Marcus Cornelius Fronto

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ The latter forms a sort of turning point, not only in the correspondence but also in the life of Marcus. To Fronto's infinite chagrin he broke with rhetoric and betook himself wholly to philosophy, at about the time (147 A.D.) when he became in reality, though not in name, co-emperor. At all events, whether from a slight coolness in their relations or owing to increasing ill-health on the part of Fronto and increasing duties on that of Marcus, the character of the correspondence changes with Book V. Most of the letters are short, some being mere messages, and many of a quite trivial character. ”

“ I begin to be dainty, [28] as generally happens with those who have at last in their grasp what they long for: they are carried away, [29] they feel in affluence, they are exultant: for myself, however, I am even disgusted with everything. My Lady mother greets you. I shall ask her to-day to bring Gratia to me—even the smoke of one's fatherland, as the Greek poet [30] says. Farewell, my—all in all—master. I love myself at the thought of seeing you.
Fronto to Marcus as Caesar ”

“ Fronto's letters are by no means free from exaggeration and laudation, but they do not show that loathsome flattery which filled the Roman court. He really admires what he praises, and his way of saying so is not unlike what often passes for criticism at the present day. He is not afraid to reprove what he thinks amiss; and the astonishment of Marcus at this will prove, if proof were needed, that he was not used to plain dealing. "How happy I am," he writes, "that my friend Marcus Cornelius, so distinguished as an orator and so noble as a man, thinks me worth praising and blaming." ”

“ For though by being the first to appeal to violence, he brought his fate upon himself in the outbreak that ensued, yet it would have been better for the good name of the Romans had a suppliant departed unharmed than been punished even justly; for in such deeds the reason of the act lies hid, the act itself is before the eyes, and it is far better to pass by an injury and have public opinion on your side than to avenge one and have it against you. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A few words require to be said now as to Fronto's method of instruction. He began by taking his pupil through a course of old farces, comedies, ancient orators and poets, and Marcus was encouraged to make extracts from the authors that were read. Cato, Gracchus, Ennius, Sallust, and Cicero were especially studied. The first was Marcus's favourite, but Fronto preferred Sallust before all. In letter-writing Cicero was recognized as supreme, and the "tullian" style of his more familiar letters was looked upon as worthy of imitation. ”

“ Next year and the year after and right on into a long old age, most delightful of masters, may you have the best of good health. I ask of you—and do not refuse me—not to take the trying journey to Lorium for Cornificia's [41] birthday. God willing, you shall see us at Rome a few days hence. But if you love me, pass the coming night in peace and quiet without attending to any business however pressing. Grant this to your Antoninus, who asks it with sincerity and concern.
162 A.D. Fronto to Antoninus Augustus. ”

“ Nothing can be more conscientious than the man, nothing more reasonable, nothing more unassuming; generous also, if I am any authority, and considering the slenderness of his resources as open-handed as his means permit. His characteristics, simplicity, continence, truthfulness, an honour plainly Roman, a warmth of affection, [42] however, possibly not Roman, for there is nothing of which my whole life through I have seen less at Rome than a man unfeignedly φιλόστοργος. ”

“ We find no trace in these letters of the former part of this obligation but there are references to φιλοστοργία, in which Fronto says that the patricians are wholly deficient. [47] He was himself a notable exception. Marcus calls him philostorgus. [48] His devotion to his wife and daughter, and to Victorinus, her husband, and their children, shows him to us in a very amiable light. He was very fond of children, and his love for Marcus and Lucius was deep and abiding.
We cannot help liking the old man for his honest, kindly disposition, and his loyalty to a high ideal of friendship. ”

“ The sole surviving daughter, Gratia, married Aufidius Victorinus, one of the best and most capable men of his age, who afterwards committed suicide under Commodus. One child of this union died, aged three, in Germany, where Victorinus was governor, about 165 A.D. One son certainly, and possibly a second, survived to manhood. The former, M. Aufidius Victorinus Fronto, was brought up in Fronto's house and lived to be consul in 199, and in an inscription [51] to his son at Pisaurum recalled his grandfather as "orator, consul, and master of Marcus and Lucius." ”

“ Greet my Lady.
? 140–143 A.D. Fronto to his own Caesar.
. . . . unless speech is graced by dignity of language, it becomes downright impudent and indecent. In fine you too, when you have had to speak in the Senate or harangue the people, have never used a far-fetched word, [3] never an unintelligible or unusual figure, as knowing that a Caesar's eloquence should be like the clarion not like the clarionet, in which there is less resonance and more difficulty.
Marcus Aurelius to Fronto
? ”

