The following _controversia_ was assigned to the young Marcus Aurelius by his master Fronto: “I have sent you an outline; the case is serious. A consul of the Roman people, laying aside his robes, has donned a coat of mail and among the young men at the feast of Minerva has slain a lion in the sight of the Roman people. He is denounced before the Censors. Put into shape and develop.” _Correspondence of Fronto_, ed., with a translation, C. R. Haines, London and New York (Loeb Classical Library), 1919, vol. I, page 210 (see the further correspondence on this theme, pages 212, 214). [39] See above, page 69. [40] For all its informality, Pliny’s letter runs, as it were inevitably, into the traditional channels of the formal parts of a speech (_proœmiatur_, _narrat_, _pugnat_) and the three ends of oratory (_docet_, _delectat_, _afficit_). Indeed, it shows throughout a familiarity with rhetorical technic, and assumes a like familiarity on the part of its recipient. [41] H. Keil’s editio maior of Pliny’s Letters (Leipzig, 1870) dates the second book A.D. 97-100, within a few years of Quintilian’s _Institutio_. For Isæus see Philostratus, _Vit. Soph._ i. 20, and Juvenal’s satirical phrase “Isæo torrentior” (I. iii. 74). [42] “Rhetoricati sumus, et in morem declamatorum paululum lusimus,” quoted by Labriolle, _Histoire de la littérature latine chrétienne_, Paris, 1920, page 470. _Lusimus_ corresponds to Seneca’s description of _declamatio_ as _ludus_ (foot-note 38 above). [43] The history of _declamatio_ as a direct and an indirect influence is reserved for a later volume. It is summarized suggestively by Bornecque in both the introduction to his edition of Seneca and his treatise cited in foot-note 27. Walden’s ample summaries of the work of Libanius (4th century) in his _Universities of Ancient Greece_ corroborate what Bornecque says of St. Augustine. [44] See Pliny’s letter on Isæus above. [45] E.g., I. præf. 21; II. iii. 11. See also Bornecque, _Déclam._ 51. For _status_ see above, page 74. [46] The long and intricate history of _colores_, extending, with that of its Romance cognates, through the middle ages, must be postponed; but its interest may be divined by merely glancing at the successive uses recorded in a few dictionaries. The importance of exploring the term has been urged again by Fletcher in his _“True Meaning” of Dante’s Vita Nuova_, Romanic Review, XI. 119. [47] For the literary influence of this habit of oral fiction see Bornecque, _Décl._ [48] See above, page 71. [49] Seneca, _Controversiæ_, IV. iii. 3. Doubtless Quintilian had such perversion of _narratio_ in mind when he wrote: “[_The narratio_] should be neither dry and starved ... nor again winding and seductive with far-fetched descriptions, into which many are led by imitation of the license of poetry.” II. iv. 3.