The Correspondence of Marcus Cornelius Fronto/Volume 2/Other Miscellaneous Remains of Fronto

by Marcus Cornelius Fronto

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OTHER MISCELLANEOUS

REMAINS OF FRONTO

 

OTHER MISCELLANEOUS REMAINS OF FRONTO

Fronto's Salutation to Hadrian^[1]

? About 136 A.D.

Cornelius Fronto, who held the first place at the bar among the Romans of that day, was returning home on one occasion very late in the evening from a banquet, and learning from one for whom he had promised to plead that Hadrian was sitting in court, he went in as he was in his banqueting dress to the court and saluted him, not with the morning salutation χαῖρε but the evening one ὑγίαινε.

From the Speech on the War in Britain

140–1 A.D.

Fronto, not the second but the alternative glory of Roman eloquence, when he was giving the emperor Antoninus^[2] praise for the successful completion of the war in Britain,^[3] declared that although he had committed the conduct of the campaign to others, while sitting at home himself in the Palace at Rome, yet like the helmsman at the tiller of a ship of war, the glory of the whole navigation and voyage belonged to him.

 

Fronto's Dream-cure

? 140 A.D.

Fronto, who suffered from rheumatism, having prayed for a cure, dreamt that he was walking in the suburbs of the city, and was not a little comforted by a close application of fire: so much was this so that the result was little short of a cure.

The plural of arena, caelum, etc.

About 137 A.D.

Whether arena, caelum, triticum are found in the plural, and incidentally of quadrigae, inimicitiae, and some other words, whether they are met with in the singular number.

1. When I was a young man at Rome, before I migrated to Athens, and had a respite from attendance on masters and at lectures, 1 used to visit Cornelius Fronto for the pleasure of seeing him, and derived great advantage from his conversation, which was in the purest language and full of excellent information. And it was invariably the case that, as often as we saw him and heard his talk, we came away with our taste improved and our minds informed: as, for instance, was the case with *ha* discussion by him on one occasion of a question trivial in itself indeed yet not unconnected with the study of the Latin language.

2. For when a certain close acquaintance of his, a man of learning and a distinguished poet of the time, told us that he had been cured of a dropsy by the application of heated "sands," Fronto, bantering him, said:

"You are quit indeed of the disease, but of defect in diction you are not quit. For Gaius Caesar, the father-in-law of Gnaeus Pompeius, he who was dictator for life, from whom the family and designation of the Caesars are derived and still continue, a man of preeminent genius and distinguished beyond all his contemporaries for purity of style, in those books which he wrote to Cicero On Analogy,^[4] holds that arenae is a faulty locution, in that arena is never used in the plural any more than caelum or triticum;^[5] but his opinion is that quadrigae, on the other hand, although a single chariot is a single team of horses yoked together, should always be spoken of in the plural number, just as arma and moenia and comitia and inimicitiae: unless, my most brilliant of poets, you have anything to say to the contrary that shall clear you and prove that you were not in fault."

3. "As to caelum," said the other, "and triticum, I do not deny that they should always be used in the singular number; nor as to arma and moenia and comitia that they should be regarded as invariably plural words: about inimicitiae and quadrigae, however, we will consider later; and possibly as to the latter I shall bow to the authority of the ancients. But what grounds has C. Caesar for supposing that inimicitia was not used by the ancients and cannot be used by us, just as much as scientia and impotentia and iniuria? since Plautus, the glory of the Latin tongue, has used delicia also in the singular number for deliciae:

My darling, says he, my delight.^[6]

Inimicitia Q. Ennius has, in fact, used in that constantly-quoted book of his:

With such a character did Nature me endow,
Friendship and enmity I bear upon my brow.^[7]

But indeed, I beseech you, who else has either written or said that arenae is bad Latin? And therefore I beg that, if Caesar's book be in your possession, you should bid it be brought, that you may jadge how positively he says this."

4. On the first book On Analogy being produced, I committed to memory these few words from it. For after remarking that neither caelum nor triticum nor arena admits of a plural meaning, he^[8] goes on, Do you think that it results from the nature of these things, that we speak of one land and many lands, and of a city and cities, and of an empire and empires, but cannot reduce "quadrigae" to a noun of singular number nor convert "arena" into a term signifying plurality?

5. 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."

6. Then Fronto replied as follows:

"Quadrigae, even though only one horse is yoked, always keeps the plural number, since four horses yoked together are called quadrigae, as if it were quadriiugae, and certainly that which denotes several horses should not be compressed into the oneness of the singular number. The same reasoning applies also to arena, but from a different point of view, for since arena, though used in the singular number, yet signifies a plurality and abundance of tiny particles of which it is composed, arenae would seem to be used ignorantly and improperly, as though that term required an enlargement of number, though the conception of multitude essential to it is naturally expressed by the singular number. But I have said this," he added, "not as the ratifier and endorser of this verdict and rule,^[9] but that I might not leave the opinion of Caesar, a learned man, without anyone to stand up for it.

