Marcus Claudius Fronto

Fronto was thus born into the ordo senatorius ("senatorial order"), the highly privileged and wealthy elite of some 600 families which filled most of the major civilian and military posts in the empire.

In the civic sphere, Fronto, in his early 20s, served a traditional term as one of the decemviri stlitibus judicandis ("Committee of Ten charged with adjudicating legal disputes"), a judicial body.

Fronto's first recorded post as a general officer, held after his praetorship (i.e., probably in his early 30s), was as commander of the legion XI Claudia, under the emperor Antoninus Pius (r.

During Marcus Aurelius' Parthian War (161-166), Fronto initially commanded the legion I Minervia, which in 162[3] he personally led on the long march to the Eastern front from its permanent base at Bonna on the river Rhine in Germania Superior.

[5] In 169, the emperors decided to return to Rome in order to escape the Antonine plague, a virulent smallpox epidemic which was ravaging the army (nevertheless, Verus died of the disease on the way).

[2] However, in the campaigning season of 170, Fronto's luck ran out: "He fell, bravely fighting to his last breath for the Republic" (ad postremum pro re publica fortiter pugnans ceciderit).

[2][8] In recognition of his services to the state, the Senate approved a motion tabled by the emperor to erect in Trajan's Forum (Rome) a statua armata of Fronto (literally: an "armed statue", a nude bronze sculpture of the subject, holding a spear: see Roman triumphal honours).