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most striking aspects of this development was the growing popularity of corporate legatees in lieu of individuals, and the appointment of a conditional corporate heir in the event that the original nominee either refused to accept or failed to satisfy the prescribed demands. As an example, one may cite the following inscription, which was discovered at Pisa:
Marcus Naevius Restitutus, the son of Marcus, of the Galerian tribe, a soldier of the tenth praetorian cohort, rests here. In my will I have left 4,000 sesterces to the guild of the shipyard workers at the most ancient and loyal anchorage of the Pisans, from the interest on which they are to celebrate the parentalia and rosalia each year at my tomb. But if they fail to do so, then the carpenters of Pisa, after they have received 4,000 sesterces from the shipyard workers in restitution, will be obliged to honour me under these same conditions.
The sum involved here is quite modest - a mere 1 per cent of the 400,000 sesterces required for membership in the equestrian order, which in turn was only one-third of the census qualification for senators but pragmatists who suspected that they would quickly be forgotten, or reduced to the fare that Ovid recommended in the Fasti (see above), were to be encountered at every level of society, and not simply within the elite. As we have intimated earlier, it was the fear of neglect, or of shabby treatment, that was the real driving force behind such highly creative arrangements as we observe here.
This is what we discover as we move forward in time from Cicero's day. Could it not be argued, then, that property would have been still less intrusive in the preceding centuries? This would certainly explain, for example, Cicero's otherwise anachronistic insistence at one point that "these rites shall always be preserved and handed down without interruption in our families" (Leg. 2.47). A priori, this conclusion would seem self-evident; unfortunately, it would be exceedingly difficult if not impossible to prove simply because in the Law of the Twelve Tables, our oldest legal text (traditionally dated to the mid-fifth century B.C.), kinship and property are inseparable. This law
138
JOHN KARL EVANS
most striking aspects of this development was the growing popularity of corporate legatees in lieu of individuals, and the appointment of a conditional corporate heir in the event that the original nominee either refused to accept or failed to satisfy the prescribed demands. As an example, one may cite the following inscription, which was discovered at Pisa:
Marcus Naevius Restitutus, the son of Marcus, of the Galerian tribe, a soldier of the tenth praetorian cohort, rests here. In my will I have left 4,000 sesterces to the guild of the shipyard workers at the most ancient and loyal anchor- age of the Pisans, from the interest on which they are to celebrate the parentalia and rosalia each year at my tomb. But if they fail to do so, then the carpenters of Pisa, after they have received 4,000 sesterces from the shipyard workers in restitution, will be obliged to honour me under these same conditions.
The sum involved here is quite modest - a mere 1 per cent of the 400,000 sesterces required for membership in the equestrian order, which in turn was only one-third of the census qualifica- tion for senators but pragmatists who suspected that they would quickly be forgotten, or reduced to the fare that Ovid recommended in the Fasti (see above), were to be encountered at every level of society, and not simply with:n the elite. As we have intimated earlier, it was the fear of neglect, or of shabby treatment, that was the real driving force behind such highly creative arrangements as we observe here.
This is what we discover as we move forward in time from Cicero's day. Could it not be argued, then, that property would have been still less intrusive in the preceding centuries? This would certainly explain, for example, Cicero's otherwise anach- ronistic insistence at one point that "these rites shall always be preserved and handed down without interruption in our fami- lies" (Leg. 2.47). A priori, this conclusion would seem self- evident; unfortunately, it would be exceedingly difficult if not impossible to prove simply because in the Law of the Twelve Tables, our oldest legal text (traditionally dated to the mid-fifth century B.C.), kinship and property are inseparable. This law
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