dollars.  In the second century after Christ, this law had fallen into complete desuetude.[155] II.—­By the Falcidian Law, passed in the latter part of the first century B.C., no citizen was allowed to divert more than three fourths of his estate from his natural heirs.[156] The Romans felt strongly against any man who disinherited his children without very good reason; the will of such a parent was called inofficiosum, “made without a proper feeling of duty,” and the disinherited children had an action at law to recover their proper share.[157] A daughter was considered a natural heir no less than a son and had equal privileges in succession[158]; and so women were bound to receive some inheritance at least.  III.—­It is a sad commentary on Christian rulers that for many ages they allowed the crimes of the father to be visited upon his children and by their bills of attainder confiscated to the state the goods of condemned offenders.  Now, the Roman law stated positively that “the crime or punishment of a father can inflict no stigma on his child."[159] So far as the goods of the father were concerned, the property of three kinds of criminals escheated to the crown:  (1) those who committed suicide while under indictment for some crime,[160] (2) forgers,[161] (3) those guilty of high treason[162].  Yet it seems reasonable to doubt whether these laws were very often carried out strictly to the letter.  For example, the law did indeed hold that the estate of a party guilty of treason was confiscated to the state[163]; but even here it was expressly ordained that the goods of the condemned man’s freedmen be reserved for his children.[164] Moreover, in actual practice we can find few instances where the law was executed in its literal severity even under the worst tyrants.  It was Julius Caesar who first set the splendid example of allowing to the children of his dead foes full enjoyment of their patrimonies.[165] Succeeding emperors followed the precedent.[166] Tyrants like Tiberius and Nero, strangely enough, in a majority of cases overruled the Senate when it proposed to confiscate the goods of those condemned for treason, and allowed the children a large part or all of the paternal estate.[167] Hadrian gave the children of proscribed offenders the twelfth part of their father’s goods.[168] Antoninus Pius gave them all.[169] There was a strong public feeling against bills of attainder and this sentiment is voiced by all writers of the Empire.  The law forbade wives to suffer any loss for any fault of their husbands.[170]

Since we have now noticed that women could inherit any amount, that they were bound to receive something under their fathers’ wills, and that the guilt of their kin could inflict no prejudice upon them in the way of bills of attainder involving physical injury or civil status and, in practice, little loss so far as inheriting property was concerned, we may pass to a contemplation of the specific legal rights of inheritance of women.