Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/419

 CUAP. VIII. CHANGES IN PEIVATE LAW. 413 cept slowly and by degrees. The history of Roman law, as well as that of Athenian law, proves this. Tiie Twelve Tables, as we have seen above, wero written in the midst of social changes; jjatricians made them, but they were made upon the demand of the plebs, and for their use. This legislation, therefore, is no longer the primitive law of Rome ; neither is it. pretorian law; it is a transition between the two. Here, then, are the points in which it does not yet deviate from the antique law : it maintains the power of the father; it allows him to pass judgment upon his son, to condemn him to death, or to sell him. While the father lives, the son never reaches his majority. As to the law of succession, this also follows the an- cient rules : the inheritance passes to the agnates, and in default of agnates, to the gentiles. As to the cog- nates, that is to say, those related through females, the law does not yet recognize them. They do not inherit from each other ; the mother does not succeed to the son, nor the son to the mother.' ^ Emancipation and adoption preserve the character and effects which these acts had in antique law. The emancipated son no longer takes part in the worship of his family, and, as a consequence, he loses the right of succession. The following points are those on which this legisla- tion deviates from primitive law : — It formally admits that the patrimony may be divided among the brothers, since it grants the actio familice erciscundoe.^ It declares that the father cannot sell his son more ' Gaius, III. 17, 24. Ulpian, XVI. 4. Cicero, De Invent., II. 50. * Gaius, III. 19.