Book 2

1.1. Concerning Herodes the Athenian the following must be known. The sophist Herodes belonged by descent to those who had twice held the consulship, and he traced his lineage back to that of the Aeacidae, whom Greece once made her allies against the Persian; nor did he disdain to count Miltiades and Cimon among his forebears, as men most excellent and of great worth to the Athenians and the other Greeks in the Median wars; for the one began the trophies over the Medes, and the other exacted from the barbarians the penalty for the outrages they later committed. He made the best use of wealth of all men. Let us not consider this an easy thing to manage, but among the most difficult and troublesome, for those who are drunk with wealth pour out insolence upon their fellow men. Men also slander wealth as blind; but though at other times it seemed blind, in the case of Herodes it recovered its sight: for it looked toward friends, it looked toward cities, it looked toward nations, since the man kept watch over all and stored up his wealth in the goodwill of those who shared in it. For he used to say that one who rightly uses wealth ought to relieve the needy so that they may not be in need, and to relieve those who are not in need so that they may not fall into need; and he called wealth that does not circulate and is restrained by stinginess "dead wealth," and the storerooms in which some lay away their money "prisons of wealth," and those who think they must even sacrifice to their hoarded money he named "Aloadae," who sacrificed to Ares after binding him.

1.2. The sources of his wealth were many and from many houses, but the greatest were that on his father's side and that from his mother. For his grandfather Hipparchus had his property confiscated on charges of aspiring to tyranny, charges that the Athenians did not bring, but that the emperor did not overlook; yet Fortune did not look on while Atticus, that man's son and the father of Herodes, was made poor from rich, but revealed to him an immeasurable treasure in one of the houses he possessed near the theatre. And, becoming through its very size more cautious than overjoyed, he wrote to the emperor a letter composed thus: "A treasure, O Emperor, I have found in my own house; what then do you command concerning it?" And the emperor — Nerva was then reigning — said, "Use what you have found." But when Atticus remained in the same caution and wrote that the measure of the treasure was beyond him, the emperor said, "Then make full use of your windfall, for it is yours." From this Atticus became great, but Herodes greater; for besides his father's wealth, his mother's wealth too, not much less than this, flowed in upon him.

1.3. There was a brilliant magnanimity in this Atticus too. For Herodes was governor of the free cities of Asia, and seeing that the Troad was badly off for baths and that the people drew earthy water from wells and dug cisterns for rainwater, he wrote to the emperor Hadrian not to overlook an ancient city, conveniently placed for the sea, perishing of drought, but to grant them three million for water, of which he had already given many times as much even to villages. The emperor praised the proposal as suited to his own character and put Herodes himself in charge of the water. But when the cost rose to seven million, and those who administered Asia wrote to the emperor that it was a monstrous thing that the tribute of five hundred cities should be spent on the fountain of a single city, the emperor reproached Atticus with this; and Atticus, most magnanimous of men, said, "O Emperor, do not be vexed over small matters; for what has been spent beyond the three million, I bestow upon my son, and my son bestows it upon the city." And his will too, in which he left to the people of the Athenians a mina to each man every year, attests the magnanimity of the man, which he displayed in other matters as well: sacrificing a hundred oxen to the goddess often in a single day, and feasting the people of the Athenians at the sacrifice by tribes and clans; and whenever the Dionysia came round and the image of Dionysus descended to the Academy, he gave drink to townsmen and strangers alike, as they reclined upon couches of ivy in the Cerameicus.

1.4. Since I have mentioned the will of Atticus, I must also record the reasons why Herodes fell out with the Athenians. The will ran, as I said, but he had written it on the advice of the freedmen about him, who, seeing the harsh nature of Herodes toward freedmen and slaves, made a refuge of the people of the Athenians, as though they themselves were responsible for the bequest. And what the freedmen's conduct toward Herodes was, let the indictment make plain which he composed against them, raising every sting of his tongue. When the will was read, the Athenians came to an agreement with Herodes that, by paying each of them five minas once for all, he should buy from them release from giving it always; but when they came to the banks for what had been agreed, and contracts of their fathers and grandfathers were read out against them as owing money to the parents of Herodes, they were drawn into counter-reckonings, and some were paid little, some nothing, while some were detained in the market-place as though they were even to pay. This exasperated the Athenians as men robbed of the bequest, and they did not cease to hate him even when he thought he was doing them the greatest benefits. So they said that the stadium was rightly named "Panathenaic," for it had been built out of what all the Athenians had been deprived of.

1.5. And indeed he performed the public services for the Athenians, both the eponymous and that of the Panhellenia, and when he was crowned in the office of the Panathenaea, he said, "I will receive you, men of Athens, and those of the Greeks who shall come, and the athletes who shall compete, in a stadium of white marble." And having said this, he completed within four years the stadium above the Ilissus, constructing a work beyond all the wonders, for no theatre rivals it. And I heard these things too about these Panathenaea: that a robe was hung upon the ship, more pleasing than any painting, its fold swelling with a fair wind, and that the ship ran not drawn by beasts of burden but gliding upon underground machinery, and that, setting out from the Cerameicus with a thousand oars, it was let go to the Eleusinium and, rounding it, passed by the Pelasgicum and, being conveyed past the Pythium, came to where it now is moored. The other end of the stadium holds a temple of Fortune and an ivory image as of one who steers all things. He also remodelled the Athenian ephebes to their present fashion, being the first to clothe them in white cloaks, for before this they used to sit through the assemblies wearing black, and to send the processions, while the Athenians publicly mourned the herald Copreus, whom they themselves killed when he was dragging the Heraclidae from the altar. Herodes dedicated to the Athenians also the theatre in memory of Regilla, constructing its roof of cedar — and this wood is precious also in the carving of statues. These two works, then, are at Athens such as exist nowhere else in the Roman empire. Worthy of mention too is the roofed theatre that he built for the Corinthians, far inferior to the one at Athens, but among the few that are praised among others; and the statues at the Isthmus, both the colossus of the Isthmian god and that of Amphitrite, and the rest, with which he filled the temple, not passing over the dolphin of Melicertes. He dedicated also to the Pythian god the stadium at Pytho, and to Zeus the water at Olympia, and to the Thessalians and the Greeks about the Malian gulf the swimming baths at Thermopylae, healing for the sick. He resettled too Oricum in Epirus, which had already declined, and Canusium in Italy, supplying it with water, of which it had much need; and he benefited the cities in Euboea and the Peloponnese and Boeotia, one in one way, another in another.

1.6. And though he was so great in great works, he thought he had accomplished nothing great because he had not cut through the Isthmus, considering it a brilliant thing to sever a continent and to join two seas and to cut short the lengths of a sea voyage of twenty-six stades. This he longed for, but did not dare to ask of the emperor, lest he should be slandered as seeming to lay hold of a project to which not even Nero had been equal. But he let it out in this way. For, as I heard from Ctesidemus the Athenian, Herodes was driving the road to Corinth with Ctesidemus seated beside him, and when he came to the Isthmus he said, "Poseidon, I wish it, but no one will allow it." Ctesidemus, marvelling at the saying, asked him the reason for his words. And Herodes said, "I have for a long time been contending to leave behind for the men after me a sign of a purpose that proves the man, and I do not yet think I have attained this glory." Ctesidemus then went on to recount praises of his words and his works, as having no surpassing by another; but Herodes said, "These things you speak of are perishable, for they are captured by time, and others break into our speeches as into a house, one finding fault with this, another with that; but the cutting of the Isthmus is an immortal work, and one that nature refuses to believe; for it seems to me that the breaking through of the Isthmus needs a Poseidon rather than a man."

1.7. The man whom the many called "the Heracles of Herodes" was a youth in the first down of his beard, equal to a great Celt and eight feet in height. Herodes describes him in one of his letters to Julianus: that his hair was moderately long, and his eyebrows shaggy and meeting one another as if they were one; that a gleaming ray came from his eyes, betokening a certain impulsive character; that he was hook-nosed and well-fleshed of neck, and that this came to him from toils rather than from food. He says too that his chest was firmly built and gracefully spare, and his shin slightly bowed outward, providing his step with a sure footing. He was clothed in the skins of wolves, a stitched garment, and he made his contests the wild boars and the jackals and the wolves and the bulls that run riot, and he used to show the wounds of these contests. As to this Heracles, some say he was earth-born in the Boeotian deme, but Herodes says he heard him say that his mother was a woman so strong that she herded cattle, and that his father was Marathon, whose image is at Marathon, a hero who is a husbandman. And Herodes asked this Heracles whether he was also immortal, and he said, "I am longer-lived than a mortal." He asked him too what he ate, and he said, "I eat milk-food for the greater part of the time, and goats nourish me, and shepherds, and the dams of the cattle and the horses; the udder of asses too yields a milk good to drink and light, and whenever I take to barley meal I eat ten quarts, and the Marathonian and Boeotian husbandmen bring me this contribution, who also name me Agathion, since I seem to them a man of good omen." "And how," said Herodes, "were you taught your speech, and by whom? For you do not appear to me to be one of the uneducated." And Agathion said, "The interior of Attica is a good schoolhouse for a man who wishes to converse; for the Athenians in the city, hiring Thracian and Pontic lads and youths flowed together from other barbarian nations, have their speech corrupted by them rather than contributing anything to their good utterance; but the interior, being unmixed with barbarians, keeps its speech sound, and its tongue rings out the purest Attic." "And were you present at a festival?" said Herodes. And Agathion said, "At Pytho, at least, not mingling with the crowd, but listening from a lookout point on Parnassus to the contestants in music, when Pammenes was admired for tragedy; and the wise Greeks seemed to me to be doing no good thing in listening with pleasure to the woes of the Pelopidae and the Labdacidae, for tales not disbelieved are counsellors of wretched deeds." Herodes, seeing that he was given to philosophy, asked him too how he regarded athletic contests, and he said, "I laugh at them the more when I see men contending with one another in the pancratium and boxing and running and wrestling, and being crowned for it; let the runner be crowned for outstripping a deer or a horse, and let the man who trains in the heavier events be crowned for grappling with a bull or a bear — what I do every day, since Fortune has robbed me of a great contest, for Acarnania no longer rears lions." So Herodes, full of admiration, begged him to dine with him. And Agathion said, "Tomorrow I will come to you at midday to the temple of Canobus, and let there be ready for you the largest bowl in the temple, full of milk that no woman has milked." And he came on the next day at the hour he had agreed, but, pressing his nose to the bowl, he said, "The milk is not pure, for a woman's hand assails me." And having said this he went away without touching the milk. So Herodes, giving heed to the saying about the woman, sent to the farms those who should investigate the truth, and learning that it was so, understood that there was a divine nature about the man.

