The Chronology of Fronto

Abstract

A reconsideration of the chronological data for Fronto's extant works is desirable on several counts, not least in providing a firmer base for the investigation of Antonine history. Various systems have been devised, but there is great room for improvement even in the little that is known. It is now almost forty years since the last full attempt, and much knowledge has accrued, notably from the Ostian fasti. Also, unfortunately, a ‘date’ has too often been engendered by simple horror vacui. More serious are the many misinterpretations, often quite small but some of wider significance, which have become lodged in print and then used by others as a firm base for other researches. Conflicting views on matters of some import, notably the year of Fronto's death (the main estimates vary by a decade), require examination. Most misleading of all, some investigators have wreaked Procrustean violence on the corpus by discerning and ruthlessly applying an alleged underlying editorial principle. On that account, an agnostic method of considering each piece on its own merit will be used here, letting that editorial principle emerge if it will. The evidence, where available, for each work will be set down in the manuscript order, preceded by a discussion of the date of Fronto's demise and followed by some remarks on the original edition of the corpus and a section tabulating the results.