Isaeus

11. ON THE ESTATE OF HAGNIAS

. ON THE ESTATE OF HAGNIAS The suit in which this speech was delivered is one of the few examples in the Attic orators in which we have a speech from the opposing side, though in this instance Demosthenes 43, Against Macartatus, was delivered in a subsequent action. It is also one of the relatively rare occasions on which we know the outcome of the trial: Isaeus’ client, Theopompus, won the case. The survival of the two speeches enables us to reconstruct with some confidence much of the complex stemma of the family of Buselus of Oeum, though (as with the surviving accounts of the embassy to Philip II of Macedon found in Aeschines 2 and Demosthenes 19) the accounts are not entirely reconcilable and some of the affiliations are not by any means certain. Hagnias II died on an embassy whose date is disputed (see below). He adopted by will his niece, with the stipulation that, if she died without offspring, the estate should pass to his half-brother Glaucon (i.e., he would be posthumously adopted as Hagnias II’s son). The niece, who may have been the daughter either of a sister or (some scholars now feel) of Hagnias II’s second half-brother, Glaucus, did indeed die without issue, and Glaucon took over the estate (11.9). The authenticity of the will was now challenged by Eubulides II (11.9; Dem. 43.43–45), who was a second cousin to Hagnias II on his father’s side and a first cousin on his mother’s side. He too died, but his case was pursued on behalf of his daughter Phylomache II by her husband Sositheus, who succeeded in having the will judged a forgery. Consequently, Phylomache II won possession of the estate, since she was Hagnias II’s first cousin once removed on his father’s side, giving her priority over Glaucon, who was Hagnias II’s half-brother but on his mother’s side (the male line taking precedence over the Sosias II Eubulides III Menestheus Callistratus II F = M M Hagnias III Glaucetes II (?) F (adopted by Hagnias II) Phylomache II = Sositheus M M M M (the opponent) Phanostratus II F F F F Macartatus II Macartatus I Chaereleos Theopompus = F (the speaker) Stratocles Stratius II F = Sosias I Eubulides II F Hagnias II Glaucus Glaucon F Apolexis Charidemus Phanostratus I Euctemon Callistratus = F Phylomache I = Philagrus Glaucetes I (2) = F = (1) Polemon Hagnias I Eubulides I Buselus Stratius I Cleocritus Habron Stemma 174 isaeus female). This happened in 361/0 (Dem. 43.31), but the overturning of the will prompted other second cousins to enter a claim: Stratius II, Stratocles, and Theopompus. Stratius II and Stratocles both died, and it was left to Theopompus to fight the claim against (he says, 11.16) Phylomache II and the mother of Hagnias II: as the daughter of Phanostratus I, the latter was at the same time her son’s second cousin but, since she therefore came after Theopompus in the order of succession, she claimed the estate as Hagnias II’s mother (11.17). According to Demosthenes 43.7–8, however, there were five claimants in all: Phylomache II, Theopompus, Glaucon, Glaucus, and the mysterious Eupolemus. Sositheus claims that Theopompus did a deal with the others against Phylomache II and that a written agreement was deposited with Medeius of Hagnus. Another deal (or another part of the same deal) alleged by his fellow guardian and strenuously denied was that Theopompus agreed to give Stratocles’ son half of the estate if he was successful in his claim (11.24–26). It is possible , then, that Theopompus was, as one scholar has called him, “a thorough-paced scoundrel,” but the precise details of the inheritance claim (diadikasia) are obscure. What is clear is that Theopompus won the estate by demonstrating that Phylomache I was not a legitimate sister of Polemon: her granddaughter Phylomache II was therefore related to Hagnias II only as his second cousin once removed through her great-grandfather Eubulides. On this basis Theopompus was the closest relative, since Hagnias II’s mother had no legal claim as mother, and he secured the estate in his turn. He was, however, subsequently prosecuted by an eisangelia kakōseōs orphanou for maltreatment of an orphan, the son of his brother Stratocles; the case  Davies (1971: 82–83) takes Eupolemus to be the...