M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
likeness. I have absolutely taken a journey by short cut quite to Lorium, a short cut of the slippery road, a short cut of the steep ascents: nevertheless I have seen you not only opposite to me but in more places than one,[1] whether I turned to the right hand or to the left. God be praised they have quite a healthy colour and strong lungs. One was holding a piece of white bread, like a little prince, the other a piece of black bread, quite in keeping with a philosopher's son. I beseech the Gods to bless the sower, bless the seed sown, bless the soil that bears a crop so true to stock. For even the sound of their little voices was so sweet, so winsome to my ear that I seemed, I know not how, to hear in the tiny piping[2] of either the clear and charming tones of your own utterance. Now therefore, if you do not take care, you will find me holding my head a good deal higher, for I have those whom I can love instead of you, not with eyes only but with ears also.
Marcus to Fronto
To my master, greeting.
I saw my little sons, when you saw them; I saw you too, when I read your letter. I beseech you, my master, love me as you do love me; love me too even as you love those little ones of ours: I have not yet said all that I want to say: love me as you have loved me. The extraordinary delightfulness of your letter has led me to write this. For as to its
- ↑ The author of De Differentiis Vocabulorum—possibly Fronto himself—explains locuples as a copia locorum. Fronto means that he has been able to see Marcus without going to Lorium, where he apparently was, in the faces of his two children.
- ↑ cp. "Thy small pipe," Shaks. Tw. N. i. 4, 32.
