Salvete Readers and Romanophiles!

Welcome back to The World of An Altar of Indignities, the blog series in which we delve into the research that went into our new, dramatic and romantic comedy of ancient Rome and Athens.

If you missed Part VI on the Hill of Ardittos and the Temple of Artemis Agrotera in Athens, you can read that by clicking HERE.

Today, in Part VII of this blog series, we’re going to taking a brief look at the life of a man who successfully (most would agree) straddled the Greek and Roman divide in the second century C.E. This person exerted a great deal of influence in both societies and became one of the most well-known and, perhaps, important people of the age.

The person we are referring to is Herodes Atticus…

Herodes Atticus was born ‘Lucius Vibullius Hipparchus Tiberius Claudius Herodes Atticus’ in 101 C.E. at his family’s villa at Marathon, not far from Athens. His father was Herodes Atticus Tiberius Claudius, who was from a wealthy Athenian family. His mother was Vibullia Alcia Agrippina, a wealthy Roman heiress.

The family claimed mythological descent from Theseus and Cecrops of Athens, and from Aeacus, a king of Aegina and son of Zeus.

In the world of Classical Athens, the family of Herodes Atticus was directly related to the Athenian noblewoman, Elpinice, the half sister of the general and politician, Cimon of Athens (c. 510-450 B.C.E), and granddaughter of the hero-general of Marathon, Miltiades, Cimon’s father.

Concerning Herodes the Athenian the following facts ought to be known. Herodes the sophist on his father’s side belonged to a family which twice held consulships and also dated back to the house of the Aeacids, whom Greece once enlisted as allies against the Persian. Nor did he fail to be proud of Miltiades and Cimon, seeing that they were two very illustrious men and did great service to the Athenians and the rest of Greece in the wars with the Medes. For the former was the first to triumph over the Medes and the latter inflicted punishment on the barbarians for their insolent acts afterwards.

(Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists, Book II, 2.1.1)

Herodes Atticus senior, like his son would do later, held important roles in the Roman administration. In 104 C.E. he was made Suffect Consul by Emperor Trajan, and then Procurator of Judaea in 107 C.E. Then, in 128 C.E. he was once more made Suffect Consul by Emperor Hadrian, after which he served as chief priest of the imperial cult at Athens. Perhaps most importantly however, Herodes Atticus senior became the first Athenian to be admitted to the Roman Senate.

The family’s ties to Rome went back even farther as Herodes Atticus’ great, great, great grandfather, Eucles, became close with Julius Caesar and Augustus, both of whom gave to Athens. Subsequently too, the family was granted Roman citizenship by the Emperor Claudius, and that is why the name ‘Claudius’ appears in the full names of Herodes Atticus senior and his son and heirs.

So, Herodes Atticus, of whom we are speaking today, came from a very privileged background and family that, as we shall see, enjoyed imperial favour.

With all of this wealthy and illustrious background, however, what kind of life did Herodes Atticus lead? What sort of man did he become?

One could argue that Herodes Atticus could not have lived in more favourable circumstances, not just because of his family’s wealth and position, but also because he lived during what was perhaps the most prosperous period of the Roman Empire, during the reigns of three of its greatest emperors – Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius.

Because his father was a Roman senator, Herodes Atticus spent much of his childhood between Greece and Italy, although his cultural outlook remained largely Greek. As was the case with most young, wealthy noblemen, he received the very best education to prepare him for public life. He became a philosopher, a writer, a statesmen and, as we shall see later, a great patron and benefactor.

He was trained in the ‘Second Sophistic’ school of thought which flourished from the time of Nero until about 230 C.E. He was a student of the Roman sophist and skeptic philosopher, Favorinus, with whom he had a close relationship and from whom he inherited a vast library.

He made his way up Cursus Honorum, the ‘course of honours’ in a Roman political career, and had a talent for engineering, especially the design and construction of water supply systems. This talent and love of engineering would contribute to his patronage of great building projects in many cities across the Greek world.

In 125 C.E., Emperor Hadrian, who was a friend, made Herodes Atticus Prefect of the cities of Asia that were under Roman control. After that posting, he returned to Athens to become a teacher. He was known as a fine speaker. He was also a writer, though little of his work survives except for a Latin translation of a story in Gellius, and a speech to the Athenian the council, the Boule.

In 140 C.E. Herodes Atticus was made Archon of Athens which, by that point in time during the Roman principate, meant that he was a sort of governor of the Athenians. We’ll discuss this relationship between the man and the people shortly.

Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of Herodes Atticus’ career occurred when Emperor Antoninus Pius invited him to Rome to teach his two adopted sons, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. This is an interesting turn, as Marcus Aurelius, as we know, would turn out to be one of the great Stoic philosophers of history and, as a Sophist, Herodes Atticus may have been quite against the precepts of stoicism. Nevertheless, this new posting put Herodes Atticus in the orbit of some of the most important and influential people of the age.

