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121 071 the Roman Coloni. 121 to this we find another ordinance of Justinian, accordino^ to which the master of the husband was authorized to keep all the children, and even the wife too : this ordinance however, the date of which is uncertain, was nothing but a local regu- lation, as Cujacius has rightly explained it, nor was it to be more than temporary ; that is, it was not to hold good as a permanent rule for the future, but only for the mar- riages subsisting at that very time^^. By prescription the condition of a colonus was determined in two distinct cases. First, if a free man lived for thirty years as a colonus^ the owner of the estate thereby acquired a right of mastership over him and his posterity : he enjoyed important privileges however with regard to property, which were likewise inherited by his children, and the nature of which will be explained by and by ^^. Secondly the possession of a colonus belonging to another person was secured after a stated time by prescription against the claims of his original master : this rule too cannot be made quite clear till further on. With regard to a person'^s becoming a colonics by a volun- tary agreement the following regulation was originally laid down. Free men or women were to become colonic if they declared this purpose in court, and at the same time con- tracted a marriage with a person belonging to that class. This was ordained by Valentinian III ^^ Neither this nor any other Specific regulation touching such an agreement was admitted into the code of Justinian ; so that one might imagine that he meant it no longer to hold good, that is, that no one was thenceforward to become a colonus except by birth or prescription. Nevertheless there is a constitution of his, which, although it seems to have another object, may at the same time have been drawn up mainly with reference to al. utroque i. e. altero — alii habent vel utroque vel neutro, Holoander reads alterutro instead of neutro. The best way however is to keep vel neutro, and to adopt the following explanation given by Cujacius : if both the parents were coloni, the children became so likewise, whether the parents were censiti, that is, liable to pay taxes (see below notes 60, 90), ornot. The words paterna conditio may now be interpreted to mean the class of the parents generally, without specific reference to the claims of the two masters. 22 Nov. 157. See Cujaciuses commentary on it. -^ L. 18. C. J. de agric. (xi. 47). eod. Alii — tempore triginta annorum coloni iiunt, liberati manentes cum rebus suis. L. 23. § 1. eod. See below p. 132. 2-* Nov. Valentiniani Tit. 9. Vol. II. No. k Q