Ruins of Ancient Cities (Vol. 1 of 2): With General and Particular Accounts of Their Rise, Fall, and Present ConditionBucke, Charles
History
Ruins of Ancient Cities (Vol. 1 of 2): With General and Particular Accounts of Their Rise, Fall, and Present Condition
Bucke, Charles
Cities and towns, Ancient
"He flourished about the time of the emperors Trajan, Adrian, Antoninus
Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. His grandfather Hipparchus, or as Suidas has
it, Plutarchus, was well to pass in the world, but having been accused
of some tyrannical practices, used towards the people, the emperor
confiscated all his estates; so that his son, Atticus, father of this
Herod; lived afterwards in Athens in a mean condition; until, having
found a great hidden treasure in his own house, near the theatre, he
became on a sudden very rich. He was not more fortunate in lending it,
than prudent in getting it confirmed on himself; for well knowing,
should it come to be discovered, he should be obliged to give an account
of it to the emperor, he wrote thus:--'My liege, I have found a treasure
in my house; what do you command that I should do with it?' The emperor
answered him, 'That he should make use of what he had found.' But
Atticus, yet fearing that he might be in danger of some trouble, when
the greatness of the treasure should come to be known, wrote a second
time to the emperor, professing ingenuously, that the treasure he had
written to him about was too great a possession for him, and exceeded
the capacity of a private man. But the emperor answered him again with
the same generosity, 'Abuse, also, if thou wilt, the riches thou hast so
accidentally come by; for they are thine.' By this means, Atticus became
again extremely rich and powerful, having married a wife also that was
very rich, whence it came to pass that his son and heir Herodes far
surpassed his father both in wealth and magnificence, and became the
founder of many stately edifices in sundry parts of Greece; and, dying,
left by his will ten crowns to every citizen of Athens. Neither did he
partake less of virtue and merit than he did of fortune; being very
learned, and so eloquent, that he was called the tongue of Athens;
having been the disciple of the famous Phavorinus. Marcus Aurelius and
Lucius Verus, emperors of his time, made it their glory that they had
been his auditors. His entire name was Tiberius Claudius Atticus
Herodes; as I prove by an inscription that is at Athens, in the house of
Signor Nicoli Limbonia."--Thus far, Sir George Wheler. Chandler goes on
to observe, that Herodes Atticus directed his freed-men to bury him at
Marathon; where he died, at the age of seventy-six. But the Ephebi, or
young men of Athens, transported his body on their shoulders to the
city, a multitude meeting the bier, and weeping like children for the
loss of a parent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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