Περὶ τοῦ Κίρωνος κλήρου
. [Or. VIII.] ‘On the Estate of Ciron’. — Ciron married his first-cousin, by whom he had one daughter. This daughter was married, first, to Nausimenes; secondly, to another husband by whom she had two sons, of whom the eldest is the speaker. After the death of his first wife, Ciron married the sister of one Diocles, and had by her two sons, both of whom died young. At the death of Ciron, his estate was claimed by his daughter's eldest son. But the son of Ciron's brother, instigated by Diocles, set up a counter-claim on two distinct grounds: 1. That Ciron's grandson is illegitimate: 2. That, supposing him legitimate, a brother's son has a better claim than a daughter's son. This speech is the defendant's answer. The only indication of the date is that the speaker and his brother were born after the archonship of Eucleides, Ol. 94. 2, 403 B.C. (§ 43, μετ᾽ Εὐκλείδην γὰρ ἄρχοντα γεγόναμεν). The speech cannot, then, be put before 383 B.C. On the other hand, the speaker's plea of ‘utter inexperience’ (§ 5) implies youthfulness. Now, if he was a young man, the date cannot be much below 383, since otherwise it would have been superfluous for him to tell the judges that he was born after 403. The date is probably about 375 B.C. — Attic Orators, II. 327 f. This speech exhibits the powers of Isaeus perhaps at their best, in its combination of the old plainness with the modern force, of artistic narrative with trenchant proof. It is here given in full, with the exception of four sections at the end (43 — 46).§§ 1 — 42.
ἐπὶ τοῖς τοιούτοις ‘Indignation must necessarily be felt, judges, in a case where men not only dare to claim the property of others, but also hope by their own assertions to abolish the privileges which the laws confer’: i.e. not only does the claimant seek to deprive me of property which in fact is mine, but he also mis-states the law on the subject. The first clause refers to the claimant's statement that the speaker's mother was not the legitimate daughter of Ciron: the second, to his statement that a brother's son inherits before a daughter's son. οὗτοι viz. the nephew of Ciron, and Diocles, the brother of Ciron's second wife, who abetted the nephew: cp. § 3. ὡς οὐκ...ὄντας, Οὐδὲ γενομένης ‘alleging that we are not the sons of his daughter, and that he never had a daughter at all’: γενομένης, gen. absol. to which ὡς belongs as well as to ὄντας. — οὐδέ, Reiske for the mss. οὔτε.αὐτούς...τούτων] τούτων referring to the same persons as αὐτούς: cp. Andoc. De Myst. § 64, αὐτοῖς followed by ἐκείνοις, p. 41. τό <τε> πλῆθος mss. τὸ πλῆθος: Baiter and Sauppe, τό τε πλῆθος. Scheibe, with Schömann, καὶ τὸ πλῆθος. ἔχουσι...κρατοῦσι ‘have taken by force, and (still) hold in their grasp’.
τὴν μὲν οὖν κρίσιν, κ.τ.λ. ‘Now you must not suppose that in this trial my real adversary is the man who has instituted the claim; it is Diocles of Phlya, surnamed Orestes. For it is he who has suborned (παρασκευάσας) the claimant to vex us with these proceedings, because he himself is withholding (ἀποστερῶν) from us the property which our grandfather bequeathed’. — Isaeus wrote two speeches, now lost, againt this man, κατὰ Διοκλέους ὕβρεως (perh. in the γραφή noticed below, § 41) and πρὸς Διοκλέα περὶ χωρίου, fragg. VIII. IX. Sauppe O. A. II. 230. — Ὀρέστην: a nickname for any violent character, borrowed from the robber mentioned by Aristophanes (with an allusion to the orestes of Eurip.), Acharn. 1166, εἶτα κατάξειέ τις αὐτοῦ μεθύων τῆς κεφαλῆς Ὀρέστης μαινόμενος. (Attic Orators, II. 328.)
ὥσπερ καὶ τὸ δίκαιόν ἐστι ‘even as justice prescribes’, stronger than δίκαιόν ἐστιν: cp. Plat. Legg. 630 E, ὥσπερ τό τε ἀληθές, οἶμαι, καὶ τὸ δίκαιον ὑπέρ γε θείας (ἀρετῆς) διαλεγομένους λέγειν, as truth and justice prescribe that we should speak in discussing superhuman excellence: Laches 181 c, ὥσπερ τὸ δίκαιον, as right enjoins.
πρὸς παρασκευὰς λόγων καὶ μάρτυρας, κ.τ.λ. ‘against fabricated statements and witnesses whose depositions are false’; cp. Dem. Adv. Onet. I. § 3, οἶδα μὲν οὖν, ὦ ἄνδρες δικασταί, ὅτι μοι πρὸς παρασκευὰς λόγων καὶ μάρτυρας οὐ τἀληθῆ μαρτυρήσοντας ὁ ἀγών ἐστιν. And so, too, the phrase here, ἔστι μὲν οὖν χαλεπόν, ὦ ἄνδρες,...εἰς ἀγῶνα καθίστασθαι περὶ τηλικούτων, has an echo in Dem. Adv. Aphob. I. § 2, οἶδα μὲν οὖν, ὦ ἄνδρες δικασταί, ὅτι πρὸς ἄνδρας καὶ λέγειν ἱκανοὺς καὶ παρασκευάσασθαι δυναμένους χαλεπόν ἐστιν εἰς ἀγῶνα καθίστασθαι περὶ τῶν ὄντων ἁπάντων. Demosthenes was doubtless aided by the counsel of Isaeus in preparing for the contests with Aphobus and Onetor, though these earliest speeches of Demosthenes have a thoroughly original stamp: see Attic Orators, II. 267 — 269. οὐ μὴν ἀλλὰ...προσδοκώμενον ‘At the same time, I have strong hopes that you will ratify my just claims, and also that in stating these claims — if in nothing else — my own part will be duly done, — unless some such mischance befall as I apprehend just now’ [where ‘just’ will render τυγχάνει]: alluding, apparently, either to an indisposition from which the speaker was suffering, or to some interruption or annoyance which he anticipated from his opponents. In either case, the clause ἂν μή τι συμβῇ, κ.τ.λ. is evidently an appeal bespeaking the sympathy of the judges. βοηθῆσαί μοι τὰ δίκαια=βοηθῆσαί μοι τὴν δικαίαν βοήθειαν, ‘to give me your righteous aid’, concise for βοηθοῦντας ἀποδοῦναί μοι τὰ δίκαια: so Isae. or. IV. § 4, δέομαι ὑμῶν...βοηθεῖν μοι τὰ δίκαια. Cp. Lysias or. XXXIV. § 10, πιστεύοντας μὲν τοῖς θεοῖς καὶ ἐλπίζοντας τὸ δίκαιον μετὰ τῶν ἀδικουμένων ἔσεσθαι, note, p. 242.
