2. Condictio ex causa furtiva

At a comparatively early stage, the condictio was applied in cases of theft; we shall return to the condictio (ex causa) furtiva, as it came to be dubbed, when we deal with furtum.^{[4321] [4322] [4323] In the present context, three observations appear to be apposite.}

"Sed et ei, qui vi aliquem de fundo deiecit, posse fundum condici Sabinus scribit, et ita et Celsus, sed ita, si dominus sit qui deiectus condicat: ceterum si non sit, possessionem eum condicere Celsus ait." ⁸

Only movable property could be the object of theft.^[4324] Nevertheless, the condictio was granted, in the present case, to a person who had been evicted from his land; that person did not even have to be the owner, for Celsus allowed him to bring the condictio in respect of his mere possession.^[4325] Cases of that nature may well have been referred to as condictio "ex iniusta causa",^[4326] to which Sabinus' generalizing state­ment was applicable that anything "quod ex iniusta causa apud aliquem sit, posse condici".^[4327] But the condictio was made available even against a person who had acquired something through (as a modern German lawyer would put it)^[4328] an innocent encroachment on somebody else's property or through the force of nature.^[4329] If, for instance, a ward transferred a sum of money as a loan without his tutor's authority, he remained the owner of that money^[4330] until the recipient had inseparably mixed it with his own. It was only as a result of this intermixture (referred to as "consumptio nummorum")^[4331] that the ward lost ownership (and, with it, the rei vindicatio).

3.