reason merely of its remoteness,
after the analogy of family heirs; but it was introduced by the jurists
who came between the Twelve Tables and the imperial legislation, and who
with their legal subtleties and refinements excluded females other
than sisters altogether from agnatic succession. And no other scheme of
succession was in those times heard of, until the praetors, by gradually
mitigating to the best of their ability the harshness of the civil law,
or by filling up voids in the old system, provided through their edicts
a new one. Mere cognation was thus in its various degrees recognised
as a title to succession, and the praetors gave relief to such females
through the possession of goods, which they promised to them in that
part of the edict by which cognates are called to the succession. We,
however, have followed the Twelve Tables in this department of law,
and adhered to their principles: and, while we commend the praetors for
their sense of equity, we cannot hold that their remedy was adequate;
for when the degree of natural relationship was the same, and when the
civil title of agnation was conferred by the older law on males and
females alike, why should males be allowed to succeed all their agnates,
and women (except sisters) be debarred from succeeding any? Accordingly,
we have restored the old rules in their integrity, and made the law on
this subject an exact copy of the Twelve Tables, by enacting, in our
constitution, that all 'statutory' successors, that is, persons tracing
their descent from the deceased through males, shall be called alike
to the succession as agnates on an intestacy, whether they be males or
females, according to their proximity of degree; and that no females
shall be excluded on the pretence that none but sisters have the right
of succeeding by the title of kinship.

4 By an addition to the same enactment we have deemed it right to
transfer one, though only one, degree of cognates into the ranks of
those who succeed by a statutory title, in order that not only the
children of a brother may be called, as we have just explained, to the
succession of their paternal uncle, but that the children of a sister
too, even though only of the half blood on either side (but not her more
remote descendants), may share with the former the inheritance of their
uncle; so that, on the decease of a man who is paternal uncle to his
brother's children, and maternal uncle to those of his sister, the