whether the assignment is made in a testament or not, and indeed patrons are enabled to exercise this power in any terms whatsoever, as is provided by the senatusconsult passed in the time of Claudius, when Suillus Rufus and Ostorius Scapula were consuls.

TITLE IX.

OF POSSESSION OF GOODS.

The law as to the possession of goods was introduced by the praetor by way of amending the older system, and this not only in intestate succession, as has been described, but also in cases where deceased persons have made a will. For instance, although the posthumous child of a stranger, if instituted heir, could not by the civil law enter upon the inheritance, because his institution would be invalid, he could with the assistance of the praetor be made possessor of the goods by the praetorian law. Such a one can now, however, by our constitution be lawfully instituted, as being no longer unrecognised by the civil law. Sometimes however the 1 praetor promises the possession of goods rather in confirmation of the older law than for the purpose of correcting or impugning it; as, for instance, when he gives possession in accordance with a duly executed will to those who have been instituted heirs therein. Again, he calls self-successors and agnates to the possession of goods on an intestacy; and yet, even putting aside the possession of goods, the inheritance belongs to them already by the civil law. Those whom the 2 praetor calls to a succession do not become heirs in the eye of law, for the praetor cannot make an heir, because persons become heirs by a statute only, or some similar ordinance such as a senatusconsult or an imperial constitution: but as the praetor gives them the possession of goods they become quasi heirs, and are called 'possessors of goods.' And several additional grades of grantees of possession were recognised by the praetor in his anxiety that no one might die without a successor; the right of entering upon an inheritance, which had been confined by the statute of the Twelve Tables within very narrow limits, having been

conferred more extensively by him in the spirit of justice 3 and equity. The following are the kinds of testamentary possession of goods. First, the so-called 'contratabular' possession, given to children who are merely passed over in the will. Second, that which the praetor promises to all duly instituted heirs, and which is for that reason called 'secundum tabulas. Then, having spoken of wills, the praetor passes on to cases of intestacy, in which, firstly, he gives the possession of goods which is called unde liberi to selfsuccessors and those who in his Edict are ranked as such. Failing these, he gives it, secondly, to successors having a statutory title thirdly, to the ten persons whom he preferred to the manumitter of a free person, if a stranger in relation to the latter, namely the latter's father and mother, grandparents paternal and maternal, children, grandchildren by daughters as well as by sons, and brothers and sisters whether of the whole or of the half blood only. The fourth degree of possession is that given to the nearest cognates: the fifth is that called tum quam ex familia: the sixth, that given to the patron and patroness, their children and parents: the seventh, that given to the husband or wife of the deceased; the eighth, that given to the cognates of the manumitter. Such was the 4 system established by the praetorian jurisdiction. We however, who have been careful to pass over nothing, but correct all defects by our constitutions, have retained, as necessary, the possession of goods called contra tabulas and secundum tabulas, and also the kinds of possession upon intestacy known as unde liberi and unde legitimi. The possession how5 ever which in the praetor's Edict occupied the fifth place, and was called unde decem personae, we have with benevolent intentions and with a short treatment shown to be superfluous. Its effect was to prefer to the extraneous manumitter the ten persons specified above; but our constitution, which we have made concerning the emancipation of children, has in all cases made the parent implicitly the manumitter, as previously under a fiduciary contract, and has attached this privilege to every such manumission, so as to render superfluous the aforesaid kind of possession of goods. We have therefore removed it, and put in its place the possession which the

