Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/101

 CDAP. VII. THE RIGHT OF SUCCESSION. 95 and its debts. The right to inherit without the debts, and to reject an inheritance, was not allowed to the son in Greek legislation, and was not introduced until a later period into Roman law. The judicial language of Rome calls the son heres 8UUS, as if one should say, heres sui ipsius. In fact, he inherits only of himself. Between his father and him there is neither donation, nor legacy, nor change of pro[)erty. There is simply a continuation — morte parentis continuatur dominium. Already, during the life of the father, the son was co-proprietor of the field and house — vivo quoque patre dom,inus existi- matur} To form an idea of inheritance among the ancients, we must not figure to ourselves a fortune which passes from the hands of one to those of another. The for- tune is immovable, like the hearth, and the tomb to which it is attached. It is the man who passes away. It is the man who, as the family unrolls its generations, arrives at his hour appointed to continue the worship, and to take care of the domain. 2. The Son, not the Daughter, inherits. It is here that ancient laws, at first sight, aj^pear whimsical and unjust. We experience some surprise when we see in the Roman law that the daughter does not inherit if she is married, and that, according to the Greek law, she does not inheiit in any case. What concerns the collateral branches appears, at first sight, still farther removed from nature and justice. This is because all these laws flow, according to a very rigor- > Institutes, TIL 1, 3; III. 9, 7; III. 19, 2.