Un'ipotesi sulla revoca della donazione per ingratitudine del liberto

Abstract

The paper deals with the reasons that led Emperor Philip the Arab to introduce the gift revocation, due to the ingratitude of the Freedman. According to the Author, the reform depended on the desire to remedy the iniquity that could come from the revocatio in servitutem due to the ingratitude of the Freedman, arranged by the reform of Commodus, known through a Modestinus fragment (Mod. lib. sing. de manum. 25.3.6.1). According to the said reform – that could apply in similar cases, as happens in Paul. 11 ad ed. D. 4.2.21 pr. – the ungrateful Freedman was assigned by the judge as a slave to an emptor, who paid the price of the slave to the patronus. The new dominus would also have bought the gifts that the ungrateful Freedman had received from the patronus: with the constitution by Philip the Arab, the patronus could revoke all the donationes (omnis donatio), both perfectae and imperfectae, arranged in favor of the ungrateful Freedman.