75
Let the archon take charge of orphans and of heiresses and of families that are becoming extinct, and of all women who remain in the houses of their deceased husbands, declaring that they are pregnant. Let him take charge of these, and not suffer anyone to do any outrage to them. And if anyone shall commit any outrage or any lawless act against them, he shall have power to impose a fine upon such person up to the limit fixed by law. And if the offender shall seem to him to be deserving of a more severe punishment, let him summon such a person, giving him five days’ notice, and bring him before the court of Heliaea, writing upon the indictment the penalty which he thinks is deserved. And if there be a conviction, let the court of Heliaea appoint for the one convicted what penalty he ought to suffer or pay.
76
How, now, could people more effectively bring a house to extinction than if, being themselves of another house, that of Stratius, they should dispossess those nearest of kin to Hagnias? Or again, if one should claim to possess the estate of Hagnias as being related by blood, when he bears a name that is not only not derived from the family of Hagnias, but not even from that of Stratius, the claimant’s own ancestor—no, when he has not the name of any other of all the descendants of Buselus, many as they are?
77
Whence, then, does he get the name Macartatus? From his mother’s family. For he was adopted into the family of Macartatus of Prospalta, who was his mother’s brother, and he possesses that estate also. And so regardless of right is he that, when a son was born to him, he forgot to introduce him into the family of Hagnias, as a son to Hagnias, and that too while he was in possession of the estate of Hagnias, and claimed that he was related to him by male descent.
