[ALFENUS libro quinto digestorum. ] §28.5.45.prPater familias testamento duos heredes instituerat: eos monumentum facere iusserat in diebus certis: deinde ita scripserat: 'qui eorum non ita fecerit, omnes exheredes sunto': alter heres hereditatem praetermiserat, reliquus heres consulebat, cum ipse monumentum exstruxisset, numquid minus heres esset ob eam rem, quod coheres eius hereditatem non adisset.
[ALFENUS, in the fifth book of the Digests.] A paterfamilias had appointed two heirs in his will; he had ordered them to build a monument within a specified number of days, and then he had written as follows: "Whichever of them does not do so, let them all be disinherited." One of the heirs had declined the inheritance; the remaining heir, since he himself had built the monument, consulted as to whether he was any less of an heir on account of the fact that his co-heir had not entered upon the inheritance.
respondit neminem ex alterius facto hereditati neque alligari neque exheredari posse, sed uti quisque condicionem implesset, quamuis nemo adisset praeterea, tamen eum heredem esse.
He replied that no one can be either bound to an inheritance or disinherited by the act of another, but that according as each person had fulfilled the condition, even though no one else had entered upon the inheritance, he was nevertheless an heir.