[ULPIANUS libro sexto decimo ad edictum. ] §6.1.1.prPost actiones, quae de uniuersitate propositae sunt, subicitur actio singularum rerum petitionis.
[ULPIANUS, in the sixteenth book on the Edict.] After the actions which are proposed concerning an entirety, there follows the action for the recovery of individual things.
§6.1.1.1Quae specialis in rem actio locum habet in omnibus rebus mobilibus, tam animalibus quam his quae anima carent, et in his quae solo continentur.
This special real action has place in all movable things, both living animals and those which lack life, and in those things which are contained in the soil.
§6.1.1.2Per hanc autem actionem liberae personae, quae sunt iuris nostri, ut puta liberi qui sunt in potestate, non petuntur: petuntur igitur aut praeiudiciis aut interdictis aut cognitione praetoria, et ita Pomponius libro trigensimo septimo: nisi forte, inquit, adiecta causa quis uindicet: si quis ita petit 'filium suum' uel 'in potestate ex iure Romano', uidetur mihi et Pomponius consentire recte eum egisse: ait enim adiecta causa ex lege Quiritium uindicare posse.
By this action, however, free persons who are under our power, as for instance children who are in power, are not claimed. Therefore, they are claimed either by preliminary actions, or by interdicts, or by praetorian cognitive procedure; and so Pomponius writes in his thirty-seventh book: unless perhaps, he says, someone claims them by adding a cause: if someone thus claims "his own son" or "in his power by Roman law", it seems to me that Pomponius also agrees that he has sued correctly; for he says that one can claim them under Quiritian law by adding a cause.
§6.1.1.3Per hanc autem actionem non solum singulae res uindicabuntur, sed posse etiam gregem uindicari Pomponius libro lectionum uicensimo quinto scribit.
By this action, moreover, not only individual things will be claimed, but Pomponius writes in his twenty-fifth book of Readings that a flock can also be claimed.
idem et de armento et de equitio ceterisque, quae gregatim habentur, dicendum est.
The same must be said of a herd of cattle, a herd of horses, and other things which are kept in flocks.
sed enim gregem sufficit ipsum nostrum esse, licet singula capita nostra non sint: grex enim, non singula corpora uindicabuntur.
For indeed, it is sufficient that the flock itself is ours, even though the individual heads are not ours; for it is the flock, and not the individual bodies, that will be claimed.