nephews and nieces on either side will now succeed him alike, provided,
of course, that the brother and sister do not survive, exactly as if
they all traced their relationship through males, and thus all had a
statutory title. But if the deceased leaves brothers and sisters who
accept the inheritance, the remoter degrees are altogether excluded,
the division in this case being made individually, that is to say, by
counting heads, not stocks.

5 If there are several degrees of agnates, the statute of the Twelve
Tables clearly calls only the nearest, so that if, for instance, the
deceased leaves a brother, and a nephew by another brother deceased, or
a paternal uncle, the brother is preferred. And although that statute,
in speaking of the nearest agnate, uses the singular number, there is
no doubt that if there are several of the same degree they are all
admitted: for though properly one can speak of 'the nearest degree'
only when there are several, yet it is certain that even though all the
agnates are in the same degree the inheritance belongs to them.

6 If a man dies without having made a will at all, the agnate who takes
is the one who was nearest at the time of the death of the deceased. But
when a man dies, having made a will, the agnate who takes (if one is
to take at all) is the one who is nearest when first it becomes certain
that no one will accept the inheritance under the testament; for until
that moment the deceased cannot properly be said to have died intestate
at all, and this period of uncertainty is sometimes a long one, so that
it not unfrequently happens that through the death, during it, of a
nearer agnate, another becomes nearest who was not so at the death of
the testator.

7 In agnatic succession the established rule was that the right of
accepting the inheritance could not pass from a nearer to a more remote
degree; in other words, that if the nearest agnate, who, as we have
described, is called to the inheritance, either refuses it or dies
before acceptance, the agnates of the next grade have no claim to
admittance under the Twelve Tables. This hard rule again the praetors
did not leave entirely without correction, though their remedy, which
consisted in the admission of such persons, since they were excluded
from the rights of agnation, in the rank of cognates, was inadequate.
But we, in our desire to have the law as complete as possible, have
enacted in the constitution which in our clemency