[32]
This is the clear intention not only of this law but also of that dealing with the neglect of parents. For if my grandfather were alive and in want of the necessities of life, we, and not our opponent, would be liable to prosecution for neglect. For the law enjoins us to support our parents, meaning by “parents” father, mother, grandfather, and grandmother, and their father and mother, if they are still alive; for they are the source of the family, and their property is transmitted to their descendants, and so the latter are bound to support them even if they have nothing to bequeath to them. How then can it be right that, if they have nothing to leave, we should be liable to prosecution for neglecting them, yet that, if they have something to leave, our opponent should be the heir and not we? Surely it cannot be right.
Isaeus. Isaeus with an English translation by Edward Seymour Forster, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1962.
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