λόγων ἀκοῇ καὶ μαρτύρων...τοῖς εἰδόσι χρ. μάρτυσιν ‘(I will prove this to you), in regard to the events further back, by statements at second-hand, vouched for by those who heard them (λόγων ἀκοῇ καὶ μαρτύρων); in regard to events within living memory, by witnesses personally cognizant of the facts (τοῖς εἰδόσι χρώμενος μάρτυσι）’. — λόγων ἀκοῇ καὶ μαρτύρων: lit. ‘by the hearing of reports (object. gen.) and the hearing (thereof) by witnesses (subject. gen.）’: i.e. I will bring witnesses who can vouch for ἀκοὴ λόγων, things which are not, indeed, within their personal knowledge, but which they know from hearsay. Cp. Thuc. I. 73, τὰ πάνυ παλαιὰ τί δεῖ λέγειν; ὧν ἀκοαὶ μᾶλλον λόγων μάρτυρες (for which the evidences are rather hearsay reports) ἢ ὄψις τῶν ἀκουσομένων. So below, § 29, τῶν μὲν παλαιῶν (neut.) ἀκοὴν μαρτυρούντων παρεχόμενος, τῶν δὲ ἔτι ζώντων (masc.) τοὺς εἰδότας ἕκαστα τούτων. ἔτι δὲ τεκμηρίοις ‘and, further, by positive proofs’: τεκμηρίοις, here, logical inferences from established facts, as opp. to μαρτυρίαι, allegations tending to establish facts: cp. Antiph. De Caed. Her. § 81, note, p. 215. ὅθεν οὖν ἤρξαντο...διδάσκειν ‘Starting, then, from the point at which they [the claimants] began their account of the matter, [αὐτῶν=τῶν χρημάτων, the history of the bequest,] I will endeavour to give you my version of it’.
τὴν ἐμὴν τήθην, κ.τ.λ. The first wife of Ciron was also his first-cousin (ἀνεψιά), and was the grandmother (τήθη) of the speaker. — αὐτὴν γεγενημένην: αὐτήν is not, I think, redundant (as in Isae. or. III. § 73, τὴν θυγατέρα τὴν ἐκ ταύτης ἀποφανθεῖσαν εἶναι — ἐπίδικον καταλιπεῖν αὐτήν), but=ipsam, emphatic, in symmetry with αὑτοῦ, ‘herself the child of his own mother's sister’ — a way of marking, on the speaker's part, that he and his brother, the children of the first marriage, had an additional tie with the house of Ciron which was not shared by the connexions (such as Diocles) through the second marriage. μετὰ ἐνιαυτοὺς Τέτταρας mss. τριάκοντα, which cannot stand, since the words could not mean ‘after a life of 30 years’. Dobree conj. τέσσαρας, supposing λ́ to have been written by mistake for δ́. ἐγιγνέσθην ‘were born in due course’ (imperf.): γιγνέσθην A, whence Bekker γίγνεσθον. καὶ ἐκείνην τε ἔτρεφε, κ.τ.λ. i.e. ἔτρεφέ τε ἐκείνην,...ἐκδίδωσί τε. For the place of τε, cp. Antiph. Tetr. B. β. § 1, τολμᾶν τά τε ἄλλα, note, p. 203. — συνοικεῖν εἶχεν ἡλικίαν: cp. Lysias or. VII. § 29, οὔτ᾽ ἐπιμελητὴς ᾑρημένος οὔθ᾽ ἡλικίαν ἔχων εἰδέναι περὶ τούτων. — Χολαργεῖ: of the deme Χολαργός.
σὺν ἱματίοις...ἐπιδούς ‘with a dowry, including (σύν) clothes or jewels, of 25 minas’. Cp. Isae. or. XI. § 42, κατέλιπε πέντε ταλάντων οὐσίαν καὶ τρισχιλίων δραχμῶν σὺν τοῖς ἑαυτοῦ πατρῴοις. — ἐπιδούς: ἐπί=‘with’ the bride: cp. Lys. Pro Mant. § 10, note, p. 244. ὁ δὲ πάππος, κ.τ.λ. ‘Our grandfather’ [her father, Ciron] ‘took her to his home; and, without withdrawing the dowry (large as it was) which he had given on account of the embarrassed circumstances of Nausimenes, bestows her hand in a second marriage on my father’, etc.
ταυτὶ δὴ πάντα...ἐξηῦρον ‘How, then, is one to place the truth of all these facts beyond dispute, in face of the charges which the claimants are making now? [νῦν, after so long an interval]. I sought, and I discovered, a way’. — αἰτίας, the imputations cast on the genuineness of the speaker's descent. For the rhetorical ἐρώτησις, cp. or. XI. § 11, p. 181, τῷ δὲ γνώσεσθε τοῦθ᾽ , ὅτι ἐμοὶ μὲν ἀγχιστεύειν, τοῖς δ᾽ ἐξ ἐκείνων γεγονόσιν οὐκ ἦν...; αὐτὸς ὁ νόμος δηλώσει. ἀνάγκη τὴν ἐμὴν μητέρα, κ.τ.λ. ‘The question whether my mother was, or was not, the daughter of Ciron, — the fact that she lived, or did not live, in his house — the question whether he gave a marriage-feast for her once only, or twice — all this must be known to the male and female slaves of his household’. The difference of form made by the alternation of μή — οὐ — μή is roughly represented by the alternation of ‘question’ and ‘fact’ in such a version as the above. The only practical difference here is that the clause in which οὐ is used refers to that point which a member of the household could at once affirm or deny in the most positive manner, — viz., whether she had, or had not, been a resident member of the family. See on Antiph. De Caed. Her. § 14, ἢ μή...ἢ οὔ, p. 211. Cp. Dem. Adv. Lept. § 83, οὐχ ὁ νόμος κρίνεται, πότερόν ἐστιν ἐπιτήδειος ἢ οὔ, ἀλλ᾽ ὑμεῖς δοκιμάζεσθε, εἴτ᾽ ἐπιτήδειοι πάσχειν ἐστὲ εὖ τὸν λοιπὸν χρόνον εἴτε μή.
βουλόμενος οὖν, κ.τ.λ. ‘Wishing, then, in addition to the witnesses whom I had already, to procure proof of the facts from depositions made under torture, — in order that you might believe [πιστεύητε, vivid for πιστεύοιτε] my witnesses (αὐτοῖς) the more, when this ordeal for their veracity was past and not prospective — I required the claimants (τούτους) to give up their male and female slaves for the question, both on these points, and on all others of which they were cognizant’. He proposed to examine the slaves under torture on the same matters to which the depositions of his witnesses referred. If the slaves confirmed the statements of the witnesses, then the witnesses would come into court with a presumption already established in favour of their truthfulness: whereas, if they had not been tested in this way, the court might always suspect that the evidence of the household, could it be obtained, would contradict them. Cp. Lycurg. In Leocrat. § 28, οἶμαι δεῖν... τοὺς μάρτυρας μὴ δώσοντας ἔλεγχον μαρτυρεῖν ἀλλὰ δεδωκότας. παρεκαλεσάμην γὰρ αὐτούς, πρόκλησιν ὑπὲρ τούτων ἁπάντων γράψας, καὶ ἀξιῶν βασανίζειν τοὺς τούτων οἰκέτας: i.e. ‘I think witnesses should pass the ordeal of veracity before, and not after, they depone in court. Now I invited their attendance [at the βάσανος, or examination of the slaves], after drawing up a challenge [πρόκλησιν, to surrender slaves] referring to all these points, and claiming to put the defendant's slaves to the question’.
