A. J. PAPALAS History Dpi. East Carolina University HERODES ATTICUS AND HIS SON Philostratus, the author of the Lives of the Sophists, dedi­ cated this work to Antoninus Gordianus. He noted that Gordianus was a descendant of Herodes Atticus, the Athenian millionaire professor who flou­ rished c a. A.D. 150l. Gordianus has been identified as either the elderly proconsul of Africa who became emperor in A.D. 238, or his homonymous 2 son who was proclaimed joint emperor with his father . There have been several attempts to discover the link between Herodes and Gordian. Herodes was survived by only one child, Bradua Atticus. It has recently been suggested that the younger Gordian married the daughter of Bradua3. It is the purpose of this article to investigate Herodes' attitude toward his son in hopes of shedding some light on whether Bradua is the link between the millionaire professor and the emperor. Philostratus V S. 2. 1. 558 deals with the relationship between Herodes and Bradua. Bradua was slandered to Herodes as ήλιθιώδη και δυσγράμματον καί παχύν την μνήμην. Bradua could not learn the alphabet so his father brought him up with twenty-four boys each named after one of the letters. We are not told whether this method succeeded. Herodes, observed that his dull son was a drunkard and given to senseless love affairs. In despair Herodes uttered the following prophecy εις δ' ίχι που μωρός καταλείπεται εύρέι ο'ίκω. So when Herodes died he left Bradua his mother's estate, but he gave his son's patrimony to other heirs. Philostratus clearly contradicts himself. If indeed the charges that Bra­ dua was stupid, a slow-learner with a poor memory were false why did Bra­ dua have such a hard time learning the alphabet, for Philostratus does not question the story of the twenty-four companions. As for Bradua's drun- keness and sexual licentiousness Herodes saw it with his own eyes. In order to understand Pbilostrartus' confusing account about the relationship between father and son it would be useful to know when the attack on Bradua was launcheed and by whom. Bradua was born c a. A.D. 152 4. 1. Philostratus VS. Pref. 479-80. For Herodes Atticus, see P. Graindor, Un mil­ liardaire antique: Herode Atticus et sa famille (Cairo, 1930. 2. Κ. Münscher, «Die Philostrate», Ρ h i 1 ο 1 ο g u s, Suppl. 10 (1905/7), p. 471, argues that this is Gordian I. A. R. Birley, Britain and Rome: Essays près, to E. Birley (1966), pp. 58-8, cogently maintains that the honorand of the Lives of the Sophists was Gordian II. J. H. Oliver, «The Ancestry of Gordian I,» A J Ρ 89 (1968), 345 ff., rejects the relationship between the Goridians and Herodes. 3. T.D. Barnes, «Philostratus and Gordian», Latomus 27 (1968), 581 ff, 4. Barnes, «Philostratus», 583. -245 — Herodes heard unfavorable reports about his son when the boy was trying to learn the alphabet. The campaign against Bradua, apparently began in c a. A.D. 157 when he was about five years old. At this time many Athenians considered Herodes a tyrant. The Athe­ nians turned against him in c a. A.D. 137 when Claudius Atticus, the father of Herodes died, leaving to each Athenian citizen a substantial sum of money· Herodes did not honor his father's will, for he was able to prove that most Athenians owed him money, and that these debts cancelled his father's be­ quest. There were riots in Äthans and reporti of this turbulence was carried to Rome where Herodes was censured by some for his failure to execute the will5. Herodes was allowed to keep all of his patrimony. The Athenians did not forget the episode, and years later when Herodes paid for the constru­ ction of the Panathenaic Stadium, the people complained that it was well named since he had used their money for it 6.While the masses opposed He­ rodes it was a muted opposition, for Herodes possessed so much strength in th.3 city that no one dared speak out openly against him. Then in c a. A.D. 150 Sex. Quintilius Condianus, the praetorian proconsul of Achaea, came to Athens. Athens was a free city, and Condianus, who had no business there? nonetheless attended a session of the ecclesia7. During this session some 5. Philostratus VS. 2. 1. 549. For the technical aspects of Herodes' manoeuvers see R. Bogaret, Banques et banquiers dans les cités grecques (Ley- den, 1968), pp. 33, 358-9. The trial is referred to in the correspondence between Fronto and Marcus Aurelius, see a d. M. C. 3. 2.=Haines I. 58 ff; a d M. C. 3.3.=Haines I. 62 ff; ad M. G. 3.6=Haines I, 68 ff ; a d A η t ο η i n. imp. 2.6.