4. From this view of the times, which succeeded the innovation of Epitadeus, we will now turn to the original system, which indeed we are scarcely able to ascertain, from the feeble and obscure indications now extant. In the first place, we know with certainty that daughters had originally no dowry (in Doric δωτίνη),(913) and were married with a gift of clothes, &c.;(914) afterwards, however, they were at least provided with money and other moveable property.(915) At the time of Aristotle, after the ephoralty of Epitadeus, they were also endowed with land.(916) This was the regulation in case of the existence of a son; if there was none, the daughter, and if there were several daughters, probably the eldest, became heiress (ἐπίκληρος, in Doric ἐπιπαματίς);(917) that is to say, the possession of her was necessarily connected with that of the inheritance. Regulations concerning heiresses were an object of chief importance in the ancient legislations, on account of their anxiety for the maintenance of families, as in that of Androdamas of Rhegium for the Thracian Chalcideans,(918) and in the code of Solon,(919) with which the Chalcidean laws of Charondas appear to have agreed in all essential points.(920) We will mention the most important of these regulations. The heiress, together with her inheritance, belonged to the kinsmen of the family (ἀγχιστεῖς); so that in early times(921) the father could not dispose of his daughter as he liked without their assent. But, according to the later Athenian law, the father had power either during his life or by will to give his daughter, with her inheritance, in marriage to whomever he wished. If, however, this power was not exercised, the kinsmen had a right of claiming the daughter by a judicial process; and the right to marry her went round in a regular succession.(922) But the unmarried man, to whom of all her kinsmen she was allotted, was not only privileged, but also compelled to marry her.(923) The laws also exercised a further superintendence over him, and enjoined that he should beget children from his wife,(924) which then did not pass into his family, but into that of his wife, and became the successors of their maternal grandfather. Now there is no doubt that in Sparta the family was continued by means of the heiresses; but it is probable that they always chose for their husbands persons who had no lots of their own, such as the descendants of younger brothers, and, first, persons of the same family,(925) if there were any, then persons connected by relationship, and so on. If the father himself had made no disposition concerning his daughters, (in which respect, however, his choice was limited,) it was to be decided by the king’s court who among the privileged persons should marry the heiress.(926) It was not until after the time of Epitadeus that the father could betroth his daughter to whom he pleased; and if he had not declared his intention, his