Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/426

 420 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. verses of having written the same laws for the great and the small. Like the Twelve Tables, the code of Solon departed in many points from the ancient law; on other points he remained faithful to it. Tliis is not to say that the Roman decemvirs copied the laws of Athens, but the two codes, works of the same period and consequences of the same social revolution, could not but resemble each other. Still, this resemblance is little more than in the spirit of the two codes ; a comparison of their articles presents numerous differences. There are points on which the code of Solon remains nearer to primitive law than the Twelve Tables, as there are others on A^'hich he de])arts more Avidely from it. The very early laws had prescribed that the eldest son alone should inherit. The code of Solon changed this, and prescribed in formal terms that the brothers should share the patrimony. But the legislator did not depart from primitive law enough to give the sister a part in the inheritance. "The division," he says, "shall be among the sons^'' ' Further, if a father loft only a daughter, this daugh- ter could not inherit ; the property fell to the nearest agnate. In this Solon conformed to the old law; but he succeeded in giving the daughter the enjoyment of the patrimony by compelling the heir to marry her.* Relationship through women was unknown in the primitive law. Solon admitted it in the new code, but placed it below the relationship through males. Here is his law:' "If a father leaves only a daughter, the nearest agnate inherits by marrying the daughter. If ' Isaeus, VI. 25. " Isreus, III. 42. ' IsaJU8,VII. 19; XI. 1,11.