1. If a man, convicted of some crime, is deported to an island, he loses the rights of a Roman citizen; whence it follows, that the children of a person thus banished cease to be under his power, exactly as if he were dead. Equally, if a son is deported, does he cease to be under the power of his father? But, if by favor of the emperor anyone is restored, he regains his former position in every respect.
2. A father who is merely banished by relegatio still retains his children in his power: and a child who is relegated still remains in the power of his father.
3. When a man becomes a “slave of punishment” he ceases to have his sons in his power. Persons become “slaves of punishment” who are condemned to the mines, or exposed to wild beasts.
4. A son, though he becomes a soldier, a senator, or a consul, still remains in the power of his father, from which neither military service nor consular dignity can free him. But by our constitutio the supreme dignity of the patriciate frees the son from the power of his father immediately on the grant of the imperial patent.
It is obviously absurd that a parent could emancipate his son from the tie of his power, and that the majesty of the emperor should not be able to release from the power of another, one whom he had chosen to be a father of the state.
5. If a parent is taken prisoner, although he become the slave of the enemy, yet his paternal power is only suspended, owing to the ius postliminii; for captives, when they return, are restored to all their former rights. Thus, on his return, the father will have his children in his power; for the postliminium supposes that the captive has never been absent. If, however, a prisoner dies in captivity, the son is considered to have been independent from the time when his father was taken a prisoner.
Returning into our territory
So, too, if a son, or grandson, is taken prisoner, the power of the parent, by means of the ius postliminii, is only in suspense. The term postliminium is derived from post and limen. We therefore say of a person taken by the enemy, and then returning into our territory, that he is come back by postliminium. For, just as the threshold forms the boundary of a house, so the ancients have termed the boundary of the empire a threshold. Whence limes also is derived, and is used to signify a boundary and limit. Thence comes the word postliminium, because the prisoner returned to the same limits whence he had been lost. The prisoner, also, who is retaken on the defeat of the enemy, is considered to have come back by postliminium.
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