), the patron shall have no right to any share in the succession
if they make a will; while, if they die intestate without leaving any
children, we have retained unimpaired the rights conferred on the patron
by the Twelve Tables. If they are possessed of more than a hundred
aurei, and leave a descendant or descendants of either sex and any
degree to take the inheritance civil or praetorian, we have given to
such child or children the succession to their parents, to the exclusion
of every patron and his issue. If, however, they leave no children, and
die intestate, we have called the patron or patroness to their whole
inheritance: while if they make a will, passing over their patron or
patroness, and leaving no children, or having disinherited such as they
have, or (supposing them to be mothers or maternal grandfathers) having
passed them over without leaving them the right to impeach the testament
as unduteous, then, under our constitution, the patron shall succeed,
by possession against the will, not, as before, to onehalf of the
freedman's estate, but to onethird, or, if the freedman or freedwoman
has left him less than this third in his or her will, to so much as will
make up the difference. But this third shall be free from all charges,
even from legacies or trust bequests in favour of the children of
the freedman or freedwoman, all of which are to fall on the patron's
coheirs. In the same constitution we have gathered together the rules
applying to many other cases, which we deemed necessary for the
complete settlement of this branch of law: for instance, a title to the
succession of freedmen is conferred not only on patrons and patronesses,
but on their children and collateral relatives to the fifth degree: all
of which may be ascertained by reference to the constitution itself. If,
however, there are several descendants of a patron or patroness, or of
two or several, the nearest in degree is to take the succession of the
freedman or freedwoman, which is to be divided, not among the stocks,
but by counting the heads of those nearest in degree. And the same
rule is to be observed with collaterals: for we have made the law of
succession to freedmen almost identical with that relating to freeborn
persons.

4 All that has been said relates nowadays to freedmen who are Roman
citizens, for dediticii and Latini Iuniani having been together
abolished there are now no others. As to a statutory right of succession
to a Lati