The law of things (res)
The second and largest division of Gaius’s classification (2.1), preserved by Justinian in his Institutes (Inst. 2.1pr.), concerned the law dealing with things (res). “Thing” is of course a very vague and ambiguous term, used by Roman jurists with many different senses.
The most general refers to everything that exists in the universe, from physical objects (wine, a table) to intangible concepts (rights, obligations). Ulpian says that res comprises both legal relations and rights (D. 50.16.23). Even freedom could be considered a thing, but a thing without a price (Ulpian, D. 50.17.106: res inaestimabilis). Most of all, res refers to any economic asset. All objects and contents of a person’s estate are things. In the law of contracts, res refers not only to the object, but to its physical delivery (re contrahere} to the other party. The Romans did not consider the human body a thing, because the human person was not the “owner of her own limbs” (Ulpian, 9.2.13pr.). They did consider animals as things inasmuch as animals could be owned and have a cash value.
More on the topic The law of things (res):
- As previously noted, the Romans considered the law of succession to be part of the law of things, since succession was construed as a mode of acquisition of rights over things in a mass (per universitatem).
- The second branch of the threefold division of all of private law which Gaius employs in his Institutes is that of the law of 'things'.
- The Roman law of things (ius rerum) or, in contemporary terms, ‘property’, covered a muchbroader field than that encompassed by the modern law of property.
- Classification of Things
- Classification of things
- Definition and Classification of Res
- The sale of res extra commercium or of a free man
- Gaius: personae, res, actiones
- CHAPTER II THE SLAVE AS RES.
- Claiming the Res
- Res Suspensae Vel Positae
- MODES OF ACQUISITION OF CORPOREAL THINGS
- Res Deiectae Vel Effusae
- Chapter 3 ‘Things'
- 10.2 ENCOUNTERS WITH THE LEAGUE AS A ‘NEW STATE OF THINGS’
- The state still matters: but it may no longer do the things it did
- CHAPTER III. THE SLAVE AS RES (cont.). SALE OF SLAVES.