In Part Two, we looked at the first part of Gaius' institutional scheme, the law of persons. It now remains to us to consider the law of things.

We saw in Chapter 3^[793] that, while the law of persons is concerned with matters of personal status, the law of things is concerned with economic assets. The law of things is by far the larg­est part of the institutional scheme, and can be further subdivided.

Part Three begins in Chapter 10 by examining some of the fundamental prin­ciples of property law, and in particular the distinct concepts of ownership and possession. In Chapters 11 and 12, we look at how ownership is acquired, and in Chapters 13 to 15 we consider the rights that a person can have in property other than ownership and possession.

It is in the law of things that Roman law undoubtedly has the greatest con­tinuing influence on modern law. In the field of property law, for example, the distinction between ownership and possession can be seen as fundamental to legal systems that have received Roman legal ideas. The same is true of the dis­tinction between real and personal rights that we shall meet in Chapter 10. Most of the ways of acquiring ownership that are considered in Chapters 11 and 12 are found in Scots law. Likewise, most of the specific rights in property that are considered in Chapters 13 to 15 have counterparts in Scots law. The rest of this book makes considerable reference to modern law, and there is considerable dis­cussion of actual or possible application of Roman ideas to current legal issues. In addition to modern Scots law, there is also reference to other legal systems, such as that of South Africa, where the law has been similarly affected by Roman law. Those whose interest is only in the law as applied by the Romans, rather than its application in modern law, are of course free to skip these discussions.