164 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VOL. II. 



father violating this law was subjected to the grotesque punishment of 

 being enclosed in a sack with a serpent (a dog, a cock, and an ape, were 

 added by Tribonian) and cast into the sea. Another constitution was 

 issued in 329 which at first view seems rather inconsistent with this 

 thesis, since it provided that any one who should purchase a new born 

 child and rear it should have the full power of holding and possessing 

 him. And if the owner or father desired to recover it he was obliged to 

 give a slave in his stead, or pay the price at which the preserver should 

 value the child. You will recollect that by a sale under the pairia 

 potestas the liberty of the free Roman was not extinguished — only veiled 

 — and the parents or the person sold might assert his liberty without 

 recompensing the purchaser. In the troubled condition of the Empire, 

 the people harassed with the exactions of contending claimants for 

 supremacy, the country devastated by opposing armies, when every high- 

 way and by-way resounded with the clash of arms or the tread of 

 marching troops, fevv^ even of the benevolent would care to purchase or 

 collect sold or exposed infants which might be reclaimed at any time 

 without reimbursing the expense of maintenance. It was therefore a 

 wise and benevolent provision for the security of the helpless, and 

 would induce persons to purchase those that would otherwise perish, to 

 give the right of ownership to the purchaser. The child bought under 

 this law became truly a slave, but subject to the contingency of re- 

 demption on payment of his value, or by the substitution of another 

 slave in his place. 



A further advance was made two years later, {331') toward securing 

 children from exposure. A constitution was issued in that j-ear giving 

 to any one who should pick up a boy or a girl cast out of home with 

 consent and knowledge of the father or master and should feed and 

 restore him or her to vigour, the right to retain him or her either as a 

 son or daughter or as a slave, without any apprehension of being 

 recovered. This evidenced great progress on the side of humanity, as it 

 made no distinction whether the abandonment was caused by want or 

 pressed by no necessity. All that was required was that the father or 

 master should know, or wish, or require the act to be done. And he no 

 longer had the right, preserved to him under the former law, of recover- 

 ing the child on paying for its maintenace. This provision was neither 

 cruel nor unjust. Constantine thought that the wicked practice of 

 exposing children was subjecting them to death, and he wished to deter 

 masters and fathers from doing it. To poor parents he had already 

 (3^5) provided means of sustenance. He desired further to deter fathers 

 and masters by the dread of losing the right of asserting the freedom of 



