[118]
Who then was it who was present? “The
brother,” says he, “of my wife.” If we ask
what was his authority, although he is of such an age that he cannot as yet
have much, still even such authority as a young man can have is to be
considered as diminished in his case, by reason of his near connection with
and relationship to you. But if we ask what knowledge he has, who could have
less than he who had only come into the college a few days before? And he
was the more bound to you by your recent kindness to him, inasmuch as he had
seen himself, the brother of your wife, preferred by you to your own
brother. Although in that matter you took care that your brother should not
be able to accuse you.
Do you then call that a dedication, to which you were not able to invite the college of pontiffs, or any single priest distinguished by honours conferred on him by the Roman people nor even any other young man, though you had some most intimate friends in the college? He only was present, if indeed he was present, whom you yourself instigated, whom his sister entreated, and whom his mother compelled to be so.
