16 Facts About Herodes Atticus

Herodes Atticus was an Athenian rhetorician, as well as a Roman senator.

Herodes Atticus 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.

Herodes Atticus claimed lineage from a series of mythic Greek kings: Theseus, Cecrops, and Aeacus, as well as the god Zeus.

Herodes' father, Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes entered the Roman Senate and became Roman consul, the first Athenian to do so.

Herodes Atticus's mother was the wealthy heiress Vibullia Alcia Agrippina.

Herodes Atticus had a brother named Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodianus and a sister named Claudia Tisamenis.

Herodes Atticus was born in Marathon, Greece, and spent his childhood years between Greece and Italy.

Herodes Atticus was a student of Favorinus and inherited Favorinus' library.

Herodes Atticus later returned to Athens, where he became famous as a teacher.

When Regilla and Herodes Atticus married, she was 14 years old and he was 40.

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.

Herodes Atticus had a distinguished reputation for his literary work, most of which is lost, and was a philanthropist and patron of public works.

Herodes Atticus funded more building projects in Roman Greece than anyone aside from the Roman emperors, including:.

Herodes Atticus contemplated cutting a canal through the Isthmus of Corinth, but was deterred from carrying out the plan because the same thing had been unsuccessfully attempted before by the emperor Nero.

When Herodes Atticus died in 177, his son Atticus Bradua and his grandchild survived him.