1.8. Those who frame an accusation that the hands of Herodes were laid upon Antoninus on Mount Ida, at the time when the one governed the free cities and the other all the cities of Asia, seem to me to be ignorant of the trial of Demostratus against Herodes, in which, though he slandered him in very many ways, he nowhere mentioned this drunken violence, since it never happened. For a jostling did indeed befall them, as in a difficult and narrow place, but the hands committed no offense; so Demostratus would not have failed to recount it in his suit against Herodes, when he attacked the man so bitterly as even to slander what was praised in him. A charge of murder too came against Herodes, framed thus: that his wife Regilla was pregnant, in about her eighth month, and that Herodes, over no great matter, ordered Alcimedon, his freedman, to beat her, and that the woman, struck in the belly, died in an untimely birth. On these charges, as though true, Bradua, the brother of Regilla, indicts him for murder — a man most distinguished among the consuls and wearing the symbol of his noble birth attached to his shoe, this being a crescent-shaped ivory ankle ornament. And coming forward into the Roman senate, he set forth nothing convincing about the charge he was bringing, but made a long speech in praise of himself concerning his lineage; on which account Herodes, mocking him, said, "You have your nobility in your anklebones." And when the accuser boasted greatly even over a benefaction done to one of the cities of Italy, Herodes most nobly said, "I too could recount many such things about myself, if I were being tried in the whole earth." There assisted him in his defense, first, that he had ordered no such thing against Regilla, and next, that he mourned excessively at her death; for these things too were slandered as fiction, but nonetheless the truth prevailed. For he would never have dedicated to her such a theatre, nor postponed for her the second allotment of the consular office, had he not been clear of the charge; nor would he have dedicated her ornament to the temple at Eleusis, carrying it there defiled by murder, for this would have made the goddesses avengers of the murder rather than reconcilers. He also altered the very fashion of his house in her honor, darkening the flowers of its rooms with hangings and colors and Lesbian stone — and this stone is gloomy and black. About this it is said that Lucius too, a wise man, set himself to advise Herodes, and when he could not persuade him to change it, mocked him. And it is worthwhile not to pass over this either, since it is deemed worthy of mention by serious men.

1.9. This man was in outward matters serious, but having philosophized with Musonius of Tyre, he was keen-sighted in his replies and pursued wit in season; and being on the closest terms with Herodes, he was with him when he was bearing his grief badly, and admonished him, saying such things as these: "Herodes, all sufficiency is bounded by the mean, and on this subject I have both heard Musonius discourse much and discoursed much myself, and I heard you too at Olympia praising it to the Greeks, when you bade the very rivers flow in the middle of their banks. But where now are these doctrines? For, fallen out of yourself, you do things worthy to be mourned, endangering your reputation and much else besides." And when he could not persuade him, he went off in vexation. And seeing boys at a fountain in the house washing radishes, he asked them whose the dinner was, and they said they were preparing it for Herodes. And Lucius said, "Herodes wrongs Regilla in eating white radishes in a black house." When Herodes heard this reported, he took away the gloom from his house, lest he should become a plaything of serious men. Of this Lucius the following too is marvellous. The emperor Marcus was devoted to Sextus the philosopher from Boeotia, frequenting him and going to his doors; and Lucius, who had just come to Rome, asked the emperor, as he was setting out, where he was going and for what; and Marcus said, "It is good even for an old man to learn; I am going, then, to Sextus the philosopher to learn what I do not yet know." And Lucius, raising his hand to heaven, said, "O Zeus, the king of the Romans, already growing old, hangs a tablet about his neck and goes to school, while my king Alexander died at thirty-two." Even what has been said suffices to show the manner in which Lucius philosophized, for these things are enough to make the man plain, as the taste makes plain the fragrant wine.

1.10. The grief over Regilla, then, was thus quenched; but the grief over Panathenais, his daughter, the Athenians soothed by burying her in the city and decreeing that the day on which she died should be struck out of the year. And when his other daughter, whom he called Elpinice, died too, he lay upon the floor, beating the earth and crying, "What shall I consecrate to you, my daughter? What shall I bury with you?" And Sextus the philosopher, happening to be by, said, "You will give great things to your daughter if you mourn her with self-control." He mourned his daughters with these excesses because he held his son Atticus in anger. For he was slandered to him as foolish and a poor scholar and dull of memory; at any rate, when the boy was unable to take in his first letters, the idea occurred to Herodes to rear with him twenty-four boys of the same age, named after the letters, so that in the boys' names the letters might of necessity be practised by him. He saw too that the boy was given to drink and foolishly in love, on which account, while still living, he uttered over his own estate that verse: "And one more, a fool, is left in the wide house"; and at his death he gave back to him his mother's property, but transferred his own house to other heirs. But this seemed to the Athenians inhuman, since they did not consider Achilles and Polydeuces and Memnon, his foster-sons, whom he mourned equally with his own children, because they were most fair and good, noble and fond of learning, and worthy of their upbringing with him. At any rate he set up statues of them hunting, and having hunted, and about to hunt — some in thickets, some in fields, some by springs, some beneath the shade of plane trees, not without inscriptions, but with curses upon anyone who should mutilate or move them, whom he would not have honored so much had he not known them worthy of praise. And when the Quintilii, while they governed Greece, blamed him over the statues of these youths as excessive, he said, "What difference does it make to you if I amuse myself with my little stones?"

1.11. His quarrel with the Quintilii began, as most say, at the Pythian festival, since they listened to the music with differing opinions; but as some say, from the jest made about them by Herodes to Marcus. For seeing that they were Trojans but were deemed worthy of great honors by the emperor, he said, "I blame even the Homeric Zeus, that he loves the Trojans." But the truer cause is this. These two men, when both governed Greece, were summoned to the assembly by the Athenians, who uttered the cries of men under tyranny against Herodes, signifying their distress and asking above all that what was said be conveyed to the imperial ears. The Quintilii, having taken offense at the people and having impulsively sent up what they had heard, Herodes declared he was being plotted against by them, as men stirring up the Athenians against him. For after that assembly Demostrati and Praxagorai and Mamertini and many others sprang up, taking the opposite political side to Herodes. And Herodes, indicting them as men who were uniting the people against him, brought them before the governor; but they slipped away secretly to the emperor Marcus, trusting both in the nature of the emperor, which was more democratic, and in the moment;

1.12. trusting both in the nature of the emperor, which was more democratic, and in the moment. For those whom he suspected Lucius, who had become his colleague in rule, of favoring, he would not permit Herodes either not to share in his favor. The emperor, then, was encamped among the Paeonian peoples, using Sirmium as his base of operations, and Demostratus and his party lodged near the imperial quarters, Marcus providing them with maintenance and often asking whether they needed anything. He had persuaded himself to be kindly disposed toward them, and was persuaded thereto by his wife and by his little daughter, who still lisped — for she especially, falling at her father's knees with many caresses, begged him to save the Athenians for her. But Herodes was lodging in a suburb, in which towers and half-towers had been built, and there had travelled abroad with him twin maidens close to the age of marriage, admired for their beauty, whom Herodes, having reared them from infancy, had made his cupbearers and cooks, calling them his little daughters and greeting them thus — these were the daughters of Alcimedon, and Alcimedon was a freedman of Herodes. As they slept in one of the towers, which was the strongest, a thunderbolt carried down by night killed them. By this calamity Herodes was driven out of his wits, and he came into the imperial court neither in his right mind and longing for death. For coming forward he set himself to slanders of the emperor, not even giving his speech the form which it was fitting for a man trained in such a style to use in handling his own bile, but with his tongue elbowed aside and bare he kept straining, saying, "This is the result of the hospitality of Lucius, whom you sent to me; therefore you judge me, gratifying a woman and a three-year-old child." And when Bassaeus, the man entrusted with the sword, told him that he was speaking death for himself, Herodes said, "My good man, an old man fears few things." Herodes, then, left the court having said this and having left much of the water suspended, but let us consider the conduct of this trial too among the things conspicuously philosophized by Marcus; for he did not knit his brows, nor turn his eye, as even an arbitrator would have done, but turning himself to the Athenians, he said, "Make your defense, men of Athens, even if Herodes does not allow it." And as he heard them making their defense, he was secretly pained at many things, but when an assembly of the Athenians was read out to him too, in which they appeared to attack Herodes as one who courted the rulers of Greece with abundant honey, and where indeed they had cried out, "Oh, bitter honey," and again, "Blessed are those who die in the plague," he was so shaken in his heart by what he heard that he was led to manifest tears. But since the defense of the Athenians contained an accusation both of Herodes and of his freedmen, Marcus turned his anger upon the freedmen, using as mild a punishment as was possible — for so he himself characterizes his own judgment — but upon Alcimedon alone he remitted the penalty, saying that the calamity over his children was sufficient for him. These things, then, were thus philosophized by Marcus.

1.13. Some inscribe him as exiled, though he was not exiled, and say that he dwelt at Oricum in Epirus, which he also colonized, that it might be a residence suited to his body. But Herodes dwelt in this place when he fell sick there and offered a sacrifice for recovery from his sickness; and to go into exile he was neither commanded nor did he endure it. And as a witness to this account I will make the divine Marcus. For after the affairs in Paeonia, Herodes lived in Attica about the demes dearest to him, Marathon and Cephisia, with the youth from everywhere hanging upon him, who, out of love for his discourses, came to Athens. And the emperor, making trial whether Herodes were harsh toward him because of what happened in the court, sent to him a letter containing not a defense, but a complaint, for he said he wondered why Herodes no longer wrote to him, although in former time he wrote so often that even three letter-carriers once came to him in a single day, hard upon one another's heels. And the emperor wrote to Herodes through more, and about more matters, mingling a marvellous character into the letter, of which I will set forth, drawing it out, the parts that bear upon my present account. The opening, then, of the letter was: "Greeting to me, dear Herodes." And having discoursed about the winter quarters of the war, in which he then was, and having lamented his wife, lately dead to him, and having said something too about the weakness of his body, he writes next: "And for you I pray health, and that you think of me as well disposed toward you, and that you do not consider yourself wronged if, having detected some of your people doing wrong, I used as mild a punishment as was possible against them. For these things, then, do not be angry with me; but if I have grieved you in anything, or grieve you, demand satisfaction from me in the temple of Athena in the city at the mysteries. For I vowed, when the war was most inflamed, to be initiated, and may it be with you as my initiator." Such was the defense of Marcus, and so kindly and vigorous. Who, then, would ever have addressed thus one whom he had surrounded with exile, or have commanded one worthy to be so addressed to go into exile?

1.14. There is a story that Cassius, who governed the East, was plotting revolution against Marcus, and that Herodes rebuked him in a letter composed thus: "Herodes to Cassius: You are mad." Let us consider this letter not merely a rebuke, but also the strength of a man who set the weapons of his judgment on the side of the emperor. The speech which Demostratus delivered against Herodes is held to be among the marvellous. The character of its style is single, for its gravity runs from the opening to the end of the speech; but the styles of its expression are many, and unlike one another, yet worthy of mention. Let it be granted that the speech also wins repute among the envious because of Herodes, since such a man was spoken ill of in it. But that Herodes was strong against revilings too will be shown by the things once said by him at Athens to Proteus the Cynic. For this Proteus was one of those who philosophized so boldly that he even threw himself into fire at Olympia, and he used to follow Herodes about, reviling him in a half-barbarous tongue. So Herodes, turning round, said, "So be it, you revile me; for what purpose, and in this manner?" And when Proteus pressed on with his abuse, he said, "We have grown old, you reviling me, I hearing it" — indicating, no doubt, that he heard, but laughed, from being persuaded that false revilings come no further than the hearing.

