M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
How often have you supported me with your hands, lifted me up when scarcely able to rise, and well-nigh carried me when hardly able to walk from bodily weakness![1] With what a cheerful and friendly countenance have you always accosted me! How readily engaged in conversation, how long continued it, how reluctantly concluded it! All which I value above measure. Just as in the inspection of entrails the smallest and most insignificant parts when laid open generally imply the greatest good-fortune, and by omens from ants and bees the greatest events are foretold, so by even the least and most trivial signs of deference and good-will, vouchsafed by the one and very Emperor, are signified, as I think, those things that are the most estimable and the most coveted among men, love and honour. Therefore all the favours I have had to ask from my Lord your brother I have preferred to ask and obtain through you.
Fronto to Caelius Optatus,[2] greeting.
There is a bond of the closest intimacy between Sardius Saturninus and myself through his sons, young men of the highest culture, whom I have constantly under my roof. I recommend him to you most cordially, my brother, and ask that, if any business bring him to you, you shoull judge as worthy of all respect a man very dear to me, and should befriend him with all your power.
- ↑ Fronto suffered from rheumatism, but not, it appears, as his contemporary Polemo, from arthritis.
- ↑ Was legatus of Numidia in 166; this letter may be to him in his province.