καὶ ἰδίᾳ καὶ δημοσίᾳ, κ.τ.λ. ‘Both in private and in public matters’: ἰδίᾳ, as in δίκαι, etc.: δημοσίᾳ, as e.g. when the Hermae were mutilated. This whole passage, from ὑμεῖς μὲν τοίνυν καὶ ἰδίᾳ to ἐκ τῶν βασάνων εἰπόντες recurs nearly verbatim in Dem. Adv. Onet. I. § 37. Cp. Isocr. or. XVII. § 54, ὁρῶ δὲ ὑμᾶς καὶ περὶ τῶν ἰδίων καὶ περὶ τῶν δημοσίων οὐδὲν πιστότερον οὐδ᾽ ἀληθέστερον βασάνου νομίζοντας, καὶ μάρτυρας μὲν ἡγουμένους εἶναι καὶ τῶν μὴ γεγενημένων παρασκευάσασθαι, τὰς δὲ βασάνους φανερῶς ἐπιδεικνύναι ὁπότεροι τἀληθῆ λέγουσι, κ.τ.λ. Cic. Topica XX. § 74, “nam et verberibus, tormentis, igni fatigati quae dicunt, ea videtur veritas ipsa dicere.” It must be remembered that under Greek and Roman law citizens were ordinarily protected from torture, and that it is citizens who pronounce these astounding panegyrics on the services of torture to truth. Cp. Andoc. De Myst. § 43, note, p. 226. οὐδένες πώποτε ἐξηλέγχθησαν The rhetorical theory of tor ture — whether anyone believed it or not — was that a person under torture will tell the truth because it is his interest to tell the truth: see the Ῥητορικὴ πρὸς Ἀλέξανδρον, XV. § 1, πιστότερόν ἐστι βάσανος μαρτύρων: τοῖς μὲν γὰρ μάρτυσι συμφέρει πολλάκις ψεύδεσθαι, τοῖς δὲ βασανιζομένοις λυσιτελεῖ τἀληθῆ λέγειν. A good commentary on this assumption will be found in Antiphon De Caed. Herod. §§ 31 — 33, — a passage which deserves to be placed beside this of Isaeus: — ‘The slave, to whom the prosecutors had doubtless promised freedom, and whose release from agony likewise depended upon them, was probably induced to calumniate me on both grounds — in the hope of winning his freedom, and in the desire of deliverance from anguish at the moment. Now I fancy you all know this, — that the party in whose hands the chief conduct of the examination rests have the examined on their side, and ready to say anything that will please them: for in the torturers is the hope of the tortured, especially if the slandered persons happen not to be present. Had it been I who gave the order to rack the slave as speaking falsely, that very threat would probably have deterred him from bearing false witness against me. As it was, the prosecutors were at once presidents of the inquisition and protectors of their own interest. So long, therefore, as the slave felt that his prospects in slandering me were hopeful, he was obstinate in the calumny; but when he saw that he was to die, then at last he told the truth, and said that he had been persuaded by the prosecutors to slander me’.
ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ ἡμεῖς sc. φεύγομεν τὸν ἔλεγχον. — ἀξιώσαντες — φεύγοντος, οὕτως: ‘since we claimed,...while he refused,... under these circumstances (οὕτως) we shall demand’, etc.
ἀκοήν ‘what they have heard’. οὗτοι, the witnesses who have just given their testimony, are not, I think, the persons who were intimate with Ciron, οἳ ἐχρῶντο τῷ πάππῳ (for they would be said εἰδέναι), but οἱ παρὰ τῶν χρωμένων ἀκούσαντες. See on § 6. τοὺς ἐγγυησαμένους, κ.τ.λ. ‘those to whom my mother was betrothed and those who were present with them when she was betrothed to them’. τοὺς ἐγγυησαμένους= her first husband, Nausimenes, and her second husband, the speaker's father. Both are dead, but the relatives of both (οἱ ἐκείνοις παρόντες) are witnesses. The formal ἐγγύησις was necessary to the validity of a marriage: see the νόμος ap. [Dem.] In Stephan. II. § 18, ἣν ἂν ἐγγυήσῃ ἐπὶ δικαίοις (shall solemnly affiance) δάμαρτα εἶναι ἢ πατὴρ ἢ ἀδελφὸς ὁμοπάτωρ ἢ πάππος ὁ πρὸς πατρός, ἐκ ταύτης εἶναι παῖδας γνησίους. The act. ἐγγυῶ was said of the relative, or his representative before the law (κύριος, or. v. § 10, n. p. 367), who bestows the hand of the bride, but the midd. ἐγγυῶμαι of the bridegroom: cp. Her. VI. 130, ἐγγυῶ παῖδα τὴν ἐμὴν... φαμένου δὲ ἐγγυᾶσθαι Μεγακλέος (the future husband). So [Dem.] or. LVII. Adv. Eubul. § 41, ἐγγυᾶται ὁ πατὴρ τὴν μητέρα τὴν ἐμήν. τίνες δὲ οἱ τρεφομένην...Κίρωνος ‘And who are they who know that she lived in the family and was the true-born daughter of Ciron?’ The answer to this question would naturally be, οἱ οἰκέται καὶ αἱ θεράπαιναι: see § 10. But their evidence had been excluded by the refusal of the claimants to give them up for torture: and the speaker turns this to account by saying, ‘The present claimants practically (ἔργῳ) bear clear testimony that these facts are so, by withholding their slaves from the question’.
*ἃ <μαθόντες> γνώσεσθε] The traditional reading is ἵνα γνώσεσθε. But ἵνα with fut. indic. is unexampled in classical Greek: see Goodwin § 44, 1. Cp. the note on the text. παίδων Ο῎ντων ‘as we were children’. This (Sauppe's) conjecture is at least more prob. than ὄντων υἱέων. The vulgate, παίδων υἱέων, is unintelligible. Reiske, from the Aldine πάππου υἱέων, gives πάππον υἱέων. I suspect, however, that the fault lies deeper, and that υἱέων referred to the two sons, now dead, borne to Ciron by his second wife (§ 7, ἐξ ἧς αὐτῷ ἐγιγνέσθην υἱεῖς δύο). The general sense would then have been, οἷα γὰρ εἰκός, [αὐτῷ μὲν οὐκ ὄντων] υἱέων [ἡμῶν δὲ] παίδων ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ θυγατρός, κ.τ.λ. εἰς Διονύσια εἰς ἀγρόν The ‘Lesser’ or ‘Rural’ Dionysia, the Vintage Feast, was kept in Dec.; the Lenaea, in Jan.; the Anthesteria in Feb., and the great Dionysia in March. — τὰ κατ᾽ ἀγροὺς Διονύσια, with its rustic sports (chief of which was the ἀσκωλιασμός, or dancing on ἀσκοί, wine-skins inflated and greased, Pollux IX. 121), was essentially a family festival, — hence the point of its mention here: see Harpocration 143, τὰ κατὰ δήμους Διονύσια Θεοίνια ἐλέγετο, ἐν οἷς οἱ γεννῆται ἐπέθυον, in which members of the same γένος offered sacrifice together (30 γένη made a φρατρία, and three φρατρίαι a φυλή).