7. "For while caelum is always spoken of in the singular, mare and terra not always, and pulvis and ventus and fumus not always, why have the old writers occasionally used induciae (a truce) and caerimoniae in the singular, but never feriae (holidays) and nundinae (market-day) and inferiae (sacrifice to the dead) and exsequiae (obsequies)?^[10] Why do mel and vinum and all other words of that kind admit of a plural, and lac not admit of one? All these things, I say, cannot be investigated and unravelled and hammered out by citizens so fully occupied in so busy a state. Nay, I see that I have kept you over time even by so much as I have already said, bound as you are I suppose on some business. Go then now, and when you chance to have the time, search whether some orator or poet, belonging at least to the more ancient school, that is, some writer of classic rank and of substance, and not of the common sort, have not used quadriga and arenae."

8. Fronto bade us indeed look out for these words, not, I take it, because he thought they were to be found in any writings of the ancients, but that he might through the search after uncommon words practise us in the habit of reading.

The form, then, which seemed the most uncommon of all we did find, quadriga spoken of in the singular, in the book of Satires by M. Varro entitled Exdemetricus. But for arenae in the plural we looked with less care, because besides Caesar, as far as I remember, no man of learning has banned it.

Names for the Colours in Latin and Greek

After 143 A.D.

Conversation of M. Fronto and Favorinus the philosopher on the different kinds of colours and the terms for them in Greek and Latin; and incidentally what sort of colour is spadix.

1. When Favorinus the philosopher was on his way to visit Fronto, formerly consul, who had gout, he wished me also to accompany him thither. And then, when there, at Fronto's house, many learned men being present, a discussion took place about colours and their designations, since there were many varieties of colours, but their denominations few and ambiguous, Favorinus remarked that "more varieties of colour are distinguished by the sense of sight than differentiated by words and terms of speech. For, to omit their other nice blendings, the simple colours red and green have indeed separate names but include many different varieties and the dearth of terms for these I find to be greater in Latin than in Greek. For instance, the colour rufus is indeed called so from rubor (redness), but while there is one redness of fire, another of blood, another of the shell-fish dye, another of saffron, (another of gold), yet our Latin speech does not discriminate between these separate varieties of red by separate and distinctive terms, but designates them all by the single term redness, though at the same time it borrows names for the colours from the objects themselves, and calls a thing fiery-red and flame-red and blood-red and purple-red and saffron-red and gold-red,^[11] for the colours russus and ruber do not differ at all from the colour called rufus, nor do they express its peculiar shades; but ξανθός (chestnut) and ἐρυθρός (wine-red) and πυρρóς (flame-red)^[12] and ϕοῖνιξ (purple-red)^[13] seem to distinguish certain differences in the colour red, either darkening it or making it lighter or giving it an intermediate shade."

2. Then Fronto said to Favorinus:

"We do not go as far as to deny that the Greek language, in which you seem to be well-read, is more comprehensive and copious than our own: still in designating those colours which you have just mentioned, we are not so poorly off as you seem to suppose. For, in fact, those words which you lately mentioned, rufus and ruber, are not our only ones to denote the colour red; but we have others besides and more than the Greek ones mentioned by you. For fulvus and flavus and rubidus and phoeniceus and rutilus and luteus and spadix^[14] are designations of the colour red, either intensifying it, as if firing it, or blending it with green, or deepening it with black, or softly brightening it with greenish white.

3. "For phoeniceus, which you mentioned in its Greek form ϕοῖνιξ, is a word of our own, and rutilus, and spadix, which is synonymous with phoeniceus—a word that, though Greek by origin, is naturalized with us—signifies the richness and brilliance of red, such as it appears in the fruit of the palm-tree when not very much burnt by the sun; and hence come the words spadix and phoeniceus. For the Dorians call a branch with fruit broken off from the palm-tree a spadix.

4. "Fulvus, however, seems to be a blend of red and green, in which sometimes the one colour, sometimes the other, predominates: as a poet, the most careful in his choice of words, calls an eagle fulvus, and jasper and wolfskin caps and gold, and sand and the lion all fulvus;^[15] and so Quintus in his Annals used it of bronze. Flavus, on the other hand, seems to be a combination of green and red and white; thus tresses are called flaventes,^[16] and, what I find surprising to some, Vergil speaks of the leaves of olives as flavae: and so, long before, Pacuvius^[17] talked of water^[18] and dust being flavus; and as his lines are most delightful, I willingly recall them:

Reach me thy foot, that these same hands that bathed Ulysses oft,
May with the yellow waters cleanse the yellow dust,
And with the hand's soft stroking soothe thy weariness.

