Marcus Cornelius Fronto

“ For it falls to a Caesar to carry by persuasion necessary measures in the Senate, to address the people in a harangue on many important matters, to correct the inequities of the law, to despatch rescripts throughout the world, to take foreign kings to task, to repress by edicts disorders among the allies, to praise their services, to crush the rebellious and to cow the proud. All these must assuredly be done by speech and writing. Will you not then cultivate an art, which you see must be of great use to you so often and in matters of such moment? ”

“ I will add but one thing before I conclude my discourse, that we are formed by nature to praise and admire, but not to love, all the gifts of the gods and their works that have come for the use and delight and benefit of men—those indeed of them which are wholly and in every way divine, I mean the earth and sky and sun and sea—while in the case of some other beautiful things of less worth, and formed to fulfil a less comely part, these at once are the subject of envy and love and emulation and desire. ”

“ My daughter will be reasonable, she will rest upon her husband's love, and he is the best of men. He will comfort her by mingling his tears and sighs with hers, by speaking when she speaks and being silent when she is silent. It will scarce befit me, her aged father, to comfort her; for it were more fitting had I myself been the first to die. Nor would any poet's songs or philosopher's precepts avail so much to assuage my daughter's grief and soothe her pain as her husband's voice issuing from lips so dear and a heart so near her own. ”

“ True, surely, is what our Laberius [74] says, that in inspiring love charms are but harms [75] and the foison of gifts poison. For never with cup or philtre could anyone so have stirred the flame of passion in a lover as by this act of yours you have dazed and amazed me by the ardour of your love. For every letter of your letter I count myself to have gained a consulship, a victory, a triumph, a robe of honour.
4. What fortune like this befell M. Porcius or Quintus Ennius, Gaius Gracchus, or the poet Titius? ”

“ For if the empire is destined by heaven for Cassius we shall not be able to put him to death, however much we may desire it. You know your great-grandfather's saying, No one ever killed his own successor. [22] But if the empire is not so destined, he will himself of his own accord, without any harsh measures on our part, be caught in the toils of Fate, let alone the fact that we cannot treat as a criminal a man whom no one impeaches and, as you say, the soldiers love. ”

“ For my part, unless my love and reverence for that writer and for all the language of our old authors blinds my judgment, I hold that, in so describing the concourse of nearly a whole city, 'mortals' is an expression far and away more ample, more comprehensive, and more copious than simply 'men.' For the phrase multi homines can be contracted and compressed to mean quite a moderate number, while multi mortales in some mysterious way and by some subtle nuance includes almost the whole body of citizens of every class and age and sex. ”

“ What, will the Immortal Gods allow the Comitium and Rostra and tribunals, that echoed to the speeches of Cato and Gracchus and Cicero, to be hushed in this age of all others? the wide world, which was vocal when you received it, to become dumb by your doing? If one cut out the tongue of a single man, he would be deemed a monster; to cut eloquence out from the human race—do you think that a trivial crime? ”

“ Herein lies that supreme excellence of an orator, and one not easily attainable, that he should please his hearers without any great sacrifice of right eloquence, and should let his blandishments, meant to tickle the ears of the people, be coloured indeed, but not along with any great or wholesale sacrifice of dignity: rather that in its composition and fabric there should be a lapse into a certain softness but no wantonness of thought. ”

“ For this old man and, as you style him, your master, good health, a good year, good fortune, everything good, which you write you have prayed of the Gods for me on this my birthday, above all others a red-letter day for you—all these good things are in your keeping and your brother's, O Antoninus, sweetest joy of my heart: whom, since I have known you and given myself up to you, I have ever held sweeter than all things, and will so hold you, although I live again other years as many as I have lived. ”

“ I commend to you with all possible cordiality Julius Aquilinus, [23] a man, if you have any faith in my judgment, most learned, most eloquent, exceptionally trained by the teachings of philosophy to the noblest accomplishments and by the study of eloquence to a matchless facility of speech. A man so learned and so cultured should naturally find from a man of your serious character and wisdom not only protection but advancement and honour. ”

“ At the very moment, when I was turning this over in my mind, following yours came the speech of Antoninus—Good heavens, how many admirable things, how many true! Every saying, every word quite fascinating, steeped in loyal affection and trust and love and longing. What then? which of both my two friends, the petitioner or the petitioned, should I praise the more? Antoninus with all his imperial power was complaisant, but you, Lucius, with all your complaisance, were for very love imperious. ”

“ Nor did this close relationship between us arise casually or by chance, and I am free to confess that I did not go out of my way to seek the friendship of Cornelianus. I had already heard his character spoken of with praise, and that it was a true report which reached my ears I have learnt by experience and verified with many proofs. We have lived together, studied together, shared alike in things grave and gay, put our loyalty and our counsels to the proof. In every way our friendship has conduced to our pleasure and our profit. ”

“ It inspires fear, wins love, is a spur to effort, puts shame to silence, exhorts to virtue, exposes vices, urges, soothes, teaches, consoles. In fine, I challenge boldly and on an old condition—give up eloquence and rule; give up making speeches in the Senate and subdue Armenia. Other leaders before you have subdued Armenia; but, by heaven, your single letter, your brother's single speech on you and your merits will be as regards fame more ennobling, and as regards posterity more talked of, than many a triumph of princes. ”

