Correspondence, Volume II

Fronto (c. 100–176 CE), a much admired orator and rhetorician, was befriended by the emperor Antoninus Pius and teacher of his adopted sons Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. His correspondence offers an invaluable picture of aristocratic life and literary culture in the 2nd century.

Letters of an imperial tutor. The literary remains of the rhetorician Marcus Cornelius Fronto (ca. AD 100–176) first came to light in 1815, when Cardinal Mai, then prefect of the Ambrosian Library in Milan, discovered that beneath an account of the Acts of the first Council of Chalcedon in 451 had originally been written a copy of the correspondence between Fronto and members of the imperial family, including no less than three who were to wear the purple. The letters possess an extraordinary fascination as giving an authentic record of the relationship between the foremost teacher of his time and his illustrious student Marcus Aurelius, his chief correspondent. Apart from small-talk (but even that is replete with interest) the principal subject is Latin prose style. Fronto practices to excess the cultivation of trendy mannerisms, but sees clearly enough the sterility of a slavish imitation of classical models. The Loeb Classical Library edition of Fronto is in two volumes.