[135]
There is still one thing which especially
perplexes me, and a topic to which I appear to have scarcely made any sufficient
reply,—namely, the eulogy which you read, extracted from the will of Caius Egnatius,
the father, a most honourable man, and a most wise one; saying that he had disinherited his
son, because he had taken a bribe to vote for the condemnation of Oppianicus. Of that man's
inconstancy and feebleness I will not say another word. This very will which you are reading
is such, that he, when he was disinheriting that son whom he hated, was joining with his other
son whom he loved, the most perfect strangers as his coheirs. But I think that you, O Attius,
should consider carefully, whether you wish the decision of the censors, or that of Egnatius,
to carry most weight with it. If that of Egnatius, that is a trifling thing which the censors
have expressed in their notes about the others; for they expelled Egnatius himself from the
senate, whom you wish to be considered an authority. If that of the censors is to
preponderate, then the censors when they expelled his father, retained this Egnatius in the
senate, whom his father disinherited on account of the note which the censors had written
respecting him.
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