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The Green Bag
great master of Attic wit, in almost Aristophanic vein, note the marked characteristics of these peoples at one fell swoop of generalization. And espe cially well founded is the happy stric ture on the Athenian's darling weak ness; for next to his love for fearless freedom of thought must be put his infatuation for litigation. In his ultra-enthusiasm in legal mat ters, the Athenian sometimes adopted what are often accounted "modern im provements," and some of these pre vailing practices have been most per tinently parodied by Aristophanes him self, notably in his "Bird Town," where one of the first visitors, following at full speed after the parricide, is a LawSuit Hatcher, who "can't dig" but is willing to blackmail. In the "Wasps," the disappointed juryman, Boss-Lover, holds a home trial of the dog "Sic-em," which stole the green Sicilian cheese out of the kitchen, but is set free through the puppies brought into court, which, "whining, beg him off, entreat and weep" —a not uncommon though illegal mode of influencing the jury, but a means to which the great Socrates despised to resort even to save his life. These side plays and the sometimes asserted lack of respect for law on the part of the Athenian,—a failing, charac teristic of every republic, ancient and modern,— find their set-off in the noble Apostrophe to Law by the old ruler in the tragedy which the critical Aristotle pronounced the most perfect play ever written — Sophocles's "King CEdipus"; as well as in the continuous belief and consistent action that looked to the popular law courts as the safeguard of the Athenian's constitutional liberty and realized that the hope and redress of a free people lie in the possession and use of the courts of the land. Pro bably at no period in the history of juris
prudence has interest in legal matters been so intense and so generally founded on an intelligent and sympathetic appre ciation of the vital connection between national law and individual happiness as in the days of Periclean Athens — the fifth century before Christ — and in the times immediately subsequent thereto. In no department of legal lore did the Athenian take greater interest or have a more human concern than in matters which related to instituting an heir or successor to the family estate, if we are to be guided by the mass of material that the "Orators" have passed down to us in the cases in which they held retainers as "Speech-writers."* The perpetuation of the race and the preservation of the home have always been dearest to the heart of man of all things human, and have made the regu lations concerning marriage and inheri tance the most important articles in the world's legal codes. So that the legis lation and litigation, the religious cus toms and domestic ties — which can not be successfully separated from any careful consideration of the different phases of Hellenic inheritance — may have a lively interest for the modern lawyer and layman, though the scene may be laid and the data derived from a period not so very many generations away from the time when folk-law was merged into the Law of the Land. Our modern civilization finds at hand two agencies for instituting an heir, the "last will and testament" and the legal fiction of adoption,— the latter method probably rarely resorted to, at this day, for the primary purpose of establishing a successor to one's worldly wealth. We oftentimes "let the law make our 'See author's article in Popular Science Monthly, p. 371, April, 1910, on "The Trial of an Old Greek Corn Ring."
