Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Ownership and Possession

These are “conditional” because they are so general. Note that the wording does not specify any particular slave or land; it uses generic phrases like “whichever.” As a result, the prae tor could issue it more or less on request, since it automati cally gave the targeted party an out. If the target was confident that his possession was legal, he could simply ignore the order. He was not in any danger until and unless the first petitioner initiated a suit for the (supposed) violation of the order, and even then the defendant could argue that the order didn’t apply because the condition had not been met. In a vindicatio , both parties were trying to prove the same thing (ownership). It was quite likely that neither could do so decisively, and it was possible that neither was in fact the owner. The wording of the various edicts was designed to limit trials to a consideration of the relationship between the two parties. Who, for instance, had been in possession first? Did one use force against the other? This makes it much more likely that the trial court will produce the technically correct result. On the other hand, this correct result will not reliably be the right one in the broader sense. That is, you might well lose a suit over possession even if you are truly the owner. This is particularly true in a situation in which more than two parties are involved. Say you are in a dispute with a neighbor over a piece of property. If he transfers it to a friend, that person hasn’t taken any prohibited action against you, and so you will not generally be able to reclaim possession from her. Now, even if some of these problems arise in using the interdicts, all is not necessarily lost. The option of vindicatio is still open if you

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