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.^[7] 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.^[8][9] The family received Roman citizenship from Emperor Claudius, receiving the nomen Claudius.^[10] They were exceptionally wealthy.^[11]

Herodes' father, Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes entered the Roman Senate and became Roman consul, the first Athenian to do so.^[12] His mother was the wealthy heiress Vibullia Alcia Agrippina.^[7][13][14] He had a brother named Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodianus and a sister named Claudia Tisamenis.^[7] His maternal grandparents were Claudia Alcia and Lucius Vibullius Rufus, while his paternal grandfather was Hipparchus.^[14]

His parents were related as uncle and niece.^[13][14][15] His maternal grandmother and his father were sister and brother.^[14][15] His maternal uncle Lucius Vibullius Hipparchus was an Archon of Athens in the years 99–100^[14][16] and his maternal cousin, Publius Aelius Vibullius Rufus, was an Archon of Athens between 143–144.^[14][16]

Herodes Atticus was born on the family estate in Marathon, Greece,^[18] and spent his childhood years between Greece and Italy. According to Juvenal^[19] he received an education in rhetoric and philosophy from many of the best teachers from both Greek and Roman culture.^[20] However, Herodes Atticus remained entirely Greek in his cultural outlook.^[20]

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.^[21]

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.^[22] 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.^[23]

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."^[24] 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,^[20] and was a philanthropist and patron of public works.

Herodes Atticus had a stormy relationship with the citizens of Athens, but before he died he was reconciled with them.^[20] When he died, the citizens of Athens gave him an honoured burial, his funeral taking place in the Panathenaic Stadium, which he had commissioned.^[20]

He funded more building projects in Roman Greece than anyone aside from the Roman emperors,^[25] including:

• The Panathenaic Stadium – Athens
• Odeon – Athens; built to honour the memory of his wife
• A theatre at Corinth
• the stadium at Delphi
• the baths at Thermopylae
• An aqueduct at Canusium in Italy
• An aqueduct at Alexandria Troas
• The Nymphaeum (monumental fountain) with his wife at Olympia
• 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".

Herod 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.^[26]

Estate at Marathon

Herodes inherited an estate and villa in Marathon south of Oenoe^[27] with an area of 680 acres^[28] as revealed by an inscription.^[29] 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 arch^[30] 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.^[31]

Within the estate, at Brexiza near the seashore, Herodes built an elaborate sanctuary to the Egyptian goddess Isis in 160 AD. According to Philostratos^[32] 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.^[33] 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.^[34] 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.^[35]

Villa and mausoleum in Kifissia

Herodes built his villa^[40] in Cephisia near Athens on his estate which spanned a large area in the middle of the town, roughly between the river and today's Kifissia Grove.^[41] Cephisia was already reputed as a famous retreat of philosophers by the reign of Hadrian and the healthier climate and environment attracted the Athenian elite who organised symposia on local estates.^[42] It was common for Herodes also to provide free instruction in philosophy for selected youths from Athens:

While we were students in Athens, Herodes Atticus, a man of consular rank and of true Grecian eloquence, often invited me to his country houses near that city [...] And there at that time, while we were with him at the villa called Cephisia, both in the heat of summer and under the burning autumnal sun, we protected ourselves against the trying temperature by the shade of its spacious groves, its long, soft promenades, the cool location of the house, its elegant baths with their abundance of sparkling water, and the charm of the villa as a whole, which was everywhere melodious with plashing waters and tuneful birds.

— Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, § 1.2

Finds from the area include a bust of himself and his pupil and favourite, Polydeuces, other sculptures, many inscriptions, and baths. Kifissia also housed a mausoleum for four of Herodes' children from which four marble sarcophagi survive in their original location in Platanos Square.^[43][44] The so-called Leda sarcophagus was probably that of Elpinice.^[45] Recently an exquisite mosaic floor has been discovered along with frescoes that are believed to be part of the villa.^[46]

Regilla bore Herodes Atticus six children, of whom three survived to adulthood. They were:

• Son, Claudius – born and died in 141^[7]
• Daughter, Elpinice – born as Appia Annia Claudia Atilia Regilla Elpinice Agrippina Atria Polla, 142–165^[7]
• Daughter, Athenais (Marcia Annia Claudia Alcia Athenais Gavidia Latiaria), married Lucius Vibullius Rufus.^[7] They had a son, Lucius Vibullius Hipparchus, the only recorded grandchild of Herodes Atticus.^[47]
• Son, Atticus Bradua – born in 145 as Tiberius Claudius Marcus Appius Atilius Bradua Regillus Atticus^[7]
• Son, Regillus – born as Tiberius Claudius Herodes Lucius Vibullius Regillus, 150–155^[7]
• Unnamed child who died with Regilla or perhaps three months later in 160^[7]

After Regilla died in 160, Herodes Atticus never married again. Sometime after his wife's death, he adopted his cousin's first grandson Lucius Vibullius Claudius Herodes as his son.^[48] When Herodes Atticus died in 177, his son Atticus Bradua and his grandchild survived him.

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 Athens. In Rome, their names are also recorded on modern streets in the Quarto Miglio suburb, close to the area of the Triopio, Rome.