M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
deftly, more clearly, more tersely, more elegantly? No, that is not my reason for calling myself happy. What, then, is it? It is that I learn from you to speak the truth.[1] That matter—of speaking the truth—is precisely what is so hard for Gods and men: in fact, there is no oracle so truth-telling as not to contain within itself something ambiguous or crooked or intricate, whereby the unwary may be caught and, interpreting the answer in the light of their own wishes, realize its fallaciousness only when the time is past and the business done. But the thing is profitable, and clearly it is the custom to excuse such things merely as pious fraud and delusion. On the other hand, your fault-findings or your guiding reins, whichever they be, shew me the way at once without guile and feigned words. And so I ought to be grateful to you for this, that you teach me before all to speak the truth at the same time and to hear the truth. A double return, then, would be due, and this you will strive to put it beyond my power to pay. If you will have no return made, how can I requite you like with like, if not by obedience? Disloyal, however, to myself, I preferred that you, moved by excess of care . . . . since I had those days free, I had the chance . . . . of doing some good work and making many extracts . . . . Farewell, my good master, my best of masters. I rejoice, best of orators, that you have so become my friend. My Lady[2] greets you.
- ↑ His other pupil, Lucius Verus, also pays Fronto this compliment (Ad Ver. ii. 2). But Marcus, in his tribute to Fronto in his Thoughts (i. 11), omits all mention of it.
- ↑ This title can stand for the mother of Marcus as it does in the previous letter, or for Faustina the elder, his adopted mother, or, after his marriage in 145, for his wife Faustina the younger.
