Herodes Atticus (; AD 101–177) was an Athenian rhetorician, as well as a Roman senator. A great philanthropic magnate, he and his wife Appia Annia Regilla, for whose murder he was potentially responsible, commissioned many Athenian public works, several of which stand to the present day. He was one of the best-known figures of the Antonine Period, and taught rhetoric to the Roman emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, and was advanced to the consulship in 143. His full name as a Roman citizen was Lucius Vibullius Hipparchus Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes.
According to Philostratus, Herodes Atticus, in possession of the best education that money could buy, was a notable proponent of the Second Sophistic. Having gone through the cursus honorum of civil posts, he demonstrated a talent for civil engineering, especially the design and construction of water-supply systems; the Nymphaeum at Olympia was therefore one of his dearest projects. His villa (or palace) in the Peloponnese also involved a major aqueduct.
However, he never lost sight of philosophy and rhetoric, becoming a teacher himself. One of his students was the young Marcus Aurelius, last of the "Five Good Emperors".
Moses Finley describes Herodes Atticus as "patron of the arts and letters (and himself a writer and scholar of importance), public benefactor on an imperial scale, not only in Athens but elsewhere in Greece and Asia Minor, holder of many important posts, friend and kinsman of emperors."
Ancestry and family Herodes Atticus was a Greek of Athenian descent. His ancestry could be traced to the Athenian noblewoman Elpinice, a half-sister of the statesman Cimon and daughter of Miltiades.Pomeroy, The murder of Regilla: a case of domestic violence in antiquity He claimed lineage from a series of mythic Greek kings: Theseus, Cecrops, and Aeacus, as well as the god Zeus. His father's family, known as the Claudii of Marathon, rose to prominence in the late first century BC, when his great-great-great grandfather Herodes and his great-great grandfather Eucles forged links with Julius Caesar and Augustus. The family received Roman citizenship from Emperor Claudius, receiving the nomen Claudius. They were exceptionally wealthy.Wilson, Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece p.p. 349-350
Herodes' father, Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes entered the Roman Senate and became Roman consul, the first Athenian to do so. His mother was the wealthy heiress Vibullia Alcia Agrippina.Wilson, Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece p. 349Graindor, P., Un milliardaire antique p. 29 He had a brother named Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodianus and a sister named Claudia Tisamenis. His maternal grandparents were Claudia Alcia and Lucius Vibullius Rufus, while his paternal grandfather was Hipparchus.
His parents were related as uncle and niece.Day, J., An economic history of Athens under Roman domination p. 243 His maternal grandmother and his father were sister and brother. His maternal uncle Lucius Vibullius Hipparchus was an Archon of Athens in the years 99–100Sleepinbuff.com and his maternal cousin, Publius Aelius Vibullius Rufus, was an Archon of Athens between 143–144.
Life
Herodes Atticus was born on the family estate in Marathon, Greece,Article, Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes, Microsoft Encyclopedia 2002 and spent his childhood years between Greece and Italy. According to JuvenalJuvenal, Satire III he received an education in rhetoric and philosophy from many of the best teachers from both Greek and Roman culture.Wilson, Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece p. 350 However, Herodes Atticus remained entirely Greek in his cultural outlook.
He was sent at the age of 11 or 12 to Rome, to live with Publius Calvisius Tullus Ruso, grandfather of the future emperor Marcus Aurelius. There he became acquainted with the upper strata of the Roman aristocracy and learned Latin.Birley, Anthony R. (1997), Hadrian: The Restless Emperor, Routledge, 2000, ISBN 0-415-22812-3, p.63
In 125 Emperor Hadrian appointed him praefectus of the free cities in the Roman province of Asia. There in Smyrna he was a student of Favorinus and later inherited his library.Wytse Hette Keulen "Gellius the Satirist: Roman Cultural Authority in Attic Nights" p119 Like Favorinus, he was a harsh critic of Stoicism.
He later returned to Athens, where he became famous as a teacher. In 126-127, Herodes Atticus was elected and served as an Archon of Athens. In 140, the Emperor Antoninus Pius invited him to Rome to educate his two adopted sons, the future Emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. Sometime after, he was betrothed to Appia Annia Regilla, a wealthy Roman aristocrat who was related to the wife of Antoninus Pius, Faustina the Elder. When Regilla and Herodes Atticus married, she was 14 years old and he was 40. As a mark of his friendship, Antoninus Pius appointed Herodes Atticus consul in 143.
Some time after his consulship, he returned to Greece permanently with his wife and their children.
In 160, the year that her brother was consul, Regilla, while eight months pregnant, was brutally kicked in the abdomen by a freedman of Herodes Atticus named Alcimedon. This caused her to go into premature labor, killing her. Consul Appius Annius Atilius Bradua brought charges against his brother-in-law in Rome, alleging that Herodes Atticus had ordered her beaten to death; Emperor Marcus Aurelius exonerated his old tutor of his wife's murder.Pomeroy, The murder of Regilla: a case of domestic violence in antiquity p. 14
Herodes Atticus was the teacher of three notable students: Achilles, Memnon and Polydeuces (Polydeukes). "The aged Herodes Atticus in a public paroxysm of despair at the death of his perhaps eromenos Polydeukes, commissioned games, inscriptions and sculptures on a lavish scale and then died, inconsolable, shortly afterwards."Lambert, Beloved and God: The Story of Hadrian and Antinous, p. 143. He also taught many orators and philosophers such as Aristocles of Pergamon.
