apitation.
They acquiesced in silence. . The new imposition on legacies and
inheritances was, however, mitigated by some restrictions. It did not
take place unless the object was of a certain value, most probably of
fifty or a hundred pieces of gold; nor could it be exacted from the
nearest of kin on the father's side. When the rights of nature and
poverty were thus secured, it seemed reasonable, that a stranger, or
a distant relation, who acquired an unexpected accession of fortune,
should cheerfully resign a twentieth part of it, for the benefit of the
state.

Such a tax, plentiful as it must prove in every wealthy community, was
most happily suited to the situation of the Romans, who could frame
their arbitrary wills, according to the dictates of reason or
caprice, without any restraint from the modern fetters of entails and
settlements. From various causes, the partiality of paternal affection
often lost its influence over the stern patriots of the commonwealth,
and the dissolute nobles of the empire; and if the father bequeathed to
his son the fourth part of his estate, he removed all ground of legal
complaint. But a rich childish old man was a domestic tyrant, and his
power increased with his years and infirmities. A servile crowd, in
which he frequently reckoned praetors and consuls, courted his smiles,
pampered his avarice, applauded his follies, served his passions,
and waited with impatience for his death. The arts of attendance and
flattery were formed into a most lucrative science; those who professed
it acquired a peculiar appellation; and the whole city, according to
the lively descriptions of satire, was divided between two parties, the
hunters and their game. Yet, while so many unjust and extravagant wills
were every day dictated by cunning and subscribed by folly, a few were
the result of rational esteem and virtuous gratitude. Cicero, who had
so often defended the lives and fortunes of his fellow-citizens, was
rewarded with legacies to the amount of a hundred and seventy thousand
pounds; nor do the friends of the younger Pliny seem to have been
less generous to that amiable orator. Whatever was the motive of the
testator, the treasury claimed, without distinction, the twentieth part
of his estate: and in the course of two or three generations, the whole
property of the subject must have gradually passed through the coffers
of the state.

In the first and golden years of the reign of Nero, that prince