M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
Caesar, and under my auspices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .[† 1] Your answer to the Parthian king[1] was prompt and weighty. Of course you learnt this from your centurions or front-rankers, those truly polished disputants! Dausara and Nicephorium and Artaxata[2] were taken by storm under your leadership and auspices, but that fortified and unconquered and impregnable citadel, which is planted in your brother's breast, against the assumption of the title Armeniacus,[3] which he had refused, who other than you assaulted, and you with what other weapons than those of eloquence? You called in as your ally in winning your way an army, but a vocal army fighting with words. In that part of your letter, as befitted a loving brother, your thoughts were more closely packed and took a tenderer cast, and you arranged your words more rhythmically. When I read them—for I was too unwell to be present in the Senate—and perceived your brother to be hard pressed by your eloquence, I thus apostrophized him in my unspoken thoughts: What do you say to this, Antoninus? I see that you will have to take the title which you have declined, and retreat from your resolve. What is the use now of my letters, what of the letters of philosophers? We are outdone by a soldier's letter. Is there anything, think you, less than admirable in the writing? any unusual or unseasonable word? Or do I seem to you to have trained a vain-
- ↑ See ii. 213.
- ↑ Dausara was near Edessa and Nicephorium on the Upper Euphrates in Mesopotamia. Artaxata was the capital of Armenia.
- ↑ Capit. (Vit. Mar. ix. § 2) says this title was bestowed on both emperors after the successful campaign of Statius Priscus in Armenia in 163, but refused at first by Marcus. It appears on his coins late in 164, and he dropped it on the death of Lucius in 169.
- ↑ Eight lines are lost from the beginning of Vat. 14.
