The inhabitants of the island of Andros were subject to the Athenian laws, which prohibited women from bequeathing by will more than the value of a medimnum (μεδιμνον) of barley. The medimnum was equal to four English pecks and a half. Therefore, as Chrysis had not the power of bequeathing her property, Crito claimed it as heir at law. The Athenian laws relating to wills were very numerous, and very strict in guarding against an improper appropriation of property. Slaves, foreigners, minors, and adopted persons, as well as those who had male heirs, were, by the laws of Solon, rendered incapable of making a will. Those persons who had no offspring of their own, frequently adopted the children of others, who inherited their estates. Sometimes foreigners were adopted, after having received the freedom of the city. A person who succeeded to the property of another, as heir at law, was bound, under a heavy penalty, to take care, (if on the spot,) that funeral honours were paid to the deceased. This was reckoned a point of great importance: the Greeks were willing to proceed to any extremity rather than suffer their friends to want the rites of sepulture, as we see in _Lucretius_, who describes the outrageous actions to which the people were driven during a plague; when they committed acts of the greatest violence, rather than permit their friends to want funeral honours. “Multaque vis subita, et paupertas horrida suasit; Namque suos consanguineos aliena rogorum, Insuper instructa ingenti clamore locabant: Subdebantque faces, multo cum sanguine sæpe Rixantes, potiùs quam corpora deserentur.” LUCRETIUS. Compelled by poverty to desperate deeds, Their rage another’s funeral pile invades: With furious shouts they rend his corse away, Then to the pile their own dead friends convey. They guard the spot, until the rising flames } Consume the load the lofty pile sustains, } And fight, and bleed, and die, ere quit their loved remains.} NOTE 189. _Mysis.――Bless me! whom do I see? Is not this Crito, the kinsman of Chrysis? It is._ Quem video? estne hic Crito, _sobrinus_ Chrysidis. _Sobrinus_ means literally a mother’s sister’s child, or what we call in English, a maternal cousin-german: but this particularity is not admissible in a translation. NOTE 190. _Crito.――Alas! poor Chrysis is then gone._