and sent every where
men employed to make a survey, without fixing how much, and for how much
each was to pay. The senators then preferred giving the tax on legacies
and inheritances.--W.]

[Footnote 103: The sum is only fixed by conjecture.]

[Footnote 104: As the Roman law subsisted for many ages, the Cognati, or
relations on the mother's side, were not called to the succession. This
harsh institution was gradually undermined by humanity, and finally
abolished by Justinian.]

[Footnote 105: Plin. Panegyric. c. 37.]

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. [106] 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. [107] 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; [108] nor do the friends of the younger Pliny seem to have been
less generous to that amiable orator. [109] 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.

[Footnote 106: See Heineccius in the Antiquit. Juris Romani, l. ii.]

[Footnote