M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
who else brought on that pain in the knee, which you write was worse last night, who else if not Centumcellae,[1] not to mention myself? What then shall I do, who cannot see you and am racked with such anxiety? Besides, however much I might be minded to study, the courts forbid it, which, as those say who know, will take up whole days. Still I send you to-day's maxim and the day-before-yesterday's commonplace. The whole day yesterday we spent on the road. To-day it is hard to find time for anything but the evening maxim. Do you sleep, say you, the livelong night? Aye, I can sleep, for I am a great sleeper; but it is so cold in my room that I can scarcely put my hand outside the bed-clothes.[2] But in good sooth what most of all put my mind off study was the thought that by my undue fondness for literature[3] I did you an ill turn at the Harbour,[4] as the event shewed. And so farewell to all Catos and Ciceros and Sallusts, as long as you fare well and I see you, though with never a book, established in health. Farewell, my chief joy, sweetest of masters. My Lady greets you. Send me three maxims and commonplaces.
Marcus Fronto's Arion[5]
1. Arion of Lesbos, according to Greek tradition foremost as player on the lyre and as dithyrambist.
- ↑ On the coast of Etruria (now Civita Vecchia), 47 miles from Rome. Pius inherited the magnificent villa built there by Trajan.
- ↑ i.e. for the purpose of writing or study.
- ↑ Possibly Fronto had brought Marcus some books from Rome.
- ↑ Centumcellae.
- ↑ Fronto follows Herodotus, as Gellius also professes to do. Fronto probably intended this piece to be a model of narrative style for his pupil. It seems to be of the matter-of-fact style (siccum genus) for which Fronto was celebrated.
