M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
rejecting my advice, you have approved it. As to the points on which you consult me in your very friendly letter, my opinion is this. Whatever has relation to the case, which you safeguard, should obviously be put forward; whatever to your own private feelings, although legitimate and provoked by the facts, must, nevertheless, be left unsaid. So will you not wound your honour in an all-night business, nor your own standard of self respect. (Let the others conduct the case as they will)[† 1] and say what they please, since the one thing that greatly concerns me is, that you should say nothing that shall seem unworthy of your character, useless to your case, and to your audience deserving of blame. Farewell, my dearest, and to me most delightful Fronto.
Fronto to Marcus Aurelius as Caesar
To my Lord.
I will act, my Lord, as to these counts and as to my whole life in the way I see you wish me to act; and I pray and beseech you never to forbear mentioning what you wish done by me, but dissuade me, as you are now rightly doing, if I ever undertake any such thing against your wishes. I should prefer (all the counts . . . .[† 2] in the) case to be taken separately, that we may apply the method of Cicero. For when they compress that decision into so little, I desire . . . . . . . . but a fight
