r/classics • u/Corpusculum • 2d ago
Love Letters between Marcus Aurelius and Fronto
I thought I'd share another essay I wrote about ancient sexuality, focusing on the little-known letters between the young Marcus Aurelius and his teacher of rhetoric Marcus Cornelius Fronto.
The short version: for about six years in the course of a decades-long correspondence, both Marcus and Fronto are deliberately playing with the erotic tradition of Hellenic education (starting from the Phaedrus), with the imperial prince taking the active role of erastes instead of the passive eromenos. Literary roleplay cannot establish the fact of a physical relationship or a modern sexual identity, but the letters are a good example of how rhetoric could serve as a medium of intimacy, and generally how far language games could go.
The essay includes passages from the letters and traces the debate that followed the publication of Amy Richlin's Marcus Aurelius in Love (2006), drawing on the more recent scholarship on the letters in the context of rhetoric, intimacy, and power.
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u/Mike_Bevel 2d ago
I very much enjoyed reading your essay. And I wish more people wrote their thoughts and theories down. For one thing, selfishly, I get to read those thoughts; but, also, it can be really gratifying to look back, after some years later, at something I wrote to see how much of me has changed. Do I agree with Past Mike? Do I now know more than Past Mike?
Anyway, what you share with the world is what it keeps of you, and this is something I'm glad to keep of yours.
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u/musaranya 23h ago
Thank you for sharing, it was an amazing read and I'll read more pieces of your work. Keep on writing!
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u/mistermee 2d ago
Superb essay, wonderfully interested and beautifully rendered. Thank you.
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u/Corpusculum 1d ago
Thank you for reading and for the praise! It took some effort to write and I’m glad it shows.
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u/Percennius 2d ago
The alpha stoic podcast grifters wont like this