Introduction
Adam Smith observed that ‘there is no point more difficult to account for than the right we conceive men to have to dispose of their goods after death’.1 Roman law, however, was remarkably precocious in arriving at the view that a person was entitled to dispose of his property by means of a will.
This principle once accepted, the Roman jurists lovingly elaborated the formal requirements for making a valid will and the various dispositions that it could contain, such as legacies or other bequests, manumission of slaves, and appointment of tutors. In doing so they constructed a massively complex edifice. Even the surviving fragments of the jurists’ commentaries and discussions occupy 11 out of the 50 books ofJustinian’s Digest. Among other things they consider in minute detail the appointment of heirs and substitutes in the event that the first-appointed heir predeceased the testator, and they examine the precise linguistic requirements for making a legacy of a particular type and the legal consequences that flow from the use of one type of legacy rather than another.This chapter could attempt to give a short account of these detailed technical rules,2 but there is a risk that that might not be very interesting. Instead, the aim here will be to provide a survey on a more general level. This is because it is crucial to view the law of succession in the broader context of Roman social history. Clearly, a fundamental issue for the functioning of Roman society is how the Romans chose to transfer property between generations.3 There is an issue of economic history here too. And also, at the upper end of the social scale, there are ramifications for political history.
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