Fronto, MARCUS CORNELIUS, Latin rhetorician, was born at Cirta, in Numidia, about 100 A.D. In consequence of his reputation as an orator and pleader, he was entrusted by Antoninus Pius with the education of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. In 143 he was consul. He died about 170. The two series of Fronto's letters to Marcus Aurelius, discovered by Mai in 1815, do not bear out the reputation for eloquence and intellectual force ascribed to the rhetorician by his contemporaries.
A critical edition was published by Niebuhr in 1816, and another by Naber in 1867.