Fronto the Rhetorician Epigrams in Greek

The Epigrams is a minor, fragmentary work attributed to Marcus Cornelius Fronto, the prominent Roman orator and tutor to the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus in the second century CE. Composed in Greek, the work consists of two brief passages belonging to the epigram tradition of concise, polished verse often employed for witty or pointed commentary. As a master of Latin prose style, Fronto’s foray into Greek poetry exemplifies the bilingual literary culture of the Roman elite during the era of the Second Sophistic, a period marked by a profound engagement with classical Greek rhetoric and forms. The surviving text is scant and its transmission obscure; Fronto is chiefly remembered for his extensive Latin correspondence, and references to his Greek verse are exceptionally rare. Scholars generally regard these epigrams as rhetorical exercises or social compositions crafted for his educated circle and imperial students, intended to display erudition and technical skill within a popular Greco-Roman genre. The work’s direct influence remains negligible compared to Fronto’s prose, and the two extant fragments likely survive only through indirect preservation in later sources.