Marcus Cornelius, a celebrated orator, who was born, probably under Domitian or Nerva, at Cirta, a town of Numidia, considerably to the west of Carthage, descended, it is said, on the mother's side from Platarch. He soon became distinguished for his eloquence; and having taken up his residence at Rome, he was appointed preceptor to M. Aurelius and L. Verus. He was raised by Antoninus Pius to the dignity of consul, and in fact received the first honours of the state. He had numerous friends and followers, who were called Frontoniani. His death seems to have taken place about 169 A.D. Of all his numerous works, we had nothing, till within these few years, except one small grammatical treatise, De Differentis Vocabolorum. But in 1814 Angelo Maio, the indefatigable librarian of the Vatican, discovered in the Ambrosian Library at Milan a palimpsest containing a collection of the works of this author, which was afterwards completed from a palimpsest of the Vatican, which had evidently formed at one time part of the Milan manuscripts. It belonged to the age of the Emperors Commodus or Severus. This collection is full of interest, containing numerous letters addressed by Fronto to his pupils Aurelius and Verus, and a curious correspondence between the Emperor Antoninus and Fronto. We are forcibly struck, even on a cursory perusal of these letters, by the extent of his information and by the playfulness of the style. They entitle the author to a distinguished place among the orators and writers of ancient times, though we do not allow that he can be placed immediately after Cicero.

The form of the composition does by no means resemble the noble simplicity of the earlier ages. The style is artificial; and, amidst the poverty of ideas, cold declamation and unmeaning expressions occupy the place of "thoughts that breathe and words that burn." There appear also new and strange expressions, which sufficiently indicate the decline of literature, as well as the corrupted taste of an age which could consider Fronto as the first of its orators. There have been several editions of this collection: Ed. Angelus Maius, Mediolan. 1815, Francof. 1816; ed. Niebuhr, Berlin 1816; ed. Angelus Maius, Roma, 1823. (Lettres inedites de Marc Aurele et de Fronton, par Cassen, Paris, 1830; Christomathia Frontoniana, Turici, 1830; see Roth, Bemerkungen über die Schriften des Fronto und über das Zeitalter der Antonine, Nurnberg, 1817.)