καὶ μετ᾽ ἐκείνου τε ἐθεωροῦμεν, κ.τ.λ. ‘and we were his companions at public spectacles [in the Theatre], where he would set us at his side [παρ᾽ αὐτόν, not παρ᾽ αὐτῷ], and for every festive celebration we came to his house [παρ᾽ ἐκεῖνον]’: for αὐτὸν...ἐκεῖνον cp. Andoc. De Myst. § 64, note, p. 230. Cp. Isocrates or. XIX. § 10, ἕως μὲν γὰρ παῖδες ἦμεν, περὶ πλέονος ἡμᾶς αὐτοὺς ἡγούμεθα ἢ τοὺς ἀδελφούς, καὶ οὔτε θυσίαν οὔτε θεωρίαν (public spectacle) οὔτ᾽ ἄλλην ἑορτὴν οὐδεμίαν χωρὶς ἀλλήλων ἤγομεν. τῷ Διί τε θύων, κ.τ.λ. ‘And when he sacrificed to Zeus Ktêsios, — a festival which he kept with especial reverence, and in which he associated no stranger, slave or free, but did everything by the hands of his own household (αὐτὸς δι᾽ ἑαυτοῦ), — we participated in that celebration, assisted in the service of the altar, laid our offerings on it along with his own (συνεπετίθεμεν), and aided in all else; and he used to pray the god to give us health and wealth, as a grandfather would pray’. — Ζεὺς Κτήσιος was one of the group of deities (ἐφέστιοι, μύχιοι, ἑρκεῖοι) who were regarded as protecting the family and its possessions: Harpocr. 179, Κτήσιον Δία ἐν τοῖς ταμιείοις (store rooms) ἱδρύοντο: the Doric name of this Zeus was Πάσιος, Ross Inscr. III. 52. Small images (σημεῖα) of Ζεὺς Κτήσιος were kept in little cases or shrines, which were especially called καδίσκοι (ἀγγεῖον δ᾽ ἐστὶν ἐν ᾧ τοὺς Κτησίους Δίας ἐγκαθιδρύουσιν, Athen. XI. p. 473, with Casaubon's note ap. Schweigh.). — συνεπετίθεμεν, Scheibe for mss. συνετίθεμεν, a necessary corr., I think. For ἐπιτιθέναι, cp. Ar. Nub. 426, οὐδ᾽ ἂν θύσαιμ̓, οὐδ᾽ ἂν σπείσαιμ̓, οὐδ᾽ ἐπιθείην λιβανωτόν. Cp. ἐπέθυον ap. Harpocr. in note on εἰς Διονύσια, § 15.
μόνους ἐκγόνους...καταλελειμμένους His two sons being dead, § 7. Dobree would bracket καταλελειμμένους: Schömann compares Lucian Auct. Vit. 27, τίς λοιπὸς ἡμῖν καταλείπεται. *οὗτος παραδοῦναι] οὗτος is Dobree's conjecture. The mss. αὐτὸς could only mean — ‘It is his own fault (and not mine) that I cannot produce the slaves in support of these statements’. Cp. § 14 τίνες δὲ οἱ τρεφομένην...φεύγοντες τὴν βάσανον, note.
αἱ γυναῖκες αἱ τῶν δημοτῶν ‘The wives of the demesmen’ are the women of the deme to which Ciron belonged. On his daughter's marriage, they chose her as one of the two presidents of the Θεσμοφόρια, the three days' festival of Δημήτηρ Θεσμοφόρος, the Law-giver, which was annually celebrated about the end of Oct. by the women of each Attic deme. It seems to have been customary for a rich man, on his marriage, to defray the cost of a banquet at the next Thesmophoria: cp. Isae. or. III. § 80, καὶ ἐν τῷ δήμῳ κεκτημένος τὸν τριτάλαντον οἶκον, εἰ ἦν γεγαμηκώς, ἠναγκάζετο ἂν ὑπὲρ τῆς γαμετῆς καὶ Θεσμοφόρια ἑστιᾶν τὰς γυναῖκας [entertain them at the Thesmoph.] καὶ τἄλλα ὅσα προσῆκε λειτουργεῖν ἐν τῷ δήμῳ ὑπὲρ τῆς γυναικὸς ἀπό γε οὐσίας τηλικαύτης. γάμους εἱστίασε...τοῖς τε φράτορσι γαμηλίαν εἰσήνεγκε ‘gave a marriage-feast’ [on bringing the bride home, as her father did on her leaving his house, § 9]...‘provided a wedding-festival for his clansmen’. γαμηλίαν, sc. θυσίαν, Pollux III. 42, δεῖπνον ὃ τοῖς φράτορσιν ἐποίει ὁ γαμῶν: a sacrifice, with a banquet, given by the husband on the introduction (εἰσαγωγή) of the bride into his φρατρία, while the entertainment denoted by γάμους ἑστιᾶν was of a more private character.
τοῦ Πιτθέως or Πιθέως, of the deme of Pitthos or Pithos, belonging to the Cecropid tribe. This Diocles is a distinct person from Ciron's brother-in-law, Diocles ὁ Φλυεύς, of Phlya, § 3. εἰς τοὺς φράτορας...εἰσήγαγεν Cp. Dem. or. XXXIX. Adv. Boeot. de nom. § 4, ἐγγράφει τοῖς Ἀπατουρίοις τουτονὶ Βοιωτὸν εἰς τοὺς φράτορας. This was done on the third day of the Apaturia, called κουρεῶτις (the first day being δορπεία, the supper, — the second, ἀνάρρυσις, the sacrifice): and the ceremony — here represented as occurring soon after birth — was seldom deferred beyond the third or fourth year: Herm. Ant. I. § 99. 2. 10. Cp. Ar. Ranae 418, ὃς ἑπτέτης ὢν οὐκ ἔφυσε φράτορας. ἐξ ἀστῆς καὶ ἐγγυητῆς ‘the child of an Attic mother, born in wedlock’: ἐγγυητῆς, betrothed with the consent of her father or his legal substitute: see note on § 14, ἐγγυησαμένους Cp. [Dem.] or. LVII. Adv. Eubul. § 66, ἀλλὰ μὴν ὁ πατὴρ αὐτὸς ζῶν, ὀμόσας τὸν νόμιμον τοῖς φράτορσιν ὅρκον, εἰσήγαγεν ἐμὲ ἀστὸν ἐξ ἀστῆς ἐγγυητῆς αὐτῷ γεγενημένον εἰδώς.
καίτοι μὴ οἴεσθ᾽ ἄν...γνησίαν Κίρωνος The ἄν after οἴεσθε belongs to εἰσενεγκεῖν and ἀποκρύψασθαι, being repeated after μήτε: with αἱρεῖσθαι and with ἐπιτρέπειν it is again repeated. In the direct discourse, the form would be: εἰ τοιαύτη τις ἦν, οὔτ᾽ ἂν εἰσήνεγκαν, ἀλλ̓ ἀπεκρύψαντο (ἄν)...οὔθ᾽ ἡροῦντο ἂν αὐτὴν συνιεροποιεῖν καὶ κυρίαν ἐποίουν, ἀλλ̓ ἑτέρᾳ ἂν ἐπέτρεπον,...οὔτε ἂν εἰσεδέχοντο ἀλλὰ κατηγόρουν καὶ ἐξήλεγχον (ἄν): where the imperfects, which might refer to present time, refer to a continued act in past time, ‘would not have proceeded to choose’, etc.: Goodwin § 49. 2. The number of clauses in the apodosis leads to the protasis, εἰ...ἦν, being re-stated in a different form at the end — εἰ μὴ πάντοθεν ἦν ὁμολογούμενον, κ.τ.λ. νῦν δὲ τῇ περιφανείᾳ...τοιοῦτον οὐδέν ‘But as it was, owing to the notoriety of the matter [τοῦ πράγματος, her legitimacy] and the fact that so many persons were aware of it, no such objection was raised from any quarter’. τῇ περιφ., τῷ συνειδέναι, causal datives: cp. Antiph. De Caed. Her. § 3, τοῖς ἀληθέσιν, note, p. 209.
