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Herodes Atticus: An Essay on Education in the Antonine Age

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

A. J. Papalas
A. J. Papalas*
Affiliation:
East Carolina University
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Herodes Atticus (A.D. 101–176), the Athenian millionaire, Roman consul, celebrated sophist and friend and teacher of Roman Emperors was one of the best known figures of the Antonine Period. Philostratus, the author of the Lives of the Sophists, written ca. A.D. 230, gives Herodes considerably more space than any other sophist; he is the subject of Graindor's solid though dated biography, of Rutledge's admirable doctoral thesis, and is one of the major figures in Bowersock's brilliant work on the Greek sophists in the Roman Empire. Herodes' education and teaching career, however, have never been adequately studied. It is the aim of this essay to do that.

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History of Education Quarterly , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , Summer 1981 , pp. 171 - 188
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Copyright © 1981 by History of Education Society 

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References

Abbreviations

Philostratus VS Vitae SophistarumGoogle Scholar
Philostratus VA Vita ApolloniGoogle Scholar
Quintilian Institutio OratoriaGoogle Scholar
Aulus Gellius Noctes AtticaeGoogle Scholar
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9. Marcus, to Fronto, , p. 37, 5–7 Van den Hout. This is the only reference to Herodes' studies in Italy. Graindor, , Hérode, p. 52, and Rutledge, , Herodes, pp. 18–19, suggest that the sojourn in Calvisius' home covered a phase in Herodes' elementary education. A few years earlier the grandfather of Septimius Severus was taken from Africa to Rome and placed in the school of Quintilian. He learned to talk, dress and think like a native Italian, see Statius, Silvae 4. praef. 45–46.Google Scholar
10. Quintilian 1.1. 15–20. See Kennedy, G., Quintilian (New York, 1969), pp. 11–30. Pliny (Epistles 2. 14. 10; 5. 6. 3), who served in the senate with Atticus, was proud that he had been a student of Quintilian.Google Scholar
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13. Grube, , Critics, pp. 46 ff; Marrou, , Education, pp. 288 ff., notes the struggle between the two schools. In the time of Herodes there was an effort to repair the breach by well-known rhetors who claimed that if Plato was not one of their own he at least was sympathetic to their art, see Penella, Robert J., “Philostratus' Letter to Julia Domna,” Hermes 107 (1979); 161 ff.Google Scholar
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17. Herodes as amicus: Dittenberger, W., Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecorum3 , 863. For the role of amici Caesari, see Millar, F., The Emperor in the Roman World: 31 B.C. to A.D. 337 (Ithaca, 1977), pp. 110–112. Libanius (Oration 42, 23) reported that Sopater swayed Constantine as if he were a volatile crowd. According to Philostatus (VS. 21. 520), Scopelian persuaded Domitian to rescind the ban on the cultivation of vines in Asia Minor.Google Scholar
18. Bornecque, H., Les Déclamations et les déclamateurs d'après Sénèque le Père (Paris, 1902), passim . Caplan, Harry, “The Decay of Eloquence at Rome in the First Century,” Studies in Speech and Drama in Honor of A. M. Drumond (Ithaca, 1977), pp. 295–325, argues, however, that the loss of political liberty made the suasiorae empty exercises.Google Scholar
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21. Aulus Gellius 19. 12. 1. On Taurus see Praechter, K., “Taurus,” Real-Encyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschqft 5A (1934), 56–68. Wife: Philostratus VS 2. 1. 555; Antoninus Pius: Philostratus VS 2. 1. 549; Graindor, , Hérode, p. 59. Quarrel with Athenians: Philostratus VS 2. 1. 549. Sophists: Philostratus VS 2. 8. 578, and Papalas, A., “Philagrus and the Wrath of Herodes Atticus,” Rivista di Cultura Classica e Medioevale, 21/22 (1979/80), 94ff. Relationship between Herodes and Taurus: Baldwin, Barry, Studies in Aulus Gellius (Kansas, 1975), p. 39.Google Scholar
22. Philostratus VS 2. 2. 566. Mazzarino, S., “Prima Cathedra,” Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire offerts à André Piganiol (Paris, 1966), pp. 1660–1661.Google Scholar
23. Gerth, Karl, “Zeite Sophistic,” Real-Encyclopädie der Klassischen Altertumswissenschqft, Suppl 8 (1956), 719–782. Reardon, B. P., “The Second Sophistic and the Novel,” Aspects of the Second Sophistic (Penna. 1974), p. 25, argues that Asia Minor was not as badly damaged as Greece during the Roman Civil Wars.Google Scholar
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25. Philostratus VS 1. 26. 544–545.Google Scholar
26. Philostratus VS 1. 26. 544–545; Perry, B. E., Secundus the Silent Philosopher (American Philological Association Monographs, 1968), pp. 1–9; Bowersock, , Sophists, pp. 118–119.Google Scholar
27. Pelekides, C., Histoire de l'Éphébie attique des orgines à 31 avant J. C. (Paris, 1962), pp. 266 ff. Philostratus VS 2. 1. 550.Google Scholar
28. Graindor, , Hérode, pp. 47–48. Reinmuth, W. W., “Ephebate and Citizenship in Athens,” Transactions of the American Philological Association, 79(1948): 211, demonstrates that at the end of the second century B.C. the age of admission to the ephebeia was lowered. Apparently this was the usual practice. An ambassador from the youth of Pergamum congratulated Hadrian on his accession, see Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes 4, 349.Google Scholar
