Marcus Cornelius Fronto

“ For the morale of generals and soldiers is thoroughly bad, and unless you crush them they will crush us.
My mother Faustina exhorted your father Pius, on the revolt of [the same] Celsus, that he should shew loyalty in the first place to his own family and then to others. For an Emperor cannot be called Pius who does not think of wife and children. You see how young our Commodus is: Pompeianus, our son-in-law, [28] is both aged and a provincial. See how you deal with Avidius Cassius and his accomplices. ”

“ Answer of Marcus to Faustina
175 A.D. The anxiety which you shew for your husband and our children, my Faustina, is natural. For I have read your letter again in the Formian Villa, in which you urge me to take vengeance on the accomplices of Cassius. But I intend to spare his children and son-in-law and wife, [32] and I shall write to the Senate not to permit any severer persecution or harsher penalty being inflicted on them. For there is nothing that can commend an emperor to the world more than clemency. ”

“ For as we are not in other respects solicitous of honours for ourselves, much less should we permit those of others to be transferred to us. As many of the statues as are in good preservation should be kept under their original names, but with respect to those that are too battered to be identified, perhaps their titles can be recovered from inscriptions on their bases or from records that may exist in the possession of the Council, so that our progenitors may rather receive a renewal of their honour than its extinction through the melting down of their images. ”

“ He dislikes our whole regime; he is gathering great wealth; he ridicules our letters; he calls you a philosophizing old woman, me a profligate simpleton. See what had better be done. Personally I do not dislike the man; but you must consider whether you are acting fairly by yourself and your children in keeping ready equipped for action such a leader as the soldiers gladly listen to, gladly see.
Answer of Marcus about Avidius Cassius
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“ Answer of the Praefect
? 162–163 A.D. You have taken a wise step, my Lord, in setting Cassius over the Syrian army. There is nothing so salutary for grecianized soldiers as a man of unusual strictness. Be sure that he will "knock off" all these hot baths for the soldiers, these flowers from their heads and necks and breasts. The soldiers' corn-supply is all provided, and nothing is wanting with a good general in command, for his requirements and his expenses are equally moderate.
From a Letter of Verus to Marcus
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“ The "miraculous victory" took place, as generally held, in 174. ↑ Though this letter is certainly spurious, yet there must have been a report to the senate by Marcus on the remarkable victory gained over the Quadi, of which both Christian and heathen writers make mention. The latter attributed the victory to the prayers or merits of the emperor, the Christians to the intercessions of the soldiers of their religion in the Legio fulminata, called from their success fulminatrix. ”