A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

414 ATTICUS. ATTICUS.
power. The loss of the works of Atticus renders but they may have been written by Herodes
it impossible for us to form an independent opinion, Atticus.
and even if they had come down to us, it is doubt- A'TTICUS,- T. POMPO'NIUS, was born at
ful whether we could judge of them as favourably Rome, B. c. 109, three years before Cicero,
as the ancients did; for we know, that although he and was descended from one of the most andid not neglect the study of the best Attic orators, cient equestrian families in the state. His
yet he took Critias as his great model. Among his proper name after his adoption by Q. Caecilius,
numerous works the following only are specified by the brother of his mother, was Q. Caecilius Q. F.
the ancients: 1. Ao'yor avrooXlaEto, or speeches Pomponianus Atticus, by which name Cicero adwhich he had delivered extempore. 2. AiaXe'ELs, dressed him when he congratulated him on his accestreatises or dialogues, one of which was probably sion to the inheritance of his uncle. (Ad Att. iii.
the one mentioned in the Etymologicum Magnum 20.) His surname, Atticus, was probably given
(s.v. dpo?7) 0rWepl -ydcpUov ovUCioEwes. 3. 'E(p?7pCeplE~s, him on account of his long residence in Athens
or diaries. 4. 'Erno-roai. All these works are now and his intimate acquaintance with the Greek lanlost. There exists an oration repl 7roXrTeias, in guage and literature.
which the Thebans are called upon to join the Pe- His father, T. Pomponius, was a man of cultiloponnesians in preparing for war against Archelaus, vated mind; and as he possessed considerable proking of Macedonia, and which has come down to perty, he gave his son a liberal education. He was
us under the name of Atticus Herodes. But the educated along with L. Torquatus, the younger C.
genuineness of this declamation is very doubtful; Marius, and M. Cicero, and was distinguished
at any rate it has very little of the character which above all his school-fellows by the rapid progress
the ancients attribute to the oratory of Atticus. which he made in his studies. His father died
The " Defensio Palamedis," a declamation usually when he was still young; and shortly after his
ascribed to Gorgias the Sophist, has lately been at- father's death the first civil war broke out. Atticus
tributed to Atticus Herodes by H. E. Foss in his was connected by ties both of affinity and frienddissertation De Gorgia Leontino, &c. Halae, 1828, ship with the Marian party; for his cousin Anicia
8vo. p. 100, &c.; but his arguments are not satis- had married the brother of the tribune, P. Sulpicius
factory. The declamation wrepIt roXrsEias is printed Rufus, one of the chief opponents of Sulla, and
in the collections of the Greek orators, and also by Atticus himself was a personal friend of his old
R. Fiorillo in his IHerodis Attici quae smuperszun, school-fellow, the younger Marius. He resolved,
admonilionibus illhstr., Leipzig, 1801, 8vo., which however, to take no part in the contest and acwork contains a good account of the life of Atticus cordingly withdrew to Athens in B. c. 85, with
Herodes. (Compare Philostratus, Vit. Soph. ii. 1; the greater part of his moveable property, under
Suid. s.v. 'Hpcds; Westermann, Gesch. der CGriech. the pretext of prosecuting his studies. The deBeredisamk. ~ 90.) termination which he came to on this occasion, he
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, 1607, steadily adhered to for the rest of his life. Contwo small columns with inscriptions, and two others tented with his equestrian rank, he abstained
of Pentelic nmarble with Greek inscriptions, were from suing for public honours, and would not
discovered on the site of the ancient Triopium, the mix himself up with any of the political parties
country seat of Atticus, about three miles from into which all classes were divided for the next
Rome. The two former are not of much importance, fifty years. But notwithstanding this, he lived on
but the two latter are of considerable interest. They the most intimate terms with the most distinguishare written in hexameter verse, the one consisting ed men of all parties; and there seems to have
of thirty-nine and the other of fifty-nine lines. been a certain charm in his manners and converSome have thought, that Atticus himself was the sation which captivated all who had intercourse
author of these versified inscriptions; but at the with him. Though he had assisted the younger
head of one of them there appears the name Marius with money in his flight, Sulla was so
Mapice'AAou, and, as the style and diction of the much pleased with him on his visit to Athens in
other closely resemble that of the former, it has B. c. 84, after the Mithridatic war, that he wished
been inferred, that both are the productions of to take him with him to Rome; and on Atticus
Marcellus of Sida, a poet and physician who lived desiring to remain in Athens, Sulla presented him
in the reign of M. Aurelius. These inscriptions, with all the presents he had received during his
which are known by the name of the Triopian in- stay in that city. Atticus enjoyed also the friendscriptions, have often been printed and discussed, ship of Caesar and Pompey, Brutus and Cassius,
as by Visconti (Inscrizioni greccle Triopee, con Antony and Octavianus. But the most intimate
'versioni ed osservazioni, Rome, 1794, fol.), Fiorillo of all his friends was Cicero, whose correspondence
(1. c.), in Brunck's Analectac (ii. 302), and in the with him, beginning in the year B. c. 68 and conGreek Anthology. (Append. 50 and 51, ed. Tauch- tinued down to Cicero's death, supplies us with
nitz.) [L. S.] various particulars respecting the life of Atticus,
A'TTICUS, NUME'RIUS, a senator and a the most important of which are given in the article
man of praetorian rank, who swore that after thle CICERO. Atticus did not return to Rome till B. c.
death of Augustus he saw the emperor ascending 65, when political affairs had become more settled;
up to heaven. (Dion Cass. Ivi. 46; Suet. Aug. 100.) and the day of his departure was one of general
A'TTICUS, a PLATONIC philosopher, lived in mourning amnong the Athenians, whom he had
the second century of the Christian era, unnder the assisted with loans of money, and benefited in
emperor M. Aurelius. (Syncell. vol. i. p. 666, ed. various ways. During his residence at Athens, he
Dindorf.) Eusebius has preserved (Praep. Ev. purchased an estate at Buthrotum in Epeirus, in
xv. 4-9, &c.) some extracts from his works, in which place, as well as at Athens and afterwards
which he defends the Platonic philosophy against at Rome, he spent the greater part of his time,
Aristotle. Porphyry (FVit. Plotin. c. 14) makes engaged in literary pursuits and commercial undermention of the dsrorva~mPra of a Platonic Atticus, takings. He died in B. c. 32, at the age of 77, of