M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
love of you, who have written to me as you have! What shall I do? I cannot cease. Last year it befell me in this very place,[1] and at this very time, to be consumed with a passionate longing for my mother. This year you inflame that my longing. My Lady[2] greets you.
Fronto to Marcus Aurelius as Caesar
A Discourse on Love[3]
1. This is the third letter, beloved Boy, that I am sending you on the same theme, the first by the hand of Lysias, the son of Kephalus, the second of Plato, the philosopher,[4] and the third, indeed, by the hand of this foreigner, in speech little short of a barbarian, but as regards judgment, as I think, not wholly wanting in sagacity. And I write now without trenching at all upon those previous writings, and so do not you disregard the discourse as saying what has been already said. But if the present treatise seem to you to be longer than those which were previously sent through Lysias and Plato, let this be a proof to you that I can claim in fair words to be at no loss for words. But you must consider now whether my words are no less true than new.
2. No doubt, O Boy, you will wish to know at the very beginning of my discourse how it is that I, who am not in love, long with such eagerness for the
- ↑ Possibly Lorium, twelve miles from Rome, where Pius had a villa.
- ↑ If the preceding sentence can be taken to imply that his mother Lucilla was away, this must refer to Faustina the elder, wife of Pius.
- ↑ This is the piece referred to in the previous letter.
- ↑ He is alluding to the speeches of Lysias and Socrates in Plato's Phaedrus. Philostratus (Ep. 6) sums up the opinions expressed in them thus: τὸ μὲν μὴ ἐρῶντι χαρίζεσθαι, Λυσίου δόξα· τῷ δὲ ἐρῶντι, δοκεῖ Πλάτωνι.
