Note 342 — Chapter XV

Gaius, ii., 286: “Unmarried persons who by the lex Julia are debarred from taking inheritances and legacies were in olden times considered capable of taking fideicommissa. Likewise childless persons, who by the lex Papia lose half their inheritance and legacies because they have no children, were in the olden time considered capable of taking fideicommissa in full. But afterward by the senatus consultum Pegasianum they were forbidden to take fideicommissa as well as inheritances and legacies. And those were transferred to those persons named in the testament who had children, or if none of them had children, to the populus, just as the rule is regarding legacies and inheritances.”