ABSTRACT
The law of succession seems to have passed through three stages of evolution: first, the succession of sacra; second, the succession of status; and third, the succession of property. Each stage of development, however, did not form a distinct period in itself, but the later was gradually evolved out of the earlier by the process of differentiation. In ancient times, the duty of performing and continuing the worship rested on the head of the house. The house-head, as continuator of the ancestral sacra, was, in one sense, the representative of the ancestors. He exercised authority over the members of his house, because he was the representative of their ancestors. He owned the house-propertj, because it had been left by the ancestors. As the power of the house-head over house-members and house-property was the power of his ancestors, and as the continuator of the worship represented his ancestors, whoever succeeded to the house-worship succeeded to the house-headship. In those times, therefore, the continuation of the house-cult formed the sole object of inheritance. As a well-known maxim in the Roman Pontifical Law has it, “Nulla hereditas sine sacris, ” there was no inheritance without worship.
