FRONTO, THE ORATOR AND THE MAN
disappointed, as he honestly believed he could make a consummate orator of Marcus.
A few words require to be said now as to Fronto's method of instruction. He began by taking his pupil through a course of old farces, comedies, ancient orators and poets, and Marcus was encouraged to make extracts from the authors that were read. Cato, Gracchus, Ennius, Sallust, and Cicero were especially studied. The first was Marcus's favourite, but Fronto preferred Sallust before all. In letter-writing Cicero was recognized as supreme, and the "tullian" style of his more familiar letters was looked upon as worthy of imitation.
Verse-making was regularly practised as an aid towards oratory. Only hexameters are mentioned in this connexion, and Vergil, who is both archaistic and intensely rhetorical, was no doubt the model. Horace was apparently read but Marcus took a dislike to him.[1]
Similes, or εἰκόνες, formed an important part of Fronto's oratorical armoury. He always had numbers at command on every conceivable subject, some appropriate, and many ingenious, but others far-fetched and out of place. He clearly regarded them as indispensable, and gives elaborate instructions as to their use.[2] They could scarcely have been of much use in his forensic speeches, one would think.
The next step was to use the Commonplaces of
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