2 This rescript was a benefit not only to slaves thus liberated, but also to the deceased testators themselves, by saving their property from being seized and sold by their creditors; for it is certain that such seizure and sale cannot take place if the property has been adjudged on this account, because some one has come forward to defend the deceased, and a satisfactory defender too, who gives the creditors full security for payment.
3 Primarily, the rescript is applicable only where freedom is conferred by a will. How then will the case stand, if a man who dies intestate makes gifts of freedom by codicils, and on the intestacy no one accepts the inheritance? We answer, that the boon conferred by the constitution ought not here to be refused. No one can doubt that liberty given, in codicils, by a man who dies having made a will, is effectual.
4 The terms of the constitution show that it comes into application when there is no successor on an intestacy; accordingly, it is of no use so long as it is uncertain whether there will be one or not; but, when this has been determined in the negative, it at once becomes applicable.
5 Again, it may be asked whether, if a person who abstains from accepting an inheritance can claim a judicial restoration of rights, the constitution can still be applied, and the goods adjudged under it? And what, if such person obtains a restoration after they have been actually adjudged in order to give effect to the bequest of freedom? We reply that gifts of liberty to which effect has once been given cannot possibly be recalled.
6 The object with which this constitution was enacted was to give effect to bequests of liberty, and accordingly it is quite inapplicable where no such bequests are made. Supposing, however, that a man manumits certain slaves in his lifetime, or in contemplation of death, and in order to prevent any questions arising whether the creditors have thereby been defrauded, the slaves are desirous of having the property adjudged to them, should this be permitted? and we are inclined to say that it should, though the point is not covered by the terms of the constitution.
7 Perceiving, however, that the enactment was wanting in many minute points of this kind, we have ourselves issued a very full constitution, in which have been collected many conceivable cases by which the law relating to this kind of succession has been completed, and with which any one can become acquainted by reading the constitution itself.
TITLE XII. OF UNIVERSAL SUCCESSIONS, NOW OBSOLETE, IN SALE OF GOODS UPON BANKRUPTCY, AND UNDER THE SC. CLAUDIANUM
There were other kinds of universal succession in existence prior to that last before mentioned; for instance, the 'purchase of goods' which was introduced with many prolixities of form for the sale of insolvent debtors' estates, and which remained in use under the socalled 'ordinary' system of procedure. Later generations adopted the 'extraordinary' procedure, and accordingly sales of goods became obsolete along with the ordinary procedure of which they were a part. Creditors are now allowed to take possession of their debtor's property only by the order of a judge, and to dispose of it as to them seems most advantageous; all of which will appear more perfectly from the larger books of the Digest.
1 There was too a miserable form of universal acquisition under the SC. Claudianum, when a free woman, through indulgence of her passion for a slave, lost her freedom by the senatusconsult, and with her freedom her property. But this enactment we deemed unworthy of our times, and have ordered its abolition in our Empire, nor allowed it to be inserted in our Digest.