1.15. I will interpret too the style of the man, coming to the character of his speech. That he counted Polemo and Favorinus and Scopelianus among his teachers, and that he attended Secundus the Athenian, I have already said; and the critics of speeches with whom he kept company were Theagenes of Cnidus and Munatius of Tralles, and Taurus of Tyre on the doctrines of Plato. The harmony of his speech was sufficiently chastened, and its formidable power crept beneath rather than lay upon the surface; there was resonance with simplicity, and an echo of Critias, and conceptions such as another could not conceive, and a comic felicity of language not imported but arising from the matters themselves; and his speech was sweet and rich in figures and well-figured and wisely varying, and his breath was not vehement, but smooth and steady, and the whole style of his speech was like gold-dust shining beneath a river with silver eddies. For he applied himself to all the ancients, but to Critias he was even devoted, and he led him into the regard of the Greeks, who till then neglected and overlooked him. And when Greece cried out over him and called him one of the Ten, he was not overcome by the praise, great as it seemed, but most wittily said to those who praised him, "I am better than Andocides." Being the readiest learner of men, he did not neglect toil either, but studied even over the cup and by night in the intervals of his sleep, on which account the careless and slight men called him "the fattened orator." So one man is good in one thing, another better than another in another; for one is marvellous at improvising, another at working out a speech, but Herodes arranged everything best of the sophists, and gathered the pathetic not from tragedy alone, but also from human affairs. There are very many letters of Herodes, and discourses and diaries and handbooks, and choice flowers of the ancient learning culled in brief. Those who reproach him because, while still young, he broke down in a speech before the emperor in Paeonia, seem to me not to know that Demosthenes too, speaking before Philip, suffered the same; and that man, coming to Athens, demanded honors and crowns when Amphipolis was lost to the Athenians, but Herodes, when he suffered this, went to the Ister as though to throw himself in, so great was his desire to be renowned in speeches, that he assessed his failure at death.

1.15. He died, then, at about seventy-six, having become wasted away. And when he died at Marathon and had enjoined his freedmen to bury him there, the Athenians, snatching him with the hands of the ephebes, carried him to the city, every age going to meet the bier with tears and with cries of blessing, as much as children bereaved of a good father, and they buried him in the Panathenaic stadium, inscribing upon him this brief and yet ample epitaph: "Of Atticus, Herodes the Marathonian, of whom all these things are: he lies in this tomb, of good repute on every side." So much about Herodes the Athenian — some things said, others unknown to others.

2.1. My account calls me to the sophist Theodotus. Theodotus presided over the people of the Athenians too at the time when the Athenians fell out with Herodes, and he came to no open enmity with the man, but secretly worked against him, being clever at managing affairs; for indeed he was one of the men of the market-place. At any rate he was so mingled with Demostratus and his party that he even helped them with the speeches they were composing against Herodes. He presided also over the youth of the Athenians, the first to do so on the ten thousand from the emperor. And this is not yet worthy of mention, for not all who mount this chair are worthy of mention, but that, whereas Marcus appointed Herodes to judge the Platonists and those of the Stoa and those of the Peripatos and the followers of Epicurus himself, this man he himself, from the reputation about him, judged for the young, calling him a contestant in political speeches and a benefit to rhetoric. This man was a pupil of Lollianus, but not without a hearing of Herodes. He lived, then, more than fifty years, holding the chair for two, and the style of his speeches was sufficient both for the men of the courts and for those who play the sophist to excess.

3.1. Renowned among the sophists is Aristocles too, from Pergamon, about whom I will set forth what I heard from my elders. This man belonged to the consular order, and having philosophized in the Peripatetic doctrines from boyhood to his prime, he flowed over into the sophists, frequenting Herodes at Rome when he was delivering extempore speeches. During the time when he philosophized, seeming squalid and rough in appearance and unkempt in dress, he became luxurious and rubbed off his squalor, and all the pleasures of lyres and flutes and good voice he introduced into his manner of life, as though they had come to his very doors; for in former time, being so chastened, he used not to go disorderly to the theatres or to their echo. While he was in high repute at Pergamon, with all the Greek world there hanging upon him, Herodes, sending all his own pupils to Pergamon, raised up Aristocles like a vote of Athena. The style of his speech was translucent and Atticizing, but more suited to conversing than to contending; for bile is absent from his speech, and impulses are brief, and his very Atticism, if tested against the tongue of Herodes, will seem to argue minutely rather than to be composed of resonance and ring. Aristocles died half-grey, just stepping into old age.

4.1. Antiochus the sophist was brought forth by Aegae of the Cilicians, so noble that even now his descendants are of consular rank. Being charged with cowardice because he did not come before the people, nor take part in public affairs, he said, "It is not you, but myself, I fear" — knowing, no doubt, that his own bile was unmixed and uncontrollable. But nonetheless he benefited his fellow citizens from his estate, as far as he was able, both giving grain whenever he perceived them to be in need of it, and money for the works that had fallen into decay. He passed most of his nights sleeping in the temple of Asclepius, both for dreams and for the kind of companionship that belongs to men awake and conversing with one another; for the god conversed with him while he was awake, making it a fine contest of his own art to ward off the diseases of Antiochus.

4.2. Antiochus was, as a boy, a pupil of Dardanus the Assyrian, but advancing to youth he became a pupil of Dionysius of Miletus, who already held sway over the Ephesians. He used to converse not aptly — but, being the most prudent of men, he slandered this as boyish, that he might appear to have looked down upon it rather than to have fallen short of it — but in declamation he was most distinguished; for he was secure in the themes brought forward in figured fashion, vehement in his accusations and onslaughts, comely in his defenses and strong in the ethical, and, in a word, his style of speech was more sophistical than forensic, and more forensic than sophistical. And he handled the passions best of the sophists, for he did not draw out monodies, nor underlying laments, but expressed them briefly with thoughts greater than speech, as is shown both by his other themes and most of all by these. A girl who had been violated has chosen the death of the man who violated her; afterward a child has been born of the violence, and the grandfathers contend on which side the child is to be reared. Contending, then, on behalf of the grandfather on the father's side, he said, "Give back the child, give it back now, before it tastes its mother's milk." And the other theme is this: A man who had laid down his tyranny on condition of immunity was killed by a eunuch who had been made such by him, and he makes his defense for the murder. Here he thrust aside the strongest point of the accusation — the argument about the treaty — mingling subtlety with the passion: "To whom," he said, "did he agree these things? To boys, women, lads, old men, men; but I have no name in the compact." And he made the best defense too on behalf of the Cretans, who were on trial over the tomb of Zeus, contending brilliantly with natural philosophy and all theology. His declamations he made extempore, but he cared also for studied works, as both others of his works show and most of all his history; for in it he made a display of diction and rhetoric, devoting himself also to the love of the beautiful. About the death of the man, some say he died at seventy, others not yet, and some at home, others elsewhere.

5.1. Alexander, whom the many surnamed "Clay-Plato," had as his fatherland Seleucia, a not undistinguished city in Cilicia, and as his father a man of the same name, most capable in the speeches of the market-place, and as his mother a woman of surpassing beauty, as the paintings interpret, and resembling the Helen of Eumelus; for there is painted by Eumelus a Helen such as to be a dedication of the Roman market-place. They say that others were in love with this woman, but conspicuously Apollonius of Tyana, and that she rejected the rest, but kept company with Apollonius out of desire for fine offspring, since he was more divine than men. In how many ways this is incredible has been clearly said in my work on Apollonius. Alexander was godlike and conspicuous with beauty, for his beard was curly and let down to a moderate length, his eye delicate and large, his nose well-proportioned, his teeth most white, his fingers long and well-suited to the rein of speech. And he had wealth too, spent upon pleasures that were not to be blamed.

5.2. Coming to manhood, he went on an embassy on behalf of Seleucia to Antoninus, and slanders went round against him, that he affected youthfulness in his appearance. And when the emperor seemed to attend less to him, Alexander raised his voice and said, "Attend to me, Caesar." And the emperor, provoked at him for using too bold a manner of address, said, "I am attending, and I understand you; for you are the man who dresses his hair and polishes his teeth and pares his nails and always smells of perfume." He spent most of his life studying at Antioch and Rome and Tarsus and, by Zeus, in all Egypt, for he came even to the ways of the Naked Sages.

5.3. The stays of the man at Athens were few, but not unworthy to be known. For he was going to the Paeonian peoples, summoned by the emperor Marcus, who was campaigning there and had given him the office of writing letters to the Greeks; and coming to Athens — and this is no moderate length of road for one driving from the East — he said, "Here let us bend our knee." And having said this he announced to the Athenians extempore speeches, as they longed to hear him. And hearing that Herodes was staying at Marathon, and that all the youth followed him, he wrote to him a letter asking for the Greeks, and Herodes said, "I will come with the Greeks, and I myself too." So they gathered in the theatre in the Cerameicus, which is named the Agrippeium; and as the day was already advancing and Herodes was late, the Athenians grew impatient, as though the hearing were being broken up, and they thought it a trick; on which account it became necessary for Alexander to come forward to his discourse even before Herodes arrived. The discourse, then, was praises of the city and a defense to the Athenians for not having come to them before, and it had a sufficient length, for it resembled an epitome of a Panathenaic oration. And he seemed to the Athenians so well-arrayed that a buzz ran through them, while he was still silent, as they praised his good appearance. The theme that won the victory was the man bringing the Scythians back to their former wandering, since dwelling in a city they fall sick; and waiting a brief moment he leaped up from the chair with a bright face, as though bringing good tidings to his hearers of what he had to say. As his speech was advancing, Herodes stood by, shading his head with an Arcadian felt hat, as he was wont to do at Athens in the season of summer, and perhaps also indicating to him that he had come from the road. And Alexander, taking it from there, discoursed upon the man's presence in language somewhat dignified and ringing, and left it to him whether he wished to hear the theme already being treated, or himself to give another. And when Herodes looked up at his hearers and said that he would do whatever seemed good to them, all assented to the hearing of the Scythians, for indeed he was going through the contest brilliantly, as what has been said shows. He displayed a marvellous strength in these things too: for the thoughts he had brilliantly expressed before Herodes arrived, he handled, when Herodes stood by, with such other language and other rhythms that to those hearing them a second time he did not seem to repeat himself. At any rate, the most admired of the things said before Herodes arrived — "even water stagnant becomes diseased" — he afterward, when Herodes stood by, with another power transformed and said, "And of waters the sweeter are those that wander." And these too are of Alexander's Scythians: "When the Ister froze they drove toward the south, but when it thawed they went toward the north, sound in body and not, as now, lying low. For what dreadful thing could a man suffer who follows the seasons?" And at the end of the speech, slandering the city as a stifling dwelling, he uttered upon all this: "But fling open the gates, I wish to breathe." And running up to Herodes and embracing him he said, "Feast me in return," and Herodes said, "Why should I not, when you have feasted me so brilliantly?" And when the hearing was dissolved, Herodes called the most advanced of his own pupils and asked them what sort of sophist the man seemed to them; and when Sceptus of Corinth said that he had found the clay, but was seeking Plato, Herodes, checking him, said, "Say this to no one else, for you will slander yourself as judging ignorantly; rather follow me, who consider him a sober Scopelianus." This Herodes said, having observed that the man fitted a blended style of expression to his boldness in sophistical conceptions. And displaying himself before Alexander, he raised the echo of his discourse, since he knew that this man rejoiced most of all in tone, and introduced into his speech rhythms more varied than flute and lyre, since the man seemed to him copious also in his variations. The theme that was treated was the wounded in Sicily begging the departing Athenians to be killed by them. On this theme he made that much-talked-of supplication, drenching his eyes with tears: "Yes, Nicias, yes, father; so may you see Athens." At which they say Alexander cried out, "Herodes, we sophists are all morsels of you"; and Herodes, overjoyed at the praise and become himself again, gave him ten beasts of burden, ten horses, ten cupbearers, ten shorthand writers, twenty talents of gold, and a very great deal of silver, and two children from Collytus who lisped, since he heard that he rejoiced in young voices. Such, then, was his conduct at Athens.

