*Herodes Atticus: Philanthropist or Rat?

*HERODES ATTICUS: PHILANTHROPIST OR RAT? by BARRY BALDWIN Philostratus consecrated the longest of his biographies to Herodes Atticus, placing it in prominence at the beginning of his second book. This emphasis must relate to the inaugural dedication of the Lives of the Sophists. The honorand is Antonius Gordianus, who has three adornments: he is the most illustrious of consuls, the best of proconsuls, and his ancestor is Herodes Atticus. Mercifully, the vexed question of Gordian I or Gordian II as the recipient is not central to the present opusculel ; I leave the contestants as Gordians not unravelled. Our sophist, L. Vibullius Hipparchus Ti. Claudius Atticus Herodes, owed wealth and position to his genitors and progenitor, not to any merit of his own. The fortune of his grandfather Hipparchus (computed at 100 million sesterces by Suetonius , ~. 13) was confiscated by a li'lavian €".nmerOT (unnamed by Philostratus; other evidences suggest Domitian2 ) tnL 't 1JPr'..(VVI.XCl.L<; o:t.tcuc, - ? "on charges of aiming at power for himself". Philostratus stresses that the charge was one not brought by the Athenians; this elliptical exculpation looks forward to the clashes between Herodes and the Athenians. Hipparchus' son recouped this loss by finding a huge treasure in a house he had acquired near the theatre in Athens. Having no faith in heaven-sent windfalls, I follow Day in believing that Hipparchus had stashed away much of his fortune before his trial for his son to hide. The son shines by reporting his discovery to Nerva, who told him to use or misuse it as he wished. Such a concatenation, suffering under Domitian and revival under Nerva, sounds very Roman, of course. The windfall was misused: it went largely to the sophist. Thus equipped, his affluence further increased by the large fortune of his mother, and by bequests from his friend Favorinus, Herodes embarked on his public career. There was an early scandal under Hadrian, when he was corrector of the Asian civitates liberae, over the expenditure of 7 million drachmae on a fountain for Alexandria Troas. Hadrian had supplied the first 3 million at Herodes 1 request, but became sympathetic to complaints from Asian governors at the ever-growing costs of water for one town. Herodes was saved by father, who made up the 7 million. Whj ch may be why Hadrian gave the honour of the inaugural lecture at the Olympieum in Athens to Polemo, not Herodes. The rivalries between Favorinus and both Hadrian and Polemo may, of course, also procure this imperial decision. We may further note, as Philostratus does not, a connection between this affair and the later clash between Herodes and the famous Q,uintilii brothers: for these latter *This paper was originally read to the Classical Association of Canada at the annual meeting of the Learned Societies, Kingston, Ontario, June 1973. Minimal documentation has been added, mainly primary source references. Fundamental modern studies, cited by author only, are: P. Graindor, Un Milliardaire antique: Herode Atticus et sa famille (Cairo, 1930); J. Day, An economic history of Athens under Roman domination (New York, 1942); G. W. Bowersock, Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1969); A. R. Birley, Marcus Aurelius (London, 1966). These troubled waters of Troas can serve as cue for quick reference to Herodes' benefactions. Like many another sophist, he had an edi fice complex. His buildings were many, by no means restricted to Athens: they are amply discussed by Graindor, Day and Bowersock. It is not my ambition to ridicule them all, though one may not be too priggish in preferring Damianus of Ephesus (known personally to Philostratus), who spent much of his wealth on maintenance of the poor.5 still, we should not forget the contemporary Athenian reaction to the Panathenaic stadium, built from the proceeds of Herodes' swindling them out of the bequests left them in his father's will. Or that the Odeum was built to the memory of Regilla (in a sort of necrophile anticipation of Citizen Kane), the wife of Herodes who died from a blow to the stomach when eight months pregnant. This latter dedication, which we will call esprit de corpse, demands attention as to its background. Herodes had commanded his freedman Alcimedon to beat her for what Philostratus admits was "only a slight offence. 'T Regilla's brother, Appius Annius Atilius Bradua, consul in 160, tried in vain to have Herodes condemned for murder. The sophist wriggled out of it by claiming that he had not ordered the fatal beating, and by pointing to his great grief at Regilla's death. Since his biographer elsewhere mentions Herodes' brutal treatment of freedmen, one expects Alcimedon to be made the fall-guy. However, in later years, when summoned by his enemies to appear before Marcus Aurelius in Sirmium, Herodes turned up with the 2 lovely and nubile daughters of the same Alcimedon. The three lodged in some towered suburbs, and one night the girls were killed by a thunderbolt which hit the tower. Herodes was unharmed, though predictably overcome by public grief. One recollects the deceases of his own daughters, Athenais and Elpinice. Alcimedon recurs. Marcus punishes Herodes' freedmen instead of their master, though excuses Alcimedon who has "suffered enough" by his daughters' deaths. As is well known, Herodes was consul in 143. So was Fronto, which has led some to see the year as symbolic of the bicultural apogee of the Antonine epoch. Hardly; for Fronto was only suffectus in July and August. Nor does the event imply new or renewed amity between the pair, after the famous tangle of quarrels and litigations between them. Time compels me to refer the audience to Bowersock' s admirable analysis of all that. 6 A trinity of points may be here noted. First, the consulship falls in the reign of Antoninus Pius. Philostratus devotes some energy to refuting the story that Herodes had once clashed physically with Pius on Mt. Ida, before the latter's accession. Second, though deposited by the biographer among the consequences of Regilla' s death, we are informed that Herodes had to postpone his chance of a second consulship. Third, and most interesting, Fronto was alarmed to find that Marcus held Herodes in esteem. The sophist had lived in the house of Calvisius Tullus Ruso, Marcus' maternal grandfather, which is pertinent. 