M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
These drawbacks used formerly to be confined to kings, but now, indeed, even the sons of kings have more than enough of men who, as Naevius[1] says,
Still flatter with their tongues and still assent,
And fawn upon them to their heart's content.[2]
I do right, then, my master, in being so ardent, right in setting before me one single aim, right in thinking of one man only when I take my pen in hand.
2. You very kindly ask for my hexameters, and I too should have sent them at once if I had had them with me. But my secretary—you know him, I mean Anicetus—did not pack up any of my work when I set out. For he knows my failing and was afraid that, if they came into my hands, I should do as I usually do, and consign them to the flames. But, as a matter of fact, those particular hexameters were in next to no danger. For, to tell my master the truth, I dote on them. I pore over them o' nights, for the day is spent in the theatre. And so I get through but little in the evening, being tired, and in the morning I get up sleepy. Still I have made for myself these last few days five notebooks full of extracts from sixty volumes. But when you read sixty, don't be staggered by the number, for included in them are the little Atellane farces of Novius and Scipio's speechlets.
3. As you have mentioned your Polemo, please don't mention Horace again, who, with Polio,[3] is
- ↑ Naevius was the earliest great national poet of Rome. He wrote an epic on the First Punic War, and also tragedies.
- ↑ cp. Shaks. Hamlet, III. ii, 399.
- ↑ Probably the Augustan poet, orator, and historian, Asinius Pollio, is meant. His archaism would recommend him to Fronto, who subsequently quotes a work of his (Ad Verum, ii. 1).