Rubidus, however, is a darker red with a large proportion of black. Luteus, on the other hand, is a more transparent red, from which its name also seems to be derived.^[19] So you see, my Favorinus, that more shades of red have not distinctive names among the Greeks than among us. Nor have they more terms than we have for expressing the colour green either. Vergil, having occasion to describe a horse as green, could have used the word caeruleus rather than glaucus, but preferred to use a better known Greek word than an unusual Latin one.^[20] Our ancient Latin writers called that caesia, which in Greek is πλαυκῶπις, as Nigidius^[21] says, from the colour of the sky, as if caelia."

5. When Fronto had said this, Favorinus, complimenting him warmly on his abundant knowledge of facts and his felicity of expression, remarked, "But for you alone perhaps the Greek language would have come in first by a long way. But you, my Fronto, exemplify Homer's verse:

Now had you passed me by in the race or made it a dead heat.^[22]

But while I listened with delight to all that you have so learnedly said, yet I was especially pleased with your analysis of the varieties of the colour flavus, and at your enabling me to understand those most charming lines from the fourteenth book of the Annals of Ennius, which I never understood:

They sweep forthwith the tranquil water's yellow flow;
Churned by the close-packt fleet the dark-blue ocean foams.

For the f dark-blue' sea did not seem to correspond with the 'yellow' flow. But since you have told us that the colour flavus is a blend of green and white, the foam of the green sea was assuredly most beautifully expressed by flavo marmore."

"Many Men" and "Many Mortals"

After 143 A.D.

Inasmuch as Quadrigarius^[23] uses the expression "with many mortals" what and how much difference it would make if he had said "with many men."

The words from the thirteenth book of the Annals of Claudius Quadrigarius are:

The assembly being dismissed, Metellus came into the Capitol with many mortals: on his return home from there he was escorted by the whole city.

When that book and those words were read to Fronto, while I and many more were sitting with him, it was the opinion of a person present, and one by no means unlearned, that it was absurd and frigid in a historical work to say "with many mortals" instead of "with many men," and savoured too much of poetry: then said Fronto to him who had expressed this view:

"Do you, a man of the correctest taste in other things, affirm that you think 'many mortals' an absurd and frigid expression? And do you suppose that a man so discreet and master of so pure and current a style had no motive for preferring 'mortals' to 'men'? And do you believe that it would have given the same convincing picture of a multitude of men if he had substituted multis hominibus for multis mortalibus? For my part, unless my love and reverence for that writer and for all the language of our old authors blinds my judgment, I hold that, in so describing the concourse of nearly a whole city, 'mortals' is an expression far and away more ample, more comprehensive, and more copious than simply 'men.' For the phrase multi homines can be contracted and compressed to mean quite a moderate number, while multi mortales in some mysterious way and by some subtle nuance includes almost the whole body of citizens of every class and age and sex. And surely Quadrigarius, wishing to describe what was actually the fact, the presence of a huge and mixed multitude, said that Metellus went into the Capitol 'with many mortals' more emphatically than if he had said 'with many men.'"

When we were thus listening to all this that Fronto said, as was natural, not only with approbation but with admiration, he added:

"Take care, however, not to think that multi mortales should be used always and on every occasion for multi homines, that the Greek proverb from Varro's Satire, myrrh-oil on a dish of lentils, may not be actually exemplified."^[24]

This criticism of Fronto's, though concerned with trifling and unimportant locutions, I thought worthy to be recorded, that we should not fail, perchance, through neglect or inadvertence to apply a nice discrimination to words of this kind.

On praeter propter

That the expression praeter propter, which has come to be a vulgarism, is found in Ennius.

After 143 A.D.

1. I remember that Julius Celsinus Numida and I once went to call on Cornelius Fronto who was at the time suffering from gout. When we were admitted, we found him lying on a pallet-bed of Grecian pattern with many persons eminent for learning, birth or fortune sitting round him. Several architects, called in for the construction of a new bath, were in attendance, and they were exhibiting various sketches of baths drawn upon little scrolls of parchment. When he had chosen one of these plans, and a sketch of the actual thing, he asked what was the estimate for completing the whole work; and on the architect saying that about 300,000 sesterces^[25] would seem to be required, one of Fronto's friends said "and another 50,000^[26] there or thereabout."

