On the failure of the direct line, the right of succession must diverge
to the collateral branches. The degrees of kindred are numbered by the
civilians, ascending from the last possessor to a common parent, and
descending from the common parent to the next heir: my father stands in
the first degree, my brother in the second, his children in the third,
and the remainder of the series may be conceived by fancy, or pictured
in a genealogical table. In this computation a distinction was made,
essential to the laws and even the constitution of Rome; the _agnats_,
or persons connected by a line of males, were called, as they stood in
the nearest degree, to an equal partition; but a female was incapable of
transmitting any legal claims; and the _cognats_ of every rank, without
excepting the dear relation of a mother and a son, were disinherited by
the _Twelve Tables_, as strangers and aliens. Among the Romans a _gens_
or lineage was united by a common _name_ and domestic rites; the various
_cognomens_ or _surnames_ of Scipio or Marcellus distinguished from each
other the subordinate branches or families of the Cornelian or Claudian
race: the default of the _agnats_, of the same surname, was supplied by
the larger denomination of _gentiles_; and the vigilance of the laws
maintained in the same name the perpetual descent of religion and
property.
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