were excluded. According to the law of the twelve tablets, the oldest written law of Rome known to us, the natural children had the first title to the estate; in case no natural children existed, the agnati (kin of male lineage) took their place; and last in line came the gentiles. In all cases the property remained in the gens. Here we observe the gradual introduction of new legal provisions, caused by increased wealth and monogamy, into the gentile practice. The originally equal right of inheritance of the gentiles was first limited in practice to the agnati, no doubt at a very remote date, and afterwards to the natural children and their offspring of male lineage. Of course this appears in the reverse order on the twelve
- Possession of a common burial ground. The patrician gens Claudia, on immigrating into Rome from Regilli, was assigned to a separate lot of land and received its own burial ground in the city. As late as the time of Augustus, the head of Varus, who had been killed in the Teutoburger Wald, was brought to Rome and interred in the gentilitius tumulus; hence his gens (Quinctilia) still had its own tomb.
- Common religious rites. These are well-known under the name of sacra gentilitia.
- Obligation not to intermarry in the gens. It seems that this was never a written law in Rome, but the custom remained. Among the innumerable names of Roman couples preserved for us there is not a single case, where husband and wife had the same gentile name. The law of inheritance proves the same rule. By marrying, a woman loses her agnatic privileges, discards her gens, and neither she nor her children have any title to her father's estate nor to that of his brothers, because otherwise the gens of her father would lose his property. This rule has a meaning only then when the woman is not permitted to marry a gentile.