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 conversely if she be
free at the time of conception, and then becomes a slave before
the birth of the child, the latter is held to be free born, on the
ground that an unborn child ought not to be prejudiced by the
mother's misfortune. Hence arose the question of whether the
child of a woman is born free, or a slave, who, while pregnant,
is manumitted, and then becomes a slave again before delivery.
Marcellus thinks he is born free, for it is enough if the mother of
an unborn infant is free at any moment between conception and
delivery: and this view is right. 1 The status of a man born free
is not prejudiced by his being placed in the position of a slave
and then being manumitted: for it has been decided that manu-
mission cannot stand in the way of rights acquired by birth.

TITLE V