A t the time of the gold-test1 . . . . and to her Varian proteges of either sex she left a million sesterces2 apiece for them to enjoy as a life interest rather than for their own; for she directed that 50,000 sesterces3 apiece should be given them every year by the Empress. Almost all those who had paid her court lost their labour: not a pound apiece was weighed out to them. Some of them however, brisk and smart fellows without a doubt, had the effrontery, while Matidia lay unconscious, to seal up the codicils, which she had annulled a long while before. They had the effrontery also to uphold and defend these codicils before our Lord as duly and truly executed. And I have not been without apprehension that Philosophy might lead him to a wrong decision. That you may know what I wrote to him on the subject, I send you a copy of my letter.
In my Bithynian speech, part of which you write that you have read, there are many fresh things introduced, not inelegantly as I fancy, particularly a passage on my past life, which I think will please you. if you read that excellent speech on a similar subject in defence of P. Sulla left us by M. Tullius: not that you should compare us as equals, but that you should recognise how far my mediocre talent falls short of that man of unapproachable eloquence.
On Speeches
? 163 A.D.
Fronto to Antoninus Augustus.