Page:Correspondence of Marcus Cornelius Fronto volume 1 Haines 1919.djvu/29

 for more correspondence with Pius, but two of Fronto's letters to him are among the best of the series.

Fronto became tutor to Marcus after his adoption by Hadrian in 138. None of the letters we have can be dated before 139, when Marcus became Caesar. The marriage of Marcus, which took place most probably in 145, and the various births of his children enable us to give approximate dates to many of the letters in Book V. The letters Ad Amicos can only be dated with reference to the proconsulships or other governorships of the recipients, many of them being letters commendatory, recommending friends to the notice of the governor of a province.

The more important oratorical and historical pieces, with the letters on the Alsian holiday and the death of Fronto's grandson, a characteristic and interesting piece, fall between 161 and 166, in which year or the next Fronto probably died.

Excluding Fronto himself, who could have collected and published the correspondence? The only person in a position to do this seems to be Aufidius Victorinus, the life-long friend of Marcus and Fronto's son-in-law. We have evidence that Fronto kept copies of some of his letters, and Victorinus, as Fronto's heir and one of the leading men in the reign of Commodus, was in a specially favourable position for acting as his father-in-law's literary executor.

The object of the compilation was not only to bring into prominence the position of Fronto as xxi