impunity, this last request, which the judges before the age of Augustus were not authorised to enforce. A codicil might be expressed in any mode, or in any language; but the subscription of five witnesses must declare that it was the genuine composition of the author. His intention, however laudable, was sometimes illegal; and the invention of fidei-commissa, or trusts, arose from the struggle between natural justice and positive jurisprudence. A stranger of Greece or Africa might be the friend or benefactor of a childless Roman; but none, except a fellow-citizen, could act as his heir. The Voconian law, which abolished female succession, restrained the legacy or inheritance of a woman to the sum of one hundred thousand sesterces;[1] and an only daughter was condemned almost as an alien in her father's house. The zeal of friendship and parental affection suggested a liberal artifice: a qualified citizen was named in the testament, with a prayer or injunction that he would restore the inheritance to the person for whom it was truly intended. Various was the conduct of the trustees in this painful situation: they had sworn to observe the laws of their country, but honour prompted them to violate their oath; and, if they preferred their interest under the mask of patriotism, they forfeited the esteem of every virtuous mind. The declaration of Augustus relieved their doubts, gave a legal sanction to confidential testaments and codicils, and gently unravelled the forms and restraints of the republican jurisprudence.[2] But, as the new practice of trusts degenerated into some abuse, the trustee was enabled, by the Trebellian and Pegasian decrees, to reserve one-fourth of the estate, or to transfer on the head of the real heir all the debts and actions of the succession. The interpretation of testaments was strict and literal; but the language of trusts and codicils was delivered from the minute and technical accuracy of the civilians.[3]
III. Of actions III. The general duties of mankind are imposed by their public and private relations; but their specific obligations to each other can only be the effect of 1. a promise, 2. a benefit, or 3.- ↑ Dion Cassius (tom. ii. l. lvi. p. 814 [c. 10] with Reimar's Notes) specifies in Greek money the sum of 25,000 drachms.
- ↑ The revolutions of the Roman laws of inheritance are finely, though sometimes fancifully, deduced by Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xxvii.).
- ↑ Of the civil jurisprudence of successions, testaments, codicils, legacies, and trusts, the principles are ascertained in the Institutes of Caius (l. ii. tit. ii.-ix. p. 91-144), Justinian (l. ii. tit. x-xxv.), and Theophilus (p. 328-514); and the immense detail occupies twelve books (xxviii-xxxix.) of the Pandects.
