Page:Correspondence of Marcus Cornelius Fronto volume 2 Haines 1920.djvu/37

 162 A.D.

To the Emperor Antoninus.

1. The God who begat the great Roman race has no compunction in suffering us to faint at times and be defeated and wounded. Or would Father Mars hesitate to say of our soldiers the words?—

Full well I knew when I begot you, you would die: I reared you for that end; Aye, when I sent you forth the wide world through the empire to defend, Full well I knew to deadly wars and not to feasts my children I should send.

These words were uttered by Telamon to his sons once in the Trojan war. But Mars has spoken of the Romans in the same strain many a time and in many a war: in the Gaulish war at Allia, in the Samnite at Caudium, in the Punic at Cannae, in the Spanish at Numantia, in the Jugurthine at Cirta, in the Parthian at Carrhae. But always and everywhere he turned our sorrows into successes and our terrors into triumphs.

2. But not to hark back too far into ancient times, I will take instances from your own family. Was not a consular taken prisoner in Dacia under the leadership and auspices of your great grandfather 21

