FRONTO, THE ORATOR AND THE MAN
Almost all that we know of Fronto is drawn from the book before us. The probable date of his birth is 100 A.D., and in any case before 113 A.D. He was born at Cirta, now Constantine, in Numidia. This was a Roman colony, and his name being Cornelius, he was doubtless of Roman descent, though he jestingly calls himself "a Libyan of the nomad Libyans." His brother, who is mentioned several times in the Letters, was named Quadratus.[1] Of his youth we are told nothing, but he no doubt studied at Alexandria, for at a later time he had numerous friends there. He mentions as his parens and magister the philosopher Athenodotus, but it was not philosophy, which he disliked, that he learnt from him, but an inordinate fondness for similes, or as he calls them, εἰκόνες.[2] Another master named by him is Dionysius the rhetor, whose fable on The Vine and the Holm-Oak he quotes. He tells us that he took late to the study of Latin literature, in which he afterwards came to be such an adept.
- ↑ See inscription (C.I.L. xv. 7438) on conduit pipes from the Esquiline hill, where his Horti Maecenatiani (see Index) were situated.
- ↑ See Index and pp. 131 ff.
