M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
criminal; my whole life through there has not been on my side a single act of avarice or of treachery, but on the contrary many of generosity, many of friendship, many of good faith, many of loyalty, undertaken, too, often at the risk of my life. With the best of brothers I have lived in the utmost harmony, and I rejoice to see him raised by your father's kindness to the highest offices and resting in the friendship of both of you in all peace and security. The honours which I myself have attained[1] I never coveted to gain by unworthy means. I have devoted myself to the cultivation of my mind rather than my body. I have held the pursuit of learning higher than the acquisition of wealth. I preferred to be poor[2] rather than indebted to another's help, at the worst to be in want rather than to beg.
9. In expenditure I have never been extravagant, sometimes earned only enough to live upon. I have spoken the truth studiously, I have heard the truth gladly. I have held it better to be forgotten than to fawn, to be silent than insincere, to be a negligent friend than a diligent flatterer. It is little I have sought, not a little I have deserved. According to my means I have obliged every man. The deserving have found in me a readier, the undeserving a more quixotic, helper. Nor if I found anyone ungrateful, did that make me less willing to bestow upon him betimes all the services in my power; nor
- ↑ In a letter from the fourth book of letters Ad Anton. Imp., quoted by Charisius, Ars Grammatica, ii. 197, 3 (Kiel), Fronto says Satis abundeque honorum est quos mihi cotidiano tribuis.
- ↑ He could not have been very poor; see Aul. Gellius, below.
