Avey, and welcome to Emperor of Rome, a Roman history podcast from Latrobe University.

I'm your host Matt Smith and with me today is Dr Estelle Strasdens a research

fellow at the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens. This is

episode XC. Herodies Atticus.

Herodies was a distinguished Roman senator from Greece

and also had the reputation of being the greatest sophist of the age.

While he wasn't always the most popular person in his home province, of the

office office of the age. While he wasn't always the most popular person in his home

province he did do a lot to elevate the culture and standing of Athens in the

Roman Empire. Here's Estelle Strasdens.

So Herodys Atticus is a second century Athenian.

He's a Roman citizen and he's inherited that from his family.

And he was supposedly the greatest orator of the period and also a great benefactor to Athens and cities throughout Greece Asia Minor he also built in Rome.

And when you say the greatest orator, was the benchmark high at that time in Rome?

Yes, so this period is supposedly the height of the second

sophisticated a movement of Greek orators.

Their defining characteristic was that they would teach rhetoric

and they would also give improvised display speeches and they could be itinerant in

that they would move around the empire teaching and giving speeches or they would be attached

themselves to cities of culture like Athens or Smyrna or Ephesus.

Yeah, and which option did Herodias at?

Well he was born at Marathon in one of the deams of Athens, so he was in one of the deams of Athens so he was in one of the major cities

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