No fixed time legally restricted the heir in deciding whether it were or were not worth his while to enter on the inheritance. But if the predecessor seemed to have been murdered by a member of his household, the heir could not enter until a public inquiry had taken place, in accordance with the Senatus consultum Silani

D. (xxix. 5). anum. Where pressure was put upon the heir by persons concerned, he had to make a special application for time to deliberate. In such a case, the Prætor used to grant not more than one hundred days. Justinian allowed a judge to grant as much as nine months, and reserved to the emperor the right of granting a whole year. In this interval, the heir might inspect the accounts of the estate and, by help of a judge's order, turn into money perishable things, and make payments, which, for one reason or other, could not be properly deferred. His son, who was an expectant heir, might also be supported out of the estate. If the heir died without making up his mind, the right to deliberate, so far as the recognized period was not exhausted, passed to his heir. If the heir had not made up his mind at the close of the allotted time, he was held to have refused the inheritance, so far as the next claimant was concerned; but to have incurred the liabilities attaching to it, so far as the creditors of it were concerned.

Where, according to the older law, a relation was compulsorily made heir (suus et necessarius heres), the Prætor came to his relief by allowing him to abstain from entering on the inheritance (beneficium abstinendi). But this was only granted to persons of full age, in cases where they had not interfered with the estate, or, being under twentyfive years of age, had found the estate to be fraught with loss.

(3) The chief security afforded the heir was by means of the right accorded to him of making a public and official statement of the accounts of the estate (beneficium inventarii). It was to be undertaken within thirty days of the heir's becoming acquainted with the fact of his succession, and completed within another sixty days if the property was at hand, or within a year at the utmost from

the heir's first acquaintance with the fact of his succession. The statement or inventory had to be prepared in the presence of public clerks or accountants (tabularii), as well as the creditors of the estate, the legatees under the Will, and all other persons interested; or, in the absence of all such persons, in the presence of three witnesses of good repute.

The heir had to sign the statement of account with his own hand, or to have the accountant's signature affixed by his directions. If it should appear that the heir had abstracted anything in the interval, either directly or indirectly, he was liable to make it good to double the

amount.

The heir obtained a series of advantages from this statement. He was incapable of being sued during the interval. He could enter on the inheritance without incurring any further liability than such as could be discharged out of the estate itself. He could charge on the available assets all needful expenses required for the funeral, the preparation of the inventory, and the proving of the Will. He could proceed at once to satisfy the creditors and legatees in the order they presented themselves, and had no further liabilities in respect of late comers. Lastly, he retained his own rights of action against the estate equally with the rest of the creditors.

If the heir neglected to take advantage of making an inventory, and preferred simply to apply for time to deliberate, he not only continued liable to the creditors of the estate to the full amount of their claims, but could not deduct from the legacies and gifts in trust the fourth portion which, by the Falcidian and other laws, he was entitled to retain for himself.

(7) For the protection of creditors, the Prætor accorded to all creditors the right of applying to have the property which was included in the estate separated from the private property of the heir. This advantage could only be obtained so long as the inherited property had not become mixed up with other property of the heir, or, at least, mixed up beyond the possibility of discrimination;

and in no case beyond five years from the time of entrance on the inheritance. The effect of the separation was, that the private creditors of the heir could only be satisfied out of the testator's property after the creditors of the estate had been satisfied. If the estate was not sufficient to meet the liabilities upon it, the creditors who had sued for a separation of goods could not have recourse to the heir's private property in order to make up the unsatisfied portion of their claims.

(8) Where, in consequence of the laws of succession, emancipated children and their heirs were called to the inheritance of their father's estate, either on an intestacy or in opposition to the terms of a will (contra tabulas), they were required, with a view to an equable redivision of the estate, to account for all the property they had received from their natural father in his lifetime, other than such as it might have been expected the father would have spent in the due discharge of his parental functions. The property so to be accounted for, or, in the terms of English law, brought into "hotch-pot," was such as dowry and gifts in view of marriage, and advances of money for purchasing posts in the army.

