On The Estate of Cleonymus (35-39)

which the testator rejected as being incorrect, and which our opponents are actually ready to set aside, since they expressed their willingness to share the estate with us, and which, moreover, we can show to be contrary both to law and to justice and to the intention of the deceased?

You can best learn, I think, the justice of our plea from the statements of our opponents themselves. If they were asked on what grounds they claimed to inherit the property of Cleonymus, they might reply that they are somehow related to him, and that for some time he was on terms of friendship with them. Would not this statement tell in our favor rather than in theirs?

For if the right of succession is based on affinity, we are more closely related to him; if it is to be based on existing friendship, it is common knowledge that it was to us that he was more closely bound by affection. Thus it is from their lips rather than from ours that you must learn the justice of the case.

Now it would be very strange if in all other cases you were to vote in favor of those who prove themselves nearer either in kinship or in friendship to the deceased, but decide that we, who are admitted to possess both these qualifications, alone are to be deprived of all share in his property.

If Polyarchus, the father of Cleonymus and our grandfather, were alive and lacked the necessities of life, or if Cleonymus had died leaving daughters unprovided for, we should have been obliged on grounds of affinity to support our grandfather, and either ourselves marry Cleonymus's daughters or else provide dowries and find other husbands for them—the claims of kinship, the laws, and public opinion in Athens would have forced us to do this or else become liable to heavy punishment and extreme disgrace—