M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
what I remember to have been of service to myself, I cannot but require of you also. You must turn the same maxim twice or thrice, just as you have done with that little one. And so turn longer ones two or three times diligently, boldly. Whatever you venture on, such are your abilities, you will accomplish: but, indeed, with toil have you coveted a task that is truly toilsome, but fair and honourable and attained by few . . . .[† 1] you have got (it) perfectly out. This exercise will be the greatest help to you in speech making; undoubtedly, too, the excerpting of some sentences from the Jugurtha or the Catiline. If the Gods are kind, on your return from Rome I will exact again from you your daily quota of verses. Greet my Lady, your mother.[1]
Marcus Aurelius to Fronto
To my master.
I have received two letters[2] from you at once. In one of these you scolded me and pointed out that I had written a sentence carelessly; in the other, however, you strove to encourage my efforts with praise. Yet I protest to you by my health, by my mother's and yours, that it was the former letter which gave me the greater pleasure, and that, as I read it, I cried out again and again O happy that I am! Are you then so happy, someone will say, for having a teacher to shew you how to write a maxim more
- ↑ Domitia Lucilla, the widow of Annius Verus. The adopted mother of Marcus, the elder Faustina, wife of Pius, died between July 140 and July 141.
- ↑ The second of these must be the preceding letter. The other may possibly be the first letter given above.
- ↑ A few words are lost, of which Mai gives a dozen letters, one word probably being <voc>abula.
