xvii. first books
of the Pandects, the learned and rational Commentaries of Gerard Noodt,
(Opera, tom. ii. p. 1--590, the end. Lugd. Bat. 1724.)]

The law of nature instructs most animals to cherish and educate their
infant progeny. The law of reason inculcates to the human species the
returns of filial piety. But the exclusive, absolute, and perpetual
dominion of the father over his children, is peculiar to the Roman
jurisprudence, [102] and seems to be coeval with the foundation of the
city. [103] The paternal power was instituted or confirmed by Romulus
himself; and, after the practice of three centuries, it was inscribed
on the fourth table of the Decemvirs. In the forum, the senate, or the
camp, the adult son of a Roman citizen enjoyed the public and private
rights of a person: in his father's house he was a mere thing; [1031]
confounded by the laws with the movables, the cattle, and the slaves,
whom the capricious master might alienate or destroy, without being
responsible to any earthly tribunal. The hand which bestowed the daily
sustenance might resume the voluntary gift, and whatever was acquired by
the labor or fortune of the son was immediately lost in the property
of the father. His stolen goods (his oxen or his children) might be
recovered by the same action of theft; [104] and if either had been
guilty of a trespass, it was in his own option to compensate the damage,
or resign to the injured party the obnoxious animal. At the call of
indigence or avarice, the master of a family could dispose of his
children or his slaves. But the condition of the slave was far more
advantageous, since he regained, by the first manumission, his alienated
freedom: the son was again restored to his unnatural father; he might
be condemned to servitude a second and a third time, and it was not till
after the third sale and deliverance, [105] that he was enfranchised
from the domestic power which had been so repeatedly abused. According
to his discretion, a father might chastise the real or imaginary faults
of his children, by stripes, by imprisonment, by exile, by sending them
to the country to work in chains among the meanest of his servants. The
majesty of a parent was armed with the power of life and death; [106]
and the examples of such bloody executions, which were sometimes praised
and never punished, may be traced in the annals of Rome beyond the times
of Pompey and Augustus. Neither age, nor rank, nor the consular office