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.
78
This son who was born to him Macartatus has introduced by his mother’s descent into the Prospaltians, and has suffered the family of Hagnias to become extinct, so far as this boy is concerned; but he alleges that his own father Theopompus was related to Hagnias. Yet the law of Solon ordains that males and the sons of males shall have precedence; but the defendant has thus lightly shown contempt both for Hagnias and for the laws, and has had his son introduced into the family of his mother. How could there be people more scornful of law or more arbitrary than these?
79
Now this is not the only thing, men of the jury. There is a place of burial common to all those descended from Buselus (it is called the burial-place of the Buselidae, a large area, enclosed, after the manner of the men of old). In this burial-place lie all the other descendants of Buselus and Hagnias and Eubulides and Polemon, and all the rest of the host of those descended from Buselus, all these hold in common this place of burial.
