(H/B) FRONTO: CORRESPONDENCE (VOLUME II)

Παρουσίαση

The literary remains of the rhetorician MARCUS CORNELIUS PRONTO (c. A.D. 100-176) first carne to light in 1815, when Cardinal Mai, then prefect of the Ambrosian Library in Milan, discovered that beneath an account of the Acts of the first Council of Chalcedon in 451 had originally been written a copy of the correspondence between Pronto and members of the imperial family, including no less than three who were to wear the purple. The letters possess an extraordinary fascination as giving an authentic record of the relationship between the foremost teacher of his time and his illustrious pupil, Marcus Aurelius, his chief correspondent. Apart from small-talk (but even the trivialities of the great are replete with interest) the principal subject is Latin prose style. Pronto practises to excess the cultivation of trendy mannerisms, but sees clearly enough the sterility of a slavish imitation of classical models. (from the publisher)