“By means of the eldest son, as soon as he is born, a man becomes possessed of a son and is thus cleared of his debt to the _manes_” “A husband is born again on earth in his son.” “If among many brothers born of one father, _one_ should have a son, Manu said all those brothers would be possessed of sons by means of that son.” _i.e._ one representative was sufficient as regards the duties to the _manes_ in the house of the grandfather. “Thro’ a son one conquers worlds, thro’ a son’s son one attains endlessness, and through the son’s son of a son one attains the world of the Sun.” “The sort of reward one gets on crossing the water by means of bad boats is the sort of reward one gets on crossing the darkness (to the next world) by means of bad sons.”(35) (M27) Plato expresses the same feeling in the _Laws_:(36) “After a sort the human race naturally partakes of immortality, of which all men have the greatest desire implanted in them; for the desire of every man that he may become famous, and not lie in the grave without a name, is only the love of continuance ... In this way they are immortal leaving [children’s] children behind them, with whom they are one in the unity of generation. And for a man voluntarily to deprive himself of this gift of immortality, as he deliberately does who will not have a wife and children, is _impiety_.” The functions and duties of the individual towards his family and relations thus find their explanation in his position as link, between the past and the future, in the transmission to eternity of his family blood. His duties to his ancestors began with the death of his father. He had at Athens to carry out the corpse, provide for the cremation, gather the remains of the burnt bones, with the assistance of the rest of the kindred,(37) and show respect to the dead by the usual form of shaving the head, wearing mourning clothes, and so on. Nine days after the funeral he must perform certain sacrifices and periodically after that visit the tombs and altars of his family in the family burying-place.(38) If he had occasion to perform military service, he must serve in the tribe and the deme of his parent (στρατεύειν ἐν τῇ φυλῇ καὶ ἐν τῷ δήμῳ).(39) Before he can enter into his inheritance he must fulfil all the ordinances incumbent on one in his position, and in the Gortyn Laws it is stated that an adopted heir cannot partake of the property of his adoptive father unless he undertakes the sacred duties of the house of the deceased.(40) Thus the right of ownership of the family estate rested always with the possession of the blood of the former owners; and such a representative demonstrated his right by stepping into his predecessor’s shoes and by taking upon himself all responsibility for the fulfilment of the rites, thereafter to be performed to him also when he shall have been gathered to the majority of his family.