On the Estate of Hagnias

I have no intention of following his example; instead, I shall state my degree of relationship and the basis of my claim to the estate, and I shall prove, in such a manner as to win your assent, that the child and the former claimants against me for the estate are all outside the limits of kinship. I must state the facts from the beginning; for you will thus recognize my claim as next-of-kin and see that my opponent has no title to the succession.

Hagnias, Eubulides, Stratocles, Stratius, the brother of Hagnias's mother, and I, gentlemen, are all the children of cousins, our fathers having been cousins, the children of brothers by the same father. When Hagnias was preparing to set out as ambassador on that mission[*](See Introduction.) which had such favorable results for the city, he did not leave his possessions, in case anything happened to him, to us, his nearest relatives, but adopted a niece; and if anything happened to her, he devised his property to Glaucon, his half- brother on his mother's side. These dispositions he embodied in a will.

After some interval of time Eubulides died. The daughter whom Hagnias had adopted also died, and Glaucon received the estate in accordance with the will. We never for a moment thought of contesting Hagnias's will, but considered that his intentions regarding his own property ought to be carried into effect, and by these we abode. But the daughter of Eubulides, with the assistance of her confederates, laid claim to the estate and obtained it, having gained an action against those who based their rights on the will. She was outside the prescribed degree of kinship, but hoped, it seems, that we should not bring an action against her, because we had not contested the will either.

But we—that is to say, Stratius, Stratocles, and myself—since the estate had now become adjudicable to the next-of-kin,[*](The will having been set aside, the next-of-kin would have to prove his title to the intestate estate.) all prepared to bring a suit. However, before the hearing of the case, Stratius and Stratocles both died; and thus I am the only surviving relative on the father's side, being the son of a cousin and the only person to whom, according to the law, the estate could pass, all the other relatives having died who possessed the same degree of kinship as myself.

But, it may be asked, how are you to know that I possess the rights of a next-of-kin, while the children of the other cousins, including this child, did not possess them? The law itself will make this clear. It is universally admitted that the rights as next-of-kin belong to cousins on the father's side, including their children, but the point which we have now to examine whether the law grants these rights to our children also. Take, therefore, the law and read it to the court.

Law [If there is no relative on the father's side as far as the degree of the children of cousins, then the right of inheritance passes to the mother's side in the same order of succession.]

Mark you, gentlemen, the legislator did not say that, in default of heirs on the father's side up to the degree of cousin's children, the rights descend to the latter's children; no, in default of us[*](i.e., on the failure of the children of cousins on the male side.), he gives the inheritance to the relatives of the deceased on his mother's side, namely, to brothers and sisters and their children, and so on, in the same order as was laid down before. But he has placed our children outside the right of succession. How, then, can those to whom, even if I were dead, the law does not award Hagnias's estate, imagine that, while I am alive and have a legal right to the property, they themselves can have any title as next-of-kin? Their claim is quite preposterous.

Indeed, if the right of succession is not possessed by those whose fathers stood in the same degree of relationship as myself, neither is it possessed by this child; for his father stood in the same degree as they. Is it not, therefore, outrageous, that, whereas the laws have thus explicitly given me the right of inheritance and have placed my opponents outside the requisite degree of kinship, this fellow should dare to play these pettifogging tricks and, at the moment when I was laying claim to the estate, should think fit, not to bring an action against me and pay the necessary deposit—this being the proper moment to have the question settled, if his claims were well-founded—but to annoy me in the name of this child and make me run the most serious risks?