[POMPONIUS libro septimo epistularum. ] §40.5.20.prApud Iulianum ita scriptum est: 'si 'heres rogatus seruum manumittere ex Trebelliano senatus consulto hereditatem restituerit, 'cogi debebit manumittere, et, si latitabit uel si iusta ex causa aberit, praetor causa cognita 'secundum senatus consulta ad eas causas pertinentia pronuntiare debebit.
[FROM Pomponius, Book VII of Letters.] In Julian's work it is written as follows: 'If an heir, having been requested to manumit a slave, has restored the inheritance under the Trebellian senatusconsult, he must be compelled to manumit him; and if he goes into hiding or is absent for a just cause, the praetor, after investigating the case, must make a decree in accordance with the senatusconsults pertaining to those cases.
si uero seruum 'usuceperit is, cui hereditas restituta fuerit, ipsum competit manumittere et eadem in per'sonam eius obseruari conueniet, quae circa emptores custodiri solent'. an haec uera putes? nam ego discendi cupiditate, quam solam uiuendi rationem optimam in octauum et septuagesimum annum aetatis duxi, memor sum eius sententiae, qui dixisse fertur: κἂν τὸν ἕτερον πόδα ἐν τῇ σορῷ ἔχω, προσμαθεῖν τι βουλοίμην.
But if the person to whom the inheritance was restored has acquired the slave by usucapion, it belongs to him himself to manumit, and it will be proper that the same things be observed in his person as are customary to be maintained around buyers.' Do you think this is true? For I, out of a desire for learning, which alone I have regarded as the best way of living up to the seventy-eighth year of my age, remember the opinion of him who is said to have said: κἂν τὸν ἕτερον πόδα ἐν τῇ σορῷ ἔχω, προσμαθεῖν τι βουλοίμην.
bellissime Aristo et Octauenus putabant hunc seruum, de quo quaereretur, fideicommissae hereditatis non esse, quia testator rogando heredem, ut eum manumitteret, non uidetur de eo restituendo sensisse: si tamen per errorem ab herede datus fuerit, ea dicenda sunt quae Iulianus scribit.
Aristo and Octavenus very beautifully thought that this slave, concerning whom the question was asked, did not belong to the trust-inheritance, because the testator, by requesting the heir to manumit him, does not seem to have intended that he should be restored; if, however, he was given by the heir through error, those things which Julian writes must be said.