Lex Julia
Lex Julia, ET PLAUTIA, of uncertain date, enacted that res vi possessae should stand on the same footing with res furtivae [ATINIA] and be incapable of acquisition by usucapio. It related solely to land, for robbery of res mobiles was theft itself (Gaius, 3.209), and land could not be stolen (Inst. 2.6, 7). (Gaius, 2.45, 51; Inst. 2.6, 2; Dig. 41, 3, 4, 22.) It would seem from Theophilus on the passage of the Institutes last referred to that there were really two statutes, Julia and Plautia, perhaps the two of those names de vi.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.