3.1.55 to 3.1.60

But, on the other hand, if either of them has suffered a loss of civil rights, the children of the freedwoman will exclude the patroness, for the reason that her title is legally destroyed on account of the forfeiture of civil rights, so that the children of the freedwoman obtain the preference by the right of relationship. (52) Moreover, when a freedwoman dies after having made a will, a patroness, who has no right through children, cannot claim possession contrary to the provisions of the will of the freedman; but one who is entitled through her children, has the same right conferred on her by the Lex Papia as a patron has under the Edict in opposition to the provisions of the will of his freedman. (53) The same law bestows upon the son of a patroness almost the same rights as upon a patron; but in this instance a single son or daughter is sufficient to authorize the privilege. (54) All that relates to this subject appears to have been sufficiently discussed up to this point; and a more minute explanation will be found in my Commentaries devoted to this subject. (55) Let us in the next place examine the estates of Latin freedmen. (56) In order that this branch of the law may become more clear, we should remember what we have stated elsewhere, namely, that those who are now styled Latini Juniani were formerly slaves under quiritarian right, but by the aid of the Prætor had been placed in a position of apparent freedom, so that their property belonged to their patron by the right of peculium . Afterwards, however, by the Lex Junia ,all of those whom the Prætor had protected while in nominal freedom became actually free, and were styled Latini Juniani; Latini ,because the law intended them to be free just as those Roman citizens were who, having left the City of Rome for Latin colonies, became Latin colonists; Juniani ,because they were free under the Lex Junia ,even though they did become Roman citizens. Hence the author of the Lex Junia understood that the result would be that by this fiction, the property of deceased Latini would no longer belong to their patrons, for the reason that, as they did not die slaves, their estates could not belong to their patrons by the right of peculium ; nor could the property of a Latin freedman belong to his patron by the right of manumission, and he considered it necessary, in order to prevent the benefit granted to freedmen from becoming an injury to their patrons, to provide that their property should belong to those who manumitted them, just as if this law had not been enacted; and, therefore, the property of Latins by this law belongs as it were by the right of peculium to those who manumit them.