Get Our Extension
Select Wikiz in another Language
DeutschEspañolSuomiFrançaisעבריתItalianoNederlands
Settings
A
A
Text Highlights
Notes/Citations
Edit on Wikipedia

Share This Article

About Wikiz About Us Cookies Policy Terms & Services Privacy Policy Contact Contact us Enjoying Wikipedia Content? DONATE TO WIKIPEDIA
Enjoying Wikipedia Content? DONATE TO WIKIPEDIA

Marcus Cornelius Fronto

From Wikipedia, in a visual modern way

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 and future emperors, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.

Discover more about Marcus Cornelius Fronto related topics

Berbers

Berbers

Berbers, also called by their self-name Amazigh or Imazighen, are an ethnic group indigenous to the Maghreb region of North Africa, where they live in scattered communities across parts of Morocco, Algeria, and Libya, and to a lesser extent Tunisia, Mauritania, northern Mali, and northern Niger. Smaller Berber communities are also found in Burkina Faso and Egypt's Siwa Oasis. Historically, Berber nations have spoken Berber languages, which are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family.

Cirta

Cirta

Cirta, also known by various other names in antiquity, was the ancient Berber and Roman settlement which later became Constantine, Algeria.

Constantine, Algeria

Constantine, Algeria

Constantine, also spelled Qacentina or Kasantina, is the capital of Constantine Province in northeastern Algeria. During Roman times it was called Cirta and was renamed "Constantina" in honor of emperor Constantine the Great. It was the capital of the French department of Constantine until 1962. Located somewhat inland, Constantine is about 80 kilometres from the Mediterranean coast, on the banks of the Rhumel River.

Algeria

Algeria

Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in North Africa. Algeria is bordered to the northeast by Tunisia; to the east by Libya; to the southeast by Niger; to the southwest by Mali, Mauritania, and Western Sahara; to the west by Morocco; and to the north by the Mediterranean Sea. It is considered part of the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has a semi-arid geography, with most of the population living in the fertile north and the Sahara dominating the geography of the south. Algeria covers an area of 2,381,741 square kilometres (919,595 sq mi), making it the world's tenth largest nation by area, and the largest nation in Africa, being more than 200 times as large as the smallest country in the continent, The Gambia. With a population of 44 million, Algeria is the tenth-most populous country in Africa, and the 32nd-most populous country in the world. The capital and largest city is Algiers, located in the far north on the Mediterranean coast.

Numidia

Numidia

Numidia was the ancient kingdom of the Numidians located in northwest Africa, initially comprising the territory that now makes up modern-day Algeria, but later expanding across what is today known as Tunisia, Libya, and some parts of Morocco. The polity was originally divided between the Massylii in the east and the Masaesyli in the west. During the Second Punic War, Masinissa, king of the Massylii, defeated Syphax of the Masaesyli to unify Numidia into one kingdom. The kingdom began as a sovereign state and later alternated between being a Roman province and a Roman client state.

Roman consul

Roman consul

A consul held the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic, and ancient Romans considered the consulship the second-highest level of the cursus honorum after that of the censor. Each year, the Centuriate Assembly elected two consuls to serve jointly for a one-year term. The consuls alternated in holding fasces – taking turns leading – each month when both were in Rome. A consul's imperium extended over Rome and all its provinces.

Nundinium

Nundinium

Nundinium was a Latin word derived from the word nundinum, which referred to the cycle of days observed by the Romans. During the Roman Empire, nundinium came to mean the duration of a single consulship among several in a calendar year.

Antoninus Pius

Antoninus Pius

Antoninus Pius was Roman emperor from 138 to 161. He was the fourth of the Five Good Emperors from the Nerva–Antonine dynasty.

Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors, and the last emperor of the Pax Romana, an age of relative peace, calmness and stability for the Roman Empire lasting from 27 BC to 180 AD. He served as Roman consul in 140, 145, and 161.

Lucius Verus

Lucius Verus

Lucius Aurelius Verus was Roman emperor from 161 until his death in 169, alongside his adoptive brother Marcus Aurelius. He was a member of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty. Verus' succession together with Marcus Aurelius marked the first time that the Roman Empire was ruled by more than one emperor simultaneously, an increasingly common occurrence in the later history of the Empire.

