His talents as an orator and rhetorician were greatly admired by his contemporaries, a number of whom were later regarded as forming a school called Frontoniani[citation needed] after him; his object in his teaching was to inculcate the exact use of the Latin language in place of the artificialities of such 1st-century authors as Seneca the Younger and to encourage the use of "unlooked-for and unexpected words", to be found by diligent reading of pre-Ciceronian authors.
[12] Until 1815, the only extant works ascribed (erroneously) to Fronto were two grammatical treatises, De nominum verborumque differentiis and Exempla elocutionum (the latter being really by Arusianus Messius).
These palimpsests had originally belonged to the famous convent of St Columbanus at Bobbio and had been written over by the monks with the acts of the First Council of Chalcedon.
[13] These fragments disappointed Romantic scholars as not matching the writer's great reputation, partly because Fronto's teachings, with their emphasis on studying ancient writers in search of striking words, were not in accordance with current fashion (Italy, where not only Mai but Leopardi enthused over them, was an exception), partly because they gave no support to the assumption that Fronto had been a wise counsellor to Marcus Aurelius (indeed, they contain no trace of political advice), and partly because his frequent complaints about ill health, especially those collected in book 5 of Ad M. Caesarem, aroused more annoyance than compassion.
The bulk of the letters consist of correspondence with Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, in which the character of Fronto's pupils appears in a very favourable light, especially in the affection they both seem to have retained for their old master.
The collection also contains treatises on eloquence, some historical fragments, and literary trifles on such subjects as the praise of smoke and dust, of negligence, and a dissertation on Arion.
The Loeb Classical Library printed an edition of Fronto's correspondence with a facing English translation by C. R. Haines in two volumes (1919–1920); its text, though dated, is still of interest.