M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
Ocha and Dionysodorus who practised cooking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a beginning of singing and playing . . . . . . . .[† 1]
Fronto to Marcus
To my Lord Antoninus Augustus.
1. What? Am I not aware that you went to Alsium with the intention of indulging yourself and there giving yourself up to recreation and mirth and complete leisure for four whole days? And I have no doubt that you have set about enjoying the holiday at your seaside resort in this fashion: after taking your usual siesta at noonday, you would call Niger[1] and bid him bring in your books; soon when you felt the inclination to read, you would polish your style with Plautus or saturate yourself with Accius or soothe yourself with Lucretius or fire yourself with Ennius, to the hour in that case appropriate to the Muses, the fifth[2] . . . . . . . . . . . .; if he had brought you treatises of Cicero, you would listen to them; then you would go as far as possible off the beaten track to the shore and skirt the croaking marshes; then even, if the fancy took you, get on board some vessel, that, putting out to sea in calm weather, you might delight yourself with the sight and sound of the rowers and their time-giver's[3] baton; anon you would be off from there to the baths, make yourself sweat profusely,
- ↑ Not mentioned again. He would most likely be the secretary or librarian of Marcus, possibly his anagnostes or reader.
- ↑ This seems a punning reference to Quintus, the praenomen of Ennius.
- ↑ The master of the rowers (something like our bo'sun) gave them the time by the beats of a hammer or baton.
- ↑ From opportune to paravit the Codex has eleven lines not deciphered.
