Page:Correspondence of Marcus Cornelius Fronto volume 1 Haines 1919.djvu/18

 for pungency, Chrysippus for dialectical skill, Cicero for eloquence, and Fronto for splendour (pompa). Sidonius Apollinaris attributes gravitas to Fronto and pondus to Apuleius.

Though Fronto's reputation stood so high for 300 years after his death, scarcely a line of his works had survived, as it seemed, to modern times, until in 1815 Cardinal Mai discovered in the Imperial Library at Milan a palimpsest MS. containing many of his letters, the existence of which in classical times had indeed been occasionally intimated, though little was known of their contents.

When deciphered the work proved to consist mostly of his educational correspondence with his royal pupils, afterwards the joint Emperors Marcus Antoninus and Lucius Verus. There were included, however, one or two letters between Fronto and their adoptive father, the Emperor Pius, and some, chiefly commendatory, letters to the orator's friends, of whom the only one whose answer is preserved was the historian Appian. Some of the letters are in Greek. In judging this correspondence it should not be forgotten that Fronto disclaims the habit of letter-writing, and declares that no one could be a worse correspondent than himself.

It would, therefore, not be fair to estimate Fronto's eminence as an orator from these letters alone, though, of course, they throw light on his x