FRONTONE, MARCO AURELIO. - Rhetorician, born at Cirta (Numidia) about A.D. 100, he was tutor to M. Aurelio and L. Vero; consul in 143. His greatest fame came not from his mediocre writings in poetry and prose, but from the close friendship he enjoyed with M. Aurelio, who calls him «magister dulcissimus» (Ep. 1, 7).
He valued literature more than philosophy, from which he vainly sought to divert his imperial pupil, and he was not favourable to Christianity, which he attacked in a speech, now lost together with all his others, but whose content may be inferred from Minucio Felice's Octavius, in which the accusations against Christians are drawn from his speech («Citrensis nostri testatur oratio»; «tuus Fronto»; Oct., 31, 1-2). His endorsement of the foolish accusations (onolatry, infanticide, orgies) demonstrates the superficiality of his critical judgment, placing him on the level of the ignorant rabble.
Of his works, the Discorsi are lost. There remain the Lettere to M. Aurelio, Lucio Vero, Antonino Pio, and his friends; and the minor works: De eloquentia, De bello Parthico, De ovationibus, Principia historiae, Laudes fumi et pulveris, Laudes negligentiae, De feris Absentibus, Arian.