Page:Correspondence of Marcus Cornelius Fronto volume 1 Haines 1919.djvu/335

 every difference between the public cases and the private. Again the gates of a city must be opened wide for any to enter at will and, when he will, to go out. But for each one of us as individuals, if his doorkeeper guard not his door and be ever on the watch, debarring from ingress those who have no business there, but on the other hand permitting the inmates to go out freely whenever they wish, the safeguarding of the house could not be properly effected. So also porticoes and groves and altars and gymnasia, and baths, if public ones, are thrown open free to all, but if private, are kept under strong lock and key with a door-keeper to boot, and a fee is exacted from the bathers. Nor yet are banquets in private houses and in the Town-Hall the same; nor a horse if it belong to a private person or to the state; nor the purple robe of the magistrate and of the townsman; nor the garland of home-grown roses and the wreath of olive at Olympia.

2. At the same time I think that I will waive this and concede to you that private conduct must needs conform to public. But conceding this, I would not go further and concede what you would fain persuade me of, that I must conform to it. I will explain what I mean. The point in dispute between us, I take it, was this, whether one ought to accept great and valuable gifts from friends. Justifying this, you pointed to the example of cities accepting great gifts one from another, taking for granted, my dear friend, the very point in dispute. For alleging as I do that individuals ought not to take great gifts from one another, I would say exactly the same of cities, that they ought not to take them either; but you, begging the question 271