THE DECLINE AND FALL
204
CHAP.
VI.
Suited tothe lawsand man-ners.
most probably of fifty or an hundred pieces ofgold; k nor could it be exacted from the nearestof kin on the father’s side . 1 When the rights ofnature and poverty were thus secured, it seemedreasonable, that a stranger, or a distant relation,who acquired an unexpected accession of for-tune, should cheerfully resign a twentieth partof it, for the benefit of the state.®
Such a tax, plentiful as it must prove in everywealthy community, was most happily suited tothe situation of the Romans, who could frametheir arbitrary wills, according to the dictates ofreason or caprice, without any restraint from themodern fetters of entails and settlements. Fromvarious causes the partiality of paternal affectionoften lost its influence over the stern patriots ofthe commonwealth, and the dissolute nobles ofthe empire; and if the father bequeathed to hisson the fourth part of his estate, he removed allground of legal complaint . 11 But a rich child-less old man was a domestic tyrant, and hispower increased with his years and infirmities.A servile crowd, in which he frequently reck-oned praetors and consuls, courted his smiles,pampered his avarice, applauded his follies, ser-ved his passions, and waited with impatience for
k The sum is only fixed by conjecture.
1 As the Roman law subsisted for many ages, the cognati , or rela-tions on the mother’s side, were not called to the succession. Thisharsh institution was gradually undermined by humanity, and finallyabolished by Justinian .