M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
8. After the disaster at Cannae the Carthaginian general sent to Carthage three bushels of golden rings heaped up, which Carthaginians had drawn from the fingers of Roman knights slain in the battle. But not many years later Carthage was taken, and chains were put on those who had drawn off the rings. In that battle what a multitude of Carthaginians and Africans did Scipio capture or slay or reduce to submission! Had he given orders for their tongues to be cut out, he could have sent into Rome a ship freighted with the tongues of his enemies.
9. With respect to what you say that you can scarcely read anything except by snatches and by stealth[1] in your present anxieties, recall to your mind and ponder the fact that Gaius Caesar, while engaged in a most formidable war in Gaul wrote betides many other military works two books of the most meticulous character On Analogy,[2] discussing amid flying darts the declension of nouns, and the aspiration of words and their classification mid the blare of bugles and trumpets. Why then, O Marcus, should not you, who are endowed with no less abilities than Gaius Caesar, and are as noble in station and fortified by no fewer examples and patterns at home, master your duties and find time for yourself not only for reading speeches and poems and histories and the doctrines of philosophers, but also for unravelling syllogisms, if you can endure so far.
- ↑ He quotes Marcus's own phrase (see above, Ad Anton. ii. 1) in the letter from Minturnae (probably), where Marcus was trying to get a little respite from the anxieties caused by the Parthian invasion of Roman provinces and the disaster at Elegeia.
- ↑ Cicero quotes this work (Brutus, 72) as meaning De ratione Latine loquendi. Caesar wrote it while crossing the Alps on his way from his winter quarters at Luca, in north Italy, to the seat of war in Gaul.
