Worn out as I am with long-continued and more than usually distressing ill-health, and afflicted besides with the most distressing and almost uninterrupted sorrows, for in a very few months I have lost both the dearest of wives and a three-year-old grandson1—though thus prostrated by these accumulated evils, I confess that I was nevertheless not a little cheered to learn that you had not forgotten me and wished for something of mine. I therefore send what my Lord your brother, acting upon your letter, has decided should be sent. I have added besides the speech for Demostratus, but on submitting this to your brother I learnt from him that Asclepiodotus, though he is taken to task in that speech, is not thought ill of by you. As soon as I was aware of this I was myself anxious to suppress the speech, but it had already been circulated too widely to be called in. What then? What then, I say, is best so be done, except that Asclepiodotus, since he has earned your approbation, should become to me also a very dear friend, just as by heaven Herodes and I are now on the best of terms, in spite of the speech being published. Besides your brother earnestly discussed with me what I am still more earnestly anxious to take in hand and, as soon as you send me your memoranda,2 I will take the task in hand with the best will in the world: for as to my qualifications, you who have judged me capable of it must see to that yourself.
Lucius Verus to Fronto
165 A.D.
To my master.