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After the father is dead, however, even more than before it is right for the brother to cling fast to his brother’s goodwill, immediately sharing his affection for the dead in tears and grief, rejecting the insinuations of servants and the calumnies of comrades who range themselves on the other side, and believing all the tales about the brotherly love of the Dioscuri and in particular the one which relates that PolydeucesPherecydes: cf. Jacoby, Frag. d. gr. Historiker, i. p. 101. killed with a blow of his fist a man who whispered to him something against his brother.Cited by Stobaeus, vol. iv. p. 659 ed. Hense (cf. also p. 675). And when they seek to divide their father’s goods, they should not first declare war on each other, as the majority do, and then, shouting Hearken, Alala, daughter of War,Pindar, Frag. 78; cf. Moralia, 349 c, with the note. go out to meet each other ready armed, but they must by all means be on their guard against that day of the division, knowing that for some brothers it is the beginning of implacable enmity and strife, but for others the beginning of friendship and concord. Let them preferably assemble alone by themselves; otherwise, let there be present some common friend as a witness equally friendly to both, and then by the lots of Justice, as Plato Critias, 109 b. says, let them, as they give and take what is suitable to each and preferred by each, be of the opinion that it is the care and administration of the estate that is being distributed, but that its use and ownership is left unassigned and undistributed for them all in common. But those who have outbidden their brothers by their shrewd calculations and then drag away from each other nurses and slave-boys, who have been brought up with their brothers and are their familiar companions, when they go away have got the better of their brothers by the value of a slave, but have lost the greatest and most valuable part of their inheritance, a brother’s friendship and confidence.