praetor promises to the nearest cognates, and which we have thus made the fifth kind instead of the sixth. The possession 6 of goods which formerly stood seventh in the list, which was called tum quam ex familia, and that which stood eighth, namely, the possession entitled unde liberi patroni patronaeque et parentes eorum, we have altogether suppressed by our constitution respecting the rights of patrons. For, having assimilated the succession to freedmen to the succession to freeborn persons, with this sole exception-in order to preserve some difference between the two classes-that no one has any title to the former who is related more distantly than the fifth degree, we have left them sufficient remedies in the 'contratabular' possession, and in those called unde legitimi and unde cognati, wherewith to vindicate their rights, so that thus all the subtleties and inextricable confusion of these two kinds of possession of goods have been abolished. We have 7 preserved in full force another possession of goods, which is called unde vir et uxor, and which occupied the ninth place in the old classification, and have given it a higher place, namely, the sixth. The tenth kind, which was called unde cognati manumissoris, we have very properly abolished for reasons which have been already stated: thus leaving in full operation only six ordinary kinds of possession of goods. The seventh, which follows them, was introduced with most 8 excellent reason by the praetors, whose Edict finally promised the possession of goods to those persons expressly entitled to it by any statute, senatusconsult, or imperial constitution; but this was not permanently incorporated by the praetor with either the intestate or the testamentary kinds of possession, but was accorded by him, as circumstances demanded, as an extreme and extraordinary remedy to those persons who claim, either under a will or on an intestacy, under statutes, senatusconsults, or the more recent legislation of the emperors. The praetor, having thus introduced many 9 kinds of successions, and arranged them in a system, fixed a definite time within which the possession of goods must be applied for, as there are often several persons entitled in the same kind of succession, though related in different degrees to the deceased, in order to save the creditors of

the estate from delay in their suits, and to provide them with a proper defendant to sue; and with the object also of making it less easy for them to obtain possession of the property of the deceased, as in bankruptcy, wherein they consulted their own advantage only. He allowed to children and parents, adoptive no less than natural, an interval of a year, and to all other persons one hundred days, within 10 which to make the application. If a person entitled does not apply for the possession of goods within the time specified, his portion goes by accrual to those in the same degree or class with himself: or, if there be none, the praetor promises by his successory edict the possession to those in the next degree, exactly as if the person in the preceding one were non-existent. If any one refuses the possession of goods which he has the opportunity of accepting, it is not usual to wait until the aforesaid interval, within which possession must be applied for, has elapsed, but the next degree is admitted 11 immediately under the same edict. In reckoning the interyal, only those days are considered upon which the persons 12 entitled could have made application. Earlier Emperors, however, have judiciously provided that no one need trouble himself expressly to apply for the possession of goods, but that, if he shall within the prescribed time in any manner have signified his intention to accept, he shall have the full benefit of such tacit acceptance.

TITLE X.

OF ACQUISITION BY ADROGATION.

There is another kind of universal succession which owes its introduction neither to the statute of the Twelve Tables nor to the praetor's Edict, but to the law which is based 1 upon custom and consent. When an independent person gives himself in adrogation, all his property, corporeal and incorporeal, and all debts due to him formerly passed in full ownership to the adrogator, except such rights as are extinguished by loss of status, for instance, bounden services of freedmen and rights of agnation. Use and usufruct, though formerly enumerated among such rights, have now been saved

by our constitution from extinction by the least loss of status. But we have now confined acquisition by adrogation within 2 the same limits as acquisition through their children by natural parents; that is to say, adoptive as well as natural parents acquire no greater right in property which comes to children in their power from any extraneous source than a mere usufruct; the ownership belongs to the children themselves. But if a son who has been adrogated dies in his adoptive family, the whole of his property vests in the adrogator, failing those persons who, under our constitution, are preferred to the father in succession to property which is not acquired immediately from him. Conversely, the adrogator 3 is not, by strict law, suable for the debts of his adoptive son, but an action may be brought against him in the son's name; and if he declines to defend the latter, the creditors are allowed, by an order of the magistrates having jurisdiction in such cases, to take possession of the property of which the usufruct as well as the ownership would have belonged to the son, had he not subjected himself to the power of another, and to dispose of it in the mode prescribed by law.

TITLE XI.

OF THE ADJUDICATION OF A DECEASED PERSON'S ESTATE TO PRESERVE GIFTS OF LIBERTY.

A new form of succession was added by a constitution of the Emperor Marcus, which provided that if slaves, who have received a bequest of liberty from their master in a will under which no heir takes, wish to have his property adjudged to them, in order that effect may be given to the gift of freedom, their application shall be entertained. Such is the 1 substance of a rescript addressed by the Emperor Marcus to Popilius Rufus, which runs as follows: 'If there is no successor to take on the intestacy of Virginius Valens, who by his will has conferred freedom on certain of his slaves, and if, consequently, his property is in danger of being sold, the magistrate who has cognisance of such matters shall on application entertain your desire to have the property adjudged to you, in order to give effect to the bequests of liberty,

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