XVI. Change of Station.
The capitis deminutio is a change of status, which may happen in three ways: for it may be the greatest capitis deminutio, or the less, also called the middle, or the least.
1. The greater capitis deminutio is, when a man loses both his citizenship and his liberty; as they do who by a terrible sentence are made “the slaves of punishment;” and freedmen, condemned to slavery for ingratitude towards their patrons; and all those who suffer themselves to be sold in order to share the price obtained.
2. The less or middle capitis deminutio is, when a man loses his citizenship, but retains his liberty; as is the case when anyone is forbidden the use of fire and water, or is deported to an island.
3. The least capitis deminutio is when a person’s status is changed without forfeiture either of citizenship or liberty; as when a person sui juris becomes subject to the power of another, or a person alieni juris becomes independent.
4. A slave who is manumitted is not said to be capite manutus, as he has no “caput,” or civil existence.
5. Those whose dignity rather than their status is changed, do not suffer a capitis deminutio, as those, for instance, who are removed from the senatorial dignity.
6. In saying that the right of cognatio remains in spite of a capitis deminutio, we were speaking only of the least deminutio, after which the cognatio subsists. For, by the greater deminutio, as, for example, if one of the cognati becomes a slave, the right of cognatio of wholly destroyed, so as not to be recovered even by manumission. So, too, the right of cognatio is lost by the less or middle deminutio, as, for example, by deportation to an island.
7. The right to be tutor, which belongs to the agnati, does not belong to all at the same time, but to the nearest in degree only; or, if there are many in the same degree, then to all in that degree. Several brothers, for instance, in the same degree, are all equally called to be tutor.
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