Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/100

 94 THE FAMILY. BOOK lU family shnll be inseparable, and that the care of the sacrifices shall always devolve upon the one who re- ceives the inheritance." * At Athens an orator claims a succession in these terms: "Weigh it well, O judges, and say whether my adversary or I ought to inherit the estate of Philoctemon, and ofier the sacrifices upon his tomb." ° Could one say more directly that the care of the worship was inseparable from the succession ? It was the same in India : " He who inherits, whoever he may be, is bound to make the offerings upon the tomb." * From this principle were derived all the rules regard- ing the right of succession among the ancients. The first is that, the domestic religion being, as we have seen, hereditary from male to male, property is the same. As the son is the natural continuator of the re- ligion, he also inherits the estate. Thus the rule of inheritance is found ; it is not the result of a simple agreement made between men ; it is derived from their belief, from their religion, from that which has the greatest power over their minds. It is not the personal will of the father that causes the son to inherit. The father need not make a will ; the son inherits of full right, -^i2JS0 Jure /teres exsistit, — says the jurisconsult. He is even a necessary successor — heres necessarius* He has neither to accept nor to reject the inheritance. The continuation of the property, like that of the worship, is for him an obligation as well as a right. "Whether he wishes it or not, the inheritance falls to him, whatever it may be, even with its encumbrances • Cicero, De Legib., II. 19, 20. Fostus, v. Everriaior. V. 740. ' Laws of Manu, IX. 18G. ♦ Digest, XXXVIII. tit. 16, 14.
 * Isaeus, VI. 61. Plato calls the heir SiuSoxog fltfSr. Laws,