κομιούμενος αὐτόν ‘to obtain the body, intending that the funeral should take place from my own house’: κομιούμενος, as being his proper charge: but active κομίζειν below, of simply carrying. — ἐκ τῆς οἰκίας: i.e. the laying out (πρόθεσις) should take place there, and the ἐκφορά to the grave (μνῆμα, § 27) set out thence. Cp. ἐντεῦθεν, § 22: Lysias, In Eratosth. § 18, τριῶν ἡμῖν οἰκιῶν οὐσῶν οὐδεμιᾶς εἴασαν ἐξενεχθῆναι, note, p. 253. κομίζειν οἷος ἦν ‘I was disposed to remove the body’. For the distinction between οἷος and οἷός τε with infin., see above, or. XI. § 16, ἦσαν οἷοί τε, note, p. 387.
συμμεταχειρίζεσθαι...κοσμῆσαι ‘help in tending’,... ‘dress’ (for the πρόθεσις). Soph. El. 1139, οὔτ᾽ ἐν φίλαισι χερσὶν ἡ τάλαιν̓ ἐγὼ | λουτροῖς σ᾽ ἐκόσμης᾿ ...ἀλλ̓ ἐν ξέναισι χερσὶ κηδευθεὶς τάλας, κ.τ.λ. Ant. 903, τὸ σὸν | δέμας περιστέλλουσα: so componere. Here συμμεταχειρίζ. refers esp. to the washing of the corpse: Lucian Περὶ πένθους, 11, λούσαντες...μύρῳ χρίσαντες...καὶ στεφανώσαντες τοῖς ὡραίοις ἄνθεσι, προτίθενται, λαμπρῶς ἀμφιέσαντες.
ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐωνῆσθαι...τοὺς λαβόντας ‘but alleging that he had actually (καί) purchased part of the requisites of the funeral, and had given earnest-money for the rest, Diocles claimed these sums from me; and came to an agreement that he should be reimbursed for his purchases, while, as to the alleged deposits of earnest-money, he was to produce those who had received it’. — ἀρραβών: a small sum paid in advance as caution-money. Arist. Polit. I. 11. § 9, φασὶν αὐτὸν... ἀρραβῶνας διαδοῦναι τῶν ἐλαιουργίων...ὀλίγου μισθωσάμενον ἅτ᾽ οὐδενὸς ἐπιβάλλοντος, paid earnest-money all over the country (διαδοῦναι) for the hire of the oil-presses, — getting them at a low rent, as no one bid against him. — συστῆσαι: ‘to introduce’, ‘present’ to the speaker the persons who had received the ἀρραβών: cp. Dem. or. XLI. § 6, ὀφείλειν ὡμολόγει μοι Πολύευκτος καὶ τὸν Λεωκράτη συνέστησε, and presented L. to me (in proof of transactions between L. and himself). εὐθὺς οὖν...παρεφθέγγετο ‘Well, then, — he immediately remarked in a casual way that Ciron had left nothing at all behind him, — though I had not yet touched on the subject of Ciron's property’. παρεφθέγγ., threw in the observation carelessly, as if it were not the thing uppermost in his thoughts. Cp. Hypereides Pro Euxenippo XLII., καὶ τὸ πάντων δεινότατον τῶν ἐν τῷ λόγῳ λεγομένων ὑπὸ σοῦ, ὃ σὺ ᾤου λανθάνειν ὧν ἕνεκα λέγεις, οὐ λανθάνων, ὁπότε παραφθέγγοιο ἐν τῷ λόγῳ πολλάκις ὡς πλούσιός ἐστιν Εὐξένιππος.
σὺ δὲ τίς εἶ;] ‘Now who are you?’ The δέ marks that the speaker's attention is suddenly turned on the intruder. Her. I. 115, ὦ δέσποτα, ἐγὼ δὲ ταῦτα ἐποίησα. οὐ μὴ Εἴσει ‘You shall not enter’. The only practical distinction which can be drawn between οὐ μὴ εἴσει and οὐ μὴ εἰσέλθῃς is that οὐ μὴ εἴσει states the negative future fact in a more direct and positive manner. This direct and positive negation, addressed to a person or persons, may of course, as here, be equivalent to a prohibition: Ar. Nub. 367, οὐ μὴ λαλήσεις, ‘You shall not prate’. On the other hand, unless the mss. are altered, οὐ μὴ ποιήσετε (e.g.) is sometimes merely a rougher and stronger οὐ μὴ ποιήσητε: Aeschin. In Ctes. § 177, τοὺς...γὰρ πονηροὺς οὐ μή ποτε βελτίους ποιήσετε. Elmsley's view that οὐ μὴ εἴσει (e.g.) meant ‘will you not not-enter?’ appears to be decisively negatived by such passages as Ar. Nub. 296, οὐ μὴ σκώψει μηδὲ ποιήσεις [v. l. σκώψῃς — ποιήσῃς] ἅπερ οἱ τρυγοδαίμονες οὗτοι, | ἀλλ᾽ εὐφήμει [not εὐφημήσεις]. Cp. Goodwin § 89. εἰς ἕω δὲ...εἰσενεγκεῖν ‘but requested me to place the money in his hands early the next morning’. ἐκέλευον usu. = ‘I requested’ or ‘invited’, ἐκέλευσα, ‘I commanded’, though the distinction cannot always, of course, be sharply drawn. In Xen. Anab. VII. 1 most mss. have the milder ἐκέλευε in § 38, and the more peremptory ἐκέλευσε in § 39 — rightly, I think: though G. Sauppe adopts in § 39 the v. l. ἐκέλευε. On the other hand ἐκέλευε is preferable to the vulg. ἐκέλευσε in such places as Anab. II. 5. 3, IV. 3. 13.
οὐ τοίνυν ἐκεῖνος...εἶπεν οὐδέν ‘Now it was not Diocles alone who was silent; the present claimant of the estate said nothing to such a purport either [οὐδὲν τοιοῦτον, nothing implying that I was not the lawful heir]; it is Diocles who has suborned him to contend’: i.e. οὐ μόνος ἐκεῖνος οὐδὲν εἶπεν, ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲ ὁ νῦν ἀμφισβητῶν (εἶπεν ὁτιοῦν): the awkwardness arising from the postponement of εἶπεν οὐδέν, which leaves οὐδέ with no corresponding negative before it, since οὐ belongs only to μόνος. All would be clear if οὐδέ were καί, and εἶπεν οὐδέν were ἐσίγησεν. κἀκείνου...ἀναλωμάτων ‘And although Diocles (ἐκείνου) refused to receive in payment (ἀπολαβεῖν, as § 23, τῶν ἠγορασμένων τιμὴν ἀπολαβεῖν) the money which I tendered, and alleged next day [when I brought it, εἰς ἕω § 24] that he had received it in full from the claimant (τούτου), yet I was not prevented from attending the funeral, but took part in the ceremony throughout: not that the claimant or Diocles bore the cost; the charges of the burial were defrayed out of the property left by the deceased’. οὐχ ὅπως: i.e. οὐ (λέγω) ὅπως (συνέθαπτον) τοῦδε ἀναλίσκοντος (gen. absol.).
