not
inappropriate, for it appears to have originated in the institutions of
two states, namely Athens and Lacedaemon; it having been usual in the
latter to commit to memory what was observed as law, while the Athenians
observed only what they had made permanent in written statutes.

11 But the laws of nature, which are observed by all nations alike, are
established, as it were, by divine providence, and remain ever fixed and
immutable: but the municipal laws of each individual state are subject
to frequent change, either by the tacit consent of the people, or by the
subsequent enactment of another statute.

12 The whole of the law which we observe relates either to persons, or
to things, or to actions. And first let us speak of persons: for it is
useless to know the law without knowing the persons for whose sake it
was established.

TITLE III. OF THE LAW OF PERSONS

In the law of persons, then, the first division is into free men and
slaves.

1 Freedom, from which men are called free, is a man's natural power of
doing what he pleases, so far as he is not prevented by force or law:

2 slavery is an institution of the law of nations, against nature
subjecting one man to the dominion of another.

3 The name 'slave' is derived from the practice of generals to order the
preservation and sale of captives, instead of killing them; hence they
are also called mancipia, because they are taken from the enemy by the
strong hand.

4 Slaves are either born so, their mothers being slaves themselves; or
they become so, and this either by the law of nations, that is to say
by capture in war, or by the civil law, as when a free man, over twenty
years of age, collusively allows himself to be sold in order that he may
share the purchase money.

5 The condition of all slaves is one and the same: in the conditions
of free men there are many distinctions; to begin with, they are either
free born, or made free.

TITLE IV. OF MEN FREE BORN

A freeborn man is one free from his birth, being the offspring of
parents united in wedlock, whether both be free born or both made free,
or one made free and the other free born. He is also free born if his
mother be free even though his father be a slave, and so also is
he whose paternity is uncertain, being the offspring of promiscuous
intercourse, but whose mother is free. It is enough if the mother be
free at the moment of birth, though a slave at that of conception: and
conv