FRONTO, THE ORATOR AND THE MAN
for the young pupils who from time to time lived under his roof, and readiness to help them in their careers. He was the centre of a large literary coterie, and his personal friends were devoted to him, while his services as advocate had attached to him many influential friends in the provinces, especially in Cilicia and Africa.
Though not really wealthy compared with many other patricians of his time, and very far behind his rival Herodes in this respect, he had by his profession and by taking pupils and also through good management, aided by legacies, gathered a competence sufficient not only for his own wants but for the helping of his friends. He owned one or more villas near Rome and probably estates in Africa. His Horti Maecenatiani on the Esquiline could have been no mean residence, and he was able on one occasion to spend as much as £3000 on new baths there.[1]
The family life of Fronto was a singularly happy one in the mutual affection of its surviving members, though death deprived him of five out of his six children (all daughters) in their infancy. The sole surviving daughter, Gratia, married Aufidius Victorinus, one of the best and most capable men of his age, who afterwards committed suicide under Commodus. One child of this union died, aged three, in Germany, where Victorinus was governor, about
- ↑ Aul. Gell. xix. 10.
