Foundations

Justinian: The Institutes

Jurisprudence is the knowledge of things divine and human; the science of the just and the unjust.

The law of the nations is common to all mankind, for nations have established certain laws, as occasion and the necessities of human life required. Wars arose, and in their train followed captivity and then slavery, which is contrary to the law of nature; for by that law all men are originally born free. Further, by the law of nations almost all contracts were at first introduced, as, for instance, buying and selling, letting and hiring, partnership, deposits, loans returnable in kind, and very many others.

All our law relates either to persons, or to things, or to actions. Let us first speak of persons; as it is of little purpose to know the law, if we do not know the persons for whose sake the law was made. The chief division in the rights of persons is this: men are all either free or slaves.

1. Freedom, from which men are said to be free, is the natural power of doing what we each please, unless prevented by force or by law.

2. Slavery is an institution of the law of nations, by which one man is made the property of another, contrary to natural right.

3. Slaves are denominated servi, because generals order their captives to be sold, and thus preserve them, and do not put them to death. Slaves are also called mancipia, because they are taken from the enemy by the strong hand.

4. Slaves either are born or become so. They are born so when their mother is a slave; they become so either by the law of nations, that is, by captivity, or by the civil law, as when a free person, above the age of twenty, suffers himself to be sold, that he may share the price given for him.

5. In the condition of slaves there is no distinction; but there are many distinctions among free persons; for they are either born free, or have been set free.