M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
5. Now to call a truce to my trifles and to return to seriousness; this letter of yours served in no small degree to shew the depth of my love for you, since I was more shocked at your danger than your daughter's, whereas, in other respects, I should wish you, indeed, to survive for my sake, but your daughter also for yours, as is right. But hark you, see that you do not turn informer or appear as a witness before your daughter, to make her think that I love you more than her; for there is a danger of your daughter being put out in consequence, as she is a serious and old-fashioned lady, and when I ask for her hands and feet to kiss, of her drawing them away from pique at this, or tendering them grudgingly: whose tiny hands and plump little feet I shall then kiss, by heaven, with more zest than your royal neck and your honest and merry lips.
Marcus Aurelius to Fronto
To my master.
I shall have the whole day free. If you have ever loved me at all, love me to-day, and send me a rich[1] subject, I ask and request and beseech and entreat and implore. For in that law-court subject I found nothing but exclamations.[2] Farewell, best of masters. My Lady greets you. I want something where there ought to be shouts of approval. Humour me and pick out a "shouting" subject.
- ↑ Uber (= grandis, Quintilian, xii. 10. 58) corresponds to the Greek ἁρδός, and characterises the epideictic kind of oratory.
- ↑ Cic. Ad Att. i. 19 uses this word as equivalent to acclamationes, i.e. approval by acclamation ; but επιφώνημα also stands for exclamatio, a rhetorical term for apostrophizing something to excite pity or anger (see Auct. ad Herenn. iv. 15. 22). Quintilian however uses it (viii. 5) for the summing up in a concise, telling form of a narrative or proof.
