M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
Trajan?[1] Was not a consular likewise slain by the Parthians in Mesopotamia?[2] Again under the rule of your grandfather Hadrian what a number of soldiers were killed by the Jews,[3] what a number by the Britons![4] Even in the principate of your Father, who was the most fortunate of princes . . . . . . . . Should we not think the son of a Marsian[5] father degenerate, if he were afraid of vipers, lizards, and water-snakes? . . . .[6] are kept a few days in swaddling bands, the others pass their whole lives in rags.
3. And so that excellent emperor[7] . . . . bade his captives be sold . . . . . . . . The strength of fishes lies in their tails, of birds in their wings, of snakes in their power of crawling . . . . . . . . . . . . both the restoration of the prestige of the Roman name, and the punishment of the enemy's traps and treachery, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . call upon those to halt who are ready to advance, forward, backward, here, there. It is by no means advantageous to a man that is born of woman that prosperity should always attend him: changing fortunes are more secure.
4. Take Polycrates[8]: strong in his vast wealth, and successful without a stumble in all that he undertook, he is said in the course of his life to have experienced no hard fortune or disappointment,
- ↑ Longinus; see Dio, lxviii. 12.
- ↑ Maximus; see ibid, lxviii. 30, and below, Princ. Hist. ad fin.
- ↑ See Dio, lxix. 14.
- ↑ Not recorded elsewhere; but see Spart. Vit. Hadr. 5.
- ↑ The Marsians were supposed to have power over snakes: see Pliny, N.H. vii. 2; xxv. 5.
- ↑ In this gap (Ambr. 231) there was a reference to the Parthians, as we see from a marginal note.
- ↑ Trajan (?).
- ↑ Tyrant of Samos, who died 522 B.C.
