page_title: Herodes Atticus
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Herodes Atticus / Life
caption_attribution_description: English: Memnon the Ethiopian (detail)
context_page_description: Herodes Atticus, or Atticus Herodes, son of Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes, was a Greco-Roman politician and sophist who served as a Roman senator. Appointed consul at Rome in 143, he was the first Greek to hold the rank of consul ordinarius, as opposed to consul suffectus. In Latin, his full name was given as Lucius Vibullius Hipparchus Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes. According to Philostratus, Herodes Atticus was a notable proponent of the Second Sophistic. M.I. Finley described Herodes Atticus as "patron of the arts and letters, 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."
context_section_description: 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. 
  He was a student of Favorinus, and inherited Favorinus' library. Like Favorius, 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.
  The Emperor Hadrian in 125 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 140, 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 Aspasia 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 Herodes Atticus was in favor with the Emperor, as a mark of his friendship Antoninus Pius appointed him 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.
  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."
  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. He funded a number of building projects, including:
  A Stadium – Athens
  Odeon – Athens
  A theater at Corinth
  A stadium at Delphi
  The baths at Thermopylae
  An aqueduct at Canusium in Italy
  An aqueduct at Alexandria Troas
  A nymphaeum (monumental fountain) with his wife at Olympia
  various benefactions to the peoples of  Thessaly, Epirus Euboea, Boeotia and Peloponnesus
  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 Panathinaiko Stadium in Athens, which he had commissioned.
caption: Memnon, foster child of Herodes Atticus; marble bust (showing sub-Saharan facial features), c. 170 AD, from the villa of Herodes Atticus at Eva, Peloponnesus.
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