The property appendage in Athenian Succession Law

Abstract

This paper attempts a systematic and critical study of the existing laws and regulations about the status of the minor spikieros with a three-fold objective: to establish that she was by and large a property appendage in the eyes of the law; that she could, in fact, be claimed before her marriageable age at the death intestate of her father. This is contrary to the orthodox view that the minor epikleros could not be claimed by her father's next of kin before her puberty. My third objective would then be, in the course of the discussion, to address the question of how the guardian of a minor epikleros was chosen.