subject to legacies. Written testamentary instruments assumed thereupon a new value, as a security against the fraudulent refusal of the heir to satisfy the legatees; but to the last it was at the Testator's pleasure to rely exclusively on the testimony of the witnesses, and to declare by word of mouth the legacies which the familiæ emptor was commissioned to pay.
The terms of the expression Emptor familiæ demand notice. "Emptor" indicates that the Will was literally a sale, and the word "familiæ," when compared with the phraseology in the Testamentary clause in the Twelve Tables, leads us to some instructive conclusions. "Familia," in classical Latinity, means always a man's slaves. Here, however, and generally in the language of ancient Roman law, it includes all persons under his Potestas, and the Testator's material property or substance is understood to pass as an adjunct or appendage of his household. Turning to the law of the Twelve Tables, it will be seen that it speaks of tutela rei suæ, "the guardianship of his substance," a form of expression which is the exact reverse of the phrase just examined. There does not therefore appear to be any mode of escaping from the conclusion, that, even at an era so comparatively recent as that of the Decemviral compromise, terms denoting "household" and "property" were blended in the current phraseology. If a man's household had been