5.4. Since I have set forth the memorable sayings of other sophists too, let Alexander also be made plain from several, for he has not yet come to the fullness of his reputation among the Greeks. That he discoursed both with dignity and with pleasure, these of his discourses show: "Marsyas was in love with Olympus, and Olympus with flute-playing"; and again, "Arabia is a land of many trees, of shaded plains, with nothing bare; the plants are the earth, the flowers. You will not throw away a single Arabian leaf, nor cast off a single straw of anything grown there, so fortunate is the earth in its perfumes." And again, "A poor man from Ionia — and Ionia is Greeks settled in the land of the barbarians." Antiochus, mocking this style and spitting upon him as one luxuriating in the bloom of words, came forward at Antioch and discoursed thus: "Ionias, Lydias, Marsyases, follies, give me problems." The advantages he had in declamation have been shown by these too, but let them be shown by other themes as well. For going through Pericles, who bade them hold to the war even after the oracle in which the Pythian god said that, called and uncalled, he would fight on the side of the Lacedaemonians, he met the oracle thus: "But the Pythian, he says, promises to help the Lacedaemonians; he lies; for so he promised them Tegea too." And going through the man advising Darius to bridge the Ister: "Let the Ister of the Scythians flow beneath you, and if it carry your army across with a fair stream, honor it by drinking of it." And contending as Artabazus, who forbade Xerxes to march a second time against Greece, he spoke briefly thus: "The affairs of the Persians and Medes are such as I say, O king, if you remain in your land; but the affairs of the Greeks — a thin land, a narrow sea, men driven to desperation, and grudging gods." And persuading those who fell sick in the plains to move up to the mountains, he philosophized about nature thus: "It seems to me that even the maker of the universe flung down the plains, as the baser matter, but raised up the mountains, as dignities. These the sun greets first, and leaves last. Who will not love a place that has the longer days?" The teachers of Alexander were Favorinus and Dionysius; but from Dionysius he went away half-taught, summoned by his father, who was sick, when indeed he died, while of Favorinus he was a most genuine pupil, from whom most of all he drew the bloom of his speech. Of the death of Alexander some say it was in the land of the Celts while still writing letters, others in Italy when he had ceased writing letters; and some say at sixty, others not yet, and some that it was over a son, others over a daughter, about which I found nothing worthy of mention.

6.1. Let Varus too, from Perge, be deemed worthy of mention. Varus had as his father Callicles, a man among the most powerful of the Pergaeans, and as his teacher Quadratio the consul, who improvised the thetic themes and played the sophist in the manner of Favorinus. The many surnamed Varus "the Stork," because of the redness of his nose and its beaklike shape; and that they jested at this not without reason one may gather from the statues that are set up in the temple of the Pergaean goddess. The character of his speech was such as this: "Coming to the Hellespont you ask for a horse, but coming to Athos you wish to sail. Do you not know, man, the ways? But having thrown a little earth upon the Hellespont, do you think this stays for you, when the mountains do not stay?" He was said to deliver these things in a brilliant and practised voice. He died at home, not yet grown old and leaving children, and his descendants are all of good repute in Perge.

7.1. Hermogenes, whom Tarsus brought forth, when he was fifteen years old advanced to so great a reputation among the sophists that he even provided the emperor Marcus with a desire to hear him. At any rate Marcus went to his hearing, and was pleased when he discoursed, and marvelled when he improvised, and gave brilliant gifts. But coming to manhood he was deprived of his power by no visible sickness, on which account he provided the envious with matter for a witticism, for they said that his speeches were simply, according to Homer, "winged," since Hermogenes had cast them off as if they were wings. And Antiochus the sophist, jeering at him once, said, "This is Hermogenes, who among boys was an old man, but among the aged a boy." The style of speech that he practised was somewhat of this kind: discoursing before Marcus, he said, "Behold, I come to you, O king, an orator in need of a tutor, an orator awaiting maturity," and he discoursed much else of this buffoonish sort. He died, then, in deep old age, but considered one of the many, for he was despised when his art deserted him.

8.1. Philagrus the Cilician was a pupil of Lollianus, and the most fiery and most choleric of the sophists; for it is said that he once struck a hearer who was nodding off on the cheek. And having from boyhood used a brilliant impulse, he was not deprived of it even when he grew old, but advanced so far in it that it was even considered a fashion set by the teacher. Having mingled with very many nations and seeming to handle his themes best, he did not handle his own bile well at Athens, but brought himself into enmity with Herodes, as though he had come for this purpose. For he was walking in the afternoon in the Cerameicus with four others, of the sort at Athens who hunt the sophists, and seeing a young man turning from the right with several others, and thinking himself mocked by him, he said, "Surely you are someone?" "I am Amphicles," he said, "if indeed you have heard of the Chalcidean." "Keep away, then," he said, "from my hearings, for you do not seem to me to be in your right mind." And when the other asked, "And who are you to proclaim this?" Philagrus said, "It is a dreadful thing to suffer, to be anywhere unknown." But when an outlandish phrase escaped him as in anger, Amphicles caught at it — for indeed he happened to hold the first place among the pupils of Herodes — and said, "In which of the distinguished men is this phrase found?" And he said, "In Philagrus." This drunken violence, then, advanced to such things; and on the next day, learning that Herodes was staying in the suburb, he wrote him a letter attacking the man as neglecting the orderliness of his hearers. And Herodes said, "You seem to me not to open well," rebuking him as not gaining the goodwill of hearers, which one ought to consider the opening of displays. And he, as though not understanding the riddle, or understanding it but setting in jest the judgment of Herodes, which was best, was deceived of his display, coming forward before hearers who were not well-disposed.

8.2. For, as I heard from my elders, his discourse gave offense, seeming new-sounding and with its conceptions strained, and it seemed too boyish, for a lament for a woman who had died on him in Ionia was mingled into his praises of the Athenians. And his declamation was plotted against thus. He had argued, in Asia, a theme — those declining the alliance of the uninvited; and this theme having already been published, he had committed it to memory, for indeed he happened to have won repute on it. And when word came to the party of Herodes that Philagrus improvised the themes that were defined for the first time, but those defined a second time no longer, but declaimed stale matter already spoken by himself, they proposed to him these "uninvited"; and as he seemed to improvise, his declamation was read out against him. And as much tumult and laughter held the hearing, Philagrus, shouting and crying out that he was suffering dreadfully, being kept from his own, did not escape the charge already believed. These things, then, happened in the Agrippeium; and after an interval of about four days he came forward into the council chamber of the artists, which is built by the gates of the Cerameicus not far from the cavalry. And while contending most brilliantly as Aristogeiton, who claims to accuse Demosthenes of Medism and Aeschines of Philippism, over which they happened to have indicted one another, his voice was quenched by his bile, which by nature darkens the voice of choleric men by darkening the breath of utterance. Some time later, then, he mounted the chair at Rome, but at Athens he was carried away from his reputation for the reasons I have said.

8.3. The character of Philagrus' speeches in his discourses was such as this: "Then do you think the sun envies the evening star, or cares if there is some other star in heaven? Not so are the affairs of this great fire. For it seems to me to apportion to each even poetically, saying, 'To you I give the Bear, to you the south, to you the evening; but all are in night, all, whenever I am not seen': 'The sun rose, leaving the most beautiful mere,' and the stars are nowhere." And what the rhythms of his declamation were, the things said to the uninvited will show — for he was said to bid them rejoice too: "Friend, today I have beheld you, and today you talk to me in arms and with a sword, and I know only the friendship that comes from the assembly. Go away, then, men, friends — for this name we keep for you — and if we ever have need of allies, we will send for you, if ever indeed."

8.4. Philagrus was less than moderate in stature, bitter of brow, ready of eye, and prompt to be called forth to anger, and he was not himself ignorant of the ill-temper in him; at any rate, when one of his companions asked him what made him take no joy in rearing children, he said, "Because I take no joy even in myself." Of his death some say it was at sea, others in Italy at the threshold of old age.

9.1. Aristides — whether the son of Eudaemon or himself Eudaemon — was brought forth by the Adriani, and the Adriani are a not great city among the Mysians; but Athens trained him in the prime of Herodes, and Pergamon in Asia in the time of the tongue of Aristocles. Being sickly from youth, he did not neglect toil. The kind of his sickness, and that his nerves shuddered, he himself relates in his Sacred Tales; and these books hold for him a certain place of diaries, and diaries are good teachers of speaking well on every subject. But as his nature did not follow him toward improvisation, he gave heed to precision and looked sufficiently to the ancients, and was strong in fertility, removing empty talk from his speech. The travels of Aristides were not many, for he neither discoursed to please the multitude nor mastered his bile against those who heard him without praise; but the nations he visited are Italians and Greece and the Egypt settled by the Delta, who set up a bronze statue of him in the market-place of Smyrna.

9.2. And to call Aristides the founder of Smyrna is no boastful praise, but most just and most true. For this city, having been destroyed by earthquakes and chasms, he so lamented to Marcus that the king often groaned over the rest of the monody, but at the words "and the west winds blow over her desolate" the king let tears drop upon the book and assented, from the cues given by Aristides, to a resettlement for the city. And Aristides happened to have met with Marcus already in Ionia; for, as I heard from Damianus the Ephesian, the emperor was already staying at Smyrna for the third day, and not yet knowing Aristides, he asked the Quintilii whether the man might have been overlooked by him in the throng of those who greeted him; and they said that they themselves had not seen him, for they would not have failed to introduce him, and on the next day they both came escorting Aristides. And when the emperor addressed him, he said, "Why have we been slow to see you?" And Aristides said, "A theory, O king, kept me busy, and a mind contemplating something must not be torn away from what it seeks." And the emperor, overjoyed at the man's character as most simple and most scholarly, said, "When shall I hear you?" And Aristides said, "Propose a theme today, and hear it tomorrow; for we are not of those who vomit, but of those who are precise. And let it be permitted, O king, that my pupils too be present at the hearing." "It is permitted," said Marcus, "for that is democratic." And when Aristides said, "And let it be granted to them, O king, both to shout and to applaud as much as they can," the emperor said with a smile, "That rests with you." I have not written the theme that was declaimed, since some say one, some another, but this much is agreed by all, that Aristides showed the best impulse before Marcus, Fortune from afar preparing the resettlement of Smyrna through such a man. And I do not say this as though the king too would not have resettled a city that had perished, which he admired while it stood, but because royal and divine natures, if counsel and speech rouse them, blaze up the more and are carried with impulse toward doing good.

9.3. I heard these things too from Damianus, that this sophist slandered the improvisers in his discourses, but so admired improvisation that he even worked at it privately, shutting himself up in a little room; and he worked it out, turning clause upon clause and thought upon thought. But let us consider this the work of one chewing rather than eating, for improvisation is the contest of a fluent tongue. Some accuse Aristides of having spoken a cheap opening in the case of the mercenaries from whom the land is demanded, for he began this theme thus: "These men will not cease providing us with trouble." Some lay hold too of a vigorous saying of the man in the case of the one declining the fortification of Lacedaemon, where he said: "Let us not cower in a wall, taking on the nature of quails." They lay hold too of a proverb as having been thrown in basely, for slandering Alexander as taking after his father, he said that the boy was his father's child in cleverness at affairs. The same men accuse him of a jest, since he said that the one-eyed Arimaspians were kinsmen of Philip, as though Demosthenes had made his defense to the Greeks over the "tragic ape" and the "rustic Oenomaus." But let us not judge Aristides from these things; rather let him be made plain by the Isocrates who leads the Athenians off the sea, and the one rebuking Callixeinus for not burying the Ten, and those deliberating about the affairs in Sicily, and the Aeschines who did not take the grain from Cersobleptes, and those declining the treaty after slaying the families — in which most of all the themes he teaches us how one might safely handle hazardous and tragic conceptions. And I know many other themes too that display the good education of this man, and his strength and character, from which he is rather to be regarded, than if somewhere he even spat out something, having fallen into ambition. And Aristides was the most artful of the sophists and copious in theoretical matters, on which account he was carried away from improvisation too; for to wish to advance everything according to theory occupies the mind and removes it from readiness. Of the death of Aristides some write that it was at home, others in Ionia; and as to his years, some say sixty, others near seventy.