Death and legacy
Herodes Atticus had a stormy relationship with the citizens of Athens, but before he died he was reconciled with them. When he died, the citizens of Athens gave him an honoured burial, his funeral taking place in the Panathenaic Stadium, which he had commissioned. A funerary monument for Herodes Atticus was later placed there, calling him the hero of Marathon, though at some point, his name was erased from the monument in an act of damnatio memoriae.
Herodes Atticus had a distinguished reputation for his literary work, most of which is now lost, and was a philanthropist and patron of public works in Greece and Italy.
The couple are commemorated in Herodou Attikou Street and Rigillis Street and Square, in Athens. In Rome, their names are also recorded on modern streets in the Quarto Miglio suburb, close to the area of the Triopio, Rome.
Buildings and property
In addition to his villas and estates in Greece and near Rome, he funded more building projects in Roman Greece than anyone aside from the Roman emperors,Pomeroy, The Murder of Regilla, 2007, 10. including: the Panathenaic Stadium – Athens Odeon – Athens, in memory of his wife the odeon at Corinth the stadium at Delphi the baths at Thermopylae the theatre at Patras an aqueduct at Canusium in Italy an aqueduct at Alexandria Troas the Nymphaeum (monumental fountain) with his wife at Olympia the baths at Isthmia, in memory of Polydeukion various benefactions to the peoples of Thessaly, Epirus, Euboea, Boeotia and Peloponnesus
He owned the marble quarries of Mount Pentelicus which made him a significant profit, as the product was sought after throughout the Roman world.
Herodes Atticus and Regilla controlled a large tract around the third mile of the Appian Way outside Rome known as the "Triopion".
Herodes invested his money by buying land in various areas such as Marathon, Evia, Corinth, Gytheio and the Thyreatis. He seems to have been interested in the production of oil and wine. With these deals he significantly increased the fortune he inherited from his father.Faklaris Panagiotis V., The Lost Mansion of Herod Atticus, newspaper "to Vima", 13/02/2000
Estate at Marathon
Herodes inherited an estate and villa in Marathon south of OenoeTHE HERODOS ESTATE IN MARATHON| Digital repository of the Academy of Athens" digitallibrary.academyofathens.gr with an area of 680 acresGoette, Rupprecht Hans (2001), Athens, Attica and the Megarid - An Archaeological Guide, Routledge, 2001, ISBN 0-415-24370-X pp. 240-241 as revealed by an inscription.Kathimerini 16/2/2002 Finds from the villa are exhibited in the Archaeological Museum of Marathon which also has parts of the monumental arch that covered its entrance. Inscriptions on the archG II2 5189-5189a; cf. SEG 23.121 name it as the "Gateway of Immortal Harmony" and also indicate that the villa compound with 3.3 km-long perimeter wall known today as Mandra tis Grias belonged to Regilla, while he owned an area outside it.George Sotiriadis, The New Discoveries at Marathon: The Classical Weekly, Volume 20, No. 11 (January 10, 1927), pages 83-84
Within the estate, at Brexiza near the seashore, Herodes built an elaborate sanctuary to the Egyptian goddess Isis in 160 AD. According to PhilostratosPhilostratus, Lives of the Sophists Book 2, Herodes the Athenian, section 554 and the inscriptions found, the sanctuary was named Canopus after the famous Serapeum at Canopus, in the Nile Delta near Alexandria. It is believed that Herodes built the sanctuary on an artificial island in this marshy place to imitate the Canopus at Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli.Ministry of Culture and Sports | Marathon, Brexiza: Sanctuary of the Egyptian Gods" . odysseus.culture.gr The temple had dimensions of 50 x 50m with a pyramid at the centre. It was framed by statues of deities, some of which are exhibited in the Museum of Marathon and the National Archaeological Museum. From this sanctuary also come the busts of the emperors Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus and the well-known one of Herodes, which are now in the museums of the Louvre and Oxford.Goette, Rupprecht Hans (2001), Athens, Attica and the Megarid - An Archaeological Guide, Routledge, 2001, ISBN 0-415-24370-X pp. 242-244 The building complex also included luxurious marble-clad baths near the seashore with round and hexagonal heated rooms around a large elliptical pool, and an adjoining courtyard to the east with a stoa.Dekoulakou I. 2011. «Le sanctuaire des dieux égyptiens à Marathōn», in L. Bricault & R. Veymiers (eds), Bibliotheca Isiaca II. Bordeaux: Éditions Ausonius, 23-46.
Triopion estate
Herodes owned an estate just outside Rome in an exclusive area around the third milestone of the Appian Way.Barbara E. Borg: Herodes Atticus in Rome: The Triopion reconsidered, in: C. M. Draycott, R. Raja, K. Welch, and W. T. Wootton (eds.), Visual Histories of the Classical World. Essays in Honour of R.R.R. Smith (Turnhout: Brepols 2019), 317-30 January 2019 The estate came from the property of his wife, Regilla,CIL vi.1342 from inscriptions on columns of her cenotaph found near the Via Appia including two long poems by Marcellus of Side. Herodes built a sanctuary there, completed after 155 AD, which he named the "Triopion" (perhaps after the mythical hero Triopas, founder of Cnidos). The sanctuary included a cenotaph to Regilla and a temple to Demeter, Persephone and the "new Demeter" (the deified Faustina Major, wife of Emperor Antoninus Pius). The cenotaph is believed to have been a round domed building with two inscribed columns supporting its front porch that was drawn by Pirro Ligorio.Luigi Canina, Gli edifizj antichi dei contorni di Roma cogniti per alcune reliquie (Rome 1856), pl. 20. It was located on the right of the Via Appia about 200 m south of the tomb of Caecilia Metella.