10
For a minor is not allowed to make a will; for the law expressly forbids any child—or woman—to contract for the disposal of more than a bushel of barley. Now evidence has been given you that Aristarchus (I.) predeceased his son Demochares and that the latter died after his father; and so, even supposing they had made wills, Aristarchus (II.) could never have inherited this property under their wills.Which would be invalid because Aristarchus (I.) could not make a will in favor of anyone except Demochares, and predeceased Demochares, who, having died under age, was incapable of making a will. Now read the laws which show that neither of them had the right to make a will.
11
Laws
11
Nor again, gentlemen, could Cyronides give Aristarchus (I.) a son by adoption; he could, it is true, have returned to his father's family, if he had left a son in the family of Xenaenetus (I.), but there is no law which permits him to introduce a son of his own to take his place. If they assert the existence of such a law they will be lying. So, not even if they assert that the adoption was carried out by Cyronides, will they be able to point to any law which authorized him to do so; but from their own assertions it will become still more evident to you that they are illegally and impudently detaining my mother's property.
12
Furthermore, gentlemen, though Aristomenes or Apollodorus might have had my mother adjudicated to them in marriage, yet they had no right to her estate. Seeing that neither Apollodorus nor Aristomenes, if either of them had married my mother, could possibly have had the disposal of her property—in accordance with the law which does not allow anyone to have the disposal of the property of an heiress except her sons, who obtain possession of it on reaching the second year after puberty—it would be strange if Aristarchus is going to be allowed, after giving her in marriage to another, to introduce a son to inherit her fortune.
