Tacitus, Roman Wills and Political Freedom

In a well-known letter to his friend Rufinus (8.18), Pliny the Younger opens with, and then develops, a remark about the will of one Domitius Tullus. There seems to have been a popular belief (quod creditur vulgo), formulated as an aphorism, to the effect that "men's wills are a mirror of their characters" (testamenta hominum speculum esse morum). But Tullus, a man of low repute who had assembled his estate by shady practices and who had tempted the legacy hunters, turns out to have made a fine will, characterized by pietas toward his adopted daughter whom he named heir, by generous legacies to his grandsons and great-grandson, and by generous provisions for the wife of his infirm old age. All this notwithstanding, Rome was alive with gossip (ergo varii tota civitate sermones ... ), much of it malicious, speculating on the motives behind this paradox of the bad man who had made so good a will.