elocutio novellaLatin prose style
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contribution by Fronto Fronto, Marcus Cornelius
Fronto tried to reinvigorate the decaying Latin of his day by reviving the vocabulary of earlier republican Roman writers. The resulting elocutio novella (“new elocution”) was often artificial and pedantic, but it had widespread influence and gave new vitality to Latin prose writing.
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Latin literature Latin literature
In prose these centuries have somewhat more to boast, though the greatest work by a Roman was written in Greek, the Meditations of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Elocutio novella, a blend of archaisms and colloquial speech, is seen to best advantage in Apuleius (born about 125). Other writers of note were Aulus Gellius and Macrobius. The 4th century ad was the age of the...
prominent Roman orator, rhetorician, and grammarian whose high reputation—equal in ancient times to those of Cato, Cicero, and Quintilian—was based chiefly on his orations, all of which are lost. His most famous lost speech is Against the Christians, which was answered in Minucius Felix’s Octavius.
Fronto was educated at Carthage and in Rome, where, under the emperor Hadrian, he rapidly gained considerable fame as an advocate. Emperor Antoninus Pius appointed him tutor to Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus; with the former he remained on terms of affectionate friendship. He became consul suffectus for July–August 143.
In addition to his orations, Fronto’s grammatical and rhetorical studies won him a number of followers, called the Frontoniani. Modern evaluations of Fronto’s mastery of language are based on the information contained in the Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius, a member of Fronto’s circle; on a collection of Fronto’s letters (principally to Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus); and on miscellaneous pieces discovered with the letters in 1815 in the Ambrosian Library in Milan by the Classical scholar Angelo Cardinal Mai. The letters throw useful light on the Antonines and on Fronto’s judgments of earlier writers and his precepts about language and style.
Fronto tried to reinvigorate the decaying Latin of his day by reviving the vocabulary of earlier republican Roman writers. The resulting elocutio novella (“new elocution”) was often artificial and pedantic, but it had widespread influence and gave new vitality to Latin prose writing.
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association with Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius
The long years of Marcus’ apprenticeship under Antoninus are illuminated by the correspondence between him and his teacher Fronto. Though the main society...
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discussed in biography Marcus Aurelius
...pursued by Marcus during the troubling involvements of his reign, though not what would have been historically most valuable, his day-to-day political thoughts, can be acquired by reading the Meditations. To what extent he intended them for eyes other than his own is uncertain; they are fragmentary notes, discursive and epigrammatic by turn, of his reflections in the midst of...
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history of Roman statecraft ancient Rome
...against the frontiers, anticipating those that were later to bring about the disintegration of the empire. Marcus himself was a stoic philosopher; his humanistic, if somewhat pessimistic, Meditations reveal how conscientiously he took his duties. Duty called him to war; he responded to the call and spent far more of his reign in the field than had any previous emperor.
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significance of Carnuntum Carnuntum
In ad 106 it became the capital of the province of Upper Pannonia. Here the emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote the second book of his Meditations during his campaign against the...
contribution to
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Latin literature Latin literature
In prose these centuries have somewhat more to boast, though the greatest work by a Roman was written in Greek, the Meditations of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Elocutio novella, a blend of archaisms and colloquial speech, is seen to best advantage in Apuleius (born about 125). Other writers of note were Aulus Gellius and Macrobius. The 4th century ad was the age of the...
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Stoicism Stoicism
...Moral Essays) and Epistulae morales (Moral Letters) of Seneca reinforce the new direction in Stoic thought. The Encheiridion (Manual) of Epictetus and the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius furthered the sublime and yet personal consolation of the Stoic message and increasingly showed the strength of its rivalry to the burgeoning power of the new...
- history of logic logic, history of
development of
- novel novel
- short story short story
interest in
- Hellenistic mystery cults providence
- Latin literature Latin literature
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