t also of one another
reciprocally, by this enactment, whether those born in slavery and
subsequently manumitted are the only children, or whether there be
others conceived after their parents had obtained their freedom, and
whether they all have the same father and mother, or the same father and
different mothers, or vice versa; the rules applying to children born in
lawful wedlock being applied here also.

11 To sum up all that we have said, it appears that persons related
in the same degree of cognation to the deceased are not always called
together, and that even a remoter is sometimes preferred to a nearer
cognate. For as family heirs and those whom we have enumerated as
equivalent to family heirs have a priority over all other claimants, it
is clear that a great-grandson or great-great-grandson is preferred to a
brother, or the father or mother of the deceased; and yet the father and
mother, as we have remarked above, are in the first degree of
cognation, and the brother is in the second, while the great-grandson and
great-great-grandson are only in the third and fourth respectively. And it
is immaterial whether the descendant who ranks among family heirs was in
the power of the deceased at the time of his death, or out of it through
having been emancipated or through being the child of an emancipated
child or a child of the female sex.

12 When there are no family heirs, and none of those persons who we have
said rank as such, an agnate who has lost none of his agnatic rights,
even though very many degrees removed from the deceased, is usually
preferred to a nearer cognate; for instance, the grandson or
great-grandson of a paternal uncle has a better title than a maternal
uncle or aunt. Accordingly, in saying that the nearest cognate is
preferred in the succession, or that, if there are several cognates in
the nearest degree, they are called equally, we mean that this is the
case if no one is entitled to priority, according to what we have said,
as either being or ranking as a family heir, or as being an agnate; the
only exceptions to this being emancipated brothers and sisters of the
deceased who are called to succeed him, and who, in spite of their loss
of status, are preferred to other agnates in a remoter degree than
themselves.

TITLE VII. OF THE SUCCESSION TO FREEDMEN

Let us now turn to the property of freedmen. These were originally
allowed to pass over their patrons in their wills with impunity