Sir Richard C. Jebb, Selections from the Attic Orators

---

---

καθηγούμενοι Elsewhere in classical Greek καθηγεῖσθαι is usually to ‘show the way’, ‘set an example’, ‘teach’: here Dobree conj. ἡμεῖς δ᾽ οὐκέθ᾽ ἡγούμενοι προσήκειν. Baiter, ἡμεῖς δὲ ἅθ᾽ ἡγούμενοι, Sauppe ἡμεῖς δ᾽ , ὦ ἄνδρες, ἡγούμενοι. I believe that καθηγούμενοι, though unattested in this sense, is right,=‘inferring’, (κατά implying an unfavourable inference:) cp. Her. III. 27, πάγχυ σφέας καταδόξας ἑωυτοῦ κακῶς πρήξαντος χαρμόσυνα ταῦτα ποιέειν.

κατ᾽ ἀγχιστείαν ‘we claim the whole estate [οἴκου=κλήρου] from him on the ground of affinity’ — and no longer κατὰ διαθήκην, on the ground of the testament under which they had originally claimed two-thirds. ἀγχιστεία, in the legal sense, was a degree of affinity (including, for legal purposes, consanguinity, συγγένεια) recognised by the law as constituting a claim to an inheritance in the absence of a special bequest which could legally divert it. To claim an estate under testamentary disposition was ἀμφισβητεῖν κατὰ διαθήκην, or κατὰ δόσιν. (Schömann, Isae. p. 250, regards διδόναι, δόσις as the general terms for a bequest: διατίθεσθαι, διαθήκη as terms strictly applicable only when the legatee was at the same time adopted as son by the testator. But in Isae. or. I. § 41 the defendants claim κατὰ διαθήκην, and it nowhere appears that they had been adopted. I believe rather that δόσις denoted the act, and διαθήκη the instrument.) To claim on the ground of affinity (in the absence of a will) was ἀμφισβητεῖν κατ᾽ ἀγχιστείαν, or κατὰ γένος, or. IV. § 15. For the distinction between ἀγχιστεία and συγγένεια, cp. Isae. or. XI. § 17, ὃ (the relationship of son to mother) συγγενέστατον μὲν ἦν τῇ φύσει πάντων, ἐν δὲ ταῖς ἀγχιστείαις ὁμολογουμένως οὐκ ἔστιν: meaning that a mother could not inherit from her son, — although, by Attic law, an inheritance could ascend collaterally, as by an uncle inheriting.

ὀρθῶς ἐγνώκαμεν ‘have decided rightly’ (to sue D. for the whole estate): the perf., because the resolve still exists, since the case has not been finally settled. The argument is briefly this. Dicaeogenes III. received one-third of the estate under the will. He has set that will aside, and has taken the whole estate under another alleged will. We have shown that this alleged will is false. Therefore there is no will. And therefore the next of kin inherit.