10.1. Adrianus the Phoenician was brought forth by Tyre, but trained by Athens. For, as I heard from my own teachers, he came to them in the time of Herodes, displaying a most sophistical strength of nature and not unclear that he would advance to greatness; for he frequented Herodes when about eighteen years old, perhaps, and being quickly deemed worthy of what Sceptus and Amphicles were deemed worthy, he was enrolled also in the hearing of the Clepsydrium. And the Clepsydrium was thus: ten of the hearers of Herodes who were deemed worthy of excellence used to feast in addition, after the hearing for all, on a water-clock measured to a hundred verses, which Herodes went through at length, having declined the praise of the hearers and become his own sole judge of his speaking. And as he had handed down to his pupils the rule of not relaxing even at the time of drinking, but of pursuing some study there too over the wine, Adrianus used to drink with those of the water-clock as a sharer in a great secret; and as a discussion advanced among them about the style of each of the sophists, Adrianus came forward into their midst and said, "I will sketch the characters, not remembering little phrases or trifling thoughts or clauses or rhythms, but setting myself to imitation and improvising the styles of all with fluency and giving rein to my tongue." And when he left out Herodes, Amphicles asked him why he passed over their teacher, when he himself was in love with his style and saw that they too were in love with it. And he said, "These men are such as to provide an imitation even to a drunken man, but Herodes the king of speeches it is enough for me to render if I act him sober and undrunken." When this was reported to Herodes it delighted him, who was in any case not above good repute. And Adrianus announced to Herodes a hearing of an extempore speech while still young, and Herodes —

10.1. And Adrianus announced to Herodes a hearing of an extempore speech while still young, and Herodes, not, as some slander, envying and jeering, but listening from a kindly and gracious disposition, strengthened the young man, saying upon all this, "These would be great fragments of a colossus" — at once correcting him as torn apart by his youth and not put together, and at once praising him as grand-voiced and grand-minded. And to Herodes when he died he pronounced a speech worthy of the man, so as to call the Athenians to tears at the hearing of the speech.

10.2. So full of frankness did he mount the chair at Athens that the opening of his discourse to them was not their wisdom, but his own, for he began thus: "Once again letters from Phoenicia." This opening, then, was of one breathing above the Athenians and giving them some good thing rather than receiving it; and he attended most magnificently to the chair at Athens, wearing clothing of great worth, hung about with the more marvellous stones, and going down to his studies on a chariot with a silver bridle, and, when he had studied, returning again enviable with a procession of the Greek world from everywhere. For these courted him as the clans of Eleusis court the hierophant brilliantly performing the rites. And he won them over too with games and drinking parties and hunts and the sharing of Greek festivals, being young with each in different things, on which account they were disposed toward him as children to a father, sweet and gentle and joining with them in the Greek frolic. Indeed I know that some of them even wept whenever they came to the memory of this man, and that some imitated his voice, some his walk, some the gracefulness of his dress.

10.3. A charge of murder too was brought against him, which he escaped thus. There was at Athens a little man not unexercised in the course about the sophists; to him if anyone brought a jar of wine, or dainties, or clothing, or money, he found him easy to handle, like those who lead the hungry of the flocks with a leafy branch, but if he were neglected, he was given to reviling and barked. He had given offense to Adrianus because of the easiness of his character, but he courted Chrestus the sophist from Byzantium; and Adrianus endured all that came from him, calling the revilings of such men "bug-bites," but his pupils, not enduring it, bade their own servants beat him, and his bowels swelling up, on the thirtieth day he died, providing some occasion himself too for his death, since being sick he drank unmixed wine. And the relatives of the dead man indict the sophist for murder before the governor of Greece, as one of the Athenians, since he had a tribe and deme at Athens; but the governor acquitted him of the charge, since he had struck neither with his own hands nor with those of his own slaves the man who was said to have died. There assisted him in his defense, first, the Greek world — for what cries did they not utter on his behalf, with tears withal? — and next, the testimony of the physician about the wine.

10.4. At the time when the emperor Marcus came to Athens for the mysteries, this man already held sway over the chair of the sophists, and Marcus made it part of his inquiry into the affairs of Athens not to be ignorant of his wisdom either; for indeed he appointed him to the young, not testing him by a hearing, but assenting to the report about him. And when Severus, a man of consular rank, slandered him as one who frenzied the sophistical themes, because he was strong in the contests, Marcus, making a proof of this, proposed to him the Hyperides who turns to the judgments of Demosthenes alone, when Philip was in Elatea; and he handled the contest so manageably that he was thought not even to fall short of the rush of Polemo. And the emperor, admiring him, raised him to greatness with privileges and gifts. By privileges I mean the maintenances and the front seats and the immunities and the priesthoods and whatever else makes men brilliant, and by gifts gold, silver, horses, slaves, and whatever expresses wealth, with which he filled both him and all his family.

10.5. And holding the upper chair too, he so turned Rome toward himself that he provided even those who had no understanding of the Greek tongue with a desire to hear him. And they listened as to a sweet-voiced nightingale, struck with his good utterance and his figure and the well-turned quality of his voice and his rhythms both in prose and with song. So whenever they were busy with the customary spectacles — and these are for the most part of dancers — if the announcer of his hearing appeared about the stage, they would rise from the senate, and rise from those who ride at public expense, not only those eager for Greek learning, but also as many as were taught the other tongue at Rome, and they went at a run to the Athenaeum, full of impulse and reviling those who walked at a pace.

10.6. When he was sick at Rome, when indeed he died, Commodus voted him the imperial correspondence with an apology that it had not come sooner, and he, invoking the Muses, as was his wont, and kissing the imperial tablets, gave up his soul upon them, using the honor as his shroud. He died at about eighty years, of such repute that he even seemed to many a sorcerer. That a learned man would never be led into the arts of sorcerers I have sufficiently said in my discourse on Dionysius; but he, I think, by his marvel-working in his themes about the ways of the Magi, drew this surname from them. They slander him too as shameless in character; for one of his pupils sent him fishes laid out on a silver dish embossed with gold, and he, overjoyed at the dish, neither gave it back nor answered the sender, "Well done, that you sent the fishes too." But this is said to have been done by way of pastime, in jest to one of his own pupils, whom he heard was using his wealth meanly; and he gave back the silver, having corrected the hearer by the witticism.

10.7. This sophist was copious in conceptions and brilliant, and most varied in the arrangements of his themes, which he had taken from tragedy, yet not orderly, nor following art; and the equipment of his diction he threw about himself from the ancient sophists, attaining rather to resonance than to ring. In many places he fell out of his grand voice, using tragedy without restraint.

11.1. Greece wrongs Chrestus, the Byzantine sophist, in neglecting a man who was the best educated of the Greeks by Herodes, and educated many marvellous men, among whom were Hippodromus the sophist and Philiscus and Isagoras the tragic poet, and the renowned orators Nicomedes from Pergamon and Aquila from the eastern Galatia and Aristaenetus the Byzantine, and of those who philosophized renownedly Callaeschrus the Athenian and Sospis of the Altar and many others worthy of mention. When he was teaching, in the time of Adrianus the sophist, he had a hundred paying hearers, and the best of these were those I named. When Adrianus was established at Rome, the Athenians voted to send an embassy on behalf of Chrestus, asking the emperor for the chair at Athens for him; but he, coming forward into their assembly, dissolved the embassy, discoursing on other notable matters and saying upon all this, "The ten thousand do not make the man."

11.2. Though overcome by wine, he mastered the drunken violence and easiness and arrogance which wine brings upon the minds of men, and he had so much soberness left over that even when the drinking had advanced to cock-crow he laid hold of study before snatching sleep. He was especially at odds with the boastful among the young, although they were more useful than the rest for the contributions of the fee. At any rate, seeing Diogenes the Amastrian puffed up from boyhood, and dreaming of satrapies and of courts and of standing near kings, and saying that some Egyptian had foretold him these things, he... not even keeping silent about his own affairs.

11.3. The style of his speeches is varied from the advantages of Herodes, but falls short of their readiness, as in painting the colorless imitation sketched in shadow; and it would have advanced even to an equality of excellence, had he not died at fifty.

12.1. As for Polydeuces of Naucratis, I do not know whether one should call him uneducated or educated, or, what will seem foolish, both uneducated and educated; for when I consider his vocabulary, he had sufficiently exercised his tongue in Atticizing diction, but when I look at the form of his declamations, he Atticized no better than another.

12.2. The following, then, must be known about him. Polydeuces had sufficiently practised criticism, having kept company with his father, who knew critical discourse; but the sophistical kinds of speech he attempted with boldness rather than art, trusting his nature, for indeed he was excellently gifted by nature. Having been a pupil of Adrianus, he stands equally distant from his advantages and his deficiencies, for he least falls and least rises; but nonetheless there are certain drops of pleasure mingled into his speech. The style of his discourse was thus: "Proteus of Pharos, the Homeric marvel — many and manifold are his shapes, for he is raised into water and is kindled into fire and rages into a lion and rushes as a boar and moves as a serpent and leaps as a leopard, and if he becomes a tree, he grows leaves." And let us make a character of his declamation by the islanders who sell their families for the payment of the tribute, since they wish this theme to be best spoken too, the conclusion of which is thus: "A boy of the mainland, from Babylon, writes to his island father: I am a slave to the king, given as a gift by a satrap, and I neither mount a Median horse nor take a Persian bow, nor do I go out to war or the hunt as a man, but I sit in the women's quarters and serve the king's concubines, and the king is not angry, for I am a eunuch. And I win repute among them, describing the Greek sea and telling tales of the fair things of the Greeks: how the Eleans hold their festival, how the Delphians prophesy, what the Altar of Pity is at Athens. But you too, father, write me when the Hyacinthia is among the Lacedaemonians, and the Isthmia among the Corinthians, and the Pythia among the Delphians, and whether the Athenians are victorious in the sea-fight. Farewell, and greet my brother for me, if he has not yet been sold." Such things, then, as belong to this man it is possible for those who hear impartially to consider. And by impartial hearers I mean those who are neither well-disposed nor ill-disposed. He was said to deliver these things too with a honeyed voice, by which, having charmed the emperor Commodus, he obtained from him the chair at Athens. He lived, then, fifty-eight years, and died leaving a son legitimate indeed, but uneducated.

13.1. Caesarea of the Cappadocians, neighbor to Mount Argaeus, is the home of Pausanias the sophist. Pausanias was educated by Herodes and became one of those who shared the Clepsydrium, whom the many called "the thirsty"; and he reproduced many of the advantages of Herodes, especially the improvising, but he delivered them with a thick tongue, and as is customary with the Cappadocians, clashing together the consonants of his letters, shortening what should be long and lengthening what is short, on which account the many called him a cook seasoning costly dishes badly. The style of his declamation is rather supine, yet nonetheless vigorous, and it does not miss the ancient, as one may gather from his declamations, for there are many of Pausanias' at Rome, where indeed he lived out his life and died already growing old, sharing in the chair there; and he shared too in that at Athens, when indeed, departing thence, upon all that he went through to the Athenians, he most fittingly uttered the line of Euripides: "Theseus, turn me back again, that I may see the city."