7 This regard did not last. For Marcus came to suspect the sophist of involvement in the alleged treasons plotted by Lucius Verus; he allowed the impeachment of Herodes by Demostratus (probably to be identified as Fronto' s client in the early clash with Herodes), Praxagoras, Mamertinus, the Q,uintilii, and the Athenians; he ceased to exchange letters with the sophist; he appointed Theodotus, ex-pupil and now enemy of Herodes to the chair of rhetoric at Athens; he omits mention of Herodes from the Meditations, though Dio and the ~ list him as one of the royal HERODES ATTICUS: PHILANI'HROPIST OR RAT? 35 tutors.8 He may indeed have exiled our hero to Oricum in Epirus. Philostratus denies this, but concedes that it was thought Herodes had re-f'ounded that city as a putative bolt-hole. As a Stoic, Marcus will not have welcomed Herodes I attacks on their apatheia (Aulus Gellius9 is witness to these), though the ~lO has an anecdote about the younger Marcus weeping openly over a dead tutor in the palace. And there were the sophist I s clashes with such sages as Secundus "Wooden Peg" (albeit patched up later) and Lucius. It is hard to credit Philostratus' claim that Marcus sought Herodes' advice when creating his chairs of' philosophy at Athens .11 Finally, and most f'ascinatingly, relevant is the abortive revolt of' Avidius Cassius in 175, on which occasion Herodes sent his f'amous message, "You are out of' your mind." For, if' the HA can be trusted, Avidius, son of' the philosopherrhetor -Egyptian pref'ect Hcliodorus, objected in particular to Marcus' philosophic enthusiasms. It may have been the moment, not the man, that Herodes thought mad. Apart from its length and position in the collection, the Philostratean biography exhibits two intriguing ,!ualities. It has relatively little to say about Herodes' sophistic career, and its tone is not wholly admiring. The first point is one of' proportional representation. There are, naturally, several generalising compliments on his style12 , and one should not f'orget the large number of references scattered over the other biographies. But he is reticent on the usual details, such as favourite themes. An early failure, when Herodes broke down before an emperor, is acknowledged (With only trumpery defence), and his performance before Marcus Aurelius against the masterly speech of Demostratus is dubbed a poor show. It is true that Philostratus tries to defend Herodes against many of the charges. And he may sometimes have been right so to do; the sophist's detractors were rarely impartial, and not always less odious. But the swindling of the Athenians in the testamentary matter is recounted with some detail and little mitigation, and it is admitted that the Athenians never ceased to hate him. That is pleasant to recollect at the end of the biography, when the eternally-hating Athenians bewail the deceased Herodes, and bury him in the loathed Panathenaic stadium. This shows what happens when you try to be both honest and hagiograph. The concluding sentence of the biography asserts that part of the story had been told by others, part was hitherto unknown. We are not enlightened as to which items fall into which category. Our supplementary knowledge comes from Front0 13 , Aulus Gellius14 , Lucian1 5 (not admiring, as Wright wrongly claims in the Loeb), and, later, Suidas. And perhaps from the pseudo-Lucianic Nero, which name reminds us of Herodes with its echoes of cutting Isthmus canals, ostentatious grief for dead children, and beating pregnant wives to death. Strikingly, Philostratus' father is credited with a Nero by Suidas (and a Proteus, which would have supplemented Lucian' s pamphlet and the biographer's mention of clashes between Peregrinus and Herodes) .16 Genuine admiration on Philostratus' part need not be denied. But his honorand Gordian will have preferred such an ancestor to be as cleansed as possible. Philostratus may have done his best, but his lapses into honesty (inconsistencies, if you will) are perhaps tribute to the ,!uality of the anti-Herodes dossier. University of Calgary 36 BARRY BALDWIN 1. ~~7i~\~~bj~H.S~~i~;~r~~~, ~~~~t~; ~rn~r::r~~:~; ~~On;@r,(~4~~~~' T. D. Barnes, 'Philostratus and Gordian', Latomus 27 (l§bB") , 58lf. 2. See Bowersock, 23; for the epigraphic evidence, Oliver, The Ruling Power (Philadelphia, 1953) , 960f. 3. AD l85. 4. 72. 5. 3; see Bowersock, 87-8. 5. ~,605. 6. 94f. 7. See Birley, 99. 8. Dio 72.35. l;~, ~2. 4; Verus 2.5. 9. ~ 19. l2. lO. Pius lO.5. ll. This remains debatable, in view of recent inscriptional finds; see Oliver, Marcus Aurelius: As ects of Civic and Cultural Polic in the East (Hesperia Supplement l3, Princeton & Athens, 1970 . l2. Of which the comparisons with Critias may be the most pertinent to the present assessment of Herodes I character. l3. See the Loeb edition of C. R. Haines (Van den Hout 's edition is not available to me), 1. 6lf., l63, l68; 2. 22l, 235, 289, 295, 297. l4. ~ 1. 2; 9. 2; l8. lO; 19. l2. l5. Demonax 24 (wrongly translated in Harmon' s Loeb), 33; Peregrinus 19. l6. See Bowersock, 3. ...