29. Rutledge, , Herodes, p. 30.Google Scholar
30. Latro: Seneca Contr. 9, praef. 3; Quintilian 10. 5. 18. Demosthenes: Philostratus VS 2. 1. 565. In a lost book Aulus Gellius 8 discusses how Theophrastus botched a speech and referred to Demosthenes' failure. Baldwin, , Aulus, p. 93, suggests that Aulus was defending Herodes. Heracleides: Philostratus VS 2. 26. 614.Google Scholar
31. Graindor, , Hérode, p. 47, suggests that Hadrian, while archon, stayed in the home of Atticus. Hadrian could have served as archon, however, without residing in the city.Google Scholar
32. Pseudo-Plutarch, , De liberis educandis 13. An anonymous orator in A.D. 331 (Panagyric 8 [5] 9, 3) addressing Constantine, enumerated the various pressures on a speaker standing before an emperor.Google Scholar
33. Graindor, , Hérode, p. 48. Rutledge, , Herodes, p. 30, does not connect the stoning incident with Pannonia, but rather thinks it reflects Atticus' great admiration for Scopelian.Google Scholar
34. Philostratus VS 1. 21. 521. According to Lucian Dialogi Meretricii 6. 1, a woman and her daughter lived in Roman Athens seven months on two minas, two hundred drachmas. Thirty talents represents one hundred and eighty thousand drachmas. Polemo received that sum from Trajan, see Philostratus VS 1. 25. 537. Apparently, Herodes wished to be as generous as the emperor.Google Scholar
35. Philostratus VS 1. 8. 490.Google Scholar
36. Philostratus VS 2. 1. 564; 1. 25. 538.Google Scholar
37. Graindor, P., Athènes sous Auguste (Cairo 1927), pp. 40–44; Graindor, P., Athènes sous Hadrien (Cairo 1934), pp. 97–111; Delz, J. Lukans Kenntnis der athenischen Antiquitäten (Freiburg 1950), pp. 41, 156–184, Geagan, D., The Athenian Constitution After Sulla, Hesperia, Supp. 12 (1967): 33–34, 81–91.Google Scholar
38. Graindor, , Hérode, pp. 55–68. Philostratus VS 2. 3. 567 noted that Aristocles studies extempore rhetoric with Herodes in Rome. Herodes, notwithstanding his services in the imperial bureaucracy, had time to make public lectures, and continue his teaching activities.Google Scholar
39. Scriptores Historiae Augustae Marci 2. 5; Philostratus VS 1. 25. 539; 2. 1. 562.Google Scholar
40. Quintilian 12. 1. 1, and the commentary of Winterbottom, M., “Quintilian and the Vir Bonus,” Journal of Roman Studies 54 (1964): 90–95. Delacy, P., “Plato and Intellectual Life in the Second Sophistic,” Aspects of the Second Sophistic (Penna. 1974), p. 7, sees Fronto, however, as essentially a rhetor uninfluenced by philosophical doctrines.Google Scholar
41. Philostratus VS 1. 25. 538. Herodes may have been travelling with some of his students as well, see Philostratus VS 2. 3. 567–8. Graindor, , Hérode, p. 68, misreads this passage.Google Scholar
42. Graindor, , Hérode, pp. 61–63. Gellius 19. 12 has preserved in Latin Herodes' diatribe against Stoic teaching. A symbouleutic speech based on a harangue of Thrasymachus, of contested authorship, is attributed to Herodes. Reardon, , “The Second Sophistic and the Novel,” p. 24, reminds us that Philostratus' Vitae are not literary histories, and if they were, less notice would have been given to Herodes.Google Scholar
43. Papalas, A., “Lucius Verus and the Hospitality of Herodes Atticus,” Athenaeum 56 (1978): 182–184.Google Scholar
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52. Chrestus: Philostratus VS 2. 11. 591; Libanius Oration I. 37; Epistle 405. 4. 6. Petit, P., Les Étudiants de Libanius: Un Professeur de Faculté et ses Élèves au Bas Empire (Paris, 1956), ch. 3, shows how necessary it was for teachers to develop friendships with influential people in order to attract students who could pay.Google Scholar
53. Seneca, , Controversial 9. 2. 23.Google Scholar
54. Philostratus VS 2. 1. 565.Google Scholar
55. Philostratus VS 2. 8. 578. The best positions went to the purists. Phrynichus (Ecloga, p. 379 Lobeck) praised Cornelianus, Marcus Aurelius' ab epistulis Graecis, for the purity of his Attic Greek. This ability seems to have given Cornelianus great power in dealing with Greek embassies.Google Scholar
56. Rutledge, , Herodes, p. 84. Philostratus (VS 2. 10. 587) refers to the curriculum of the sophist as a dromos. Herodes, if he were to supervise the entire dromos, doubtless needed assistants.Google Scholar
57. Aulus Gellius 7. 13. 1.Google Scholar
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68. Codex Iustinianus III, 28, 19, 23 stipulated disinheritance for sons associating with undesirables. Apuleius, , Apologia 91–99, noted that Pudentilla wanted to disinherit her son, Pudens, for rejecting his studies for worldly pleasures. Quintilian, Declamationes Minores, 356, 330, commented on how boys were trained to defend themselves against charges that they were voluptuaries squandering their patrimony. Cicero, Ad Familiares 16. 21. 1–6, had problems with his son who was studying in Athens. He asked Leonidas and Herodes, ancestors of our Herodes, to report to him on the boy's behavior. There was a reconciliation between father and son when the boy renounced his dissipated ways and took to his studies seriously; see Ad Atticum, 14. 16. 3; 15. 16a. Plutarch (Cicero 24.6) saw letters Cicero wrote to Herodes' ancestors. It is possible that Herodes' father showed these to the biographer.Google Scholar
69. Daly, , “Romans Study Abroad,” 51, notes the huge allowances of these students, and the attitude of “keeping up with the Jones”' Apparently, it was common for students to have slaves; see Philostratus VS 2. 10. 588.Google Scholar
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