Marcus Cornelius, a Roman grammarian and rhetorician, was born of an Italian family at Cirta in Numidia. He came to Rome in the reign of Hadrian, and soon gained such renown as an advocate and orator as to be reckoned inferior only to Cicero. Antoninus Pius, hearing of his fame, appointed him tutor to his adopted sons Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus; and Fronto, as appears from his surviving letters, completely gained the confidence and affection of both these pupils. After holding the office for a few months in A.D. 143, he was five years later offered the proconsulate of Asia; but declined that post on the plea of bad health. He preferred to remain at Rome, where by the practice of his profession he amassed a very large fortune, which enabled him to purchase the famous gardens of Maecenas, besides sumptuous villas in various parts of Italy. In his old age, when confined to his house by the gout, he used to receive the leading literary men, who flocked to hear his unrivalled conversation. This exhibited the same qualities as his more formal orations, which were so much admired that a school of rhetoricians was formed which called itself after his name, and had for its object the restoration to the Latin language of its ancient purity and simplicity. Fronto died at an advanced age, in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, but the exact date of his death is not known.

Till the year 1815 the only thing of Fronto's known to exist was some disjointed fragments of his essay De Differ-

entia Verborum. In that year, however, 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 royal pupils. These Mai deciphered and published with notes. On Mai's removal to Rome he discovered in the Vatican some additional sheets of the same palimpsest, which, like the first, contained letters of Fronto to Aurelius and Verus, with their replies. These palimpsests had originally belonged to the famous convent of St Columba at Bobbio, and had been written over by the monks with the acts of the first council of Chalcedon. In the course of events some sheets of them had been transferred to Milan, while the rest had found their way into the Papal library. All these letters were published by Mai at Rome in 1823, under the title of M. Cornelii Frontonis et M. Aurelii imperatoris epistolae; L. Veri et Antonini Pii et Appiani epistolarum reliquiae; Fragmenta Frontonis et scripta grammaticae. The discovery of these documents excited intense interest among the scholars of Europe, which, however, was speedily dispelled by their publication. The characters of the two emperors, indeed, are displayed in a very favourable light, especially in the affection which they both seem to have retained for their old master. But the subject-matter of most of the letters is of such ephemeral interest, and their style is so vapid and commonplace, as to throw very little additional light on Roman antiquity. Editions of Fronto have been published at Frankfort and Berlin. A French translation of Mai's edition of 1823 was published by Armand Cassan at Paris, in two vols. 8vo, in 1830.