Hesiod, beside the duty towards the stranger and the
orphan. These and other references to the Pythagoreans suggest that
they, possibly in common with other mystics, preached the higher
religion of marriage and social life, and thus inspired a deeper social
feeling, which eventually allied itself with the Christian movement.

Next, as to parents and children: the son was under an obligation to
support his father, subject, after Solon's time, to the condition that
he had taught him a trade; and after Solon's time the father had no
claim for support from an illegitimate son. "The possession of
children," it was said (Arist. _Econ._), "is not by nature for the
public good only, but also for private advantage. For what the strong
may gain by their toil for the weak, the weak in their old age receive
from the strong... Thus is the nature of each, the man and the woman,
prearranged by the Divine Being for a life in common." Honour to parents
is "the first and greatest and oldest of all debts" (Plato, _Laws_,
717). The child has to care for the parent in his old age. "Nemesis, the
minister of justice ([Greek: dike]), is appointed to watch over all
these things." And "if a man fail to adorn the sepulchre of his dead
parents, the magistrates take note of it and inquire" (Xen. _Mem._ ii.
14). The heightened conception of marriage implies a fuller
interpretation of the mutual relations of parent and child as well; both
become sacred.

Then as to orphans. Before Solon's time (594 B.C.) the property of any
member of the clan-family who died without children went to the clan;
and after his time, when citizens were permitted to leave their property
by will, the property of an intestate fell to the clan. This arrangement
carried with it corresponding duties. Through the clan-family provision
was made for orphans. Any member of the clan had the legal right to
claim an orphan member in marriage; and, if the nearest agnate did not
marry her, he had to give her a dowry proportionate to the amount of his
own property. Later, there is evidence of a growing sense of
responsibility in regard to orphans. Hippodamus (about 443 B.C.), in his
scheme of the perfected state (Arist. _Pol._ 1268), suggested that there
should be public magistrates to deal with the affairs of orphans (and
strangers); and Plato, his contemporary, writes of the duty of the state
and of the guardian towards them very fully. Orphans, he proposes
(_Laws_, 927), should be p