[Sidenote: Hadrian.] The Emperor Hadrian (117-138 A. D.) was a man of singular versatility. He delivered and published speeches and wrote an autobiography, works on grammar, and even poems. He was equally familiar with Greek and Latin, and it is probably in part due to this fact that the literary revival during his rule was less Latin than Greek. He spent a great part of his time away from Rome, and wherever he went his path was marked by the erection of buildings for use and ornament. He lived for three years at Athens, where he added a new quarter to the ancient city. Greek, which had for centuries been familiar to the literary men of Rome, became now, more than ever before, the literary language of the empire. It is hardly to be wondered at that Latin literature has under Hadrian no greater representative than Suetonius. [Sidenote: The Antonines.] Hadrian’s successor, Antoninus Pius (138-161 A. D.), was no writer, but showed his interest in literary and intellectual matters by granting salaries and privileges to philosophers and rhetors. Marcus Aurelius (161-180 A. D.) was carefully instructed by Greek and Roman teachers. While still a mere boy he was greatly interested in the Stoic philosophy; but the famous orator and teacher Fronto (see page 235) obtained such great influence over him, that for a number of years he devoted himself to rhetoric. The correspondence of Fronto with Marcus Aurelius shows how great was the affection that existed between teacher and pupil, and also how petty were the rhetorical teachings and investigations in which Fronto passed his life and to which he hoped his pupil would devote his intellect. Fronto was, however, doomed to disappointment, for when Marcus Aurelius was in his twenty-fifth year he turned again to philosophy. The correspondence with Fronto is conducted in Latin similar to Fronto’s own, plentifully adorned with obsolete expressions taken from writers of the republican period. The _Thoughts_ of Marcus Aurelius, those ethical maxims and moral reflections which make the Stoic doctrines seem so much like Christianity, are written in Greek. That Marcus Aurelius regarded Greek as the proper language of culture, or at least of philosophy, is shown by the fact that he established the schools of philosophy at Athens with regularly salaried professors. Lucius Verus, the colleague of Marcus Aurelius until 169 A. D., was also a pupil of Fronto, and in his letters to his teacher shows the same faults of style exhibited by Marcus Aurelius. He had no influence upon Latin literature, and Commodus (180-192 A. D.) had no interest in literature of any sort.