M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
obsolete or barbarous, or in any other way unauthorized, or not entirely Attic, look not at that, but only, I beseech you, at the intrinsic meaning of the word, for you know that I do spend time on mere words or mere idiom. And, indeed, it is said that the famous Scythian Anacharsis was by no means perfect in his Attic, but was praised for his meaning and his conceptions. I will compare myself, then, with Anacharsis, not, by heaven, in wisdom, but as being like him a barbarian. For he was a Scythian of the nomad Scythians, and I am a Libyan of the Libyan nomads. I as well as Anacharsis may browse fresh pastures, bleat therefore as well as he while browsing, just as one wills to bleat. See, I have assimilated barbarism to bleating. So will I make an end of writing nothing but similes.
M. Caesar to the most honourable consul Fronto.
1. . . . . connected by marriage[1] and not subject to guardianship and stationed besides in a social position in which, as Q. Ennius says,
All give foolish counsel, and look in all to pleasing only;
and Plautus, too, in his Colax, says finely on the same subject,
Crafty cajolers, who with fast-pledged faith
Take in the trustful: these stand round a king,
And what they speak is far from what they think.
- ↑ Marcus appears to be speaking of himself. At the end of the preceding letter (Ad M. Caes. ii. 9, p. 146) and the beginning of this one several pages are lost.
