6 It is, however, to be observed that the Emperor Hadrian once relieved even a person who had attained his majority, when, after his accepting the inheritance, a great debt, unknown at the time of acceptance, had come to light. This was but the bestowal of an especial favour on a single individual; the Emperor Gordian subsequently extended the privilege, but only to soldiers, to whom it was granted as a class. We, however, in our benevolence have placed this benefit within the reach of all our subjects, and drafted a constitution as just as it is splendid, under which, if heirs will but observe its terms, they can accept an inheritance without being liable to creditors and legatees beyond the value of the property. Thus so far as their liability is concerned there is no need for them to deliberate on acceptance, unless they fail to observe the procedure of our constitution, and prefer deliberation, by which they will remain liable to all the risks of acceptance under the older law. 7 An external heir, whether his right accrue to him under a will or under the civil law of intestate succession, can take the inheritance either by acting as heir, or by the mere intention to accept. By acting as heir is mean, for instance, using things belonging to the inheritance as one's own, or selling them, or cultivating or giving leases of the deceased's estates, provided only one expresses in any way whatsoever, by deed or word, one's intention to accept the inheritance, so long as one knows that the person with whose property one is thus dealing has died testate or intestate, and that one is that person's heir. To act as heir, in fact, is to act as owner, and the ancients often used the term 'heir' as equivalent to the term 'owner.' And just as the mere intention to accept makes an external heir heir, so too the mere determination not to accept bars him from the inheritance. Nothing prevents a person who is born deaf or dumb, or who becomes so after birth, from acting as heir and thus acquiring the inheritance, provided only he knows what he is doing. TITLE XX. OF LEGACIES Let us now examine legacies:--a kind of title which seems foreign to the matter at hand, for we are expounding titles whereby aggregates of rights are acquired; but as we have treated in full of wills and heirs appointed by will, it was natural in close connexion therewith to consider this mode of acquisition. 1 Now a legacy is a kind of gift left by a person deceased;