lienated
than they, and follow much more lenient rules of devolution. Women
and the descendants of women succeed to them, obviously on the
principle that they lie outside the sacred precinct of the Agnatic
brotherhood. Now, it is on these last descriptions of property, and on
these only, that the Testaments borrowed from Rome were at first
allowed to operate.

These few indications may serve to lend additional plausibility to
that which in itself appears to be the most probable explanation of an
ascertained fact in the early history of Roman Wills. We have it
stated on abundant authority that Testaments, during the primitive
period of the Roman State, were executed in the Comitia Calata, that
is, in the Comitia Curiata, or Parliament of the Patrician Burghers of
Rome, when assembled for Private Business. This mode of execution has
been the source of the assertion, handed down by one generation of
civilians to another, that every Will at one era of Roman history was
a solemn legislative enactment. But there is no necessity whatever for
resorting to an explanation which has the defect of attributing far
too much precision to the proceedings of the ancient assembly. The
proper key to the story concerning the execution of Wills in the
Comitia Calata must no doubt be sought in the oldest Roman Law of
_intestate_ succession. The canons of primitive Roman jurisprudence
regulating the inheritance of relations from each other were, so long
as they remained unmodified by the Edictal Law of the Praetor, to the
following effect:--First, the _sui_ or direct descendants who had
never been emancipated succeeded. On the failure of the _sui_, the
Nearest Agnate came into their place, that is, the nearest person or
class of the kindred who was or might have been under the same Patria
Potestas with the deceased. The third and last degree came next, in
which the inheritance devolved on the _gentiles_, that is on the
collective members of the dead man's _gens_ or _House_. The House, I
have explained already, was a fictitious extension of the family,
consisting of all Roman Patrician citizens who bore the same name, and
who, on the ground of bearing the same name, were supposed to be
descended from a common ancestor. Now the Patrician Assembly called
the Comitia Curiata was a Legislature in which Gentes or Houses were
exclusively represented. It was a representative assembly of the Roman
people, constituted on the assumption that the consti