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 consul for two months (August and September),[11] but declined the proconsulship of Asia on the grounds of ill-health. His latter years were embittered by the loss of all his children except one daughter. His talents as an orator and rhetorician were greatly admired by his contemporaries, a number of whom were later regarded as forming a school called after him Frontoniani; his object in his teaching was to inculcate the exact use of the Latin language in place of the artificialities of such 1st-century authors as Seneca the Younger, and encourage the use of "unlooked-for and unexpected words", to be found by diligent reading of pre-Ciceronian authors. He found fault with Cicero for inattention to that refinement, though admiring his letters without reserve. He may well have died in the late 160s, as a result of the Antonine Plague that followed the Parthian War, though conclusive proof is lacking. C.R. Haines asserts he died in 166 or 167.[12]

Discover more about Life related topics

Cirta

Cirta

Cirta, also known by various other names in antiquity, was the ancient Berber and Roman settlement which later became Constantine, Algeria.

Ancient Libya

Ancient Libya

The Latin name Libya referred to North Africa during the Iron Age and classical antiquity. Berbers occupied the area for thousands of years before the recording of history in ancient Egypt. Climate changes affected the locations of the settlements.

Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy. It is also the capital of the Lazio region, the centre of the Metropolitan City of Rome, and a special comune named Comune di Roma Capitale. With 2,860,009 residents in 1,285 km2 (496.1 sq mi), Rome is the country's most populated comune and the third most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. The Metropolitan City of Rome, with a population of 4,355,725 residents, is the most populous metropolitan city in Italy. Its metropolitan area is the third-most populous within Italy. Rome is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio (Latium), along the shores of the Tiber. Vatican City is an independent country inside the city boundaries of Rome, the only existing example of a country within a city. Rome is often referred to as the City of Seven Hills due to its geographic location, and also as the "Eternal City". Rome is generally considered to be the "cradle of Western civilization and Christian culture", and the centre of the Catholic Church.

Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire. His extensive writings include treatises on rhetoric, philosophy and politics. He is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and served as consul in 63 BC.

Gardens of Maecenas

Gardens of Maecenas

The Gardens of Maecenas, or Horti Maecenatis, constituted the luxurious ancient Roman estate of Gaius Maecenas, an Augustan-era imperial advisor and patron of the arts. The property was among the first in Italy to emulate the style of Persian gardens. The walled villa, buildings, and gardens were located on the Esquiline Hill, atop the agger of the Servian Wall and its adjoining necropolis, as well as near the Horti Lamiani.

Roman consul

Roman consul

A consul held the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic, and ancient Romans considered the consulship the second-highest level of the cursus honorum after that of the censor. Each year, the Centuriate Assembly elected two consuls to serve jointly for a one-year term. The consuls alternated in holding fasces – taking turns leading – each month when both were in Rome. A consul's imperium extended over Rome and all its provinces.

Asia (Roman province)

Asia (Roman province)

The Asia was a Roman province covering most of western Anatolia, which was created following the Roman Republic's annexation of the Attalid Kingdom in 133 BC. After the establishment of the Roman Empire by Augustus, it was the most prestigious senatorial province and was governed by a proconsul. That arrangement endured until the province was subdivided in the fourth century AD.

Latin

Latin

Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area around present-day Rome, but through the power of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Even after the fall of Western Rome, Latin remained the common language of international communication, science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the 18th century, when other regional vernaculars supplanted it in common academic and political usage, and it eventually became a dead language in the modern linguistic definition.

Seneca the Younger

Seneca the Younger

Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger, usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, dramatist, and, in one work, satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature.

Antonine Plague

Antonine Plague

The Antonine Plague of AD 165 to 180, also known as the Plague of Galen, was the first known pandemic impacting the Roman Empire, possibly contracted and spread by soldiers who were returning from campaign in the Near East. Scholars generally believe the plague was smallpox, although measles has also been suggested. In AD 169 the plague may have claimed the life of the Roman emperor Lucius Verus, who was co-regnant with Marcus Aurelius. These two emperors had risen to the throne by virtue of being adopted by the previous emperor, Antoninus Pius, and as a result, their family name, Antoninus, has become associated with the pandemic.

