M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
have I ever been vexed by the ungrateful . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10. I have suffered from constant and serious ill-health, my dearest Marcus. Then afflicted by the most distressing calamities I have further lost my wife, I have lost my grandson in Germany—woe is me!—I have lost my Decimanus.[1] If I were of iron I could write no more just now.
I have sent you a book which you can take as representing all my thoughts.
Fronto to Lucius Verus
To my Lord Verus Augustus.
Worn out as I am with long-continued and more than usually distressing ill-health, and afflicted besides with the most distressing and almost uninterrupted sorrows, for in a very few months I have lost both the dearest of wives and a three-year-old grandson[2]—though thus prostrated by these accumulated evils, I confess that I was nevertheless not a little cheered to learn that you had not forgotten me and wished for something of mine. I therefore send
