If the pontiffs gave their consent, the case came before the comitia curiata under the presidency of the chief of the college,[922] who put the question in the following form: “Do you wish and order that L. Valerius be the son of L. Titus by the same legal rights as if born of the father and mother of that family, and that the latter have the power of life and death over the former as a father over a son? This order I request of you, Romans, to grant, just as I have pronounced the words.”[923] The curiae decided by vote.[924] At the same meeting the arrogated son was required to declare that he forsook the religion of the family or gens of his birth—detestatio sacrorum[925]—and by a similar declaration the adrogator received him into the sacra of the new family.[926] This form of adoption could not apply to youths before they had put on the manly gown, or to wards or women; for children and women had no part in an assembly, and guardians were not allowed under any circumstances to place their wards in the power of another.[927] A modification of adrogatio is testamentary adoption, of which the only well-known case is that of Octavius, the heir of the dictator Caesar. Octavius came before a praetor with witnesses and formally accepted the inheritance;[928] afterward he was declared adopted by a vote of the curiae.[929] As this case is nearly akin to the adrogatio, there can be no doubt that the vote was taken in the calata comitia under pontifical presidency.[930] Distinct from the adrogatio, though analogous to it, was the direct passing of individuals and of gentes from the patrician to the plebeian rank—transitio ad plebem. The motive was a desire to qualify for the tribunate of the plebs,[931] or more generally to widen the range of one’s eligibility to office.[932] The history of the republic affords several instances of the transition of individuals;[933] and two plebeian gentes, the Octavia[934] and the Minucia,[935] boasted of having passed over from the patricians. Even if these boasts rest upon genealogical falsifications,[936] the Romans thought such an act legally possible; and they formulated a process applicable to every case whether of individuals or of gentes. It was through some other ceremony than the adrogatio, for the latter could not apply to groups of persons. Clodius was following the more general procedure here referred to when in the year 60 he tried to make himself a plebeian without recourse to adrogatio. First he abdicated his nobility by an oath, probably taken in the comitia calata;[937] then coming before an assembly of the plebs, he held himself ready to receive plebeian rights through a resolution introduced by the tribune Herennius.[938] The process allowed the retention of the name, sacra, and all other privileges not dependent on the patriciate.[939] But Metellus, the consul, objected that a curiate law was needed to make the act valid, and the senate evidently agreed with him.[940]