Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Inheritance

be male, but the two ends do not . On average, as many of your agnates will be women as men.) The “agnatic” family, defined by ties of this sort, may be contrasted with the “nuclear” fam ily of husband, wife, and children. The second point of family law is that the former owner of an ex-slave counted as a rela tive for many inheritance purposes, but in what follows I will assume that everyone was born a free person. The statutory rules were part of the Twelve Tables, and so date back at least to 450 bc. They divided potential heirs into only three categories: (1) Sui Heredes : These are the imme diate descendants of the deceased, normally his children, but potentially his sons’ children if they survived their father(s). Boys and girls inherited equally and regardless of birth order. Children who had been given their independence before their father’s death were not included. For the reason just given, women by definition did not have sui heredes , so in this case one would have to jump to the second category. (2) Proximus Agnatus : This is a little trickier than it might look at first. On the one hand, the category isn’t just “agnate,” but “nearest agnate”: if the nearest one doesn’t accept, the “next agnate” has no claim. Instead you jump to the third category. On the other hand, there can be more than one “nearest,” if several people have the same relationship. Say I die leaving behind no chil dren, but several siblings. My brothers and sisters (two degrees removed) are equally my nearest agnates. My father’s brothers and sisters (three degrees away from me) get a shot only if I left no siblings of my own in the first place. (3) Gentiles : members of the same clan ( gens ). The nature of Roman clans is somewhat

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