That the son of a second cousin was also without the pale is directly stated in several passages in Isaeus.
The heir always ranked as son.
It must be remembered that by “inheritance” is meant the assumption of all the duties incumbent on the ἀγχιστεύς, and that the man who “inherited” took [pg 060] his place for the future as son of the deceased in the family pedigree, and reckoned his relationship to the rest of the γένος thenceforth from his new position, in the house into which he had come.[150]
Hence the limit of the inheritance at cousin's children.
Now if it is true that to the great-grandson was the lowest in degree to which property could directly descend without entering a new οἶκος, and if that great-grandson was also looked upon as beginning with his acquired property a new portion of the continuous line of descent; any one, who “inherited” from him and ranked in the scale of relationship as HIS SON, would necessarily fall outside the former group and would be considered as forming the nearest relative in the next succeeding group. This, it seems, is the meaning of the language of the law which limits the ἀγχιστεία to the children of first cousins who could inherit from their parent's first cousins, and still retain their relationship as great-grandsons of the same ancestor. Whereas any one taking the place of son to his second cousin would be one degree lower down in descent, and pass outside the limit of the four generations. The law makes the kinsmen therefore exhaust all possible relationships within the group by reverting to the mother's kindred with the same limitation before allowing the inheritance to pass outside or lower down.
Disinheritance must be sanctioned by kinsmen.
In confirmation of this view the following passage may be quoted from Plato's Laws:—
“He who in the sad disorder of his soul has a mind, justly or unjustly, to expel from his family a son whom he has begotten and brought up, shall not lightly or at once execute his purpose; but [pg 061] first of all he shall collect together his own kinsmen, extending to (first) cousins (μέχρι ἀνεψιῶν), and in like manner his son's kinsmen by the mother's side,[151] and in their presence he shall accuse his son, setting forth that he deserves at the hands of them all to be dismissed from the family (γένος).”[152]
Before dishonouring one of the family and so bereaving it of a member owing duties which, by his disinheritance, may fall into abeyance or be neglected, the parent calls together all to whom his son might perhaps ultimately become the only living representative and heir, and who might at some future time be dependent on him for the performance of ancestral rites. That this was in Plato's mind when he wrote is shown by the next sentence, in which he provides for the possibility of some relation already having need of the young man and being desirous to adopt him as his son, in which case he shall by no means be prevented. The concurrence of all relations in such a position was therefore necessary.
In other cases where Plato mentions similar gatherings of the kin but for different purposes, he extends the summons to cousin's children. But here it can be seen they would have no place. They would be second cousins to the disgraced youth; they might have to share privilege or pollution with him, but had no claim on him for duties towards themselves. He would be “cousin's son” to his father's first cousins—the limit of such a claim in the ἀγχιστεία.