Latin language was synonymous with stranger, _perigrinus_[2] This Roman
name was moreover applied to a person who had forfeited the protection
of the law by reason of a criminal condemnation, and who was therefore
designated _peregrinus_.[3]

_Auctoritas_ also had in old Latin a different signification from what it
has in later Latin. It expressed the idea of the right to claim and defend
in equity. It was very nearly equivalent to the right of property.[4] The
sense of the Roman law was, then, that the _peregrinus_ could not bar or
proceed against a Roman, a disposition somewhat similar to the old law of
England.[5] And as it was necessary to be a citizen in order to acquire by
the civil and solemn means which dominated the law of property in Rome, it
followed that the _peregrini_ were excluded from all right to property in
land by these laws. This exclusive legislation for a long time governed
Europe and did not disappear even from the Code Napoleon of 1819.[6]

We have a forcible example of the severity of the old Roman law in this
regard in the text of Gaius,--_Aut enim ex jure quiritium unusquisque
dominus erat, aut non intelligebatur dominus._[7]

_Dominium_ was therefore inseparable from _Jus Quiritium,_ the law of
the Roman city, the _optimum jus civium Romanorum_. The _peregrinus_ was
excluded from landed property both Roman and private; he could neither
inherit nor transmit; claim nor defend in equity. Moreover the name
_peregrinus_ was not confined to the stranger proper but was also bestowed
upon subjects of Rome[8] who, being deprived of their property and also
of political liberty by right of conquest, had not received the right of
citizenship which was for a long time confined within very narrow limits.
It would thus appear conclusive from the law quoted that the client and
plebeian could not at first hold land _optimo ex jure quiritium_.