On the Estate of Menecles (12-14)

My brother, on hearing this,[*] 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.[*]