It is here necessary to explain the way in which the degrees of natural relationship are reckoned. In the first place it is to be observed that they can be counted either upwards, or downwards, or crosswise, that is to say, collaterally. Relations in the ascending line are parents, in the descending line, children, and similarly uncles and aunts paternal and maternal. In the ascending and descending lines a man's nearest cognate may be related to him in the first degree; in the collateral line he cannot be nearer to him than the second.

1 Relations in the first degree, reckoning upwards, are the father and mother; reckoning downwards, the son and daughter.

2 Those in the second degree, upwards, are grandfather and grandmother; downwards, grandson and granddaughter;

3 and in the collateral line brother and sister. In the third degree, upwards, are the greatgrandfather and greatgrandmother; downwards, the greatgrandson and greatgranddaughter; in the collateral line, the sons and daughters of a brother or sister, and also uncles and aunts paternal and maternal. The father's brother is called 'patruus,' in Greek 'patros', the mother's brother avunculus, in Greek specifically 'matros,' though the term theios is used indifferently to indicate either. The father's sister is called 'amita,' the mother's 'matertera'; both go in Greek by the name 'theia,' or, with some, 'tithis.'

4 In the fourth degree, upwards, are the greatgreatgrandfather and the greatgreatgrandmother; downwards, the greatgreatgrandson and the great-great-granddaughter; in the collateral line, the paternal greatuncle and greataunt, that is to say, the grandfather's brother and sister: the same relations on the grandmother's side, that is to say, her brother and sister: and first cousins male and female, that is, children of brothers and sisters in relation to one another. The children of two sisters, in relation to one another, are properly called 'consobrini,' a corruption of 'consororini'; those of two brothers, in relation to one another, 'fratres patrueles,' if males, 'sorores patrueles,' if females; and those of a brother and a sister, in relation to one another, 'amitini'; thus the sons of your father's sister call you 'consobrinus,' and you call them 'amitini.'

5 In the fifth degree, upwards, are the grandfather's great-grandfather and great-grandmother, downwards, the great-grandchildren of one's own grandchildren, and in the collateral line the grandchildren of a brother or sister, a great-grandfather's or great-grandmother's brother or sister, the children of one's first cousins, that is, of a 'frater-' or 'soror patruelis,' of a 'consobrinus' or 'consobrina,' of an 'amitinus' or 'amitina,' and first cousins once removed, that is to say, the children of a great-uncle or great-aunt paternal or maternal.

6 In the sixth degree, upwards, are the great-grandfather's great-grandfather and great-grandmother; downwards, the great-grandchildren of a great-grandchild, and in the collateral line the great-grandchildren of a brother or sister, as also the brother and sister of a great-great-grandfather or great-great-grandmother, and second cousins, that is to say, the children of 'fratres-' or 'sorores patrueles,' of 'consobrini,' or of 'amitini.'

7 This will be enough to show how the degrees of relationship are reckoned; for from what has been said it is easy to understand how we ought to calculate the remoter degrees also, each generation always adding one degree: so that it is far easier to say in what degree any one is related to some one else than to indicate his relationship by the proper specific term.

8 The degrees of agnation are also reckoned in the same manner;

9 but as truth is fixed in the mind of man much better by the eye than by the ear, we have deemed it necessary, after giving an account of the degree of relationship, to have a table of them inserted in the present book, that so the youth may be able by both ears and eyes to gain a most perfect knowledge of them. [Note:—the pedagogical table is omitted in the present edition.]

10 It is certain that the part of the Edict in which the possession of goods is promised to the next of kin has nothing to do with the relationships of slaves with one another, nor is there any old statute by which such relationships were recognised. However, in the constitution which we have issued with regard to the rights of patrons—a subject which up to our times had been most obscure, and full of difficulties and confusion—we have been prompted by humanity to grant that if a slave shall beget children by either a free woman or another slave, or conversely if a slave woman shall bear children of either sex by either a freeman or a slave, and both the parents and the children (if born of a slave woman) shall become free, or if the mother being free, the father be a slave, and subsequently acquire his freedom, the children shall in all these cases succeed their father and mother, and the patron's rights lie dormant. And such children we have called to the succession not only of their parents, but also of one another reciprocally, by this enactment, whether those born in slavery and subsequently manumitted are the only children, or whether there be others conceived after their parents had obtained their freedom, and whether they all have the same father and mother, or the same father and different mothers, or vice versa; the rules applying to children born in lawful wedlock being applied here also.

11 To sum up all that we have said, it appears that persons related in the same degree of cognation to the deceased are not always called together, and that even a remoter is sometimes preferred to a nearer cognate. For as family heirs and those whom we have enumerated as equivalent to family heirs have a priority over all other claimants, it is clear that a great-grandson or great-great-grandson is preferred to a brother, or the father or mother of the deceased; and yet the father and mother, as we have remarked above, are in the first degree of cognation, and the brother is in the second, while the great-grandson and great-great-grandson are only in the third and fourth respectively. And it is immaterial whether the descendant who ranks among family heirs was in the power of the deceased at the time of his death, or out of it through having been emancipated or through being the child of an emancipated child or a child of the female sex.

12 When there are no family heirs, and none of those persons who we have said rank as such, an agnate who has lost none of his agnatic rights, even though very many degrees removed from the deceased, is usually preferred to a nearer cognate; for instance, the grandson or great-grandson of a paternal uncle has a better title than a maternal uncle or aunt. Accordingly, in saying that the nearest cognate is preferred in the succession, or that, if there are several cognates in the nearest degree, they are called equally, we mean that this is the case if no one is entitled to priority, according to what we have said, as either being or ranking as a family heir, or as being an agnate; the only exceptions to this being emancipated brothers and sisters of the deceased who are called to succeed him, and who, in spite of their loss of status, are preferred to other agnates in a remoter degree than themselves.