Greek Texts & Translations

Proclamation shall be made in the market-place to the shedder of blood by a kinsman within the degree of cousin and cousinship, and cousins and sons of cousins and sons-in-law and fathers-in-law and clansmen shall join in the pursuit. To secure condonation, if there be father or brother or sons, all must concur, or whoever opposes shall prevail. And if there be none of these and the slaying was involuntary, and the Fifty-one, the Ephetae, ^note shall agree that the slaying was involuntary, let the clansmen, ten in number, grant the right of entrance to the shedder of blood, if they see fit; and let these be chosen by the Fifty-one according to rank. And those who had shed blood before the enactment of this statute shall be bound by its provisions.—And when persons die in the demes and no one takes them up for burial, let the Demarch give notice to the relatives to take them up and bury them, and to purify the deme on the day on which each of them dies. 43.58In the case of slaves he shall give notice to their masters, and in the case of freemen to those possessing their property; and if the deceased had no property, the Demarch shall give notice to the relatives of the deceased. And if, after the Demarch shall have given notice, the relatives do not take up the body, the Demarch shall contract for the taking up and burial of the body, and for the purification of the deme on the same day at the lowest possible cost. And if he shall not so contract, he shall be bound to pay a thousand drachmae into the public treasury. And whatsoever he shall expend, he shall exact double the amount from those liable; and if he does not exact it he shall himself be under obligation to repay it to the demesmen. And those who do not pay the rents due for the lands of the goddess or of the gods and the eponymous heroes shall be disenfranchised, themselves and their family and their heirs, until they shall make payment.

43.59All these duties which the laws lay upon relatives to perform, they lay upon us, and compel us to perform them, men of the jury. But to Macartatus here they say not a word, nor to Theopompus, his father; for they belong in no sense to the family of Hagnias. Why, then, should the laws lay any duties upon them?

43.60But the defendant, men of the jury, while he has no just argument whatever to make against the laws and the depositions which we produce, makes a show of indignation, and says he is being cruelly treated because, his father being dead, it falls to him to be defendant in this suit. But he does not bear in mind, men of the jury, that his father was a mortal man, and has met his end along with many others both younger and older than himself. Yet if Theopompus, the father of the defendant, is dead, the laws are not dead, nor is justice, nor are the jurymen with whom the verdict rests. 43.61The present contest and the present trial are not to decide whether one man has died before or after another, but whether or not it is right that the kinsmen of Hagnias, cousins and children of cousins to Hagnias on his father's side, should be driven out from the family of Hagnias by persons belonging to the family of Stratius, who have no shadow of right to inherit the estate of Hagnias, but are more remote of kin. This is the question at issue in the present trial.

43.62You will see even more clearly, men of the jury, from the following law, that the lawgiver Solon is very much in earnest in regard to those who are relatives, and not only gives them the property left by the deceased, but also lays upon them all the burdensome obligations.

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The deceased shall be laid out in the house in any way one chooses, and they shall carry out the deceased on the day after that on which they lay him out, before the sun rises. And the men shall walk in front, when they carry him out, and the women behind. And no woman less than sixty years of age shall be permitted to enter the chamber of the deceased, or to follow the deceased when he is carried to the tomb, except those who are within the degree of children of cousins; nor shall any woman be permitted to enter the chamber of the deceased when the body is carried out, except those who are within the degree of children of cousins.

43.63The law does not allow any woman except female relatives within the degree of cousinship to enter the chamber where the deceased lies, and it permits these same women to follow to the tomb. Now Phylomachê, the sister of Polemon, the father of Hagnias, was not cousin to Hagnias, but aunt; for she was sister to Polemon, the father of Hagnias. But Eubulides, the son of this woman, was cousin on his father's side to Hagnias, whose inheritance is in question. And the mother of this boy here was the daughter of Eubulides. 43.64These female relatives the law commanded to be present at the laying out of the deceased, and to follow to the tomb, not the mother of Macartatus nor the wife of Theopompus; for she was in no way related to Hagnias, but was of another tribe, the Acamantis, and of another deme, that of Prospalta, so that she was not even apprised in any way at the time Hagnias lay dead. 43.65It is surely a most outrageous result that these men are scheming to bring about, that forsooth we and the women of our family should inherit the body of Hagnias, when he was dead, and should perform all the proper rites, as being relatives and nearest of kin, but that Macartatus should claim the right to possess the estate of the dead Hagnias, though he belongs to the house of Stratius and is descended from Apolexis, daughter of the Prospaltian and sister of Macartatus. But this is neither just nor righteous, men of the jury.