[IULIANUS libro uicensimo septimo digestorum. ] §38.2.23.prSi libertus praeterito patrono extraneum instituerit heredem et patronus, antequam contra tabulas bonorum possessionem petierit, in adoptionem se dederit, deinde scriptus omiserit hereditatem: patronus totorum bonorum liberti possessionem ut legitimus petere potest.
[IULIANUS, in the twenty-seventh book of Digests.] If a freedman, passing over his patron, has appointed a stranger as his heir, and the patron, before petitioning for possession of goods contrary to the tablets of the will, has given himself in adoption, and then the appointed heir has rejected the inheritance: the patron can petition for the possession of the whole of the goods of the freedman as a statutory successor.
§38.2.23.1Si libertus intestato decesserit relictis patroni filio et ex altero filio duobus nepotibus, nepotes non admittentur, quamdiu filius esset, quia proximum quemque ad hereditatem liberti uocari manifestum est.
If a freedman dies intestate, leaving a son of his patron and two grandsons by another son, the grandsons will not be admitted as long as the son is alive, because it is manifest that each nearest relative is called to the inheritance of a freedman.
§38.2.23.2Si autem ex duobus patronis alter unum filium, alter duos reliquisset, dixi uiriles inter eos partes fieri.
If, however, of two patrons, one had left one son and the other two, I said that equal shares are created among them.