when the other co-owner actually manumits the slave).
  2. §40.4.48.prfamiliae atque manumissoris — Genitives depending on `communem libertum` (common freedman). `familiae` refers to the "family (heirs)" of the deceased co-owner, and `manumissoris` refers to the "(other) co-owner" who actually manumitted him, determining to whom the rights of patronage (patronatus) belong.
  3. §40.4.48.pruario iure — Ablative of means or manner, meaning "by various legal paths" or "under different rules of law." It refers to the complex legal configurations where a common slave obtains freedom through different legal acts at different times (one by testament, the other inter vivos).
  4. §40.4.48.prcommuni mancipio — Dative case, functioning as the complement of the intransitive verb `optingere` (to fall to, happen to). Here `mancipio` refers to the slave as property.

Cite this passage

Justinian I, The Digest of Justinian §40.4.48.pr. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:latinLit:phi2806.phi002.humanitext-lat1:40.4.48.pr

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