Herodes Atticus

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. 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 Roman nomen Claudius. They were exceptionally wealthy. 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. He had a brother named Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodianus and a sister named Claudia Tisamenis. His maternal grandmother and his father were sister and brother. and his maternal cousin, Publius Aelius Vibullius Rufus, was an Archon of Athens between 143–144. ==Life==

, Attica, Greece. — Louvre, France. , Berlin in the Peloponnese. The bust of the youth is housed in – Altes Museum, Berlin. Herodes Atticus was born in Marathon, Greece, and spent his childhood years between Greece and Italy. According to Juvenal he received an education in rhetoric and philosophy from many of the best teachers from both Greek and Roman culture. Throughout his life, however, Herodes Atticus remained entirely Greek in his cultural outlook. Like Favorinus, he was a harsh critic of Stoicism. these disciplines of the cult of the unemotional, who want to be considered calm, brave, and steadfast because they show neither desire nor grief, neither anger nor pleasure, cut out the more active emotions of the spirit and grow old in a torpor, a sluggish, enervated life. In 125, Emperor Hadrian appointed him prefect of the free cities in the Roman province of Asia. He later returned to Athens, where he became famous as a teacher. In the year 126-127, Herodes Atticus was elected and served as an Archon of Athens. Later in 140, the Emperor Antoninus Pius invited him to Rome from Athens 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 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. Herodes Atticus and Regilla controlled a large tract around the third mile of the Appian Way outside Rome, which was known as the "Triopio" (from Triopas, King of Thessaly). For his remaining years he travelled between Greece and Italy. 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; the emperor Marcus Aurelius exonerated his old tutor of his wife's murder. 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." He also taught many orators and philosophers such as Aristocles of Pergamon. Herodes Atticus had a distinguished reputation for his literary work, most of which is now lost, including: • The Panathenaic Stadium – Athens • Odeon – Athens; built to honor the memory of his wife Throughout his life, 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 honored burial, his funeral taking place in the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, which he had commissioned. ==Children==

Regilla bore Herodes Atticus six children, of whom three survived to adulthood. They were: • Son, Claudius – born and died in 141 • Son, Atticus Bradua – born in 145 as Tiberius Claudius Marcus Appius Atilius Bradua Regillus Atticus When Herodes Atticus died in 177, his son Atticus Bradua and his grandchild survived him. ==Legacy==

Herodes Atticus and his wife Regilla, from the 2nd century until the present, have been considered great benefactors in Greece, in particular in Athens. The couple are commemorated in Herodou Attikou Street and Rigillis Street and Square, in downtown Athens. In Rome, their names are also recorded on modern streets, in the Quarto Miglio suburb close to the area of the Triopio. ==References==