καίτοι καὶ τούτῳ ‘The claimant too, however, [i.e. even if Diocles had remained passive] was bound to repulse me (ὠθεῖν), — to repudiate me (ἐκβάλλειν) — to forbid my presence at the funeral’. ὠθεῖν, to repel advances: ἐκβάλλειν, stronger, to eject from the company of the relatives. οὐδὲν γὰρ ὅμοιον ἦν μοι πρὸς τοῦτον ‘For my attitude towards him was utterly different [from his towards me]’: i.e. I, claiming to be the grandson and heir, still recognised him as a nephew of Ciron: but he, on his own theory, was bound to regard me as an impostor. οὐδὲν γὰρ ὅμοιον ἦν μοι πρὸς τοῦτον [καὶ τούτῳ πρὸς ἐμέ], is an answer to the possible objection: ‘If, as you say, he ought to have excluded you from the funeral rites, why did you not exclude him?’ — hence γάρ.
ἐπὶ τοῦ Μνήματος ‘at the tomb’. Schömann's emend. of βήματος. Dem. De Cor. § 208, τοὺς ἐν τοῖς δημοσίοις μνήμασι κειμένους. — ἐπὶ τοῦ μνήματος, like ἐπὶ τοῦ δικαστηρίου, before the court. But the phrase is strange, and the supposed conduct stranger still. If βήματος is right, it prob. means the tribune from which the speaker addressed a law-court, when claiming the inheritance in some proceedings previous to this case. Cp. § 37. — ἀποστερῶν, ‘withholding’; cp. § 3.
πόθεν δὲ τοὺς μάρτυρας; οὐκ ἐκ τῶν βασάνων; κ.τ.λ. ‘And how is the credibility of witnesses to be tested? How but by statements made under torture?’ [by slaves examined on the same points]: see §§ 10 f., βουλόμενος...πρὸς τοῖς ὑπάρχουσι μάρτυσιν ἔλεγχον ἐκ βασάνων ποιήσασθαι περὶ αὐτῶν, κ.τ.λ., and notes. πόθεν δ᾽ ἀπιστεῖν...τοὺς ἐλέγχους;] ‘And how are we entitled to disbelieve the statements of the claimants? How, but by their shrinking from the ordeals of proof?’ [by refusing to permit the examination of their slaves: § 13]. §§ 28, 29. τῶς οὖν ἄν τις...ᾔδεσαν; κ.τ.λ.] ‘How could one prove the case more clearly than by offering a proof of this kind, — producing, for the earlier part of the story, hearsay evidence (ἀκοήν) vouched for by witnesses, and for matters within living memory [lit., from among men still living] those who know the several facts, — who were cognizant of her living in Ciron's house, being acknowledged as his daughter, having been twice betrothed and twice married: then further, proving that the claimants have shrunk from applying the question, on all these points, to slaves who knew the whole’. The complexity of this sentence is studied, and the subtlety is Isaean. The really weak point in the speaker's case obviously is that, for the principal facts, he has nothing but ἀκοή, hearsay evidence, by way of proof. He tries to get over this by a persistent assumption that the slaves who had personal knowledge of the facts would have confirmed this hearsay evidence if only he could have examined them. By his way of introducing τοὺς εἰδότας in this sentence he makes it depend on παρεχόμενος, suggesting that he had actually produced witnesses who had personal knowledge (τοὺς εἰδότας), whereas, at most, he had only tried to produce them. Then τούτους after ἔτι δὲ περὶ πάντων depends on ἐπιδεικνύς, supplied κατ᾽ ἔννοιαν from παρε- χόμενος. — On ἀκοή see § 6, note. For μαρτυρούντων I should prefer μαρτυροῦντας.
φέρε δή, κ.τ.λ. His first point has now been made — viz. that his mother was the true-born daughter of Ciron. Here he comes to his second point. Briefly it is this. Descent in the direct line (γένος) gives a better claim to succession than collateral kinship (συγγένεια). Descendants (ἔκγονοι) have a right to inherit before collateral relations (συγγενεῖς). And therefore a grandson before a nephew. καὶ νομίζω μὲν ἁπλῶς...διδάξομεν ‘Now I suppose that, as a general proposition (ἁπλῶς), it is already as clear to you as to me [καὶ ὑμῖν] that Ciron's collateral relatives (οἱ μετ᾽ ἐκείνου φύντες) are not nearer to the legal succession than his lineal descendants (οἱ ἐξ ἐκείνου γεγονότες). Of course they are not; we call the former merely his “kinsfolk”, the latter his “issue”. Nevertheless, since even under these circumstances the claimants have the hardihood to dispute my right, I will prove the point more in detail from the laws themselves’. οἱ μετά τινος φύντες, kinsmen in the same generation with him, brothers, sisters, or cousins. Dobree's ἄλλως for ἁπλῶς is needless: ἁπλῶς is opp. to ἀκριβέστερον.
συνοικῆσαι μὲν ἄν, κ.τ.λ....ἐπὶ δίετες ἥβησαν ‘would be entitled to marry her [i.e. his own niece], but would not be entitled to the property, which would go to their children, when these had come of age’: ἐπὶ δίετες ἥβησαν, ‘had been ἔφηβοι for two years’, i.e. had completed their 20th year. — ὁπότε ἥβησαν, not ἡβήσειαν, because the fact is present as definite and past: cp. § 37, ὁπότε ὁ πάππος ἐτελεύτησεν, where τελευτήσειεν would be admissible, but the indic. is used because the speaker is looking back on the historical fact of the decease.
ἐκ τοῦ περὶ τῆς κακώσεως νόμου ‘Now this appears, not only from the foregoing consideration, but also from the law which deals with breaches of natural duty’. An εἰσαγγελία κακώσεως might be laid against (1) a son, on behalf of his parents — or, acc. to this passage, his grand-parents: (2) a husband, on behalf of his wife, she being an ἐπίκληρος [the phrase is always ταῖς ἐπικλήροις]: (3) a guardian, ἐπίτροπος, on behalf of his ward, — as in reference to the estate of Hagnias (or. XI., introd. p. 379). In cases of κάκωσις the accuser could speak ἄνευ ὕδατος, without limit of time (Harpocr. 161), and was not liable to the ἐπωβελία (or fine in 1/6th of the damages laid) if he failed to gain a fifth of the votes. — For the term γονεῖς extended to πρόγονοι, cp. Her. I. 91, Κροῖσος δὲ πέμπτου γονέος (i.e. of Gyges) τὴν ἁμαρτάδα ἐξέπλησε.
πρὸς ἕνα δὲ...ἐρωτήσω ‘I will illustrate my meaning by a particular case of collateral kinship, — the nearest, — and will ask you to compare with it the several degrees of lineal descent’. προσάξω, sc. τὸν ἔκγονον, I will compare (the lineal descendant) with one — the first, nearest — of collateral kinsmen (συγγενῶν), viz. a brother: and will question you, τοῦ γένους καθ᾽ ἕκαστον, on the details of lineal descent (γένος) as distinguished from συγγένεια: i.e. I will first take a daughter, then, descending, a daughter's child, etc. If it appears that even a daughter's son is nearer than a brother, a fortiori he is nearer than a brother's son: and I, therefore, Ciron's grandson, inherit before his nephew.
