9. Senator, Praetorian Praefect, to Paschasius, Praefect of the Corn-Distributions[825].

African claims to succeed to estate of an intestate countryman.

[To make this letter intelligible we must presuppose a custom, certainly a very extraordinary one, by which on the death of an African without heirs, any other African in Italy was allowed to claim the inheritance. By 'African,' no doubt, we must understand one of the indigenous inhabitants of Africa, perhaps a man of Negro race. The custom certainly cannot have applied to African Provincials of Roman descent. It was perhaps based on some old tribal notions of joint possession and mutual inheritance.]

'It is a work of wondrous kindness to oblige a foreign race with public benefits, and not only to invite blood relations to enjoy the advantages of property, but to permit even strangers to share them. This kind of heirship is independent of the ties of kindred, independent of succession from parents, and requires nothing else save only power to utter the speech of the fatherland.

'This is the privilege which, as the African asserts, was of old bestowed on his race. By virtue thereof they lawfully demand the inheritance of others, and thus obtain a right which the Roman in a similar case could never claim. Nor have they this benefit in their own land; but here they are for this purpose looked upon as all related to one another.

'The whole nation, in what relates to the advantages of succession, is regarded as one family.

'Your Experience is therefore to submit the subject of this man's petition to a diligent examination, and if it shall turn out, as he alleges, that the deceased has left no sons nor other persons who might reasonably claim to succeed him, your official staff is to induct him into the aforesaid property according to the established usage.

'He will thus cease to be a foreigner, and will acquire the status of a native possessor, and therewith the usual liability to pay tribute. He is inferior to other owners only in this one point, that he lacks the power of alienating his property. Let him who has derived so much benefit from our commiseration now relieve others. Fortunate and enviable has turned out his captivity[826], which enables him at one and the same time to enjoy the citizenship of Rome and the privileges of the African.'