[Iustiniani Institutiones]

On freedmen who can or cannot be manumitted

It fell into disuse over many times; indeed the name of the Latins was not frequent. Therefore, our piety, wishing to increase all things and reduce them to a better state, amended this with two constitutions.

Dediticii: they were called dediticii and were induced by this Aelian law, which also introduced many other things, and they were slaves for the entire time of their lives. They became free when they died, which was to their advantage, because their property or earnings were not seized by the master.

Because from the very cradles of the city of Rome, one and the same simple liberty was offered: that is, the same which the manumittor had, except that the freedman who is manumitted becomes the manumittor's freedman, and becomes a Roman citizen. And the dediticii whom we have expelled by our constitution, which we promulgated among our decisions—by which, at the suggestion of our most excellent quaestor high-ranking legal official, we have settled the contentions of ancient law—we have corrected the Latins, the Iunians, and all the practice that had existed concerning them with another constitution, which radiates with imperial laws. And all freedmen, without regard to either the age of the manumittor or the master...

On who and for what causes they cannot manumit.

However, it is not permitted for just anyone who wishes to manumit to do so. For he who manumits in fraud of creditors achieves nothing, because the Lex Aelia Sentia Aelian Sentian Law impedes the liberty. Yet, it is permitted to a master who is not solvent to institute his slave as heir in his testament with liberty, so that the slave may become a free and necessary heir if no one else has become heir from that testament, because no one was written as heir, or because he who was written did not for any reason become heir. And that was provided for by the Lex Aelia Sentia, and rightly so; for it was highly necessary to consider that needy men, to whom no other heir would exist, or at least that their slave...