If the fighting members of the family were killed, the great-grandsons (who would be second cousins or nearer to each other) would have to inherit directly from their great-grandfather: and thus, especially in cases where the property was held undivided after the father's death, we can easily see that second cousins (i.e. all who traced back to the common great-grandfather) might be looked upon as forming a natural limit to the immediate descendants in any one οἶκος, and as the furthest removed who could claim shares of the ancestral inheritance.
After the death of the great-grandfather or head of the house, his descendants would probably wish to divide up the estate and start new houses of their own. The eldest son was generally named after his father's father,[140] and would carry on the name of the [pg 055] eldest branch of his great-grandfather's house, and would be responsible for the proper maintenance of the rites on that ancestor's tomb. He would also be guardian of any brotherless woman or minor amongst his cousins, each of whom would be equally responsible to him and to each other for all the duties and privileges entailed upon blood-relationship.
Thus seems naturally to spring up an inner group of blood-relations closely drawn together by ties which only indirectly reached other and outside members of the γένος.
The ἀγχιστεία at Athens.
In the fourth century B.C. this compact group limited to second cousins still survived at Athens, responsible to each other for succession, by inheritance or by marriage of a daughter; for vengeance and purification after injury received by any member, and for all duties shared by kindred blood.
This close relation was called ἀγχιστεία, and all its members were called ἀγχιστεῖς i.e. any one upon whom the claim upon the next-of-kin might at any time fall.
The speech of Demosthenes against Makartatos affords considerable information as to the constitution of the family-group or οἶκος. The five sons of Bouselos,[141] we are told, on his death divided his substance amongst them, and each started a new οἶκος and begat children and children's children.[142] The action, which was the occasion of the speech, lay between the great-grandsons of two of these five founders of οἶκοι, Stratios and Hagnias, and had reference to the disposal of the estate of the grandson [pg 056] of the latter, which had come into the hands of the great-grandson of Stratios.
One might have supposed that the descendants of Bouselos, with their common burial ground[143] and so forth, would have ranked as all in the same οἶκος under their title of Bouselidai. But it is clear from this speech of Demosthenes, that too many generations had already passed to admit of Bouselos being considered as still head of an unbroken οἶκος, and that his great-great-grandsons were subdivided into separate οἶκοι under the names of their respective great-grandfathers, Stratios, Hagnias, &c. (οἵ εἰσιν ἐκ τοῦ Στρατίου οἴκου, ἐκ δὲ τοῦ Ἁγνίου οὐδεπώποτ᾽ ἐγένοντο).[144]