It seems to me, Athenians, that Leptines—and pray, be not angry,1 for I am not going to say anything offensive about you—Leptines has either never read Solon's laws or else does not understand them. For if Solon made a law that every man could grant his property to whomsoever he pleased, in default of legitimate offspring, not with the object of depriving the next of kin of their rights of consanguinity, but that by making the prize open to all he might excite a rivalry in doing good one to another;
