Each clan and family had certain sacred rights, peculiar to itself, which were inherited in the same manner as effects. When heirs by the father's side of the same family failed, those of the same gens succeeded in preference to relations by the mother's side of the same family. No one could pass from a Patrician family to a Plebeian, or from a Plebeian to a Patrician, unless by that form of adoption which could only be made at the _comitia curiata_. No Roman citizen could marry a slave, barbarian or foreigner, unless by the permission of the people. A father among the Romans had the power of life and death over his children. He could not only expose them when infants, but when grown up he might imprison, scourge, send them bound to work in the country, and also put them to death by any punishment he pleased. A son could acquire no property but with his father's consent, and what he thus acquired was called his _peculium_ as of a slave. Things with respect to property among the Romans were variously divided. Some were said to be of divine right, and were held sacred, as altars, temples, or any thing publicly consecrated to the gods, by the authority of the Pontiffs; or religious, as sepulchres--or inviolable, as the walls and gates of a city. Others were said to be of human right, and called profane. These were either public and common, as the air, running water, the sea and its shores; or private, which might be the property of individuals. None but a Roman citizen could make a will, or be witnesses to a testament, or inherit any thing by it. The usual method of making a will after the laws of the twelve tables were enacted, was by brass and balance, as it was called. In the presence of five witnesses, a weigher and witness, the testator by an imaginary sale disposed of his family and property to one who was called _familiæ emptor_, who was not the heir as some have thought, but only admitted for the sake of form, that the testator might seem to have alienated his effects in his life time. This act was called _familiæ mancipatio_. Sometimes the testator wrote his will wholly with his own hand, in which case it was called _hologrăphum_--sometimes it was written by a friend, or by others. Thus the testament of Augustus was written partly by himself, and partly by two of his freedmen. Testaments were always subscribed by the testator, and usually by the witnesses, and sealed with their seals or rings. They were likewise tied with a thread drawn thrice through holes and sealed; like all other civil deeds, they were always written in Latin. A legacy expressed in Greek was not valid. They were deposited either privately in the hands of a friend, or in a temple with the keeper of it. Thus Julius Cæsar is said to have intrusted his testament to the oldest of the vestal virgins.