Slaves’ Families and the Senatus consultum Claudianum (AD 52)
Durnovo Maksim V.
The author regards the SC Claudianum (AD 52) as a means serving for the legal formalization of property relations that arose between the master of a slave having a considerable peculium, and the family of such a slave in the case when this family included persons of free status. The author concludes that the main objective of the SC Claudianum was to protect the property rights of the slave owners, but not their power and authority. Yet it might have dealt with protecting the property rights of the slave owners not over the children of their slaves, but over the peculia of the latter. This protection manifested itself in the legitimation of the master’s desire to get hold of the offspring and possessions of his slave’s family, through changing the legal status of the members of that family.
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