Marcus Cornelius Fronto

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thence I pass on to Athens and, clasping Minerva by her knees, I entreat and pray that, if ever I know aught of letters, this knowledge may find its way into my breast from the lips of none other than Fronto. [2] Now I return to Rome and implore with vows the gods that guard the roads and patrol the seas that in every journey of mine you may be with me, and I be not worn out with so constant, so consuming a desire for you. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 . ”

“ 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. ”

“ To shew that I do right in preferring to be loved by intuition and chance rather than by reason and my desert. Wherefore, even if there is any adequate reason for your love for me, I beseech you, Caesar, let us take diligent pains to conceal and ignore it. Let men doubt, discuss, dispute, guess, puzzle over the origin of our love as over the fountains of the Nile. ”

“ But if the present treatise seem to you to be longer than those which were previously sent through Lysias and Plato, let this be a proof to you that I can claim in fair words to be at no loss for words. But you must consider now whether my words are no less true than new.
2. No doubt, O Boy, you will wish to know at the very beginning of my discourse how it is that I, who am not in love, long with such eagerness for the very same things as lovers. ”

“ Has he been the faithful governor of some province? Has he commanded an army? Nothing of the kind. Not even those everyday duties about your person does he discharge more than others; nay, he is, if you wish the truth, remiss enough. For neither does he haunt your house at daybreak, nor pay his respects to you daily, nor attend you everywhere, nor keep you always in sight. See to it then that, if anyone ask you why you love Fronto, you have an easy answer ready. ”

“ The Praises of Smoke and Dust and Negligence are mere tours de force, but they throw light on his theory of rhetoric.
After so long and close an intimacy as these letters reveal we are surprised to find so meagre a mention of Fronto in the gallery of Worthies, from whom he learnt enduring lessons, which Marcus sets at the head of his Thoughts. It is nothing but this:
"From Fronto, to note the envy, the subtlety, and the dissimulation, which are habitual to a tyrant; and that as a general rule those amongst us who rank as patricians are somewhat wanting in natural affection." ”

“ Verily, since the creation of mankind and their endowment with speech let me be held the most eloquent of all men, since you, Marcus Aurelius, study my writings and esteem them, and do not think it useless or unprofitable to yourself in the midst of such great affairs to spend your valuable time in reading my speeches. ”

“ For I am in love and this, if nothing else, ought, I think, verily to be allowed to lovers, that they should have greater joy in the triumph of their loved ones. Ours, then, is the triumph, ours, I say. Is it . . . . [† 6] preferable to talk philosophy under ceilings rather than under plane-trees, within the city bounds than without its walls, scorning delights than with Lais herself sitting at our side or sharing our home? Nor can I "make a cast" which to beware of more, the law which an orator [33] of our time has laid down about this Lais, or my master's dictum about Plato. ”

“ At an age when I had scarcely touched any of the ancient authors you, by the grace of the gods and your own merit, have made such progress in eloquence as would bring fame to greybeards, and that, too—a far from easy task—in every branch of the art. ”

“ But those from whom you are estranged you will neither be angry with nor miss, if you have ceased to love them. For indeed, since you and your brother, set in so great a station, surrounded by so great a multitude of all sorts and conditions of men, on whom you lavish your love, bestow on me too some portion of that love, what ought I to do, whose hopes and fortunes all on you alone are centred? ”

“ And some are in love with wealth, others again with rich viands, and others with wine. In the number and category of such is beauty reckoned by lovers, like wealth and viands and strong drink; but by us, who admire, indeed, but love not, like sun and sky and earth and sea, for such things are too good for any love and beyond its reach. ”

“ He who is ever so much a lover is, by Zeus, gifted with no keener sight than I who am no lover, but I can discern your beauty as well as anyone else, aye, far more accurately, I might say, even than your lover. ”

“ In spite of his insistence on style and the choice of words, Fronto knows well enough and affirms that noble thoughts are the essential thing in oratory, for the want of which no verbal dexterity or artistic taste will compensate. It was his deficiency in "high thought's invention" that forced Fronto to concentrate his attention on the form and eke out the matter with the manner. Needless to say he has at his fingers' ends all the tropes and figures and devices of the art of rhetoric, and his knowledge of the Roman language and literature was profound. ”

“ Marcus Aurelius to Fronto
145–147 A.D. To my master.
Gaius Aufidius [51] gives himself airs, extols his own judgment to the skies, says that not another man more just than himself ever came from Umbria, for I must not exaggerate, to Rome. What need of more? He would rather win praise as a judge than as an orator. When I smile, he turns up his nose. Anyone, he says, can sit yawning beside a judge, but to be a judge is indeed to do noble work. ”

“ Farewell, my sweetest of masters, most honoured and most unique of men, my joy, my treasure, my delight.
Marcus Aurelius to Fronto
143 A.D. To my master.
Gratia [59] the younger has served, as the elder Gratia did, to calm our anxiety for the while or sweep it altogether away at once. I thank you on behalf of my patron, M. Porcius, for the frequency with which you read him: you will never, I fear, be able to return me the compliment with respect to Gaius Crispus, [60] for to M. Porcius alone have I devoted, aye and engaged, aye and given myself over heart and soul. ”

“ A man may think negligence to be unsafe and exposed to dangers, but my view is clean contrary, that it is diligence which is much much more liable to perils. For there is not one who takes the trouble to lay traps for negligence, judging that even without a trap it would be easy work to take in a negligent man always and everywhere and at pleasure: against the diligent, however, and the wide-awake and those who watch over their wealth, wiles and deceptions and traps are made ready. ”

“ I knew that on everyone's birthday his friends undertake vows for him whose birthday it is. I, however, since I love you as myself, wish to offer up on this day, which is your birthday, hearty prayers for myself. I call, therefore, with my vows to hear me each one of all the Gods, who anywhere in the world provide present and prompt help for men; who anywhere give their aid and shew their power in dreams or mysteries, or healing, or oracles ”

“ For though I burn with love for you, I would rather be severed utterly from you than let you swim so deep a sea so late at night, for fear the moon should set, the wind dash out your light, the cold benumb your senses there, a wave, a reef, a sea-beast in some way work you harm. ”

“ You know how in all money-changer's bureaus, booths, bookstalls, eaves, porches, windows, anywhere and everywhere there are likenesses of you exposed to view, badly enough painted most of them to be sure, and modelled or carved in a plain, not to say sorry, style of art, yet at the same time your likeness, however much a caricature, never when I go out meets my eyes without making me part my lips for a smile and dream of you. ”

“ An immense impetus was given to this tendency by the versatile littérateur Hadrian, who openly preferred Ennius to Vergil and Cato to Cicero.
But Fronto, fond as he was of old words and ancient locutions, insisted that such must be not only old but more expressive and appropriate than modern ones, or they must not be preferred. He himself confesses that he used only ordinary and commonplace words. No one in his opinion has a right to invent expressions—he calls such words counterfeit coin. ”