[26]
For we are nearest of kin
to Archiades, to whom the property originally belonged, and also to the adopted
Leocrates; for his father, seeing that he has returned to the Eleusinians,1 no longer retained his legal relationship,
whereas we, to whose family he had come to belong, had the closest relationship,
being children of that father's first cousin. So, if you like, we claim the
inheritance as kinsmen of Archiades, or, if you like it better, as kinsmen of
Leocrates; for since he died without issue, no one is nearer of kin than we.
1 This does not indicate a mere change of residence. He renounced his membership in the deme Otrynê, and resumed membership in the Eleusinian deme. By so doing, he relinquished the former legal relationship.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1939.
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