Ambulatoria voluntas and voluntas evidens: the contested inheritance of Valerius Nepos

Abstract

Thanks to a passage from Marcellus (D.28,4,3 29 dig.) we have currently been noticed that Emperor Marcus Aurelius took part in the inheritance legal dispute of a man named Valerius Nepos. In the centre of this controversy a legal matter of certain difficulty was taken place, because the deceased had crossed the heir institution of his will but had leaved the rest of the content intact. This fact made clear that the Nepote’s will had changed, but not in what sense it had been done. Did he want to cancel the whole will, or only that point he erased? What value had to be given to deletion made? This is an interesting case that helps us to understand some of the problems caused by the revocation of the will and voluntas testatoris interpretation. For this reason, we will analyse the way in which the parties, the imperial consilium and the own emperor dealt with the case in order to go deeper in the solution proposed to these problems in the classical period..