“ Again, friendship that is won by desert has no such growth or firm texture as the love that is sudden and at first sight. So in orchards and gardens the growth of shrubs, reared and watered by hand, is not like that of the oak and the fir and the alder [34] and the cedar and the pine on their native hills which, springing up self-sown and set without plan and without order, owe nothing to the toil or services of a planter, but are fostered by the wind and the rain. ”

“ For non-lovers have need of you no less than they. And indeed, to those who are really beautiful, lovers are as useless as flatterers to those who deserve praise. It is sailors and steersmen and captains of warships and merchants, and those that in other ways travel upon it, who give excellence and glory and honour and gain and ornament to the sea—not, heaven help us, dolphins that can live only in the sea: but for beautiful boys it is we who cherish and praise them disinterestedly, not lovers, whose life, deprived of their darlings, would be unlivable. ”

“ Provide yourself rather with speech worthy of the thoughts you draw from philosophy, and the more noble your thoughts, the more impressive will your utterance be. Nay, lift yourself up and stand upright, and shake off with your strong top those tree-twisters who are bending you down, like a fir or stately alder, and lowering you to the level of stunted bushes, and make trial whether you have anywhere swerved from the right way. But summon Eloquence, the handmaid of philosophy, and cast away those crooked, twisted modes of speech . ”

“ But no doubt the mere wish is an immense help towards what you can do so well. Nothing could be more effective than your thoughts, nothing more complimentary, yet without any sacrifice of good sense, than your expression of them. For I will not be guilty of defrauding you of your legitimate praise for fear of arrogantly praising the praise of myself. You have done your duty pleasingly and in unexceptionable fashion, for which, apart from all question of the subject, you deserve every credit. ”

“ But you will say Faustina will not buy these ornaments. Who then will buy the pearls, which were left to your daughters? You will rob the necks of your daughters of these pearls that they may grace whose goitred gorge may I ask?
Shall Matidia's inheritance not be taken up by you? Shall a most noble lady of the highest rank, of the greatest wealth, one who has deserved especially well of you, have thus died intestate? The precise result, therefore, will be, that you will have robbed of her will one to whom you have granted a public funeral. ”

“ Possibly some might say that I ought to have given up my friendship with him when I realized that he was not held by you in the same favour as before. But, Imperator, I was never of such a spirit as to cast off a friendship formed in prosperity as soon as a whisper of adversity was audible. And in any case—for why should I not say what is in my mind?—I shall hold as an enemy one who bears you no love, but one for whom you have but little love I shall count as an unfortunate rather than as an enemy [† 34] . . . . There is a very great difference between blaming a man and hating him . ”

“ If you gratify yourself by giving just judgment, will you disown justice? If you gratify yourself by shewing some filial respect to your father, will you despise filial duty? You gratify yourself, when eloquent: chastize yourself then, but why chastize eloquence?
11. And yet Plato would tell you this and take you thus to task: Perilous, young man, is that hasty avoidance of self-gratification, for the last cloak that wraps the follower after wisdom is the love of fame, that is the last to be discarded: [79] to Plato, to Plato himself, I say, will fame be a cloak to his very last day. ”

“ O ye kind Gods, that are everywhere, grant, I beseech you, health to my Fronto, dearest to me and most delightful: let him ever be well with a hardy, hale, healthy body: let him be well and able to be with me. Most charming of men, farewell.
143 A.D. Fronto to his own Caesar.
1. So without end, Caesar, is your love for this Fronto of yours, that for all your eloquence words are scarcely forthcoming fully to express your love and set forth your goodwill. What, I ask you, can be more fortunate, what more happy than I alone am, to whom you send such glowing letters? ”

“ When I read them—for I was too unwell to be present in the Senate—and perceived your brother to be hard pressed by your eloquence, I thus apostrophized him in my unspoken thoughts: What do you say to this, Antoninus? I see that you will have to take the title which you have declined, and retreat from your resolve. What is the use now of my letters, what of the letters of philosophers? We are outdone by a soldier's letter. Is there anything, think you, less than admirable in the writing? ”

“ And I cannot conceal my opinion that this is a far harder task than to charm with the lyre the fierceness of lions and wild beasts: and you will achieve this the more easily, if you set yourself to uproot and utterly to stamp out this one vice of mutual envy and jealousy among your friends, that they may not, when you have shewn attention or done a favour to another, think that this is so much taken from or lost to themselves. Envy among men is a deadly evil and more fatal than any, a curse to enviers and envied alike. ”

“ That love of yours, therefore, unplanted and sprung up without reason, will, I trust, grow steadily on with the cedars and the oaks; whereas if it were cherished by reason of services done, it would not outgrow the myrtles and the bays, which have scent enough but too little strength. In a word, love spontaneous is as superior to love earned by service as fortune is to reason. ”

“ For he was laved by Jove's hands when it rained, and anointed by the hands of the Sun, when the dew of agony came out upon his skin. Such prosperous beginnings as his have not seldom a disastrous ending. There should be no exultation over excessive and prolonged prosperity, no fainting away when a reverse has been sustained. You may soon hope for a victory, for Rome in her history has ever experienced frequent alternations of fortune.
7. Who is so unversed in military annals as not to know that the Roman people have earned their empire by falling no less than by felling? ”