ossession must give the name of the person from whom he
received it (Telfy); and any one searching for lost property must enter
a house naked (Telfy), or, as Plato says, 'naked, or wearing only a
short tunic and without a girdle. (b) Athenian law, as well as Plato,
did not allow a father to disinherit his son without good reason and the
consent of impartial persons (Telfy). Neither grants to the eldest
son any special claim on the paternal estate (Telfy). In the law of
inheritance both prefer males to females (Telfy). (c) Plato and Athenian
law enacted that a tree should be planted at a fair distance from a
neighbour's property (Telfy), and that when a man could not get water,
his neighbour must supply him (Telfy). Both at Athens and in Plato there
is a law about bees, the former providing that a beehive must be set up
at not less a distance than 300 feet from a neighbour's (Telfy), and the
latter forbidding the decoying of bees.

(18) Orphans. A ward must proceed against a guardian whom he suspects
of fraud within five years of the expiration of the guardianship. This
provision is common to Plato and to Athenian law (Telfy). Further, the
latter enacted that the nearest male relation should marry or provide
a husband for an heiress (Telfy),--a point in which Plato follows it
closely.

(19) Contracts. Plato's law that 'when a man makes an agreement which he
does not fulfil, unless the agreement be of a nature which the law or
a vote of the assembly does not allow, or which he has made under the
influence of some unjust compulsion, or which he is prevented from
fulfilling against his will by some unexpected chance,--the other party
may go to law with him,' according to Pollux (quoted in Telfy's note)
prevailed also at Athens.

(20) Trade regulations. (a) Lying was forbidden in the agora both by
Plato and at Athens (Telfy). (b) Athenian law allowed an action of
recovery against a man who sold an unsound slave as sound (Telfy).
Plato's enactment is more explicit: he allows only an unskilled person
(i.e. one who is not a trainer or physician) to take proceedings in such
a case. (c) Plato diverges from Athenian practice in the disapproval of
credit, and does not even allow the supply of goods on the deposit of
a percentage of their value (Telfy). He enacts that 'when goods are
exchanged by buying and selling, a man shall deliver them and receive
the price of them at a fixed place in the agora, and have done with
the matter