On the Estate of Nicostratus

and, secondly, the laws, not only those which deal with consanguinity but also those which treat of testamentary disposition, are in favor of kinsmen. For the law allows no one to dispose of his own property if his reason is impaired by old age or disease or the other causes with which you are familiar; but by right of relationship the next-of-kin has an undisputed title to the property of a deceased person, whatever was the state of the latter's faculties.

Beside this, in order to believe in a will, you are obliged to rely on witnesses, by whom it is possible to be deceived—if this were not so, there would be no prosecutions for perjury—but when the claim is based on kinship, you act on your own authority, for the next-of-kin assert their right in accordance with the laws which you have laid down.

In addition to this, gentlemen, if those who claim under the will were admittedly close friends of Nicostratus, even then the conclusive proof would be lacking, though there would be a greater probability that the will could be regarded as genuine; for before now testators, being ill-disposed towards their kinsmen, have preferred strangers who were their friends to their nearest relatives by blood. But in the present case Nicostratus and Chariades were neither members of the same mess nor friends nor members of the same company,[*](There is a lacuna in the text at this point and the sense is incomplete as it stands.) and on all these points we have produced witnesses before you.

And consider this further point, which is of great importance and is the clearest possible proof of Chariades' impudence. Whereas he neither took up the body of his adopted father nor committed it to the flames nor collected the bones, but left all these duties to be done by complete strangers, should he not be regarded as most impious in claiming to inherit the property of the deceased, though he never performed any of the customary rites over him?

Shall I be told that, after having performed none of these duties, he administered Nicostratus's property?[*](This sentence is apparently parenthetic and ironical. There is a further reference in Isaeus 4.26 to certain business relations between Nicostratus and Chariades.) Evidence of these facts, too, has been given you, and even he himself does not deny most of them. Makeshift excuses have, of course, been found to explain all his acts; for what other resource remains to one who expressly admits the facts?

You must now be well aware, gentlemen, that these persons have no legal right to the property of Nicostratus, but wish to deceive you and to deprive my clients, who are his kinsmen, of an inheritance which lawfully belongs to them. Chariades is not the only person who has acted thus; many other claimants to the property of men who have died abroad have arisen, sometimes even without having been acquainted with them.

For they consider that, if they are successful, it will be possible for them to enjoy the property of others, while, if they fail, the risk is inconsiderable; there are always men who are willing to perjure themselves, and the attempted refutations of their evidence are dealing with the unknown. In a word, there is a vast difference between claiming by right of kinship and claiming under a will. But your duty, gentlemen, is first of all to examine the will and decide whether you think that it is genuine; for this is what the laws enjoin and is the justest course.

But since you have no certain personal knowledge of the truth, and since the witnesses to the will were friends not of the deceased but of Chariades, who wishes to seize property which does not belong to him, what could be juster than by your verdict to award the property of a kinsmen to his kinsmen? For, indeed, if anything had happened to my clients, their property would have passed to none other than Nicostratus; for he would have claimed it by the same right of kinship, being their first cousin, the son of their father's own brother.