Aristodemus Against Leochares Regarding the Estate of Archiades (36-40)

We, seeing what was going on, called witnesses and put a stop to it, holding the view that it was necessary that the right of inheritance should first be decided in your court before anyone should be named as the adopted son of Archiades. He was thwarted then, and convicted in the presence of many witnesses of fraudulent action, both in the matter of the list, and in the assembly for the election of the deme’s officers, yet nevertheless he persisted in trying to force his way in, and by his intrigues to prove himself stronger than your laws. What is the proof of this?

He got together some of the Otrynians with the demarch, and persuaded them at the opening of the adult register to inscribe his name. And after that on the occasion of the great Panathenaea[*] at the time of the distribution, he came to get his admission fee, and when the other demesmen were receiving it, he demanded that it be given him also, and that he should be entered on the register under the name of Archiades. But when we entered a solemn protest, and all the others declared that what he was doing was an outrage, he went away without either having his name inscribed or receiving the admission fee.

Now do you not think that a man, who in defiance of your decree claimed the right to receive the admission fee before his name had been inscribed on the list of the Otrynians, belonging as he did to another deme, would lay claim to an inheritance in defiance of the laws? Or when a man, before the court has rendered its decision, schemes to get advantages so unjust, can you think it reasonable to assume that he relies upon the justice of his case? For he, who fraudulently claimed the right to receive the admission fee, has now obviously practised the same design regarding the inheritance.

Nay more, he even deceived the archon, when he made his deposit for costs to thwart us, and in his counter-statement declared that he was an Otrynian, when he was in fact a demesman among the Eleusinians. When, however, he failed in all these schemes, at the last election of officers the fellow got together some of the demesmen, and demanded that he be registered as the adopted son of Archiades.

Again we protested that the demesmen should give their votes only when the inheritance suit should have been decided, and not before; and to this they agreed, not on their own responsibility, but out of respect for the laws; for it seemed to them an outrageous thing that a man who had made a deposit for costs in an inheritance suit, should get himself adopted as a son while the matter was still undecided; but the thing which this fellow Leostratus contrived after this is the most outrageous of all.