M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
to Caesar and losing his case to staying in Asia and keeping possession.[1]
5. "If this custom be brought in, that the wills of the deceased should be sent to Rome from the oversea provinces, the imperilling of wills would be more discreditable and distressing than if it were the custom for the bodies of the deceased, who make their wills oversea, to be sent to Rome. For no further peril can touch them. A corpse is assured of burial in its very mishaps. For whether it be swallowed by the sea in shipwreck, or swept away in a moment by a river, or the sands cover it, whether the beasts of the field devour it, or the birds of the air pick its bodies, the human body is practically buried wherever it is dissolved. But when by shipwreck a will is engulfed, the estate and home and family in question is then and there shipwrecked and lies unburied. Time was when wills used to be brought out from the securest temples of the Gods, from muniment rooms, or chests, or archives, or temple vestries: bid now shall wills sail the stormy seas amid bales of merchandise and rowers' kit. The next thing will even be for them to be jettisoned[2] with a cargo of pulse, should it become necessary to lighten the ship. Moreover, also, an import duty to be levied on wills must be fixed. In time past . . . .[† 1]
6. "But to say something as to the burial. The household would know how to mourn. The slave enfranchised under the will has one way of shewing sorrow, the client mentioned with praise another, another the friend honoured with a legacy. Why throw uncertainty and delay over the funeral rites? In the case of all animals the inheritance is realized at once after death: from sheep the
- ↑ Pius punished conduct of this kind (see Digest, xlii. 4, 7) by adjudging the inheritance to the other claimant.
- ↑ cp. Acts, xxvii. 38.
- ↑ About one page is lost. Hauler, in Misc. Ceriani, pp. 504-520, promises in his forthcoming edition to throw fresh light on the pages Ambr. 65. 66.