πάντες γὰρ ὑμεῖς...ἀνεπίδικον ‘You all inherit the property of your fathers, grandfathers, or remoter ancestors in virtue of a lineal descent (γένους) which guarantees your succession against dispute’: your ἀγχιστεία, legal nearness or right to inherit, is ἀνεπίδικος, not to be contested: that is, no one can, as against lineal heirs, ἐπιδικάζεσθαι τοῦ κλήρου, claim the estate at law; nor have you to assert your right by an ἐπιδικασία. A person who entered on possession of an undisputed inheritance was said ἐμβατεύειν εἰς τὸν κλῆρον. Cp. [Dem.] or. XXXIII. § 6.
Φλυῆσι Phlya, of which the exact site is doubtful, a deme of the μεσογαία, or district S.E. of the Attic Plain, seems to have been a place of some note, with several temples: Paus. I. 31 § 4, IV. 1 § 5. μισθοφοροῦσαν...εὑρίσκουσαν ‘one house, — which is let, — near the temple of Dionysus in Limnae, — worth 2000 drachmas’ (about £80): εὑρίσκουσαν, acc. to Schömann (comparing Boeckh Pub. Econ. 67), not of the annual rent, μισθός, but of the sum which the house would fetch if it were sold: and as the value of the other house is represented by τριῶν καὶ δέκα μνῶν, (about £52,) this seems probable. Cp. Isae. or. XI. § 49, Χαιρέλεως... χωρίον κατέλιπεν ὃ πλέον οὐκ ἂν εὕροι τριάκοντα μνῶν. Xen. Mem. II. 5. 5, ὅταν τις οἰκέτην πονηρὸν πωλῇ καὶ ἀποδιδῶται τοῦ εὑρόντος,=τούτου ὃ ἂν εὕρῃ, strictly, ‘for that which will bring him gain’, i.e. ‘for any price the slave will fetch’. θεραπαίνας καὶ παιδίσκην The θεράπαινα was an ordinary domestic slave: τῇ γυναικὶ...μὴ πρίασθαι θεράπαιναν, ἀλλὰ μισθοῦσθαι εἰς τὰς ἐξόδους ἐκ τῆς γυναικείας τὸ παιδίον τὸ συνακολούθησον, of the ἀνελεύθερος or mean man, Theophr. Char. XXII. (=XXV. in my ed., where see note, p. 255). — παιδίσκη, ‘girl’, might be merely a synonym for θεράπαινα, as in Lysias or. I. §§ 11 — 12, where θεράπαινα and παιδίσκη seem to designate one and the same person. Schömann, however, would dis tinguish them both there and here, regarding παιδίσκη as one who was exempt from menial work. ὅσα φανερὰ ἦν ‘all the real property’ (land, houses, etc., as opp. to money), — here including the slaves, who are considered as furniture of the houses: cp. [Dem.] or. XXXVIII. § 7, τὴν οὐσίαν...ἅπασαν χρέα κατέλειπον καὶ φανερὰν ἐκέκτηντο μικράν τινα, ‘left all their fortune in debts, and had possessed only some small amount of real property’.
ἐκείνην μὲν γὰρ...εἰσποιήσαιτο υἱόν ‘For Diocles abstained from finding another husband for his sister, though she was still capable of bearing children in another marriage, lest, if she were separated from Ciron, the latter should form the proper resolve regarding his own property [i.e. should adopt my brother and me as his heirs], but persuaded her to remain with him’. Diocles is the subject to ἐξεδίδου and ἔπειθε, but Ciron to βουλεύσαιτο. διαφθείρειν sc. τὸ ἔμβρυον, de abortu: so διαφθορή (ionice) Hippocrates Epidem. VII. 48,=ἀποφθείρειν: ib. IV. 2, 5, ἐξαμβλοῦσθαι. — προσποιουμένην διαφθείρ. ἄκουσαν, i.e. ὅτι διέφθειρεν ἄκουσα (‘had been’ doing so hitherto). — As this passage shows, a childless union could be dissolved at the instance of the wife's relatives: cp. Isae. or. III. § 64, πολλοὶ συνοικοῦντες ἤδη ἀφῄρηνται τὰς ἑαυτῶν γυναῖκας. εἰσποιήσαιτο υἱόν ‘adopt as his son’, like ποιήσαιτο: but § 40, act., αὑτὸν τῷ πατρὶ εἰσποιήσας, of one who forges a will for his own adoption.
τά τε οὖν χρέα...δι᾽ αὑτοῦ ποιεῖσθαι ‘So Diocles gradually persuaded Ciron to place under his control (δι᾽ αὑτοῦ ποιεῖσθαι) all the monies (χρέα) that were owing to him, with the interest upon them, and also the real property’ (τὰ φανερά). — τά τε χρέα corresponds with τά τε φανερά (‘both’... ‘and’): the καὶ before τόκους merely connects it with τὰ χρέα,=σὺν τοῖς τόκοις. — δι᾽ αὑτοῦ ποιεῖσθαι: cp. Isae. or. VI. § 35, ἐσκόπουν ἕπως καὶ τελευτήσαντος ἐκείνου δι᾽ αὑτῶν ἔσοιτο ἡ οὐσία, ‘should be in their hands’. [Dem.] or. XLVIII. § 15, καὶ τὸ ἀργύριον τοῦθ᾽ ἅπαν εἶχεν αὐτὸς δι᾽ ἑαυτοῦ ὁ ἄνθρωπος, had under his exclusive control. Cp. above § 16, αὐτὸς δι᾽ ἑαυτοῦ πάντ᾽ ἐποίει, note. ὁπότε...ἐτελεύτησεν ‘when my grandfather had died’. At that time he had not died: but ἐτελεύτησεν, not τελευτήσειεν, is used, because the speaker is now looking back on the death as a past event. See § 31, ὁπότε...ἥβησαν, note. παρεσκεύαζε, κ.τ.λ. Cp. § 3, ὁ τοῦτον παρασκευάσας: § 25, ὑπὸ τούτου παρασκευασθείς: § 27, τοῦτον πέπεικεν ἀμφισβητεῖν. — μέρος πολλοστὸν...μεταδιδούς, ‘offering (pres.) to give him a small fraction if he succeeded’: he said, μεταδίδωμι, ἐὰν κατορθώσῃς. — οὐδὲ πρὸς τοῦτον ὁμολογῶν, ‘admitting not even to [i.e. in conversation with] him’: cp. Isocr. Evag. § 50, προσομολογήσειεν, note, p. 292.
