M. CORNELIUS FRONTO
3. You had, Antoninus, but one danger to fear, and no one of outstanding ability can escape it—that you should limp in respect of copiousness and choiceness of words. For the greater the thoughts, the more difficult it is to clothe them in words, and no small labour is needed to prevent those stately thoughts being ill-clothed or unbecomingly draped or half-naked.
Do you remember that speech of yours,[1] which you delivered in the Senate when scarcely more than a boy, in which you made use of that simile of a leathern bottle by way of illustration, and were much concerned lest you had employed an image little suited to the dignity of the place and of a senator? and that first rather long letter[2] I wrote to you, in which I drew the inference—and it is a true inference—that it is a mark of great abilities to encounter boldly the difficulties in thoughts of that kind, but that by your own application and some help from me you would attain what was needed therein, the command of luminous expression[3] to match such great thoughts. This you see has now come to pass, and although you have not always set every sail in pursuit of eloquence, yet you have held on your course with topsails and with oars, and as soon as ever necessity has forced you to spread all your canvas, you are easily distancing all devotees of eloquence like so many pinnaces and yachts.
4. I have been prompted to write this by your last letter,[4] in which you said that you were gradually forgetting all that you had learnt, but to me it seems
- ↑ Perhaps when he entered the Senate as quaestor, but very possibly his Caesar-speech. See i. p. 19.
- ↑ The letter printed first in this edition: cp. the reference to audocia.
- ↑ cp. De Eloqu. iii. below.
- ↑ This letter is not in the collection, but cp. i. p. 39.