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, together with the other fragments, were published at Rome in 1815. The Vatican texts were added in 1823, as well as the end of his Gratiarum actio pro Carthaginiensibus from another Vatican manuscript. It was not until 1956 that Bernhard Bischoff identified a third manuscript (consisting of a single leaf) that contained fragments of Fronto's correspondence with Verus which overlapped the Milan palimpsest; however, the actual manuscript had been first published in 1750 by 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), 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[14] There are also letters to friends, chiefly letters of recommendation, but including one (Ad amicos 1. 19) in which an out-of-sorts Fronto (ego epistulas invitissime scribo, "I hate writing letters") complains of Aulus Gellius' attempts to procure copies of his writings for publication. (Fronto appears in five chapters of the Noctes Atticae, though expressing tastes that sometime seem closer to Gellius' own than to those evinced in the letters.) The collection also contains treatises on eloquence, some historical fragments, and literary trifles on such subjects as the praise of smoke and dust, of negligence, and a dissertation on Arion. In addition, a fragment of a speech is preserved by Minucius Felix (Octavius 9. 6–7) in which Fronto accuses the Christians of incestuous orgies.

Marcus Aurelius, in his Meditations, says nothing of Fronto's rhetorical teaching; nor, although writing in Greek, does he so much as mention his teacher of Greek rhetoric and longtime friend Herodes Atticus. He does, however, credit Fronto with teaching him about the vices of tyranny and the lack of affection in the Roman upper class (1.11); since the former were commonplaces, there may be a concealed reference to life under Hadrian, whom Fronto retrospectively claims to have feared rather than loved,[15] but the latter is borne out by the master's remark that there is no Latin equivalent for the Greek philóstorgos, meaning "affectionate".[16] The letters between Aurelius and Fronto, which reveal the intimate nature of their relationship, are the only love letters (homoerotic or not) to survive from antiquity.[17]

The editio princeps was by Mai, as described above; the standard edition is the Teubner text by M. van den Hout (Leipzig, 1988). The Loeb Classical Library printed an edition of Fronto's correspondence with a facing English translation by C. R. Haines in two volumes (1919–1920); its text, though dated, is still of interest. Van den Hout also published a full-scale commentary in English (Leiden, 1999).

Discover more about Surviving works related topics

Arusianus Messius

Arusianus Messius

Arusianus Messius, or Messus, Latin grammarian, flourished in the 4th century.

Angelo Mai

Angelo Mai

Angelo Mai was an Italian Cardinal and philologist. He won a European reputation for publishing for the first time a series of previously unknown ancient texts. These he was able to discover and publish, first while in charge of the Ambrosian Library in Milan and then in the same role at the Vatican Library. The texts were often in parchment manuscripts that had been washed off and reused; he was able to read the lower text using chemicals. In particular he was able to locate a substantial portion of the much sought-after De republica of Cicero and the complete works of Virgilius Maro Grammaticus.

Biblioteca Ambrosiana

Biblioteca Ambrosiana

The Biblioteca Ambrosiana is a historic library in Milan, Italy, also housing the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the Ambrosian art gallery. Named after Ambrose, the patron saint of Milan, it was founded in 1609 by Cardinal Federico Borromeo, whose agents scoured Western Europe and even Greece and Syria for books and manuscripts. Some major acquisitions of complete libraries were the manuscripts of the Benedictine monastery of Bobbio (1606) and the library of the Paduan Vincenzo Pinelli, whose more than 800 manuscripts filled 70 cases when they were sent to Milan and included the famous Iliad, the Ilias Picta.

Bobbio Abbey

Bobbio Abbey

Bobbio Abbey is a monastery founded by Irish Saint Columbanus in 614, around which later grew up the town of Bobbio, in the province of Piacenza, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. It is dedicated to Saint Columbanus. It was famous as a centre of resistance to Arianism and as one of the greatest libraries in the Middle Ages. The abbey was dissolved under the French administration in 1803, although many of the buildings remain in other uses.

Bobbio

Bobbio

Bobbio is a small town and commune in the province of Piacenza in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy. It is located in the Trebbia River valley southwest of the town Piacenza. There is also an abbey and a diocese of the same name. Bobbio is the administrative center of the Unione Montana Valli Trebbia e Luretta.

