Herodes Atticus

Herodes Atticus was a leading representative of the so-called Second Sophistry and tutor of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, but he was also close to Emperor Hadrian.

He was a pupil of the rhetor Polemon and the grammarian Favorinus. Among his models was Socrates' pupil Critias. He established the chair of rhetoric at the university founded by Hadrian in Athens. Among his pupils were Achilleos, Polydeukos and Memnon. Of his works, a single speech called Peri politeias (On the State) survives.

Because of his relations with the emperors, Herodotus was first an agoran, then an archon eponymos, then a Roman consul and priest of the temple of Zeus in New Athens (built by the emperor Hadrian). He himself financed many buildings in Athens (e.g. the Odeon, the temple of the goddess Tyche, the repair of the Epeirian Orikum, the new aqueducts in Canusia, the indoor theatre in Corinth, the sulphur baths in Thermopylae, etc.).

In his old age he was accused by the Athenians of being overbearing. He was acquitted by Marcus Aurelius, but still left Athens and lived in voluntary exile in his native Marathon.