Among a crowd of these private benefactors, we may select Herodes Atticus, an Athenian citizen, who lived in the age of the Antonines.

Whatever might be the motive of his conduct, his magnificence would have been worthy of the greatest kings.
[See Theatre Of Marcellus: Augustus built in Rome the theatre of Marcellus.] The family of Herod, at least after it had been favored by fortune, was lineally descended from Cimon and Miltiades, Theseus and Cecrops, AEacus and Jupiter.

But the posterity of so many gods and heroes was fallen into the most abject state.

His grandfather had suffered by the hands of justice, and Julius Atticus, his father, must have ended his life in poverty and contempt, had he not discovered an immense treasure buried under an old house, the last remains of his patrimony.

According to the rigor of the law, the emperor might have asserted his claim, and the prudent Atticus prevented, by a frank confession, the officiousness of informers.