(g) DISCHARGE OF THE HEIR'S DUTIES IN MAKING PAYMENTS OF VARIOUS SORTS, INCLUDING LEGACIES AND TRUST GIFTS.

It has been already seen what provisions were made in Justinian's time for the protection of the interests of the creditors of an estate, devolving either on an intestacy or through the operation of a Will. But, besides the general duties incumbent on an heir of representing his predecessor in the discharge of his debts and current obligations, the Will, if there were one, usually cast upon him other classes of duties which vie with, or even exceed in importance, all the rest. These duties fall under the heads of legacies and trust gifts,-fideicommissa. It was only through the medium of one or other of these that individual persons, not included in the list of heirs, could

obtain any advantage under the Will. In fact, the institutions of legacies and trust gifts marked a serious invasion on the integrity of the principle of the genuine Roman Will; and the development of these institutions, in Justinian's time, by their more complete assimilation, marks the transition to the modern Will, in which a series of gifts of all sorts to individual persons entirely overshadows the functions of any one person who may still be designated the heir.

(3) LEGACIES.

A legacy was defined to be a gift made by the deceased; it was, in fact, a charge on the heir to make a payment to some person individually mentioned or described. By Justinian's time, all formal distinctions, by which different sorts of legacies were marked off from each other, had vanished; and no matter what words were used in the Will, legatees could avail themselves of personal actions against the heir and of real actions against other persons in following up their claims. Thus, in Justinian's time, the main question in respect of legacies was one of interpreting the language and intention of the testator; and provided the intention of the testator was clear, every effort was made to give effect to it as against the heir.

Thus, a testator might impose upon his heir the duty of purchasing an object belonging to another and presenting it to a legatee; but, in this case, the legatee must prove that the testator knew whom the thing belonged to, or at least that it was not the testator's own. If the legatee himself had purchased it, he could recover the price from the heir. If he became owner of it without giving an equivalent (ex causa lucrativa), he could not sue for its value. A legacy might comprise any thing or class of things which could be the subject of property at all, and this would include all the rights of action necessary to acquire its complete ownership.

A legacy might be made conditionally, or for a certain purpose, or to last a certain time, or (in Justinian's time) by way of penal condition imposed on the heir.

A legacy vested in the legatee from the date of the death of the testator, supposing that no condition deferred the date of vesting. The date of vesting was described by saying "dies cedit." The day from which a legacy could be actually sued for, which could not be earlier than the entrance of the heir on the inheritance, was described by saying "dies venit." The effect of the legacy having vested was, in the event of the legatee's death, that it passed to his heir; the individuality of the persons and the things concerned was determined with reference to that epoch; and the loss or injury of specific objects bequeathed attached to the legatee and not D. (xxxiv. 7). longer to the heir. The "Catonian rule" laid down that if a legacy was not good in law at the time the Will was made, supposing the deceased died immediately, it would not be good at the time that he really died.

There was nothing to prevent a testator revoking a legacy by a later Will or a codicil, or introducing a new condition or a modification in the mode of charging the heir (ademptio, translatio).

Though the earliest forms of the Roman will left no opening for charges on the heir of the nature of legacies, yet by the time of the XII. Tables the practice of leaving legacies had become so common, that one of the laws contained in those tables expressly sanctioned it. It was found, indeed, by experience that, whether from vanity or other causes, testators acquired the habit of distributing their whole fortune in legacies at the expense of, and even to the ruin of, the heirs. Efforts were made to counteract this successively by the Furian, Voconian, and Falcidian laws.

By the Furian law, legatees, with the exception of certain near relations, were forbidden to receive B.C. 183. more than one thousand asses each. But this law was evaded through the practice which arose of distributing the estate among a number of legatees, no one of whom was to receive more than the amount limited by law.