HERODE ATTICUS. – Born at Marathon in AD 10 to Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes, who left him vast wealth. He used it to acquire books and teachers, making him one of the most prominent literary figures of his time; and to enrich Athens, Alexandria, Olympia, Delphi, Corinth, Troy, and Cassinum with fine buildings.
His wealth and learning enabled him to hold various public offices (prefect of Asia in 123; agronomus in Athens in 127; tutor to Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus in 140; consul in 143), but his outspoken and violent character on the one hand, and his love of teaching on the other, kept him from public life. In Athens he ran a school of rhetoric, attended by the most illustrious sophists of the day, including Claudius Aelius of Tyre, who delivered the funeral oration at his death in 177. Of his writings only the *Sermones* survive, though their authenticity is much disputed.