Histories

They keep all oracles that are given, though the Pythians also know them. The kings alone judge cases concerning the rightful possessor of an unwedded heiress, if her father has not betrothed her, and cases concerning public roads.

If a man desires to adopt a son, it is done in the presence of the kings. They sit with the twenty-eight elders in council; if they do not come, the elders most closely related to them hold the king's privilege, giving two votes over and above the third which is their own.[*](“Herodotus, though the expression is obscure, probably means not that each king had two votes, but that two votes were given for the two absent kings, and that the vote of the relative who acted as proxy for both was the third.” How and Wells, p. 87.)