Herodes, Tiberius Claudius Atticus

, surnamed the Athenian, a native of Marathon, in the second century, studied rhetoric, and although he was somewhat disconcerted in his first speech before Adrian, he became so famous in Greece, and at Rome, for his extempore harangues, that Titus-Antoninus appointed him teacher of rhetoric to his adopted sons, Marcus Aurelius, and Lucius Verus; considering him as the most eloquent man of the age. He rose from this office to the highest dignities, and was consul in the year 143. He retired towards the end of his life to Marathon, and died there of a consumption, aged seventy-six. Some of his speeches are in the Greek | Orators by Aldus, 1513, 2 vols. folio; and in those of Stephens, 1575, folio. ¹