40
Again we protested that the demesmen should give their votes only when the inheritance suit should have been decided, and not before; and to this they agreed, not on their own responsibility, but out of respect for the laws; for it seemed to them an outrageous thing that a man who had made a deposit for costs in an inheritance suit, should get himself adopted as a son while the matter was still undecided; but the thing which this fellow Leostratus contrived after this is the most outrageous of all.
41
For when he failed to get his own name inscribed, he entered his own son Leochares as an adopted son of Archiades, in defiance of all the laws, before the scrutinyFor this scrutiny see note 3 of Dem. 27. of the deme had taken place. But Leochares had not yet been introduced to the clansmen of Archiades; yet when his name had been entered on the list of the deme, only then did Leostratus, by bringing influence to bear upon a certain member of the clan, get the name inscribed upon the clan register.This should have normally have been done shortly after birth, for the enrollment in the clan marked the acceptance of the child as a member of the family, as the enrollment in the deme marked a youth’s assumption of the status of citizenship.
42
And after that, in his affidavit before the archon he inscribed Leochares as being the lawfully born son of the man who had been dead many years past—Leochares, who had been registered with the clan only a day or two before! So it results that they both lay claim to the inheritance; for Leostratus here made the deposit for costs in the inheritance suit as being the lawfully born son of Archiades, and Leochares here has filed the affidavit, as being the lawfully born son of the same father!
