PERIPECIAS DE LA OBLIGATION E IDENTIDAD DE LA RES

A Paul's quaestio, transmitted in two passages of the Digest (D. 45.1.83.5 and D. 46.3.98.8), deals with the case of the freed slave who became slave again. According to the jurist, a stipulatio is inutilis if anyone stipulates for a sacred or a religiuous thing or for a public thing, or for a freeman. Nor will the stipulation remain in suspence because the public thing may became privare, the freeman may became a slave. So, conversely, although a thing may have been validly stipulated for originally, yet, if it afterwards falls under the class of any of the things before mentioned, without the fault of the promissor, the stipulation is extinguished. Such a stipulation, too, as the following, is void ab initio. Illum, cum servus esse coeperit dare spondes?. In conclusion if stipulation were once extinguished, no alteration of circumstances would renew it: in perpetuum sublata obligatio restitui non potest (D. 46.3.98.8).