Latin
Lines 1.454-1.462
Roman Law and Society, The Institutes of Justinian 1.454-462
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45. So, too, anyone who has sold goods deposited in a warehouse, as soon as he has handed over the keys of the warehouse to the buyer, transfers to the buyer the property in the goods.
46. Nay, more, sometimes the intention of an owner, although directed only towards an uncertain person, transfers the property in a thing. For instance, when the praetors and consuls throw their largesse to the mob, they do not know what each person in the mob will get; but as it is their intention that each should get what he gets, they make what each gets immediately belong to him.
47. Accordingly, it is true to say that anything which is seized on, when abandoned by its owners, becomes the property of the person who takes possession of it. And anything is considered as abandoned which its owner has thrown away with a wish no longer to have it as a part of his property, as it therefore immediately ceases to belong to him.
48. It is otherwise with respect to things thrown overboard in a storm, to lighten a vessel; for they remain the property of their owners; as it is evident that they were not thrown away through a wish to get rid of them, but that their owners and the ship itself might more easily escape the dangers of the sea. Hence, anyone who, with a view to profit himself by these, takes them away when washed on shore, or found at sea, is guilty of theft. And much the same may be said as to things which drop from a carriage in motion without the knowledge of their owners.
II. Incorporeal Things.