2. Then Fronto postponing the discussion which he had begun, as to the cost of the bath, turned to the friend, who had said that another 50,000 there or thereabout was required, and asked him what he meant by the expression praeter propter.

And the friend answered, "It is not my word; you can hear numbers of people using it. But as to its meaning, you must not ask me but the grammarian yonder," indicating at the same time a person who was present of no small note as a teacher of grammar at Rome.

3. Then the grammarian, influenced by the meanness of a word in very common use,said,"The question is quite unworthy of our discussion. For the word is somehow too vulgar and more often to be met with in the conversation of mechanics than of educated men."

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; and in a chorus of that tragedy we read these lines:

He who can use not ease more labour has
Than when his labour in his labour lies.
For he who does what he has planned makes it
No labour; heart and mind delight therein:
In idle ease the heart knows not its wish.
So we: at home we are not nor abroad;
This way we go, then that; no sooner come,
We wish to go elsewhere; we vacillate,
And live but there or thereabout our life.

5. When this passage had been read, Fronto turning to the grammarian, who was now feeling uncomfortable, said:

"Do you hear, excellent master, that your friend Ennius has used praeter propter, and in a sentiment as dignified as the severest scolding by philosophers could be? We beg you, therefore, since we are enquiring about a word used by Ennius, to tell us what is held to be the meaning of this verse:

Incerte errat animus, praeter propter vitam vivitur"

And the grammarian, sweating profusely and blushing profusely, as most of us were laughing heartily at his dilemma, got up and, as he went out, said, "I will give you an answer some time when you are alone, as I do not wish the more ignorant listeners to hear and profit by what I say."

After this we all rose up, leaving the discussion of the word there.

 

On the word for Dwarf

That those whom we call pumiliones are named νάνοι in Greek.

After 143 A.D.

1. It chanced that Cornelius Fronto and Postumius Festus and Sulpicius Apollinaris were standing together in the porch of the Palace talking. I was standing by at the same time with some others and eagerly listening to their conversation on the niceties of language.

2. Then said Fronto to Apollinaris:

"Certify me, I beseech you, master, whether I was right in giving up speaking of men of very small stature as nani and preferring to call them pumiliones, since I remembered to have seen the word in the old writers:^[27] but nani I believed to be a mean and barbarous word."

3. "This word," said Apollinaris in reply, "is in fact commonly used by the uneducated vulgar, but it is not barbarous, and is classified as Greek by origin; for the Greeks styled νάνοι men of short and low stature, such as stood but little above the ground; and they used it in this way from some reference to its etymology, which tallies with the meaning of the word. And if my memory," he added, "is not at fault, it is found in the comedy of Aristophanes which is called Ἀκλαής. But this word would at once have been granted the franchise or been naturalized as a Latin colonist, if you had deigned to use it, and would be ever so much more worthy of approval than the much too mean and vulgar expressions brought by Laberius into use in Latin."

4. Then Postumius Festus, turning to a Latin grammarian, a friend of Fronto's, said, "Apollinaris has told us that nani is a Greek word. Will you inform us whether, as commonly used of mules and small horses, it is a Latin word, and in what author it is found?"

5. And the grammarian, a man without a doubt exceptionally versed in the writings of the ancients, said, "If I am not guilty of criminal presumption in saying, with Apollinaris present, what I think of any Greek or Latin word, I venture, Festus, in answer to your question to say that this word is Latin and is found written in the poems of Helvius Cinna,^[28] no mean or unlearned poet," and he recited his actual verses, which, as they happened to stick in my memory, I have added:

Now swiftly past Cisalpine willow-thickets
My phaeton and pair of jennets whirled me.

Speech of Thanks in the Senate on behalf of the Carthaginians. Address to Antoninus Pius^{[† 1]}

About 153 A.D.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Just as you rebuilt Rhodes. Whatever Gods there be of all peoples and of all cities I pray and beseech to guard for long years to come your health, on which is based the empire of the Roman People and our safety and the liberty, dignity, and security of the provinces and of all races and nations, and to keep you safe far into the future, and the cities so that they be unharmed . . . . may you restore . . . . and may they keep their conspicuous virtues (to be) . . . . an ornament of the Latin name . . . . the mainstay of our changing fortunes.