It was soon after this that Herodes Atticus was betrothed to a wealthy Roman aristocrat who was related to Faustina the Elder, the wife of Antoninus Pius. Her name was Appia Annia Regilla and she was just fourteen years old at the time, much younger than her new husband who was forty. They had a large landholding along the Appian Way known as the Triopio and they travelled frequently between Italy and Greece. Together, Atticus and Regilla had six children, three of whom – Elpinice, Athenais, and Atticus Bradua – survived to adulthood.

Then, in 143 C.E., Emperor Antoninus Pius made Herodes Atticus Consul of Rome.

With all of these prestigious postings, his marriage, and the trust given to him, it must have seemed like Herodes Atticus was blessed by the Gods, his star constantly on the rise…

No man employed his wealth to better purpose. And this we must not reckon a thing easy to achieve, but very difficult and arduous. For men who are intoxicated with wealth are wont to let loose a flood of insults on their fellow-men. And moreover they bring this reproach on Plutus that he is blind; but even if at all other times he appeared to be blind, yet in the case of Herodes he recovered his sight. For he had eyes for his friends, he had eyes for cities, he had eyes for whole nations, since the man watched over them all, and laid up the treasures of his riches in the hearts of those who shared them with him. For indeed he used to say that he who would use his wealth aright ought to give to the needy that they might cease to be in need, and to those that needed it not, lest they should fall into need; and he used to call riches that did not circulate and were tied up by parsimony “dead riches” and the treasure-chambers in which some men hoard their money “prison-houses of wealth”…

(Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists, Book II, 2.1.1)

It was this generosity, referred to by Philostratus, that Herodes Atticus is perhaps most famous for.

As a wealthy engineer, philanthropist, patron, benefactor, governor and consul, Herodes Atticus was well placed to make positive contributions to Greek and Roman society. His building projects in Asia Minor, Italy, and Greece were numerous and many of them survive to this day.

The most well-known monument to his generosity is, of course, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, the ‘Herodeon’. He built this magnificent theatre in honour of his wife, Regilla, on the southwest slope of the Acropolis of Athens, and it is still used to this day as the main venue for the Athens Festival.

As the Odeon of Herodes Atticus is one of the main settings in An Altar of Indignities, we will discuss it more fully in a separate post in this blog series.

The other building projects paid for and sponsored by Herodes Atticus were also quite stunning as well.

He renovated the ancient Panathenaic Stadium of Athens by rebuilding it in marble. If you have ever been to Athens to see this monument pressed up against the side of the Hill of Ardittos, you will know what a feat of engineering this was!

In Ancient Olympia, which was notorious for having a water shortage problem, Herodes Atticus attended the Olympic Games with his wife Regilla, who was permitted to also attend as an honorary priestess of Demeter. After having experienced the water problem there, he decided to build the Nymphaeum of Olympia which was a monumental fountain dedicated to the Nymphs and the Emperors of Rome. We should remember that water supply systems were his specialty when it came to engineering and this one was decorated with statues of the imperial family and his own family. By the next Olympiad, the Nymphaeum was operational.

At various places throughout Greece, Herodes Atticus had aqueducts built, including at Marathon where he was born. This greatly improved the urban water infrastructure and supply to the city of Athens at the time. Today, the main water supply for the city comes from Lake Marathon, created by the modern dam there.

At Corinth, previously destroyed by the Romans long before, Herodes Atticus paid for the renovation of the existing theatre there, adapting it to better suit contemporary Roman tastes in performance venues such as a larger stage house, or scaena frons.

Herodes Atticus built various public buildings and facilities in Greece, including thermae, bathhouses, such as those at Thermopylae, site of the hot springs that gave the site its name, and on the island of Euboea not far from Athens. He also contributed to the building of gymnasia, athletic facilities and educational institutions, across the Greek-speaking world.

In addition to the grand projects above, Herodes Atticus saw to the improvement of infrastructure in several cities and regions by building and improving Roman roads and other urban amenities with the aim of improving connectivity and civic life.

It is no wonder that he was responsible for more building projects in the Empire than any other citizen, other than Rome’s emperors. As Philostratus alluded, Herodes Atticus was celebrated for his generosity and dedication to the arts, infrastructure, and the cultural revival of Greek cities under Roman rule.

It probably seemed that Herodes Atticus could do no wrong, or that everyone loved him.

Certainly, before this research, I thought that was the case as well. But, as history teaches us, those who are adored and privileged often fall even harder than the average person. And Herodes Atticus was no exception.

While it seems that most people admired the man, including Emperors Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, there were those who sought to bring him down.