“ Arion of Lesbos, according to Greek tradition foremost as player on the lyre and as dithyrambist. setting out from Corinth, where he constantly sojourned, in pursuit of gain, after amassing great riches in the coast-towns of Sicily and Italy, prepared to make his way home from Tarentum to Corinth. For his ship's crew he chose Corinthians by preference, and boldly freighted their ship with his immense gains. When the ship was well out at sea he realized that the crew, coveting the wealth which they carried, were plotting his death. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ After reading these words Fronto said to the poet:
"Are you satisfied that C. Caesar has decided against you clearly and firmly enough as to the status of the word?"
Then the poet, impressed by the authoritative nature of the book, said: "If there were the right of appeal from Caesar, I would now appeal from this book of Caesar's. But since he has himself omitted to give any reason for his verdict, I ask you now to tell us what fault you think there is in saying either quadriga or arenae." ”

“ But indeed, if you wish to count up the full tale of all the orators, as many as have existed since the foundation of Rome, including those whom Cicero in his Brutus endowed wholesale with the franchise of eloquence, you will scarcely make up the number of three hundred all told, while from one family of the Fabii there fell fighting for their country in one day three hundred soldiers, the bravest of the brave. Not of races many thousands . ”

“ 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. ”

“ He has been brought to my notice by learned men and close friends of my own, whose personal wishes rightly have the greatest weight with me. Therefore, if you love me, accord to Volumnius so much respect and opportunity of gaining your friendship, for very dear friends have enlisted my sympathy for him. Therefore I would ask you to welcome him with such kindly friendship as the great Achilles wished to shew, when he bid the son of Menoetius mix the wine stronger. [3]
? ”

“ Equally rhetorical and fictitious is a letter said to be from Cassius to his son-in-law: [16] "Marcus is assuredly an excellent man, but while he covets a reputation for clemency, he lets those live whose lives he does not approve. Where is Lucius Cassius, whose name I bear in vain? Where the great Marcus Cato the Censor? Where all the discipline of our ancestors? Marcus Antoninus philosophizes and enquires about first principles and about the soul and about what is honourable and just, and has no thought for the State [17] . ”

“ Wherefore few indeed of our old writers have surrendered themselves to that toil, pursuit, and hazard of seeking out words with especial diligence. M. Porcius alone of the orators of all time, and his constant imitator C. Sallustius, are among these; of poets Plautus especially, and most especially Q. Ennius and his zealous rival L. Coelius, not to omit Naevius and Lucretius, Accius, too, and Caecilius, also Laberius. ”

“ Marcus Aurelius to Fronto
143 A.D. My most honourable consul, Fronto.
1. I give in, you have won: beyond question you have conquered in loving all lovers that have ever lived. Take the wreath and let the herald, too, proclaim in the ears of all before your tribunal this your victory—M. Cornelius Fronto, consul, is the winner. He is crowned in the contest of the Great Friendship-Games. ”

“ But Fronto at this point shewing more earnestness in his tone and looks said:
"And so this word appears to you, master, improper and faulty, which M. Cato and M. Varro and many generations of our predecessors used as indispensable and good Latin?"
4. Here Julius Celsinus reminded us that the very word which we were enquiring about occurred also in the tragedy of Ennius called Iphigenia, and that the meaning was as a rule rather tangled than unravelled by the grammarians. So he desired the Iphigenia of Q. Ennius to be brought forthwith ”

“ My mother [2] greets you.
? 154–156 A.D. Fronto to Antoninus Pius Augustus.
1. If it could be brought about, Imperator, that our friends and relations should in all cases act by our principles of conduct, there is nothing I should desire more; next I would have them follow, if not our principles yet at least our advice on every occasion. But since each man's own character governs his life, I can only confess that I am sorry my friend Niger Censorius [3] used such intemperate language in his will, in which he made me his heir. ”

“ 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
? ”

“ Hist. ad fin.. ↑ The choice spoils taken by a general from the general of the enemy slain in single combat. ↑ The rape of the Sabine women. ↑ So Diog. Laert. Chrys. 4. Horace (Odes, III. xxi. 11) says the same of Fronto's hero Cato. ↑ Dio, lxxi. 6, § 1 (of Marcus) , νυκτὸς ἔστιν ὄτε διάζων. ↑ cp. Lucan, Phars. vii. 7 fll ↑ Probably Cornificia. ↑ A play on the word. ↑ The Parthian war broke out soon after the death of Pius. Fronto is consoling Marcus for a disaster in Armenia, when Severianus the legatus and his legion were destroyed at Elegeia in 162 by the Parthians. See also Princ. Hist. ”