This study is the first to focus on the subject of children and human lifecourse in Fronto's correspondence. lt deals with sections in Fronco's lettersconcerning wet-nurses and breastfeeding, pedagogues, child beating, youthful(mis)behaviour, affective relationships between master and pupil, pueri senesand old age - interesting passages hardly noticed by social hiscorians or insufficiently treated in the commentary by M.P.J. van den Hout. In the fourthparagraph, I elucidate passages testifying to the warm and close relationshipbetween Fronto and the young children of Marcus Aurelius' imperial family.Both these texts and the letters about Fronto's grandchildren (elaboratedupon in the fifth paragraph) reveal a petting attitude towards children, a wayof thinking which is parallelled in various other sources, especially in epigraphicalpoetry. In the conclusion, I ask whether Fronto's way of looking atchildren is to be linked wich a changed attitude in the Antonine second century.I am, however, rather reluctant to posit such a change in the mencal attitude.
