Sositheus Against Macartatus in Regard to the Estate of Hagnias (25-28)

Again, then, I ask you, men of the jury, which is nearer of kin and more closely related to the first Hagnias, Hagnias, the son of Polemon, and Eubulides, the son of Phylomachê and Philagrus, or Theopompus, the son of Charidemus and grandson of Stratius? I am of the opinion, men of the jury, that if the son and the daughter are the nearest of kin, so, too, the son’s son and the daughter’s son are more nearly related than the son of a nephew and one who is a member of another branch of the family.

Well, to Theopompus was born a son, Macartatus, the defendant, and to Eubulides, the son of Phylomachê, and cousin of Hagnias on his father’s side; this boy, who is to Hagnias the son of a first cousin on the father’s side; since Phylomachê, the mother of Eubulides and Polemon, the father of Hagnias, were brother and sister, born of the same father and the same mother. But to Macartatus here, the son of Theopompus, there has been no issue which is both in the family of Hagnias and in that of Stratius.

Such being the facts, this boy here has one of the titles mentioned in the law, and up to which the law ordains that the right of succession should extend; for he is the child of the first cousin of Hagnias, since his father Eubulides was cousin to Hagnias, whose inheritance is in question. Theopompus, on the contrary, the father of the defendant Macartatus, could not have appropriated to himself any one of the titles mentioned in the law, for he belonged to another branch of the family, that of Stratius.

But it is not fitting, men of the jury, that any man whatsoever should possess the estate of Hagnias, one who belongs to another branch, so long as there is left any one of those born of the branch of Hagnias; no, nor is it right to expel such person by violence, as these men are trying to do, while they are themselves more distantly related, and not of the same branch of the family. For this, men of the jury, is the point upon which Theopompus, the father of the defendant Macartatus, misled the jury.