In the 150s C.E., Herodes Atticus apparently had quite a large quarrel with another imperial tutor by the name of Fronto who was from Cirta, in Numidia, and was the tutor in Latin rhetoric to Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. Whether the argument was over their shared students, we do not know for certain, but the quarrel was worthy of record.

Herodes Atticus was also later publicly accused by the Athenians who complained to Emperor Marcus Aurelius of his allegedly tyrannical behaviour. This, however, was dealt with after the emperor mediated between Herodes Atticus and the people of Athens. The two parties were reconciled, and the people of Athens honoured him again.

The darkest shadow to hang over Herodes Atticus, however, relates to the tragic death of his wife, Regilla, when she was eight months pregnant with their sixth child in 160 C.E.

Apparently, Herodes Atticus’ freedman – a man named Alcimedon – brutally kicked Regilla in the abdomen causing her to go into premature labour.

Regilla and the baby died, and accusations of domestic abuse were brought against Herodes Atticus by Regilla’s brother, the Consul Appius Annius Atilius Bradua, who accused Atticus of having ordered his freedman to deliver the beating. Philostratus relates the tale…

A charge of murder was also brought against Herodes, and it was made up in this way. His wife Regilla, it was said, was in the eighth month of her pregnancy, and Herodes ordered his freedman Alcimedon to beat her for some slight fault, and the woman died in premature childbirth from a blow to the belly. On these grounds, as though true, Regilla‘s brother Braduas brought a suit against him for murder. He was a very illustrious man of consular rank, and the outward sign of his high birth, a crescent-shaped ivory buckle, was attached to his sandal. And when Braduas appeared before the Roman tribunal he brought no convincing proof of the charge that he was making, but delivered a long panegyric on himself dealing with his own family. Whereupon Herodes jested at his expense and said: “You have your pedigree on your toe-joints.” And when his accuser boasted too of his benefactions to one of the cities of Italy, Herodes said with great dignity: “I too could have recited many such actions of my own in whatever part of the earth I were now being tried.” Two things helped him in his defence. First that he had given orders for no such severe measures against Regilla; secondly, his extraordinary grief at her death. Even this was regarded as a pretence and made a charge against him, but nevertheless the truth prevailed. For he never would have dedicated to her memory so fine a theatre [the Herodeon of Athens] nor would he have postponed for her sake the casting of lots for his second consulship, if he had not been innocent of the charge; nor again would he have made an offering of her apparel at the temple of Eleusis, if he had been polluted by a murder when he brought it, for this was more likely to turn the goddesses into avengers of the murder than to win their pardon.

(Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists, Book II, 2.1.6)

It is truly a tragic episode in the life of so seemingly great a man. Was he speaking the truth? Did his freedman lash out of his own accord for some unknown reason? Or was this yet another horrific case of domestic abuse to add to the sad tables of history?

It is possible that Herodes Atticus’ extreme grief was feigned, that the delaying his bid for the consulship was a necessary inconvenience, and even that the building of the great odeon in Athens, in honour or Regilla, was something he had planned on doing anyway.

But Philostratus does make an excellent point in the end. If Herodes Atticus was guilty of murder, would he have dared to offer Appia Annia Regilla’s clothing to the Goddess Demeter at her holy sanctuary in Eleusis? Regilla had been an honorary priestess of the goddess, remember, so to do such a thing while tainted with blood-guilt would indeed have been spiritually damning to Herodes Atticus. This would have been an extremely serious offence to the Gods in ancient religion.

Was it this one act that saved Herodes Atticus and proved his innocence?

Whether it was this, a discussion behind closed doors with his old tutor, or other factors, Emperor Marcus Aurelius declared that the charges against Herodes Atticus were unproven and he exonerated him.

Herodes Atticus never married again.

The odeon was finished soon after his wife’s death, and he fell ill with a sort of wasting disease which eventually took his life in 177 C.E.

The people of Athens, who had loved him, and who also despised him for a short time, are said to have buried him in the Panathenaic Stadium which he had renovated, or on the sacred Hill of Ardittos beside it.

Despite the tragic end, Herodes Atticus and Appia Annia Regilla were considered two of the greatest benefactors of Greece and especially of Athens. Streets are named after them today – Herodou Attikou St., and Regillis Street and Square in Athens. In Rome, their names are recorded on the modern streets in the Quarto Miglio, in the area of Triopio where they had their lands.

But there can be no doubt that their biggest legacies are the many grand monuments of infrastructure and art that they gave to the people of Rome’s empire, and it is this legacy that comes down to us today.

Thank you for reading.

The Athens of Herodes Atticus, and the monuments he built and renovated for his beloved city, come alive in our story and provide the settings for An Altar of Indignities.

An Altar of Indignities: A Dramatic and Romantic Comedy of Ancient Rome and Athens is now available in ebook, paperback and deluxe hardcover edition from all major online retailers, independent bookstores, brick and mortal chains, and your local public library.

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