14.1. Athenodorus the sophist, in what pertains to his father, was the most distinguished of the men of Aenus, but in what pertains to his teachers and education, the most conspicuous of the Greek world. For he heard Aristocles while still a boy, and Chrestus when he had now come to understanding, on which account he was blended from both, Atticizing and expounding with amplitude. Teaching at Athens at the time when Polydeuces also taught, he mocked him in his discourses as boyish, saying, "The gardens of Tantalus seem to me the lightness and superficiality of his speech," likening it to an appearance that both is and is not. And being weighty also in character, he died still in his prime, robbed by Fortune of advancing even further in reputation.

15.1. Brilliantly among the sophists did Ptolemy of Naucratis too resound. For he was one of those who shared the temple about Naucratis, a privilege belonging to few of the Naucratites; and he was a hearer of Herodes, but not, however, an emulator, but was rather carried toward Polemo, for the rush of his speech and the breath and the speaking with amplitude he introduced from the stage of Polemo, and he is said to have improvised too with an irresistible fluency. He nibbled at suits and law courts, yet not so as to raise a name from there. They surnamed him "Marathon," as some say, since he was enrolled in the deme of Marathon at Athens, but as I heard from some, since in the Attic themes he often made mention of those who took the lead in the danger at Marathon.

15.2. Some accuse Ptolemy of not discerning the themes, nor where they hold together and where not, setting forth as proof of this accusation the following. The Thebans indict the Messenians for "ingratitude," because they did not receive their fugitives when Thebes too was captured by Alexander. For this theme, brilliantly and as wisely as possible argued by him, they bring a false charge, saying that if they are tried while Alexander lives, who is so bold as to condemn the Messenians? But if while he is dead, who is so gentle as to acquit them of the charge? For those who slander these things do not understand that the defense of the Messenians stands upon pardon, holding before them Alexander and the fear of him, of which not even the rest of Greece was inexperienced. Let this be my defense on behalf of the man, deprecating for him an unjust and knavishly contrived charge; for indeed he was the most auspicious of the sophists. And though he visited very many nations and consorted with very many cities, nowhere did he slander his own renown, nor did he seem inferior to what was expected, but as though travelling on a brilliant chariot of fame he passed through the cities. He died, an old man, in Egypt, not deprived of his eyes by the flow from his head, but with their vision dimmed.

16.1. Euodianus of Smyrna traced his descent to Nicetes the sophist, and his honors at home to the high priests and those crowned with the office over the arms, and his prizes for his voice to Rome and the chair there. Being appointed also over the artists about Dionysus — and this tribe is haughty and hard to govern — he seemed most suited to the office and above incurring blame. When his son died at Rome he uttered nothing womanish or ignoble, but calling out "O child" three times he buried him. As he was dying at Rome all his friends were present, and as they deliberated about his body, whether they should bury it on the spot or embalm it and convey it to Smyrna, Euodianus cried out, "I will not leave my son alone." So wisely did he enjoin being buried with his child. Having been a hearer of Aristocles, he laid hold of the panegyrical style, blending in a harsh mixing-bowl a kind of sweet draught. And there are those who say that he heard Polemo too.

17.1. As for Rufus of Perinthus the sophist, let it not be from his estate, nor that many consuls were his line, nor that he held with glory the office of the Panhellenia at Athens — for these things, even if much were said of them, are not yet worthy to be set beside the man's wisdom — but let his tongue make him plain, and the understanding which he used most of all about the figured themes. In this style he was admired, first, because it is hard to interpret, for in themes composed by figure one needs a rein for what is said and a sting for what is kept silent, and next, I think, because of his own nature; for being open in character and without knavery, he played well even what was not in his nature. Being the richest of those about the Hellespont and the Propontis, and having much reputation for improvising, much both at Athens and in Ionia and Italy, he nowhere brought himself into enmity with either a city or a man, but was a dealer in gentleness. He was said too to strengthen his body with gymnastic, eating by rule always and toiling at it like those who contend in the games. Having been a hearer of Herodes among boys and of Aristocles among youths, and deemed worthy of great things by him, he made himself brilliant rather to Herodes, calling him his master and the tongue of the Greeks and the king of speeches and many such things. He died at home, sixty-one years old, and leaving children, about whom I have nothing great to say, except indeed that they were his.

18.1. Onomarchus the sophist from Andros was not admired, but appeared not to be blamed. For he taught at the time when Adrianus and Chrestus did at Athens, and being a neighbor of Asia he drew, like an eye-disease, the Ionic style, which was especially cultivated at Ephesus, on which account some thought he had not even heard Herodes, slandering the man; for in his expression he was corrupted in some places for the reason I have said, but the casts of his thoughts were Herodean and ineffably sweet. One may consider him from the lover of the statue, if I shall not seem to play the boy. It is said thus: "O living beauty in a soulless body, what divinity then fashioned you? Some Persuasion, or Grace, or Eros himself, the father of beauty? How everything is present to you in truth — the set of the face, the bloom of color, the sting of the glance, the gracious smile, the blush of the cheeks, the trace of hearing. And you have too a voice ever about to speak. Perhaps you even say something, but when I am not present, you loveless and grudging thing, faithless to a faithful lover. You shared with me no word; therefore I will lay upon you the most dreadful curse of all that is ever set upon the beautiful: I pray you to grow old." Of his death some say it was at Athens, others at home, half-grey and passing into old age; and that he became rather rustic in appearance and after the manner of Marcus the Byzantine's squalor.

19.1. Apollonius of Naucratis taught in opposition to Heracleides, who had seized the chair at Athens, and he cultivated a speech political and well-chastened, but contending less, for amplitude is absent from him, and breath. As he was bad in matters of love, there was born to him a son from an unlawful marriage, Rufinus, who played the sophist after him with nothing fertile, nor from the heart, but holding to his father's little phrases and trifling thoughts; on which account he too, being charged by a wise man, said, "The laws give me leave to use my father's possessions," and the other said, "They give leave, but to those born according to law." Some attack him too for going to Macedonia hired by a house that was not even prospering. But let such things be dismissed; for you would find even some of the very wise doing many illiberal things for money, yet not this Apollonius, for he both made his estate common to the Greeks who were in need, and was not severe about agreeing on a fee. He died at seventy at Athens, having as his shroud the goodwill of all the Athenians. He was a hearer of the sophists Adrianus and Chrestus, but stands as far from both as those who never heard them. He surveyed his themes withdrawing from the crowd, but for more time than was moderate.

20.1. Apollonius the Athenian was deemed worthy of a name among the Greeks, as capable in forensic matters and not to be blamed in declamation; and he taught at Athens, in the time of Heracleides and his namesake, presiding over the political chair for a talent. Becoming conspicuous in political matters too, he both went on embassies on the greatest affairs and was entrusted with the public services which the Athenians consider greatest, the eponymous office and that over the arms, and he was entrusted with the utterances from the shrine when already growing old, falling short of Heracleides and Logimus and Glaucus and such hierophants in good voice, but in dignity and magnificence and orderliness seeming to surpass many of those above.

20.2. Being on an embassy to Severus the emperor at Rome, he stripped for the contest over declamation against Heracleides the sophist, and the one went away deprived of his immunity, while Apollonius went away with gifts. And when Heracleides spread an untrue story about Apollonius, that he was about to go to Libya, when the emperor was there and was gathering the excellences from all the earth, and said to him, "It is time for you to read the speech against Leptines," Apollonius said, "For you, rather, since it has been written about immunity too."

20.3. The starting-line of his speech Apollonius cast from the style of Adrianus, since he was indeed his hearer, but he diverges nonetheless into measured and anapaestic rhythms, which, if he guarded against them, he seems dignified in delivery and steady. This one may find both in other themes and most of all in the Callias, who forbids the Athenians to bury with fire: "Raise high, man, the torch. Why do you force it and bring it down and torment the fire? It is heavenly, it is ethereal; the fire goes to its kindred. It does not bring down corpses, but leads up gods. Io Prometheus, torch-bearer and fire-bringer, how your gift is outraged! It is mingled with senseless corpses. Help, aid, steal, if possible, the fire even from there." I have set forth these things not to deprecate for him the undisciplined rhythms, but to teach that he was not ignorant of the more temperate rhythms either. He died, then, at about seventy-five years, copious and breathing strongly among the people of the Athenians, and he was buried in the suburb of the highroad to Eleusis. The name of the suburb is Sacred Fig Tree, and there they rest the sacred things from Eleusis whenever they bring them to the city.

21.1. I will record too Proclus of Naucratis, knowing the man well, for indeed he was one of my own teachers. Proclus, then, was one of the not undistinguished men in Egypt, but seeing Naucratis in faction and men governing against their character, he loved the quiet at Athens and, sailing away thither secretly, he lived there, having brought much money and many slaves and the rest of his furnishings magnificently arrayed. Being of good report at Athens and having won repute in his youth, he won it much more when he became a man, first for his choice of life, and next, I think, also for a benefaction done to one Athenian, which provided a demonstration of a good character. For sailing into the Piraeus he asked one of the men there whether so-and-so was living well at Athens and faring well; and he asked this about the guest-friend with whom he had associated at Athens when young, when indeed he frequented Adrianus. And learning that he both existed and lived, but was about to be cast at once out of his house, which was being proclaimed for sale in the market-place for ten thousand drachmas, which he had borrowed upon it, he sent him the ten thousand before he had even gone up to the city, saying, "Free the house, that I may not see you downcast." Let us consider this the act not only of a rich man, but of one using his wealth well, sufficiently educated and exact in matters of friendship.

21.2. He acquired houses too, two in the city, one in the Piraeus and another at Eleusis. There came to him from Egypt frankincense, ivory, perfume, papyrus, books, and all such merchandise, and selling these to the dealers in such things he nowhere seemed money-loving or illiberal, nor a lover of the greater, nor seeking profits or interest, but loving the principal itself. To a profligate son, who was young along with him about the rearing of cocks and quails and dogs and lapdogs and horses, more than rebuking him, and having a charge with the multitude for it, he said, "The playing with old men will sooner change than the playing with one's own age-mates." When his son died, and his wife too, he took a concubine, because even aging eyes seek the beautiful; but as she became most womanish, giving her all rein, he seemed not a good steward of his house.

21.3. The customary rules of declamation for this man were thus: by paying a hundred drachmas once for all, one might hear for all time. He had too a chest of books in his house, of which those gathered for the fullness of the hearing had a share. And that we might not hiss at one another, nor mock, which is wont to happen in the gatherings of the sophists, we were called in all together and sat when summoned, the boys and the tutors in the middle, the youths by themselves. To discourse rested with him on rare occasions, but whenever he set out to discourse he resembled both one driving horses and one Gorgianizing. The declamation, considered the day before, was wheeled in. His power of memory, already growing old at ninety, was strong even beyond Simonides, and he expounded according to nature, but the casts of his thoughts were Adrianic.

22.1. Phoenix the Thessalian is not worth admiring, nor again worth slandering in everything. For he was one of those who frequented Philagrus, better at understanding than at expounding, for what was conceived had arrangement and nothing was conceived out of season, but his expression seemed both torn apart and to stand apart from rhythm. He seemed to be more suited to those of the young who were beginning than to those who had already acquired some habit, for the matters lay bare exposed and the diction did not clothe them about. Dying at seventy at Athens, he was buried not without distinction, for he lies near those from the wars, on the right of the descent toward the Academy.

