We acquire property not only by our own acts, but also by the acts of persons in our power, of slaves in whom we have a usufruct, and of freemen and slaves belonging to another but whom we possess in good faith. Let us now examine these cases in detail.

1 Formerly, whatever was received by a child in power of either sex, with the exception of military peculium, was acquired for the parent without any distinction; and the parent was entitled to give away or sell to one child, or to a stranger, what had been acquired through another, or dispose of it in any other way that he pleased. This, however, seemed to us to be a cruel rule, and consequently by a general constitution which we have issued we have improved the children's position, and yet reserved to parents all that was their due. This enacts that whatever a child gains by and through property, of which his father allows him the control, is acquired, according to the old practice, for the father alone; for what unfairness is there in property derived from the father returning to him? But of anything which the child derives from any source other than his father, though his father will have a usufruct therein, the ownership is to belong to the child, that he may not have the mortification of seeing the gains which he has made by his own toil or good fortune transferred to another.

2 We have also made a new rule relating to the right which a father had under earlier constitutions, when he emancipated a child, of retaining absolutely, if he pleased, a third part of such property of the child as he himself had no ownership in, as a kind of consideration for emancipating him. The harsh result of this was that a son was by emancipation deprived of the ownership of a third of his property; and thus the honour which he got by being emancipated and made independent was balanced by the diminution of his fortune. We have therefore enacted that the parent, in such a case, shall no longer retain the ownership of a third of the child's property, but, in lieu thereof, the usufruct of one half; and thus the son will remain absolute owner of the whole of his fortune, while the father will reap a greater benefit than before, by being entitled to the enjoyment of a half instead of a third.

3 Again, all rights which your slaves acquire by tradition, stipulation, or any other title, are acquired for you, even though the acquisition be without your knowledge, or even against your will; for a slave, who is in the power of another person, can have nothing of his own. Consequently, if he is instituted heir, he must, in order to be able to accept the inheritance, have the command of his master; and if he has that command, and accepts the inheritance, it is acquired for his master exactly as if the latter had himself been instituted heir; and it is precisely the same with a legacy. And not only is ownership acquired for you by those in your power, but also possession; for you are deemed to possess everything of which they have obtained detention, and thus they are to you instruments through whom ownership may be acquired by usucapion or long possession.

4 Respecting slaves in whom a person has only a usufruct, the rule is, that what they acquire by means of the property of the usufructuary, or by their own work, is acquired for him; but what they acquire by any other means belongs to their owner, to whom they belong themselves. Accordingly, if such a slave is instituted heir, or made legatee or donee, the succession, legacy, or gift is acquired, not for the usufructuary, but for the owner. And a man who in good faith possesses a free man or a slave belonging to another person has the same rights as a usufructuary; what they acquire by any other mode than the two we have mentioned belongs in the one case to the free man, in the other to the slave's real master. After a possessor in good faith has acquired the ownership of a slave by usucapion, everything which the slave acquires belongs to him without distinction; but a fructuary cannot acquire ownership of a slave in this way, because in the first place he does not possess the slave at all, but has merely a right of usufruct in him, and because in the second place he is aware of the existence of another owner. Moreover, you can acquire possession as well as ownership through slaves in whom you have a usufruct or whom you possess in good faith, and through free persons whom in good faith you believe to be your slaves, though as regards all these classes we must be understood to speak with strict reference to the distinction drawn above, and to mean only detention which they have obtained by means of your property or their own work.

5 From this it appears that free men not subject to your power, or whom you do not possess in good faith, and other persons' slaves, of whom you are neither usufructuaries nor just possessors, cannot under any circumstances acquire for you; and this is the meaning of the maxim that a man cannot be the means of acquiring anything for one who is a stranger in relation to him. To this maxim there is but one exception—namely, that, as is ruled in a constitution of the Emperor Severus, a free person, such as a general agent, can acquire possession for you, and that not only when you know, but even when you do not know of the fact of the acquisition: and through this possession ownership can be immediately acquired also, if it was the owner who delivered the thing; and if it was not, it can be acquired ultimately by usucapion or by the plea of long possession.

6 So much at present concerning the modes of acquiring rights over single things: for direct and fiduciary bequests, which are also among such modes, will find a more suitable place in a later portion of our treatise. We proceed therefore to the titles whereby an aggregate of rights is acquired. If you become the successors, civil or praetorian, of a person deceased, or adopt an independent person by adrogation, or become assignees of a deceased's estate in order to secure their liberty to slaves manumitted by his will, the whole estate of those persons is transferred to you in an aggregate mass. Let us begin with inheritances, whose mode of devolution is twofold, according as a person dies testate or intestate; and of these two modes we will first treat of acquisition by will. The first point which here calls for exposition is the mode in which wills are made.