M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
. . . . of course I pass over the mule of eloquence:[1] he is labelled as no expert at the lyre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10. To many even unworthy sons the father's place has handed down the sovranty: just as chicks have all the marks of their kind present in them even from the egg, namely combs and feathers and crowing and wakeful ways, so for the sons of kings even in their mother's womb is supreme power destined: they receive the sovranty at the midwife's hand . . . .
11. Between Romulus and Remus, as they took the auguries on separate hills, birds decided the question of sovranty, and one of the Persian kings (is said in old days to have gained) the kingdom not by a race but by priority in the neighing of his horse.[2] . . . . . . . .
12. We know that the plots and conspiracies of others have often deprived one man of his sovranty and handed it over to another. But eloquence when once found can neither be taken away, nor when taken away by death be transferred to another. With you your brother approves these deeds of Romulus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
13. Cato was already recovering Spain, Gracchus already farming Asia and parcelling Carthage out among individual settlers[† 1] . . . . Now, Marcus Tullius was
- ↑ There was a proverb ὄνος λύρας, "an ass at the lyre." cp. Lucian, De Merc. Cond. 25: Dial. Meretr. 14; Adv. Ind. 4.
- ↑ I have given the probable meaning of the mutilated passage, aacording to Naber's view of it; cp. Min. Felix, Octavius, xviii. 6, and see Herod, iii. 84.
- ↑ From the margin, and quoted, says Hauler, from Sallust, who he asserts is mentioned in the previous lacuna.