23.1. My account leads me to a most renowned man, Damianus from Ephesus, from whom let Soteri and Sosi and Nicandri and Phaedri and Cyri and Phylaces be excluded, for these would rather be called the playthings of the Greeks than sophists worthy of mention. Now for Damianus most renowned was both his upper lineage and men of the greatest worth to Ephesus, and most of good repute too were those born from him, for they are all deemed worthy of the senate, admired for their good repute and their disdain of money; and he himself, equipped with varied and abundant wealth, both relieved those of the Ephesians in need, and benefited the community most of all, both giving money and restoring the public works that had fallen into decay.

23.2. He joined the temple too to Ephesus, extending to it the descent through the Magnesian gate. And this is a colonnade of stone, the whole a stade long, and the purpose of the building is that the worshippers might not be away from the temple when it rains. This work, then, completed from much money, he inscribed in the name of his wife, but the banqueting hall in the temple he himself dedicated, raising it in size above all together that are among others and clothing it in a beauty beyond speech, for it is adorned with Phrygian stone, of a kind that has not yet been cut. He began to use his wealth well from boyhood; for when Aristides and Adrianus held, the one Smyrna, the other Ephesus, he heard both for ten thousand, saying that it was far sweeter to spend on such favorites than on fair men and fair women, as some do. And whatever I have recorded about these men I have said having learned it from Damianus, who knew the affairs of both well.

23.3. A demonstration of the man's wealth lay in these things too: first, the whole land, as much as he possessed, was planted with trees fruitful and well-shading, and in his estates by the sea there were islands made by hand and embankments of harbors securing the anchorages for merchant ships putting in and setting out; and houses in the suburbs, some furnished in the city manner, some cavernous; and next, the very character of the man in the market-place, who did not welcome every gain, nor praise taking from everyone, but to those whom he perceived to be in want he gave his own voice free. And it was much the same in his sophistical discourses too; for those whom he perceived to be in want, coming from nations beyond the borders, he remitted the fee for the hearing, that they might not be detected in their expense.

23.4. He was more sophistical than the forensic speaker, and more forensic than the sophist. Advancing into old age he gave up both pursuits, broken in body rather than in mind; at any rate, providing himself to those who came to Ephesus on his fame, he devoted to me too a certain companionship, first and second and third, and I saw a man like the Sophoclean horse, for though seeming sluggish from age, he recovered a youthful impulse in his studies. He died at home, having lived seventy years, and was buried in a certain suburb of his own, in which he had most of all lived.

24.1. Antipater the sophist had as his fatherland Hierapolis, which is to be reckoned among the prospering cities of Asia, and as his father Zeuxidemus, of the most distinguished there; and having frequented Adrianus and Polydeuces, he was fashioned more after Polydeuces, relaxing the impulses of his thoughts by the rhythms of his expression. Having heard Zeno the Athenian too, he learned from him precision about art. Being an improviser he did not neglect studied works either, but he went through Olympic and Panathenaic orations for us and took into his history the deeds of the emperor Severus, by whom especially being appointed to the imperial correspondence, he sounded forth something brilliant in it. For let it be declared by me that, while many studied and composed better than this man, none wrote letters better, but, like a brilliant actor of tragedy who understands the drama well, he uttered things worthy of the royal person. For what he said had clarity and greatness of judgment, and the expression from what was at hand, and with pleasure the asyndeton, which especially makes a letter brilliant.

24.2. Being enrolled among the consuls, he governed the nation of the Bithynians, but seeming to use the sword too readily he was relieved of the office. The life of Antipater was sixty-eight years, and he was buried at home; and he is said to have died by endurance rather than by sickness. For he was considered the teacher of the children of Severus, and we used to call him "teacher of gods" in the praises of his hearing; but when the younger of them died on a charge of plotting against his brother, he wrote to the elder a letter containing a monody and a dirge, saying that one eye out of two was his, and one hand, and that those whom he had taught to take up arms for one another, these he heard had been taken up against one another. That the emperor was provoked by this let us not disbelieve, for these things would provoke even a private man who wished his seeming to have been plotted against not to be disbelieved.

25.1. Much in the circle of the sophists is Hermocrates the Phocaean too sung, having shown strength of nature beyond all whom I interpret; for though he kept company with no marvellous sophist, but had heard Rufinus of Smyrna, who in sophistical matters dared rather than succeeded, he interpreted most variously of the Greeks and both understood and arranged, not some themes but not others, but once for all all that were declaimed; for indeed he handled well the figured themes too, devising very many ambiguities and mingling the signified with the suppressed.

25.2. His grandfather was Attalus, the son of Polemo the sophist, and his father Rufinianus of Phocaea, a consular man, who married Callisto the daughter of Attalus. When his father died, he came into so implacable a quarrel with his own mother that Callisto did not even let fall a tear over him when he died in his youth, when indeed even to the bitterest enemies the things of youth seem piteous. And this, to one who hears it thus, will rather attach to the wickedness of the youth, if not even his mother suffered anything over him; but to one who reckons the cause, and that he ceased to love his mother over her love for a slave, the youth would appear to be in accord with the laws, which have granted even the killing on such charges, and she would appear worthy to be hated even by those not akin, over the things by which she shamed both herself and her son.

25.3. But just as Hermocrates escapes this charge, so he could not escape that one; for the deep paternal estate handed down to him he squandered, not on rearing horses or on public services, from which one may even raise a name, but on unmixed wine and companions such as to provide matter for comedy too, such as those once provided who flattered Callias the son of Hipponicus.

25.4. When Antipater had now come into the imperial correspondence and was eager to join his own daughter, who was poorly off in appearance, to him, Hermocrates did not leap toward that man's prosperity, but, when the matchmaker led the conversation to the power of Antipater, which he then had, he said that he would never be a slave to a large dowry and to the pride of a father-in-law. And when his kinsmen pushed him into the marriage and considered Antipater "Corinth of Zeus," he did not yield until Severus the emperor, having sent for him to the East, gave him the girl, when indeed, one of his friends asking him when he would hold the unveiling, Hermocrates most wittily said, "The veiling, rather, taking such a one." And not long after he dissolved the marriage, seeing her neither pleasant to look at nor suited in character.

25.5. The emperor too, having become a hearer of Hermocrates, admired him equally with his grandfather, and allowed him to ask gifts; and Hermocrates said, "Crowns and immunities and maintenances and purple and the priesthood my grandfather handed down to us his descendants, and what should I ask of you today that I have had for so long? But since it has been enjoined upon me by the Asclepius at Pergamon to eat partridge fumigated with frankincense, and this spice is now so scarce among us that barley meal and laurel leaves are fumigated to the gods, I need fifty talents of frankincense, that I may serve the gods and be served myself." The emperor gave the frankincense with praise, saying that he blushed because he had been asked for little.

25.6. Hermocrates was assisted in his displays, first, by the glory of his grandfather, for human nature welcomes more the excellences passed down from fathers to children, on which account an Olympic victor from a house of Olympic victors is more glorious, and a soldier from non-unsoldierly stock more noble, and the pursuits of a father's and forebears' house are more pleasant, and inherited arts are better; and he was assisted too by the bloom about his appearance, for he was charming and statuesque, as youths are, and the boldness of the youth among the multitudes brought astonishment to the many, with which men are astonished at those who do great things without anguish. There contributed too his fluency and the ring of his tongue and his discerning the themes in a point of time and the matter read and spoken being more ancient than for a young man to conceive and expound. The declamations of Hermocrates are about eight perhaps, or ten, and a certain speech, not long, which he delivered at Phocaea in the Panionian bowl. And let it be declared by me that none would have out-resounded the tongue of this youth, had he not been deprived of advancing to manhood, caught by envy. He died, according to some, at twenty-eight, but as some say, at twenty-five, and his father's land received him, and his father's tombs.

26.1. A most renowned man too is Heracleides the Lycian, both in his affairs at home — since he was born of good fathers and became high priest of the Lycians, and the office, being that of a not great nation, the Romans deem worthy of great things, I think, on account of an ancient alliance — but Heracleides was more renowned in sophistical matters; for he was sufficient to understand, sufficient to expound, and unencumbered in his contests, and he did not over-frenzy in his panegyrical conceptions.

26.2. Cast out of the chair at Athens, when the companions of Apollonius of Naucratis combined against him, of whom the first and middle and last was Marcianus from Doliche, he turned to Smyrna, which of all cities most sacrifices to the Muses of the sophists. That the Ionic and Lydian youth and that from Phrygia and Caria ran together to Ionia for his company is not yet great, since Smyrna is near the door of all of them; but he drew the Greek world from Europe too, and drew the young from the East, and drew many Egyptians, who were not without a hearing of him, since he had contended in wisdom with Ptolemy of Naucratis in Egypt. He filled Smyrna, then, with a brilliant throng, and benefited it in many other things too, which I will make plain. A city turned toward many strangers, and especially those in love with wisdom, will both deliberate temperately and hold its assemblies temperately, guarding itself, no doubt, against being caught base among many and serious men, and it will care for its temples and gymnasia and fountains and colonnades, that it may appear sufficient to the throng. And if the city be also a shipowner, like Smyrna, the sea will give them many and abundant things. He contributed to Smyrna also in adornment, fitting up a fountain of oil in the gymnasium of Asclepius, of golden roof, and he held among them the eponymous office of the crown-bearer, from which the Smyrnaeans give names to their years.

26.3. Under Severus the emperor they say that he broke down in an extempore speech, fearing the court and the guards. But this, if some man of the market-place suffered it, might even incur a charge, for the tribe of the market-place is reckless and bold; but a sophist, busy with youths for the most part of the day, how could he hold out against astonishment? For an extempore speech is checked by a hearer with a grave face, and by slow praise, and by not being applauded in the accustomed way; and if he should perceive too an envy lurking against him, as Heracleides then suspected that of Antipater, he will both conceive the less and be the less fluent, for such suspicions are a darkening of judgment and a fettering of the tongue.

26.4. He is said to have cut down sacred cedars and to have had most of his estate confiscated, when indeed, as he was leaving the court, his pupils followed him consoling and supporting the man, and when one of them said, "But no one will take away your declamation, Heracleides, nor the glory from it," and recited over him the line, "One alone, I think, is still detained in the wide—" he said "fisc," most wittily having played upon his own ills.

26.5. He is thought, most of the sophists, to have acquired his science by toil, his nature not granting it to him; and there is a not unpleasant studied work of his, a moderate book, which is entitled "An Encomium of Toil"; and holding this book in his hands he met Ptolemy the sophist at Naucratis, who asked him what he was studying, and when he said it was an encomium of toil [ponos], Ptolemy, asking for the book and rubbing out the pi, said, "It is time for you to read the name of the encomium" — [onos, "ass"]. And the discourses too, which Apollonius of Naucratis delivered against him, attack him as sluggish and laboring.

26.6. The teachers of Heracleides were Herodes, among those not truly believed, and Adrianus and Chrestus among the genuine; and let us not disbelieve that he heard Aristocles too. He is said to have had a hollow belly and to have eaten very many dainties, and this gluttony settled into nothing for him. At any rate he died over eighty years, sound in body, and his tomb is said to be in Lycia; he died leaving a daughter and freedmen not serious, by whom the "Rhetoric" too was inherited; and the "Rhetoric" was a ten-talent farm of his at Smyrna, bought from his hearings.

27.1. Let no one consider Hippodromus the Thessalian second to the aforesaid sophists, for he appears better than some, and from some I do not know in what he falls short. Now Hippodromus had as his fatherland Larissa, a prospering city among the Thessalians, and as his father Olympiodorus, who surpassed all the Thessalians in rearing horses.

