Favor libertatis: Slaveholders as Freedom Fighters

Favor libertatis is a principle of jurisprudence according to which, in cases of doubt, the decision has to be made in favour of the freedom of the slave. This principle is a contradiction and a menace to slavery itself, an institution that stood at the very basis of Roman society. Favor libertatis is so strong that it has precedence over all kinds of rules, its only limit being third party interests. A principle with such momentum cannot be simply the product of jurisprudence. Indeed, it must have had a stronger legal basis. But which legal basis could it be? This question has never been posed, and scholarship has simply taken the favor libertatis for granted. As a form of redress for this situation, therefore, the main purpose of the present study is to establish a group of legislative acts, especially the lex Iunia Petronia and the lex Iunia Norbana, as the sources from which the momentum of the favor libertatis was derived. The methodological stance taken here can be described as a re-legification of Roman law; that is, to give more importance to the phenomenon of leges publicae previously neglected due to a policy to minimise their presence in the Digest.