OTHER MISCELLANEOUS REMAINS OF FRONTO
Fronto's Salutation to Hadrian[1]
Cornelius Fronto, who held the first place at the bar among the Romans of that day, was returning home on one occasion very late in the evening from a banquet, and learning from one for whom he had promised to plead that Hadrian was sitting in court, he went in as he was in his banqueting dress to the court and saluted him, not with the morning salutation χαῖρε but the evening one ὑγίαινε.
From the Speech on the War in Britain
Fronto, not the second but the alternative glory of Roman eloquence, when he was giving the emperor Antoninus[2] praise for the successful completion of the war in Britain,[3] declared that although he had committed the conduct of the campaign to others, while sitting at home himself in the Palace at Rome, yet like the helmsman at the tiller of a ship of war, the glory of the whole navigation and voyage belonged to him.
- ↑ The point in this story, such as it is, seems to be that the court was still sitting in the early morning hours when Fronto came in from his banquet. It was a new day to the court, but the end of Fronto's day. Hence his use of the evening salutation. For the difference between χαῖρε, "Good cheer" (our "Good morning," or "How do you do?"), and ὑγίαινε, "Vale" (our "Good night," or "Good-bye"), see Lucian, Pro Lapsu in Salutando, i. , where a mistake in the use of these expressions is illustrated at length.
- ↑ Pius.
- ↑ 140 A.D.
