On the Estate of Hagnias (25-29)

If, on the other hand, they had no claim by right of kinship, why should I have agreed to give them a share, when the laws have given me the right of succession to the whole estate? Was it then impossible for me to make my claim without their consent? But the law gives full liberty to anyone who likes to make a claim, so that they could not possibly make this allegation. Did I then require some evidence from them material to my case, in default of which I was unlikely to secure the adjudication of the estate? No, I was claiming by right of kinship, not of testamentary disposition, so that I had no need of witnesses.

And indeed, if it was impossible for me to have made an arrangement with Stratocles in his lifetime; if his father did not bequeath the estate to him, since he never had any of it adjudicated to him; if it was unlikely that I should have agreed to give the child half the inheritance; and since you awarded me the estate by your adjudication and my opponents brought no action at the time and have never yet thought of disputing the estate—how can you believe their allegations to be true? In my opinion you cannot possibly do so.

Seeing that you might reasonably be astonished that they did not at the time bring a suit claiming half the estate, my opponent pretends that I was the cause of their not bringing a suit against the other parties, because I had agreed to give them a share and so they did not make the necessary deposit, while they allege that the laws forbade them to bring a suit against me on the ground that orphans may not bring actions against their guardians. Both these statements are untrue.

For my opponent could not point to any law which forbids him to bring a private action against me on behalf of the child; for no law exists which is opposed to such a proceeding, but, just as the law has granted the right to bring a public indictment against me, so it has created the opportunity either for me or the child to bring a private suit. Again, it was not because I agreed to give them a share that they failed to bring an action against the other parties who were in possession of the estate, but because they had absolutely no right to this money.

I am convinced that even had I agreed to let the child receive from me by the adjudication of the court a half of the inheritance, they would never have carried out this bargain or attempted to do so; they know perfectly well, that if, being outside the requisite degree of kinship, they had been in possession of anything which did not belong to them, they would have been easily deprived of it by the next-of-kin. For, as I said before, the law does not give any rights at all as next-of-kin to our children after us, but transfers them to the relatives of the deceased on his mother's side.