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. TITLE VII. OF THE SUCCESSION TO FREEDMEN Let us now turn to the property of freedmen. These were originally allowed to pass over their patrons in their wills with impunity: for by the statute of the Twelve Tables the inheritance of a freedman devolved on his patron only when he died intestate without leaving a family heir. If he died intestate, but left a family heir, the patron was not entitled to any portion of this property, and this, if the family heir was a natural child, seemed to be no grievance; but if he was an adoptive child, it was clearly unfair that the patron should be debarred from all right to the succession. 1 Accordingly this injustice of the law was at a later period corrected by the praetor's Edict, by which, if a freedman made a will, he was commanded to leave his patron half his property; and, if he left him nothing at all, or less than a half, possession of such half was given to him against the testament. If, on the other hand, he died intestate, leaving as family heir an adoptive son, the patron could obtain even against the latter possession of the goods of the deceased to the extent of onehalf. But the freedman was enabled to exclude the patron if he left natural children, whether in his power at the time of his death, or emancipated or given in adoption, provided that he made a will in which he instituted them heirs to any part of the succession, or that, being passed over, they demanded possession against the will under the Edict: