Marcus Cornelius Fronto

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Marcus Cornelius Fronto (c. 100 – late 160s AD), best known as Fronto, was a Roman grammarian, rhetorician, and advocate. Of Berber origin, he was born at Cirta (modern-day Constantine, Algeria) in Numidia. He was suffect consul for the nundinium of July–August 142 with Gaius Laberius Priscus as his colleague.[1] Emperor Antoninus Pius appointed him tutor to his adopted sons, the future emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.

Life

Fronto was born a

Roman citizen in the year 100[2] in the Numidian capital, Cirta. He described himself as a Libyan of the nomadic Libyans.[3][4] He was taught as a child by the Greek paedagogus Aridelus.[5][6]

Later, he continued his education at Rome[7] with the philosopher Athenodotus and the orator Dionysius.[8][9] He soon gained such renown as an advocate and orator as to be reckoned inferior only to Cicero. He amassed a large fortune, erected magnificent buildings, and purchased the famous gardens of Maecenas.[10]

In 142 he was

Parthian War, though conclusive proof is lacking. C.R. Haines asserts he died in 166 or 167.[12]

Surviving works

Until 1815, the only extant works ascribed (erroneously) to Fronto were two grammatical treatises, De nominum verborumque differentiis and Exempla elocutionum (the latter being really by Arusianus Messius). In that year, Angelo Mai discovered in the Ambrosian library at Milan a palimpsest manuscript, on which had been originally written some of Fronto's letters to his imperial pupils and their replies; four years later Mai found several more sheets from this manuscript in the Vatican. These palimpsests had originally belonged to the famous convent of St Columbanus at Bobbio and had been written over by the monks with the acts of the First Council of Chalcedon.

The letters from the Ambrosian palimpsest, along with the other fragments, were published at Rome in 1815. The Vatican texts were added in 1823, as was the end of his Gratiarum actio pro Carthaginiensibus from another Vatican manuscript. It was not until 1956 that

Dom Tassin, who conjectured that it might have been the work of Fronto.[13]

These fragments disappointed Romantic scholars as not matching the writer's great reputation, partly because Fronto's teachings, with their emphasis on studying ancient writers in search of striking words, were not in accordance with current fashion (Italy, where not only Mai but

Leopardi
enthused over them, was an exception), partly because they gave no support to the assumption that Fronto had been a wise counsellor to Marcus Aurelius (indeed, they contain no trace of political advice), and partly because his frequent complaints about ill health, especially those collected in book 5 of Ad M. Caesarem, aroused more annoyance than compassion. These adverse judgements were reversed once Fronto was read for what he was rather than what he was not, as already in the sympathetic treatment by Dorothy Brock, Studies in Fronto and his Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911).

The bulk of the letters consist of correspondence with Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, in which the character of Fronto's pupils appears in a very favourable light, especially in the affection they both seem to have retained for their old master.

Minucius Felix
(Octavius 9. 6–7) in which Fronto accuses the Christians of incestuous orgies.

Marcus Aurelius, in his

homoerotic or not) to survive from antiquity.[17]

The

to whom?
] Van den Hout also published a full-scale commentary in English (Leiden, 1999).

References

  1. ^ Werner Eck, "Die Fasti consulares der Regierungszeit des Antoninus Pius, eine Bestandsaufnahme seit Géza Alföldys Konsulat und Senatorenstand" in Studia epigraphica in memoriam Géza Alföldy, hg. W. Eck, B. Feher, and P. Kovács (Bonn, 2013), p. 73
  2. ^ "or a year or two earlier", C.R. Haines, p.lii. See also p. xxiii: "The probable date of his birth is 100 A.D., and in any case before 113 A.D."
  3. ^ Ad M. Caesarem 2. 3. 5; cf. A. R. Birley, The African Emperor (London: Batsford, 1999), 43.
  4. ^ Edward Champlin, Fronto and Antonine Rome (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), 7–8.
  5. ISBN 978-0313321788
    .
  6. ISBN 978-9004109575
    .
  7. ^ Champlin, Fronto, 20
  8. ISBN 978-1780934426
    .
  9. ^ Greek Letters-Marcus Cornelius Fronto
  10. ^ Aulus Gellius, 19.10
  11. ^ W. Eck and M. M. Roxan in Festschrift für Hans Lieb 1995, p. 79–99
  12. ^ "There can be little doubt that he predeceased Verus and died in 166 or 167". C.R. Haines, p. xl.
  13. ^ This account of Fronto's rediscovery is based on L.D. Reynolds (editor), Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 173f.
  14. ^ Amy Richlin, Marcus Aurelius in Love (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006).
  15. ^ Ad M. Caesarem 2.4.1; a certain distancing from Hadrian may be observed in the actions of Antoninus Pius and the words of Marcus Aurelius.
  16. ^ Ad Verum 1.6.7, Ad amicos 1.3.3 (margin).
  17. ^ Amy Richlin (trans.), Marcus Aurelius in Love, University of Chicago Press, 2007

Further reading

  • Champlin, E. 1980. Fronto and Antonine Rome. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
  • Claassen, J. M. 2009. "Cornelius Fronto: A 'Libyan Nomad' at Rome." Acta Classica 52:47–71.
  • Fleury, P. 2012. "Marcus Aurelius' Letters." In A Companion to Marcus Aurelius. Edited by M. van Ackeren, 62–76. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell.
  • Freisenbruch, A. 2007. "Back to Fronto: Doctor and Patient in His Correspondence with an Emperor." In Ancient Letters: Classical and Late Antique Epistolography. Edited by R. Morello and A. D. Morrison, 235–256. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  • Kemezis, A. M. 2010. "Lucian, Fronto, and the Absence of Contemporary Historiography Under the Antonines." American Journal of Philology 131:285–325.
  • Keulen, W. 2014. "Fronto and Apuleius: Two African Careers in the Roman Empire." In Apuleius and Africa. Edited by B. Todd Lee, E. Finkelpearl, and L. Graverini, 129–153. London: Routledge.
  • Mullen, A. 2015. "In Both Our Languages: Greek-Latin Code-switching in Roman Literature." Language and Literature 24:213–232.
  • Richlin, A. 2011. "Parallel Lives: Domitia Lucilla and Cratia, Fronto and Marcus." Eugesta 1:163–203.
  • Ronnick, M. V. 1997. "Substructural Elements of Architectonic Rhetoric and Philosophical Thought in Fronto's Epistles." In Roman Eloquence: Rhetoric in Society and Literature. Edited by W. J. Dominik, 229–245. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Wei, R. 2013. "Fronto and the Rhetoric of Friendship." Cahiers des études anciennes 50: 67–93.
  • Castelli C. 2021, "Il greco di Frontone. Testo critico e traduzione. Studio linguistico, stilistico e retorico. Storia editoriale", Roma: Edizioni di Storia e letteratura.

External links

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Marcus Cornelius Fronto
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Political offices
Preceded byas suffect consuls
Suffect consul of the Roman Empire
142
with Gaius Laberius Priscus
 Succeeded byas suffect consuls
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