=Haines 1, 74 ff. The De- mostratus referred to here has been identified by G. Bowersock, Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1969), pp. 97-99, as a member of the Claudii of Melite. While there is no way to date this trial I feel that it took place sometime after A.D. 150 when the Athenians came out into opposition against Herodes, see p. 3. 6. Philostratus VS. 2.1. 549. For Herodes building program, see Graindor, Hérode, pp. 179-230. K. Münscher, RE 8A (1913) «Herodes», No. 13, 946, points out that Herodes preferred to achieve fame by erecting monuments rather than indulging the masses with largesses. 7. Philostratus VS. 2. 1. 599. Condianus was accompanied by his brother Maximus. For the Quintilii, see Ρ I R2, Q. 19, 24. Bowersock, Greek Sophists, p. 100, argues that the Quintilii appeared in Athens in ca. A.D. 171 as corrector and comes. Bowersock contends that a proconsul would not have had any business in Athens. There was, however, some proconsular interference in Athens, a civitates liberae et immunes, see Eusebius, Ghronicon (Helm), p. 170, 3961, 16; Orosius, 6. 22. 2; Tacitus, Ann. 2. 55; Cassius Dio 54. 7. 2; 69. 16. 2; Dio of Prusa, Or at. 31. 148; Philostratus VS. 2. 1. 559-560; Marcus Tod, «The Corrector Maximus», Anatolian Studies Presented to W. H. Buckler (Manchester, 1939), pp. 333-34; P. Graindor, Athnèes sous Auguste (Cairo, 1927), pp. 4044; P. Graindor» Athènes de Tibère à Trajan (Cairo, 1931), pp. 97-111; P. Graindor, A t h è- nes sous Hadrien (Cairo, 1934), pp. 111-14; J. Delz, Lukans Kenntnis der athenischen Antiquitäten (Freiber, 1950), pp. 41, 156-184. -246- people denounced Herodes as a tyrant, and Condianus reported it to the emperor8. Now the Glaudii of Melite declared their opposition to Herodes. This prominent Athenian family held important magistracies in the city, high priesthoods in the Eleusnnan Mysteries, and furnished some important sophists, skilled public speakers with large followings 9. They formed an al­ liance with the masses and contested Herodes' control of Athens for nearly a quarter of a century. The strife in Athens reached such proportions that in c a. A.D. 174 the emperor Marcus Aurelius, while he was in Sirmium at­ tempting to plug up the porous frontiers, heard both Athenian factions and rendered a series of decisions aiming to end the unrest in the city10. During the period between A.D. 150 and A.D. 174 Herodes was so thoroughly mali­ gned by this faction that one modern commentator has concluded that He­ rodes was «a nasty fellow» H. It is possible that Bradua was defamed by the same people that attacked Herodes. This hypothesis is not, however, very sound since it is not probable that Herodes would have been alienated from his son by reports from his rivals. A more likely source for the vilification of Bradua is the Herodes faction itself. The term faction is used loosely to denote Herodes' freedmen and stu­ dents. Alcimedon, his freedman, had such control over the great sophist's affairs that he disciplined Regula, Herodes' wife, by kicking her in the sto­ mach. She was in her eight month of pregnancy, and died as a result of the alleged blow in c a. A.D. 161. When Herodes was tried for the murder of Regula he claimed that Alcimedon had acted on his own12. Yet the millionaire kept this freedman in his service, and in c a. A.D. 174 Alcimedon' s daughters accompanied Herodes to Sirmium 13. It seems strange that Herodes would ack­ nowledge the wicked deed of his freedman and still retain him. Alcimedon must have been indespensable to the millionaire in some way, perhaps in eco­ nomic matters. At Sirmium Marcus Aurelius considered Alcimedon guilty of some unspecified crime, but let him off scot-free in a gesture of sympathy, because during the trial the two teen-aged daughters of Alcimedon had been 8. Philostratus VS. 2. 1. 559. 9. For the Claudii of Melite, see J. H. Oliver, The Athenian Expounders of the Sacred and Ancestral Laws (Baltimore, 1960), p. 77. For the de­ finition of Sophist, see Bowersock, Sophists, p. 13. 10. For the Sirmium settlement, see J. H. Oliver, Marcus Aurelius Aspects of Civic and Cultural Policy in the East, Hesperia, Suppl. XIII (1970), passim. 11. R. Syme, Tacitus (Oxford, 1958), 11, 505. 12. Philostratus VS. 2. 1. 556. 13. Philostratus VS. 2. 1, 561. -247- killed by lightening. The emperor, however, did punish other freedmen of Herodes 14. The students of Herodes represented an important element in his fa­ ction. They lived with him on his estate in Marathon. They dined, studied, and hunted together.