Not only natural children are subject, as we said, to paternal power, but also adoptive children.

1 Adoption is of two forms, being effected either by rescript of the Emperor, or by the judicial authority of a magistrate. The first is the mode in which we adopt independent persons, and this form of adoption is called adrogation: the second is the mode in which we adopt a person subject to the power of an ascendant, whether a descendant in the first degree, as a son or daughter, or in a remoter degree, as a grandson, granddaughter, great-grandson, or great-granddaughter.

2 But by the law, as now settled by our constitution, when a child in power is given in adoption to a stranger by his natural father, the power of the latter is not extinguished; no right passes to the adoptive father, nor is the person adopted in his power, though we have given a right of succession in case of the adoptive father dying intestate. But if the person to whom the child is given in adoption by its natural father is not a stranger, but the child's own maternal grandfather, or, supposing the father to have been emancipated, its paternal grandfather, or its great-grandfather paternal or maternal, in this case, because the rights given by nature and those given by adoption are vested in one and the same person, the old power of the adoptive father is left unimpaired, the strength of the natural bond of blood being augmented by the civil one of adoption, so that the child is in the family and power of an adoptive father, between whom and himself there existed antecedently the relationship described.

3 When a child under the age of puberty is adopted by rescript of the Emperor, the adrogation is only permitted after cause shown, the goodness of the motive and the expediency of the step for the pupil being inquired into. The adrogation is also made under certain conditions; that is to say, the adrogator has to give security to a public agent or attorney of the people, that if the pupil should die within the age of puberty, he will return his property to the persons who would have succeeded him had no adoption taken place. The adoptive father again may not emancipate them unless upon inquiry they are found deserving of emancipation, or without restoring them their property. Finally, if he disinherits him at death, or emancipates him in his lifetime without just cause, he is obliged to leave him a fourth of his own property, besides that which he brought him when adopted, or by subsequent acquisition.

4 It is settled that a man cannot adopt another person older than himself, for adoption imitates nature, and it would be unnatural for a son to be older than his father. Consequently a man who desires either to adopt or to adrogate a son ought to be older than the latter by the full term of puberty, or eighteen years.

5 A man may adopt a person as grandson or granddaughter, or as great-grandson or great-granddaughter, and so on, without having a son at all himself; 6 and similarly he may adopt another man's son as grandson, or another man's grandson as son.

7 If he wishes to adopt some one as grandson, whether as the son of an adoptive son of his own, or of a natural son who is in his power, the consent of this son ought to be obtained, lest a family heir be thrust upon him against his will: but on the other hand, if a grandfather wishes to give a grandson by a son in adoption to some one else, the son's consent is not requisite.

8 An adoptive child is in most respects in the same position, as regards the father, as a natural child born in lawful wedlock. Consequently a man can give in adoption to another a person whom he has adopted by imperial rescript, or before the praetor or governor of a province, provided that in this latter case he was not a stranger (i.e. was a natural descendant) before he adopted him himself.

9 Both forms of adoption agree in this point, that persons incapable of procreation by natural impotence are permitted to adopt, whereas castrated persons are not allowed to do so.

10 Again, women cannot adopt, for even their natural children are not subject to their power; but by the imperial clemency they are enabled to adopt, to comfort them for the loss of children who have been taken from them.

11 It is peculiar to adoption by imperial rescript, that children in the power of the person adrogated, as well as their father, fall under the power of the adrogator, assuming the position of grandchildren. Thus Augustus did not adopt Tiberius until Tiberius had adopted Germanicus, in order that the latter might become his own grandson directly the second adoption was made.

12 The old writers record a judicious opinion contained in the writings of Cato, that the adoption of a slave by his master is equivalent to manumission. In accordance with this we have in our wisdom ruled by a constitution that a slave to whom his master gives the title of son by the solemn form of a record is thereby made free, although this is not sufficient to confer on him the rights of a son.