On the Estate of Menecles

Argument

Menecles adopted a son and lived for twenty-three years after the date of the adoption. When his brothers[*](This is incorrect; there was only one brother, whose son was also apparently associated with him in the case.) claimed his estate, a certain Philonides attested that the estate was not adjudicable, because Menecles had left a son. The brothers then brought an action for perjury against Philonides, and it is against them that the son undertakes the defence of Philonides. The speech, which is in defence of a will, is the counterpart of that delivered “On the Estate of Cleonymus,”[*](Isaeus 1) which upholds the rights of kindred. The discussion concerns a point of law with a controversy on a point of fact; for the speaker affirms that the deceased had the right to adopt a son, and then deals with the point of fact, saying, “It was not under the influence of a woman that he adopted me.”

I think, gentlemen, that, if any adoption was ever made in accordance with the laws, mine was, and no one could ever dare to say that Menecles adopted me in a moment of insanity or under the influence of a woman. But since my uncle, acting, as I assert, under a misapprehension, is trying by every means in his power to deprive his dead brother of descendants, showing no respect for the gods of his family or for any of you, I feel constrained to come to the aid of the father who adopted me, and to my own aid.

I intend, therefore, first to show you that my adoption was appropriate and legal, and that there is no question of adjudicating the estate of Menecles, since he had a son, namely, myself, and that the evidence of the witness was true. I beg and entreat and beseech you all to listen with favor to what I have to say.

My father, gentlemen, Eponymus of Acharnae,[*](A deme of Attica about seven miles north of Athens.) was a friend and close acquaintance of Menecles and lived on terms of intimacy with him; there were four of us children, two sons and two daughters. After my father's death we married our elder sister, when she reached a suitable age, to Leucolophus, giving her a dowry of twenty minae.

Four or five years later, when our younger sister was almost of marriageable age, Menecles lost his first wife. When he had carried out the customary rites over her, he asked for our sister in marriage, reminding us of the friendship which had existed between our father and himself and of his friendly disposition towards ourselves.

Knowing that our father would have given her to no one with greater pleasure, we gave her to him in marriage—not dowerless, as my opponent asserts on every possible occasion, but with the same portion as we gave to our elder sister. In this manner, having been formerly his friends, we became his kinsmen. I should like first to produce evidence that Menecles received a dowry of twenty minae with my sister.

Evidence

Having thus settled our sisters, gentlemen, and, being ourselves of military age, we adopted the career of a soldier and went abroad with Iphicrates to Thrace.[*](See Introduction, p. 39.) Having proved our worth there, we returned hither after saving a little money and we found that our elder sister had two children, but that the younger, the wife of Menecles, was childless.

Two or three months later Menecles, with many expressions of praise for our sister, approached us and said that he viewed with apprehension his increasing age and childlessness: she ought not, he said, to be rewarded for her virtues by having to grow old with him without bearing children;

it was enough that he himself was unfortunate. [His words clearly prove that he loved her when he put her away; for no one utters supplications for one whom he hates.][*](This sentence is inappropriate and has clearly come into the text from a marginal gloss.) He, therefore, begged us to do him the favor of marrying her to someone else with his consent. We told him that it was for him to persuade her in the matter, for we would do whatever she agreed.

At first she would not even listen to his suggestion, but in course of time she with difficulty consented. So we gave her in marriage to Elius of Sphettus,[*](A deme south-west of Athens.) and Menecles handed over her dowry to him—for he had become part-lessee of the estate of the children of Nicias[*](See Introduction, p. 38.)—and he gave her the garments which she had brought with her to his house and the jewelry which there was.

Some time after this Menecles began to consider how he could put an end to his childless condition and have someone to tend his old age and bury him when he died and thereafter carry out the customary rites over him. He saw that my opponent had only one son; so he thought it wrong to ask him to give him his son to adopt and so deprive him of male offspring.

Thus he could find no nearer relative than us; he, therefore, approached us and said that he thought it right, since fate had decreed that he should have no children by our sister, that he should adopt a son out of the family from which he would have wished to have a son of his own in the course of nature; “I should like, therefore,” he said,“to adopt one of you two, whichever is willing.”

My brother, on hearing this,[*](The words bracketed in the text have certainly come in from a marginal note and are unsuited to the context here.) expressed his approval of Menecles' proposal and agreed that his age and solitary condition required someone who would look after him, and remain at home; “I,” he said, “as you know, go abroad; but my brother here” (meaning me) “will look after your affairs as well as mine, if you wish to adopt him.” Menecles approved of his suggestion and thus adopted me.

I wish next to prove to you that the adoption was carried out in the proper legal manner. So please read me the law which ordains that a man can dispose as he likes of his own property, if he does not possess male issue of his own. The law-giver, gentlemen, legislated thus, because he saw that for childless persons the only refuge for their solitary condition, and the only possible comfort in life, lay in the possibility of adopting whomsoever they wished.

The law thus allowing Menecles, because he was childless, to adopt a son, he adopted me, not by a will made at the point of death, as other citizens have done, nor during illness; but when he was sound in body and mind, and fully aware of what he was doing, he adopted me and introduced me to his fellow-wardsmen in the presence of my opponents and enrolled me among the demesmen and the members of his confraternity.[*](A private religious association, cf. Isaeus 9.30.)

At the time my opponents raised no objection to his action on the ground that he was not in his right mind, although it would have been much better to have tried to win him over to their point of view during his lifetime rather than insult him now that he is dead and try to desolate his house. For he lived on after the adoption, not one or two years, but twenty-three, and during all this period he never regretted what he had done, because it was universally acknowledged that he had been well advised in what he did.

To prove the truth of these statements, I will produce before you, as witnesses, the wardsmen, the members of the confraternity, and the demesmen, and, to prove that Menecles was at liberty to adopt me, the clerk of the court shall read you the text of the law in accordance with which the adoption was made. Please read these depositions and the law.

Depositions. Laws.

The law itself makes it clear that Menecles was free to adopt anyone he liked as his son; that he did adopt a son, the wardsmen, the demesmen, and the members of the confraternity have provided evidence. Thus we have clearly proved it, gentlemen, the witness[*](Philonides.) has attested the truth of it, and my opponents cannot say a word against the actual fact of the adoption.

After this, Menecles began to look about for a wife for me, and said I ought to marry. So I married the daughter of Philonides. Menecles exercised the forethought on my behalf which a father would naturally exercise for his son, and I tended him and respected him as though he were my true father, as also did my wife, so that he praised us to all his fellow-demesmen.

That Menecles was not insane or under the influence of a woman but in his right mind when he adopted me, you can easily understand from the following facts. In the first place, my sister, with whom most of my opponent's argument has been concerned, and under whose influence he alleges that Menecles adopted me, had remarried long before the adoption took place, so that, if it had been under her influence that he was adopting his son, he would have adopted one of her boys; for she has two.