The "Incestuous Banquets" of the Christians

And about their banquet the facts are known: they are common talk everywhere: the speech^[29] of our fellow citizen from Cirta also bears witness to them:—

"On a regular day they come together for a feast with all their children and sisters and mothers, persons of both sexes and of every age. Then after much feasting, when the banquet has waxed hot and the passion of impure lust and drunkenness has been kindled in the company, a dog which has been tied to the standing lamp is incited to jump and bound up by a little cake thrown to it beyond its tether. The tell-tale light being by this means cast down and extinguished, the guests under cover of the shameless darkness embrace one another in their unspeakable concupiscence, as chance brings them together, and, if not in fact yet in guilt, all are alike incestuous, since whatever can result by the act of individuals is potentially desired by the wish of all."^{[† 2]}

What Marcus learnt from Fronto

About 176 A.D.

From Fronto:^[30] 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.^[31]

Footnotes

1. The point in this story, such as it is, seems to be that the court was still sitting in the early morning hours when Fronto came in from his banquet. It was a new day to the court, but the end of Fronto's day. Hence his use of the evening salutation. For the difference between χαῖρε, "Good cheer" (our "Good morning," or "How do you do?"), and ὑγίαινε, "Vale" (our "Good night," or "Good-bye"), see Lucian, Pro Lapsu in Salutando, i. , where a mistake in the use of these expressions is illustrated at length.
2. Pius.
3. 140 A.D.
4. De Bello Parthico, ad fin.
5. Verg. Ecl. v. 36, Georg. i. 317, uses hordeum (barley) in the plural, and is taken to task by Bavius, a rival poet, who says he might as well say tritica (wheats).
6. Plautus, Poen. I. ii. 152.
7. From an unknown play. Achilles is speaking.
8. Caesar.
9. Fronto himself used arena some few years later in 143 A.D.; see i. p. 160. It is often used by Ovid, and also by Vergil, Horace, Seneca, etc.
10. So funerals in Old English. We use obsequies, though Shakespeare has obsequy.
11. In our old ballads the "red gold" often occurs.
12. Plato (Tim. lxviii. 3) says it is a mixture of chestnut and gray.
13. From the Phoenician discoverers, or perhaps date-red from the palm-tree. See below.
14. These words represent the shades of red: tawny, auburn, brick-red, purple-red, golden-red, orange-red, date-red.
15. See Verg. Aen. xi. 751; iv. 261; vii. 6S8; vii. 279; xii. 741; iv. 159 (cp. Lucr. v. 902); but he also says flavum aurum (i. 592). Servius on the passage vii. 688 mentions Fronto as speaking of galerum.
16. Verg. Aen. iv. 590; cp. Hor. Od. I. v. 4.
17. From the Niptra
18. Vergil calls the Tiber flavus (Aen. vii. 31) and Horace.
19. The word seems to be taken from a weed lutum, which was rather yellow than red. It is used of the dawn by Verg. Aen. vii. 26.
20. i.e. caeruleus in the sense of green, for which see Propertius, iv. ii. 43; Ovid, Met. xi. 158.
21. A Pythagorean philosopher and grammarian of Cicero's time.
22. Hom. Il. xxiii. 382.
23. A historian at the beginning of the first century B.C. who wrote a history of Rome from its capture by the Gauls.
24. A proverb for "wasting a good thing"; see .also Cic. Ad Att. i. 19.
25. About £3,000.
26. About £500.
27. Lucr. iv. 1162, parvula pumilio.
28. The poet slain by mistake for the conspirator Cinna at the murder of Caesar.
29. Nothing more is knowno of this speech or the attitude of Fronto towards the Christians Some of these were put to death under Lollius Urbicus, the praef. urbi at Rome in 152, and again under Rusticus in 163. Had Fronto gone to Asia as proconsul in 154 (see i. p. 237), he would have had to deal with the incident of Polycarp's martyrdom. The accusation of Θυέστια δεῖπνα against the Christians was common: see Tert. Apol. vii.; Justin, Apol. i. 26, etc.
30. He learnt other and even better things from him; see i. p. 17.
31. See Ad Verum, ii. 7, and Just. Instit. ii. 18 fr.

Select critical notes

1. Found by Mai in a palimpsest (Cod. Palat. xxiv. ff. 53 and 46). Only the last 400 or so letters from the end of the speech are consecutively decipherable out of about 2,600. The scattered words legible from the rest of the speech contained a reference to the Carthaginian sea-power and empire, to seditiones orbi, to a shrine, and possibly, as Mai thinks, to the elder Faustina. The dots in the last lines represent the actual letters lost.
2. The paragraph immediately preceding this in Min. Felix, giving an equally unveracious description of the "Thyestean banquets" attributed to the Christians, is similar in style to this extract, and probably came from the same source. Another quotation from Fronto's speech against the Christians may be possibly found in a sentence Ex isidori Originibus, xv. 2, 46 (De carcere a coercendo dicto): Ut pergraecari potius amoenis locis quam coerceri videretur. The words certainly read like Fronto's.