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FRONTO
on threadbare themes exude tedium: he would not have written thus for
publication (cf. his criticism of Lucan, 151). Of business, in Senate, courts,
and administration, we hear only rarely. Language, literature, and rhetoric
absorbed Fronto's attention. If he had discussed affairs of state with his
sovereign, he could hardly have contributed much. Again, important personal
matters, which might have been tackled forthrightly, such as Marcus' preference
for philosophy over rhetoric, though not unmentioned (e.g. 149),
are often evaded. This weak and limited teacher had no enduring influence
on his unstable, self-tormenting pupil: witness the perfunctory acknowledgement
accorded Fronto at Meditations 1.11. The words which the emperor
there addressed to himself jar against the cordiality of his letters. Marcus,
though greatly changed, had kept up appearances. Fronto played the old
tricks faithfully. This was not one of the unshakeable friendships of all
time.
Fronto is a rhetorician through and through. That is confirmed by an
introduction to his projected history of Lucius' Parthian campaigns (191—200):
he apparently intended to work up Lucius' own notes. The specimen, flattery
included, is dismally predictable: imitation of Sallust, generalizing reflections
pointedly expressed, commonplace description of a general's proper behaviour
when faced by hardship and demoralized troops. Fronto did not explore the
truth. Given suitable material, he procured embellishment. Such is ' rhetorical'
history, as regularly practised. Some scholars fancy that Fronto invented it.
The principal interest of the correspondence lies in language and style.
Fronto, some say, sought to revive and reinforce Latin prose against the challenge
of Greek, then vigorously renascent. "Whether he clearly discerned any
such rivalry is arguable, but he certainly tried to exploit anew the latent resources
of Latin literature, by going back beyond the stylists of the early
Empire, and beyond Cicero and his contemporaries, to extract from the
archaic writers whatever he might effectively use. He greatly esteems Ennius
(57) and Cato (192), and loathes Seneca (150). His appraisal of Cicero (57)
is curiously anachronistic and biased: Cicero, he opines, never troubled to
enrich his vocabulary with choice, unlooked-for words. Yet Fronto's own
writing is not garishly coloured by archaisms, though occasional oddities
leap to the eye. Concern for propriety tempers his pursuit of the unusual (92).
We should not, however, consider him a purist and reactionary, or equate
Latin archaizing with Greek Atticism. Fronto owes more than he readily
admits to the new and mixed styles of the preceding hundred years; he is not
averse from verbal artifice and epigrammatic point, and he is extremely partial
to similes and extensively developed imagery; he wants to be both arresting
and dignified. If we judge by the letters, his endeavour failed. His style is
alternately lifeless and falsely inflated, unredeemed by imagination and flam-
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