[IULIANUS libro trigesimo digestorum. ] §28.5.41.prSi pater familias Titium, quem ingenuum esse credebat, heredem scripserit eique, si heres non esset, Sempronium substituerit, deinde Titius, quia seruus fuerat, iussu domini adierit hereditatem: potest dici Sempronium in partem hereditatis admitti.
[JULIAN, in the thirtieth book of the Digest.] If a paterfamilias has appointed Titius, whom he believed to be freeborn, as his heir, and has substituted Sempronius for him in case he should not be heir, and then Titius, because he was a slave, has entered upon the inheritance by order of his master: it can be said that Sempronius is admitted to a share of the inheritance.
nam qui scit aliquem seruum esse et eum heredem scribit et ita substituit: 'si Stichus heres non erit, Sempronius heres esto', intellegitur tale quod dicere: 'si Stichus neque ipse heres erit neque alium fecerit'.
For he who knows that someone is a slave and appoints him heir and substitutes in this manner: 'if Stichus shall not be heir, let Sempronius be heir', is understood to say something like this: 'if Stichus shall neither be heir himself nor make another heir'.
at qui eum, quem liberum putat esse, heredem scripserit, hoc sermone 'si heres non erit' nihil aliud intellegitur significare, quam si hereditatem uel sibi non adquisierit uel mutata condicione alium heredem non fecerit, quae adiectio ad eos pertinet, qui patres familias heredes scripti postea in seruitutem deducti fuerint.
But he who has appointed as heir one whom he believes to be free is understood to mean nothing else by this phrase 'if he shall not be heir' than if he should either not acquire the inheritance for himself or, his status having changed, should not make another heir; which addition applies to those who, having been appointed heirs as patresfamilias, were afterwards reduced to slavery.
igitur in hoc casu semisses fient ita, ut alter semis inter eum, qui dominus instituti heredis fuerit, et substitutum aequis portionibus diuidatur:
Therefore, in this case, halves will be made in such a way that one of the halves is divided in equal portions between him who was the master of the appointed heir and the substitute.