Page:Correspondence of Marcus Cornelius Fronto volume 2 Haines 1920.djvu/149

 Caesar, and under my auspices  Your answer to the Parthian king was prompt and weighty. Of course you learnt this from your centurions or front-rankers, those truly polished disputants! Dausara and Nicephorium and Artaxata were taken by storm under your leadership and auspices, but that fortified and unconquered and impregnable citadel, which is planted in your brother's breast, against the assumption of the title Armeniacus, which he had refused, who other than you assaulted, and you with what other weapons than those of eloquence? You called in as your ally in winning your way an army, but a vocal army fighting with words. In that part of your letter, as befitted a loving brother, your thoughts were more closely packed and took a tenderer cast, and you arranged your words more rhythmically. When I read them—for I was too unwell to be present in the Senate—and perceived your brother to be hard pressed by your eloquence, I thus apostrophized him in my unspoken thoughts: What do you say to this, Antoninus? I see that you will have to take the title which you have declined, and retreat from your resolve. What is the use now of my letters, what of the letters of philosophers? We are outdone by a soldier's letter. Is there anything, think you, less than admirable in the writing? any unusual or unseasonable word? Or do I seem to you to have trained a  133

