M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
of the living are listened to in a more grudging, of the dead in a more generous, spirit; that the past are regarded with partiality, the present with envy. For as long as a man lives snarling envy is ever at his side . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . As soon as ever the state called for a great leader, that is to say a man who was equal to the task before him, there appeared one who was more war-like than all the leaders reared in the needy homes of Arpinum[1] or the hardy ways of Nursia[2] . . . . Parthians stained with Roman blood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . an enemy of old, resolved and dangerous, and prepared to meet the Romans, trained in wars verily from ambush . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . when he was hurried headlong into daring any wicked deed, no crime more outrageous being now left for him to dare.
9. Then besides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . He set out for the war with tried soldiers who held the Parthian enemy in contempt, making light of the impact of their arrows compared with the gaping wounds inflicted by the scythes of the Dacians. Numbers of his soldiers would the emperor[3] call each by his own name, aye, and by any humorous nickname of the camp. Those who hung back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . with a helmet decoration or bronze or partly . . . . by military custom payments proudly gained from spoils of the enemy such as, though victorious and celebrating
