Latin
Ancient Law
Roman Law and Society, Useful Links to Roman Law Materials. 2.1.255
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The Roman Mancipation required the presence first of all of the parties, the vendor and vendee, or we should perhaps rather say, if we are to use modern legal language, the grantor and grantee. There were also no less than five witnesses; and an anomalous personage, the Libripens, who brought with him a pair of scales to weigh the uncoined copper money of ancient Rome. The Testament we are considering --the Testament per aes et libram, "with the copper and the scales," as it long continued to be technically called --was an ordinary Mancipation with no change in the form and hardly any in words. The Testator was the grantor; the five witnesses and the libripens were present; and the place of grantee was taken by a person known technically as the familiae emptor, the Purchaser of the Family. The ordinary ceremony of a Mancipation was then proceeded with. Certain formal gestures were made and sentences pronounced. The Emptor familiae simulated the payment of a price by striking the scales with a piece of money, and finally the Testator ratified what had been done in a set form of words called the "Nuncupatio" or publication of the transaction, a phrase which, I need scarcely remind the lawyer, has had a long history in Testamentary jurisprudence. It is necessary to attend particularly to the character of the person called familiae emptor. There is no doubt that at first he was the Heir himself. The Testator conveyed to him outright is whole "familia," that is, all the rights he enjoyed over and through the family; his property, his slaves, and all his ancestral privileges, together, on the other hand, with all his duties and obligations.