Council of Chalcedon

Council of Chalcedon

The Council of Chalcedon was the fourth ecumenical council of the Christian Church. It was convoked by the Roman emperor Marcian. The council convened in the city of Chalcedon, Bithynia from 8 October to 1 November 451 AD. The council was attended by over 520 bishops or their representatives, making it the largest and best-documented of the first seven ecumenical councils. The principal purpose of the council was to re-assert the teachings of the ecumenical Council of Ephesus against the heresies of Eutyches and Nestorius. Such heresies attempted to dismantle and separate Christ's divine nature from his humanity (Nestorianism) and further, to limit Christ as solely divine in nature (Monophysitism).

Bernhard Bischoff

Bernhard Bischoff

Bernhard Bischoff was a German historian, paleographer, and philologist; he was born in Altendorf, and he died in Munich.

Aulus Gellius

Aulus Gellius

Aulus Gellius was a Roman author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome. He is famous for his Attic Nights, a commonplace book, or compilation of notes on grammar, philosophy, history, antiquarianism, and other subjects, preserving fragments of the works of many authors who might otherwise be unknown today.

Arion

Arion

Arion (; Greek: Ἀρίων; was a kitharode in ancient Greece, a Dionysiac poet credited with inventing the dithyramb. The islanders of Lesbos claimed him as their native son, but Arion found a patron in Periander, tyrant of Corinth. Although notable for his musical inventions, Arion is chiefly remembered for the fantastic myth of his kidnapping by pirates and miraculous rescue by dolphins, a folktale motif.

Herodes Atticus

Herodes Atticus

Herodes Atticus was an Athenian rhetorician, as well as a Roman senator. A great philanthropic magnate, he and his wife Appia Annia Regilla, for whose murder he was potentially responsible, commissioned many Athenian public works, several of which stand to the present day. "[O]ne of the best-known figures of the Antonine Period", he taught rhetoric to the Roman emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, and was advanced to the consulship in 143. His full name as a Roman citizen was Lucius Vibullius Hipparchus Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes.

Editio princeps

Editio princeps

In classical scholarship, the editio princeps of a work is the first printed edition of the work, that previously had existed only in manuscripts, which could be circulated only after being copied by hand.

Loeb Classical Library

Loeb Classical Library

The Loeb Classical Library is a series of books originally published by Heinemann in London, but is currently published by Harvard University Press. The library contains important works of ancient Greek and Latin literature designed to make the text accessible to the broadest possible audience by presenting the original Greek or Latin text on each left-hand page, and a fairly literal translation on the facing page. The General Editor is Jeffrey Henderson, holder of the William Goodwin Aurelio Professorship of Greek Language and Literature at Boston University.

Source: "Marcus Cornelius Fronto", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, March 19th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Cornelius_Fronto.

Enjoying Wikiz?

Enjoying Wikiz?

Get our FREE extension now!

Download Extension

Further Reading

Marcus Aurelius

Lucius Verus

Lucius Aelius Caesar

Herodes Atticus

Annia Cornificia Faustina Minor

Early life of Marcus Aurelius

Reign of Marcus Aurelius

Sohaemus of Armenia
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. ^ Ballif, Michelle; Moran, Michael G. (2005). Classical Rhetorics and Rhetoricians: Critical Studies and Sources. Greenwood. p. 83. ISBN 978-0313321788.
  6. ^ Hout, Michel P J (1999). A Commentary on the Letters of M. Cornelius Fronto. Brill. p. 1. ISBN 978-9004109575.
  7. ^ Champlin, Fronto, 20
  8. ^ Fronto, M. Cornelius (2014). Fronto: Selected Letters. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 163. 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
Wikisource has original works by or about:
Marcus Cornelius Fronto
Political offices
Preceded byas suffect consuls Suffect consul of the Roman Empire
142
with Gaius Laberius Priscus 		Succeeded byas suffect consuls
Categories

The content of this page is based on the Wikipedia article written by contributors..
The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence & the media files are available under their respective licenses; additional terms may apply.
By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use & Privacy Policy.
Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization & is not affiliated to WikiZ.com.