. 3, 4) enumerates only the
public and private crimes, for which a son might likewise disinherit his
father. Note: Gibbon has singular notions on the provisions of Novell.
cxv. 3, 4, which probably he did not clearly understand.--W]

[Footnote 154: The substitutions of fidei-commissaires of the modern
civil law is a feudal idea grafted on the Roman jurisprudence, and bears
scarcely any resemblance to the ancient fidei-commissa, (Institutions
du Droit Francois, tom. i. p. 347-383. Denissart, Decisions de
Jurisprudence, tom. iv. p. 577-604.) They were stretched to the
fourth degree by an abuse of the clixth Novel; a partial, perplexed,
declamatory law.]

Conquest and the formalities of law established the use of codicils. If
a Roman was surprised by death in a remote province of the empire, he
addressed a short epistle to his legitimate or testamentary heir; who
fulfilled with honor, or neglected with impunity, this last request,
which the judges before the age of Augustus were not authorized to
enforce. A codicil might be expressed in any mode, or in any language;
but the subscription of five witnesses must declare that it was the
genuine composition of the author. His intention, however laudable, was
sometimes illegal; and the invention of fidei-commissa, or trusts, arose
form the struggle between natural justice and positive jurisprudence.
A stranger of Greece or Africa might be the friend or benefactor of a
childless Roman, but none, except a fellow-citizen, could act as his
heir. The Voconian law, which abolished female succession, restrained
the legacy or inheritance of a woman to the sum of one hundred thousand
sesterces; [155] and an only daughter was condemned almost as an alien
in her father's house. The zeal of friendship, and parental affection,
suggested a liberal artifice: a qualified citizen was named in the
testament, with a prayer or injunction that he would restore the
inheritance to the person for whom it was truly intended. Various was
the conduct of the trustees in this painful situation: they had sworn
to observe the laws of their country, but honor prompted them to violate
their oath; and if they preferred their interest under the mask of
patriotism, they forfeited the esteem of every virtuous mind. The
declaration of Augustus relieved their doubts, gave a legal sanction to
confidential testaments and codicils, and gently unravelled the forms
and restraints of the republican jurisprudence. [156] Bu