On the Estate of Philoctemon (40-44)

When Euctemon's daughters and wife arrived, having learnt the news from others, even then they refused them admittance and shut the door in their faces, declaring that it was not their business to bury Euctemon. They only obtained admittance with difficulty about sunset.

When they entered, they found that he had been dead in the house for two days, as the slaves declared, and that everything in the house had been carried off by these people. While the women, as was right, were attending to the deceased, my clients here immediately called the attention of those who had accompanied them to the state of affairs in the house, and began by asking the slaves in their presence to what place the furniture had been removed.

When they replied that our opponents had conveyed it away to the next house, and my clients immediately claimed the right to search the house in the proper legal manner, and requested that the slaves who had removed it should be produced, our opponents refused to accede to any of their just demands. And to prove that I am speaking the truth, take and read these documents.

Depositions

Having removed all this furniture from the house, and sold so much property and kept the proceeds, and having further made away with the revenue which accrued during that period, they yet expect to obtain possession of what remains; and their impudence is such that, not daring to bring a direct action, they lodged a protestation—as though it were a question of legitimate children—which is at once false and in contradiction to their own previous action.

For, whereas they had inscribed the children before the archon, one as the son of Philoctemon and the other as the son of Ergamenes, they have now stated in their protestation that they are the sons of Euctemon. Yet if they were Euctemon's legitimate sons and had afterwards been adopted,[*] as our opponent states, even so they cannot be described as the sons of Euctemon: for the law does not allow the return of an adopted son to his original family, unless he leaves a legitimate son in the family which he quits. So that in the light of their own acts their evidence is necessarily untrue.