very reason the power of manumission was denied by the older
law to owners under twenty years of age, we have as it were
selected a middle course, and permitted persons under twenty
years of age to manumit their slaves by will, but not until they
have completed their seventeenth and entered on their eighteenth
year. For when ancient custom allowed persons of this age to
plead on behalf of others, why should not their judgement be
deemed sound enough to enable them to use discretion in giving
freedom to their own slaves?

TITLE VII
OF THE REPEAL OF THE LEX FUFIA CANINIA

Moreover, by the lex Fufia Caninia a limit was placed on the
number of slaves who could be manumitted by their master's
testament: but this law we have thought fit to repeal, as an
obstacle to freedom and to some extent invidious, for it was
certainly inhuman to take away from a man on his deathbed the
right of liberating the whole of his slaves, which he could have
exercised at any moment during his lifetime, unless there were
some other obstacle to the act of manumission.

TITLE VIII
OF PERSONS INDEPENDENT OR DEPENDENT

Another division of the law relating to persons classifies them as
either independent or dependent. Those again who are depend-
ent are in the power either of parents or of masters. Let us first
then consider those who are dependent, for by learning who
these are we shall at the same time learn who are independent.