Note 146 — Chapter V · THE CULT OF SOULS

The limits of those qualified to inherit extends in Athenian law μέχρι ἀνεψιαδῶν παίδων (Law ap. D. 43, 51; cf. § 27) as did the duty of avenging murder μεχρὶ ἀνεψιαδῶν: D. 47, 72 (ἐντὸς ἀνεψιότητος, which must mean the same thing, Law ap. D. 43, 57). The circle of persons thus united in the right of inheritance and the duty of taking vengeance for murder constituted the ἀγχιστεία, the body of kinsfolk tracing their descent (in the male line only) from the same man, the father, grandfather, or great-grandfather of them all. This is the limit to which the γονεῖς are traced: Is. 8, 32; cf. above, note 123. Many nations of the earth are familiar with a similar limitation of the narrower body of kinsfolk composing a “house”: as to the underlying reasons for the practice many conjectures are made by H. E. Seebohm, On the Structure of Greek Tribal Society (1895).