M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
favour of our verdict may take effect. I read your letter with the greatest pleasure and with my usual admiration. Farewell, my master, to your Verus sweetest and dearest.
(? To my Lord.)[† 1]
. . . . to enquire whether he could see me; when I answered that he could, he procured our friend Tranquillus[1] as his substitute, whom he had also procured as his substitute at dinner. It makes little difference to me, who of the friends you hold dear has an affection for me, except that I take prior account of him who is less disdainful of my friends. I . . . . for he also saw him at once. Tranquillus however found me, when he had a cold, still forbidding but less (positively the use of) grapes . . . . . . . . such great . . . . would arise. How much do I owe to the diligence of Tranquillus, who would never have offered himself for this business, did he not know how much you loved me.
Fronto to Volumnius Quadratus.
I will, as you wish, keep your secret. I will gladly read it and correct it in my usual way as far as my hands, which are quite crippled, will permit. Continue in the cultivation of your studies according to your wish, and utilize any spare time you have in practising your talents.
- ↑ Not Suetonius the writer, who would have been seventy years old by 139 A.D.
- ↑ Owing to the condition of the Codex it is impossible to tell whether this is a separate letter or part of Ad Verum i. 4, as Naber thinks. Possibly it is a letter to a friend, and not to the Emperor at all.
