Marcus takes a four-day public holiday at Alsium, a resort town on the Etrurian coast.

He is too anxious to relax.

Writing to his former tutor Marcus Cornelius Fronto, he declares that he will not speak about his holiday.

Fronto encourages Marcus to rest, calling on the example of his predecessors (Pius had enjoyed exercise in the palaestra, fishing, and comedy), going so far as to write up a fable about the gods' division of the day between morning and evening—Marcus had apparently been spending most of his evenings on judicial matters instead of leisure.

Marcus cannot take Fronto's advice.

Fronto sends Marcus a selection of reading material, including Cicero's pro lege Manilia, in which the orator had argued in favor of Pompey taking supreme command in the Mithridatic War.

It is an apt reference (Pompey's war had taken him to Armenia), and may have had some impact on the decision to send Lucius to the eastern front.

To settle his unease over the course of the Parthian war, Fronto writes Marcus a long and considered letter, full of historical references.

In modern editions of Fronto's works, it is labeled De bello Parthico (On the Parthian War).

There had been reverses in Rome's past, Fronto writes, at Allia, at Caudium, at Cannae, at Numantia, Cirta, and Carrhae; under Trajan, Hadrian, and Pius; but, in the end, Romans had always prevailed over their enemies.