I give in, you have won: beyond question you have conquered in loving all lovers that have ever lived. Take the wreath and let the herald, too, proclaim in the ears of all before your tribunal this your victory—M. Cornelius Fronto, consul, is the winner. He is crowned in the contest of the Great Friendship-Games. Yet, though vanquished, will I not falter or fail in my devotion. Therefore shall you indeed, my master, love me more than any of men loves any man, while I, who have less energy in loving, will love you more than anyone else loves you, more, in fact, than you love yourself. I see I shall have a competitor in Gratia,1 and I fear that I may not be able to surpass her. For, as Plautus says, in her case, "not only has the rain of love drenched her dress with its thunder-drops, but soaked into her very marrow."2
If you only knew what a letter you have written me!3 I could venture to say that she who bore me and nursed me, even she never wrote me anything so delightful, so honeyed. Nor is this due to your word-mastery or eloquence, for apply that test and not my mother only but all that breathe would, as they do, yield the palm at once to you. But I cannot express in words how that letter of yours to me, not for its eloquence or learning, but bubbling up as it does with so much kindness, brimful of such affection, sparkling with so much love, has lifted my heart up to the heavens, inspired it with the most glowing fondness, in a word, as Naevius says, filled it with a love transcendent.
That other letter of yours, in which you pointed out why you were going to put off the delivery of the speech in the Senate in which you intend to eulogize my Lord, delighted me so much that—forgive me if I was too hasty—I could not refrain from reading it aloud to my father himself. I need not dwell on the pleasure it gave him, for you know his entire good-will towards you and the matchless felicity of your letter. But from this occasion arose a long talk between us about you, much, much longer than yours and your quaestor's4 about me. So your ears too must have been tingling about that time in the forum. My Lord, then, quite approves and sympathizes with your reasons for putting off the delivery of your speech till later . . . .5
Marcus Aurelius to Fronto
143 A.D.
To my master.