Note 25 — Chapter VI · GENS AND STATE IN ROME.

Translator's note.

The term caput received the meaning of legal right of a person from the legal status of the head of a family.... Legal science extended the meaning of the term so that it related not alone to slaves, but also to minors and women. This legal right, so conceived, could be curtailed in three ways: Capitis deminutio maxima was the loss of the status libertatis (personal liberty), which included the loss of the status civitatis and familiae (civil and family rights); the capitis deminutio minor or media was the loss of the status civitatis (civil rights), including the loss of the status familiae (family rights); the capitis deminutio minima was the loss of the status familiae (family rights). Lange, Römische Alterthümer, Berlin, 1876, Vol. I., p. 204.