72
From all this, gentlemen, and from what actually happened, it is easy to see that these men attain the limit of human impudence. For why did our uncle, if he had a legitimate daughter who survived him, adopt and leave behind my brother as his son? Had he nearer relatives than us whom he wished, by adopting my brother, to exclude from the right of claiming his daughter? In the absence of legitimate sons of his own, he neither has nor ever had a single relative nearer than us; for he had no brother or brother's sons, and we were the children of his sister.
73
But, it may be urged, he might have adopted some other kinsman and given him the possession of his estate and his daughter. Yet what need had he openly to incur the enmity of any one of his relatives, when it was in his power, if he had really married the sister of Nicodemus, to introduce the child, who has been declared to be her offspring, to the members of his ward as his own legitimate child, and leave her sole heiress to all his estate and direct that one of her sons should be introduced as his adopted son?
