[IDEM libro uicensimo sexto quaestionum. ] §41.2.47.prSi rem mobilem, apud te depositam aut ex commodato tibi, possidere neque reddere constitueris, confestim amisisse me possessionem uel ignorantem responsum est.
[THE SAME, in the twenty-sixth book of Questions.] If you decide to possess and not to return a movable thing deposited with you or lent to you, it has been answered that I immediately lose possession even though I am ignorant of the fact.
cuius rei forsitan illa ratio est, quod rerum mobilium neglecta atque omissa custodia, quamuis eas nemo alius inuaserit, ueteris possessionis damnum adferre consueuit: idque Nerua filius libris de usucapionibus rettulit.
Perhaps the reason for this is that the neglect and abandonment of the custody of movable things, even though no one else has seized them, is accustomed to bring about the loss of the former possession; and Nerva the son reported this in his books On Usucapion.
idem scribit aliam causam esse hominis commodati omissa custodia: nam possessionem tamdiu ueterem fieri, quamdiu nemo alius eum possidere coeperit, uidelicet ideo, quia potest homo proposito redeundi domino possessionem sui conseruare, cuius corpore ceteras quoque res possumus possidere.
The same writer states that the case of a lent slave, whose custody is abandoned, is different: for the former possession continues as long as no one else has begun to possess him, obviously because a human being, with the intention of returning, can preserve the possession of himself for his master, through whose body we are also able to possess other things.
igitur earum quidem rerum, quae ratione uel anima carent, confestim amittitur possessio, homines autem retinentur, si reuertendi animum haberent.
Therefore, while possession of those things which lack reason or soul is immediately lost, slaves are retained in possession, if they have the intention of returning.