Abstract
A legal expression has caught the imagination over the centuries :capitis deminutio. The meaning is clear enough : as explained by Gaius, then Justinian (Institutes 1.16), it refers to a change in an individual's status, affecting his freedom and/or citizenship, or his potestative position within the family. But if this explanation eliminates the rough edges and meets the need for rational, controlled language, what did capitis deminutio originally mean ? Wascaput understood metonymically and metaphorically as the legal condition, or was it an image of death by decapitation, or something else ? The lecture will also look at the traces left bycapitis deminutio in modern law.
