has come back into our territories has returned by postliminium:
for just as the threshold forms the boundary of a house, so the
ancients represented the boundaries of the empire as a threshold;
and this is also the origin of the term ‘limes, signifying a kind of
end and limit. Thus postliminium means that the captive returns
by the same threshold at which he was lost. A captive who is
recovered after a victory over the enemy is deemed to have
returned by postliminium. 6 Emancipation also liberates children
from the power of the parent. Formerly it was effected either
by the observance of an old form prescribed by statute by
which the son was fictitiously sold and then manumitted, or
by imperial rescript. Our forethought, however, has amended
this by a constitution, which has abolished the old fictitious
form, and enabled parents to go directly to a competent judge
or magistrate, and in his presence release their sons or daughters,
grandsons or granddaughters, and so on, from their power.
After this, the father has by the praetor's edict the same rights
over the property of the emancipated child as a patron has
over the property of his freedman: and if at the time of emanci-
pation the child, whether son or daughter, or in some remoter
degree of relationship, is beneath the age of puberty, the father
becomes by the emancipation his or her guardian. 7 It is to be
noted, however, that a grandfather who has both a son, and by
that son a grandson or granddaughter, in his power, may either
release the son from his power and retain the grandson or grand-
daughter, or emancipate both together; and a great-grandfather
has the same latitude of choice. 8 Again, if a father gives a son
whom he has in his power in adoption to the son's natural
grandfather or great-grandfather, in accordance with our con-
stitution on this subject, that is to say, by declaring his intention,