καὶ ἐπειδὴ...τὸν πάππον ‘And immediately on Ciron's death, having made his preparations for the funeral beforehand, Diocles requested me, indeed, to bring the money;...but then pretended to have received the whole amount from the claimant, and withdrew his consent to take it from me, — thus quietly setting me aside (ὑποπαρωθῶν), in order that the claimant, and not I, should appear to celebrate my grandfather's obsequies’. — τὰ ἐντάφια, here=τὰ εἰς τὴν ταφήν, § 23, all requisites for the πρόθεσις and the ἐκφορά. — τὸ ἀργύριον: see § 24. ἀμφισβητοῦντος...γιγνομένων ‘As the claimant disputed my possession of that house [ταύτης, the house in which Ciron died] as well as of the other property left by Ciron, and alleged that he had left nothing behind him, I did not think it proper, under such inopportune circumstances, to use force in removing my grandfather's corpse, — and my friends approved of this decision; but I took part in the rites of burial, the charges being defrayed by the property which my grandfather left’. Cp. §§ 21 — 22: the entreaties of Diocles' sister induced him to refrain from removing the body. — ἀκαιρίαις: for the plur. see Isocr. Antid. § 283, note, p. 303. — συνεποίουν: for ποιεῖν, of sacred rites, cp. §§ 16, 25. — τῶν ἀναλωμ...γιγν.: the same point as in § 25, οὐχ ὅπως τοῦδε ἀναλίσκοντος, κ.τ.λ.
τὸν ἐξηγητὴν...ἐπήνεγκα ‘I consulted the interpreter of the sacred law, and, under his directions, rendered at my own charges the ninth-day offerings to the dead’. Cp. [Dem.] or. XLVII. § 68, ἐπειδὴ τοίνυν ἐτελεύτησεν, ἦλθον ὡς τοὺς ἐξηγητάς, ἵνα εἰδείην ὅ τι με χρὴ ποιεῖν περὶ τούτων. The office of ἐξηγητής was usually hereditary in Eupatrid houses who possessed the unwritten lore of religious tradition: cp. [Lys.] In Andoc. § 10, μὴ μόνον χρῆσθαι τοῖς γεγραμμένοις περὶ αὐτῶν νόμοις ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῖς ἀγράφοις καθ᾽ οὓς Εὐμολπίδαι ἐξηγοῦνται. In later times there are references to a written lore in such matters, e.g. a ritual of purification for suppliants, ἱκετῶν κάθαρσις, Athen. IX. 78. — τὰ ἔνατα, novendialia, as τρίτα, Ar. Lysist. 613, offerings at the grave on the third day after death: yearly offerings are mentioned in Isae. or. II. § 46, ἐναγίζῃ αὐτῷ καθ᾽ ἕκαστον ἐνιαυτόν. Herm. Ant. III. § 39. ἵνα...ἐκκόψαιμι ‘that I might disconcert this sacrilegious scheme of theirs’: ἱεροσυλίαν, i.e. their usurpation of my right (as nearest kinsman) to honour the dead. — ἐκκόψαιμι, ‘knock out’ of its course, baffle: cp. Lysias or. XXVIII. § 6, ἵνα αὐτῶν ἐκκόψῃς τὰς συκοφαντίας: Deinarchus In Aristogit. § 4, καὶ τὰς προφάσεις καὶ τοὺς φενακισμοὺς ἐκκόψατε αὐτοῦ.
σχεδόν τι ταῦτ᾽ ἐστίν ‘are substantially these’. Cp. Soph. El. 609, σχεδόν τι...οὐ καταισχύνω, it may be said that I do not...: Ant. 466, σχεδόν τι μώρῳ μωρίαν ὀφλισκάνω. τήν οὐσίαν...διαθήκην ‘Diocles holds the property, which supports his present splendour, by an act of usurpation (ἀλλοτρίαν). Three sisters, children of the same mother, were left heiresses to the estate; but he contrived to represent himself as their father's adopted son, though the father had made no will recognising such adoption’. As Diocles became guardian (§ 42) to the son of one of these sisters, they were probably his own half-sisters on the maternal side (cp. τὴν ἀδελφήν, § 41), — their mother having previously or subsequently married the father of Diocles. — εἰσποιήσας, by forging a διαθήκη: without which, the testator's own children would have inherited (by ἀγχιστεία) before a child born by his wife to another husband. Diocles was driven to this device because an ἀδελφὴ ὁμομήτριος could not marry her half-brother, and therefore he could not obtain any part of the property by marriage with one of the ἐπίκληροι. — Cp. § 36, where the middle εἰσποιήσαιτο is said of the adopting father.
*τοῖν δ᾽ ἀδελφαῖν...δίκην δέδωκε] ‘when the property was claimed on behalf of two of the sisters by their husbands, he contrived to make the husband of the elder sister his prisoner, and then subjected him to gross contumely. An indictment for outrage has been laid against him, but he has not yet expiated this offence’. τοῖν δυοῖν: the third sister was apparently unmarried, or no longer alive: we are to understand that Diocles seized her share unopposed. κατοικοδομήσας=κατακλείσας εἰς οἴκημα (Harpocrat. s.v.), having shut him up in a house or room from which he could not escape: cp. Thuc. I. 134, τηρήσαντες αὐτὸν καὶ ἀπολαβόντες εἴσω ἀπῳκοδόμησαν, ‘walled him in’. — ἐπιβουλεύσας following κατοικοδ. is a πρωθύστερον, since the ‘plot’ is that which led to the capture. ἠτίμωσε: usu. taken here as=ἠτίμασε, ‘dishonoured’, referring to some personal assault or outrage such as ὕβρις indicates: cp. Aesch. Suppl. 644, ἀτιμώσαντες (=ἀτιμάσαντες) ἔριν γυναικῶν. Elsewhere in prose ἀτιμόω usu. = to deprive of civic rights. If this is the true sense here, Diocles must have subsequently charged his captive with some offence which would entail ἀτιμία. — γραφὴν ὕβρεως: the same prob. for which Isaeus wrote his speech κατὰ Διοκλέους ὕβρεως: see on § 3, and Sauppe Or. Att. II. 230 f. τῆς δὲ μετ᾽ ἐκείνην...ἐκείνῳ δέδωκε ‘As to the younger sister, he employed a slave to murder her husband, — got the man [ἐκεῖνον=τὸν οἰκέτην] out of the country, — threw the guilt on his sister, — and, having crushed her by his villanies, has further deprived her son — whose guardian he had become — of his property, — keeping the land, and giving his ward a piece of stony ground’. — καταπλήξας refers less to a judicial condemnation than to the helplessness of a cowed and broken spirit: cp. Dem. or. XXXVII. § 43, ἡλίκον ἐστὶ πλεονέκτημα (ironical) τὸ καταπεπλῆχθαι τὸν βίον. — Φελλία: vulg. φελλέα δὲ χωρία ἄττα. But φελλέα is acc. sing. of φελλεύς, stony ground. Dobree thinks that χωρία ἄττα arose from a scholion on φελλέα, — χωρίον ἀττικῶς. It may be that we should read φελλία ἄττα, some pieces of stony ground: cp. Xen. Cyneg. v. 18, ὅταν τοὺς λίθους, τὰ ὄρη, τὰ φελλία [τὰ φέλλια G. Sauppe], τὰ δασέα ἀποχωρῶσι ‘when (the hares) take refuge among stones, or on the hill-side, or on rough ground (τὰ φελλία), or in underwood’: the contemptuous force of ἄττα is certainly appropriate.
δεδίασι μὲν αὐτόν, ἴσως δ᾽ ἄν μοι καὶ μαρτυρῆσαι ἐθελήσειαν = καίπερ δεδιότες αὐτόν, ἴσως ἄν...ἐθελήσειαν. For the parenthesis with finite verb (δεδίασι μὲν αὐτόν), cp. Anthol. Palat. 7. 664, Ἀρχίλοχον καὶ στῆθι καὶ εἴσιδε (=στὰς εἴσιδε), and my note on Soph. Ant. 537.
