. . . . The God who begat the great Roman race has no compunction in suffering us to faint at times and be defeated and wounded. Or would Father Mars hesitate to say of our soldiers the words?—
Full well I knew when I begot you, you would die: I reared you for that end; Aye, when I sent you forth the wide world through the empire to defend, Full well I knew to deadly wars and not to feasts my children I should send.1
These words were uttered by Telamon to his sons once in the Trojan war. But Mars has spoken of the Romans in the same strain many a time and in many a war: in the Gaulish war at Allia,2 in the Samnite at Caudium,3 in the Punic at Cannae,4 in the Spanish at Numantia,5 in the Jugurthine at Cirta,6 in the Parthian at Carrhae.7 But always and everywhere he turned our sorrows into successes and our terrors into triumphs.
Now to say a few words in praise of that speech19 of M. Tullius which I sent you to read. It seems to me the very truth that no one was ever praised either in Greek or Latin before an assembly of the people more eloquently than Gnaeus Pompeius in that speech, so much so that to me he seems to have earned his title of Great not so much by reason of his own merits as of Cicero's praises. Then besides you will find in it many chapters full of reflections well suited to your present measures, touching the choice of generals, the interests of allies, the safeguarding of provinces, the discipline of soldiers, the necessary qualifications of commanders for duties in the field and elsewhere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . because I think that these considerations, even occasionally brought forward with greater earnestness, would be profitable. At all events you would wish it; and if anyone . . . . . . . . . . .20 Do not be offended with me for not having answered your letter in my own hand, and that though the letter I had from you was in yours. My fingers just now are very weak and refractory; then this epistle required many words, but my right hand is at this moment one of few letters.
Marcus Antoninus the Emperor to Fronto
162 A.D.
To my master.
But not to hark back too far into ancient times, I will take instances from your own family. Was not a consular taken prisoner in Dacia under the leadership and auspices of your great grandfather Trajan?8 Was not a consular likewise slain by the Parthians in Mesopotamia?9 Again under the rule of your grandfather Hadrian what a number of soldiers were killed by the Jews,10 what a number by the Britons!11 Even in the principate of your Father, who was the most fortunate of princes . . . . . . . . Should we not think the son of a Marsian12 father degenerate, if he were afraid of vipers, lizards, and water-snakes? . . . .13 are kept a few days in swaddling bands, the others pass their whole lives in rags.
And so that excellent emperor14 . . . . bade his captives be sold . . . . . . . . The strength of fishes lies in their tails, of birds in their wings, of snakes in their power of crawling . . . . . . . . . . . . both the restoration of the prestige of the Roman name, and the punishment of the enemy's traps and treachery, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . call upon those to halt who are ready to advance, forward, backward, here, there. It is by no means advantageous to a man that is born of woman that prosperity should always attend him: changing fortunes are more secure.
Take Polycrates15: strong in his vast wealth, and successful without a stumble in all that he undertook, he is said in the course of his life to have experienced no hard fortune or disappointment, such as to prevent him, when he had brought everything under his power, being counted the most fortunate of all kings. To him, as the story goes, Amasis the wise King of Egypt, being consulted about his unique good fortune, wrote a friendly letter, advising him of his own accord to inflict some loss knowingly upon himself, and by that penance disarm the envy of the Gods . . . . Now he had an emerald of extraordinary lustre set in a gold ring of the finest workmanship, which he valued above all his other possessions. Polycrates putting out to sea in a ship of war, cast this ring of his own accord into the water, making sure that he should never afterwards see it again.
Deliberate and premeditated as his act had been, he subsequently regretted the jewel he had cast away. But shortly after a fisherman, who with repeated casting of his nets had at length caught a huge fish, thought it too fine to take to the dealers, and in virtue of its excellence presented it to the king. The king was much pleased with the gift, and ordered it to be served at his own table. When the slaves in pursuance of this order were busy with the fish preparing it for the table, they found the ring in its stomach and brought it joyfully to the king. Then Polycrates sent King Amasis a letter with full particulars of the sacrifice and recovery of the ring. Whereon Amasis, forecasting for Polycrates a disaster signal and speedy, renounced all friendship and ties of hospitality with him, that when his fortune changed he might regard it with less concern as affecting a stranger rather than his own guest or friend.
But the daughter of Polycrates had previously had a remarkable dream. She had seemed to see her father, raised aloft on an open and conspicuous spot, being laved and anointed by the hands of Jupiter and the Sun. The diviners read the dream as foretelling a rich and happy fortune.16 But it turned out wholly otherwise. For Polycrates, beguiled by Oroetes the Persian, was seized and crucified. And so the dream was fulfilled in his crucifixion. For he was laved by Jove's hands when it rained, and anointed by the hands of the Sun, when the dew of agony came out upon his skin. Such prosperous beginnings as his have not seldom a disastrous ending. There should be no exultation over excessive and prolonged prosperity, no fainting away when a reverse has been sustained. You may soon hope for a victory, for Rome in her history has ever experienced frequent alternations of fortune.
Who is so unversed in military annals as not to know that the Roman people have earned their empire by falling no less than by felling? that our legions have often been broken and routed by the arms of barbarians? It has been found possible to subject to the yoke and to tame bulls, however savage and dangerous; and in the same way our armies have in former times been made to pass under the yoke. But those very foes, who forced us under the yoke, have our generals but a little later forced to march at the head of their triumphs and have sold them as slaves by auction.
After the disaster at Cannae the Carthaginian general sent to Carthage three bushels of golden rings heaped up, which Carthaginians had drawn from the fingers of Roman knights slain in the battle. But not many years later Carthage was taken, and chains were put on those who had drawn off the rings. In that battle what a multitude of Carthaginians and Africans did Scipio capture or slay or reduce to submission! Had he given orders for their tongues to be cut out, he could have sent into Rome a ship freighted with the tongues of his enemies.
With respect to what you say that you can scarcely read anything except by snatches and by stealth17 in your present anxieties, recall to your mind and ponder the fact that Gaius Caesar, while engaged in a most formidable war in Gaul wrote betides many other military works two books of the most meticulous character On Analogy,18 discussing amid flying darts the declension of nouns, and the aspiration of words and their classification mid the blare of bugles and trumpets. Why then, O Marcus, should not you, who are endowed with no less abilities than Gaius Caesar, and are as noble in station and fortified by no fewer examples and patterns at home, master your duties and find time for yourself not only for reading speeches and poems and histories and the doctrines of philosophers, but also for unravelling syllogisms, if you can endure so far.