27.2. Though to have presided even once over the Pythian games seemed great in Thessaly, Hippodromus presided twice over the Pythian contests, and surpassed those above him in wealth and in the adornment about the contest and in greatness of judgment and in a justice that awarded the prize to the straight and right. At any rate, what was done by him about the tragic actor has left no surpassing to another in justice and judgment. For Clemens of Byzantium was a tragic actor such as no one yet in the art, but winning at the time when Byzantium was being besieged, he used to go away failing of the victory, that a city which had taken up arms against the Romans might not seem to be proclaimed through one man. And when he had contended best in the Amphictyonic contests too, the Amphictyons voted against the victory in fear of the aforesaid charge, but Hippodromus, leaping up with impulse, said, "Let these men fare well, perjuring themselves and judging against justice, but I give the victory to Clemens." And when the other of the actors appealed to the emperor, the vote of Hippodromus won repute again, for indeed the Byzantine won at Rome too.

27.3. Such as he was toward the multitudes, with marvellous gentleness he came to his displays. For taking over the art self-loving and boastful, he neither ever set himself to his own praise and checked the excesses of praises; at any rate, when the Greeks once shouted over him many words of good omen and even likened him to Polemo, he said, "Why do you liken me to the immortals?" neither taking from Polemo the being considered a divine man, nor giving to himself the being likened to such a one. And when Proclus of Naucratis composed an abuse, not an embassy, against all who taught at Athens, and enrolled Hippodromus in this reviling, we expected to hear a speech composed against the echo of what had been said, but he, saying nothing base, went through a praise of good repute, beginning from the peacock the bird, as being raised on wings by the praise. So, then, was he disposed toward his elders, and those who had preceded him by much time and not much; and how he was toward his age-mates one may learn from the following. A young man, coming from Ionia to Athens, went through praises of Heracleides beyond what is bearable; so Hippodromus, seeing him at the hearing, said, "This young man is in love with his own teacher. It is good, then, to assist him with his beloved; for he might even go off with a windfall, having learned to praise." And having said this he went through a praise of Heracleides such as had not yet been spoken over him. And the tears over Diodotus the Cappadocian, and the putting on of black clothing over him, who had provided a nature suited to declamation but died as an ephebe, proclaimed Hippodromus a father of the Greek world, and one having a regard that some illustrious men should arise even after him. This he showed most of all at Olympia; for to Philostratus the Lemnian, his own pupil, twenty-two years old, who was tossing up an extempore speech, he gave very much of the praises of the art, both what one ought to say and not; and when Greece asked Hippodromus to come forward at once, he said, "I will not strip against my own bowels." And having said this he postponed the hearing to the day of the sacrifice. Let these things, then, stand as a demonstration to me of an educated man, kindly and gentle in character.

27.4. Holding the chair of the sophists at Athens about four years, he was carried away from it by his wife and his wealth, for she was the most energetic of women and a good guardian of money, and with both absent the estate dwindled. Yet he did not neglect to attend the festivals of the Greeks, but frequented them for displays and for not being unknown. And he appeared better in these things too because, even after ceasing to teach, he always studied. For Hippodromus learned most by heart of the Greeks who, after Alexander the Cappadocian, were fortunate in memory, and he read most after Ammonius the Peripatetic, for I have not yet known a man more learned in books than he. And Hippodromus neglected declamation neither when living in the country nor when travelling nor in Thessaly, but he called it a possession better than wealth, from the hymns of Euripides and of Amphion.

27.5. Though rather rustic in appearance, he nonetheless displayed an irresistible nobility in his eyes, looking both fierce and bright. This Megistias of Smyrna too says he observed in him, being considered second to none of the physiognomists. For Hippodromus came to Smyrna after Heracleides, never having come before this, and getting off the ship he went to the market-place, to meet anyone educated in the local matters. Seeing a temple and tutors sitting near it and attendant boys carrying loads of books in satchels, he understood that someone of the distinguished was teaching within, and he came in and, addressing Megistias, sat asking nothing. Megistias supposed that he would discourse to him about pupils, being perhaps a father or rearer of children, and asked for what he had come, and he said, "You will learn when we are by ourselves." So Megistias, dismissing the youths, said, "Say what you wish." And Hippodromus said, "Let us give each other our clothing in exchange" — and Hippodromus happened to have a cloak, the other a public-speaker's mantle. "And what sense has this for you?" said Megistias. "I wish," he said, "to make for you a display of declamation." So he thought him possessed in announcing these things and driven in his mind, but examining the casts of his eyes and seeing him in his right mind and steady, he gave the clothing in exchange and, when he asked for a theme, proposed to him the magician who claims to die because he could not kill a magician who was an adulterer. And as he sat upon the chair and, waiting a little, leaped up, the account of madness came over Megistias the more, and he thought the advantages a thunderstruck folly; but when he began the theme and said, "But myself, at least, I can—" he was carried out of himself with wonder, and running to him he begged to learn who he was. "I am," he said, "Hippodromus the Thessalian, and I have come to train with you, that I might learn through one man so educated the character of the Ionic hearing. But behold me through the whole theme." About the close of the speech there was a run by those educated in Smyrna to the doors of Megistias, the report being swiftly spread to all that Hippodromus was among them; and he, taking up the theme, handled with another power the conceptions already spoken, and coming forward into the assembly of the Smyrnaeans he seemed a marvellous man and such as to be recorded among those before him.

27.6. His discourses depended on Plato and Dio, but his declamations were vigorous after the manner of Polemo, and even more refreshing, and his fluency was like that which those who read without distress give to what is very familiar to them. When Nicagoras the sophist called tragedy the mother of sophists, Hippodromus, correcting the saying, said, "But I call Homer the father." And he was eager too, from Archilochus, to call Homer the voice of sophists, and Archilochus the breath. The declamations of this man are about thirty, perhaps, and the best of them are the Cataneans and the Scythians and the Demades who does not allow them to revolt from Alexander while he is among the Indians. There are sung too lyric strains of his, for indeed he laid hold of the lyre of the lawgivers. He died at about seventy, both at home and leaving a son sufficient to preside over a farm and a house, but disordered and out of his wits, and uneducated in the things of the sophists.

28.1. Let those who deem Varus of Laodicea worthy of mention themselves not be deemed worthy of mention, for he was cheap and gaping and silly, and shamed what good voice he had with the twists of songs, to which one of the more licentious might dance. As to his teacher or hearer, why should I write, why should I tell, knowing well that none would teach such things, and that to those who have learned them the hearing of such things is a reproach?

29.1. Quirinus the sophist had as his fatherland Nicomedia, and a lineage neither of good repute nor again condemned, but a nature good at taking up learning and better at handing it on, for he practised not only memory but also clarity. This sophist was epigrammatic, and not copious about the thetic passages, but vigorous and vehement and clever at shaking the ears of a hearer, for indeed he improvised; but seeming more suited to accusations, he was entrusted by the emperor with the tongue of the treasury, and coming into power he seemed neither oppressive nor boastful, but gentle and like himself, nor money-loving, but, just as the Athenians sing that Aristides, after the imposition of the tributes and the islands, returned to them in his former cloak, so too Quirinus came back to his own ways, dignified by poverty. When those of the informers in Asia blamed him as more gentle about the accusations than they themselves instruct, he said, "And indeed it is far better that you take on my gentleness than that I take on your cruelty." And when they informed against a not great city for many myriads, Quirinus won the suit much against his will, and the informers, coming up to him, said, "This suit will raise you great, coming to the ears of the emperor." And Quirinus said, "It is fitting not for me, but for you, to be honored for having made a city uninhabited." Over a son who died, when his relatives consoled him, he said, "When shall I appear a man, if not now?" Having been a hearer of Adrianus, he did not agree with all his sayings, but there were some that he even struck out as not rightly said. The term of his life was the seventieth year, and his tomb is at home.

30.1. Philiscus the Thessalian is connected by descent to Hippodromus, and he presided over the chair at Athens for seven years, being deprived of the immunity belonging to it; and how this came about it is necessary to make plain. The Eordaean Macedonians, having proclaimed Philiscus for their local public services, as though this belonged to them over all who were sprung from their mothers, summoned him; the suit, then, coming before the emperor — and it was Antoninus, the son of the philosophic Julia — he was sent to Rome to settle his own affairs, and attaching himself to the geometers and philosophers about Julia, he obtained from her, through the emperor, the chair at Athens. But he, just as the gods are made by Homer to grant things to one another not all willingly but some even unwillingly, so indeed grew savage and was harsh toward him as one who had gone round about him; and when he heard that there was a suit of his too, of which he himself would be the hearer, he bade the man appointed over the suits to give him notice not to contend through another, but through himself. And when he came into the court, his walk gave offense, his stance gave offense, and his dress seemed not graceful and his voice half-womanish and his tongue supine and his looking somewhere else rather than at his thoughts; from these things the emperor, turning away to Philiscus, bridled him and throughout the whole speech let the water run upon him and made narrow questions in it; and when the answers of Philiscus did not match the questions, he said, "The hair shows the man, but the voice the orator," and after many such checks he set himself to the Eordaeans. And when Philiscus said, "You have given me immunity from public services by giving me the chair at Athens," the emperor cried out, "Neither you are immune nor anyone else of those who teach; for I would never, over little and wretched trifles of speech, deprive cities of those who are to perform their public services." Yet nonetheless even after this he voted to Philostratus the Lemnian immunity from public services for declamation, when he was twenty-four years old. The pretexts, then, for which Philiscus was deprived of being immune, were these; but let not the deficiencies about his glance and voice and figure deprive him of having Hellenized and composed in the best manner of orators. The style of his speech was talkative rather than competitive, but pure words shone through it too, and a novel ring. He died, then, leaving a daughter and a son of no worth, and the measure of his life was sixty-seven years. Though he had acquired at Athens a not unpleasant estate, he was not buried in it, but in the Academy, where the polemarch sets the contest over those buried from the wars.

31.1. Aelian was a Roman, but he Atticized, like the Athenians of the interior. This man seems to me worthy of praise, first, because he worked out a pure speech while dwelling in a city using another speech, and next, because, being called a sophist by those who grant such things as a favor, he did not believe it, nor flatter his own judgment, nor was he lifted up by the name, great as it is, but, having well examined himself as not suited to declamation, he set himself to composition and was admired from this. The general style of the man is simplicity, attaining something of the grace of Nicostratus, but it sometimes looks toward Dio and his tone.

31.2. When Philostratus the Lemnian once met him with a book still in hand, reading it with anger and intensity of voice, he asked him what he was studying, and he said, "I have worked out an accusation of the Wretch" — for so I call the lately deposed tyrant, since he shamed the affairs of the Romans with all licentiousness. And Philostratus said, "I would have admired you, if you had accused him while living. For to check a living tyrant is the part of a man, but to trample on one laid low is the part of anyone."

31.3. This man used to say that he had never travelled anywhere of the earth beyond the land of the Italians, nor embarked on a ship, nor known the sea, on which account he was deemed worthy of greater repute at Rome, as honoring its ways. He was a hearer of Pausanias, but admired Herodes as the most varied of orators. He lived above sixty years and died not leaving children, for he declined the begetting of children by never marrying. Whether this is happy or wretched is not for the present time to philosophize.

32.1. Since Fortune is most powerful over all human affairs, let not Heliodorus either be deemed unworthy of the sophists' circle, having become a paradoxical contest of Fortune. For this man was elected advocate of his own fatherland to the Celtic peoples along with another, and when the other fell sick and the emperor was said to be striking out many of the suits, Heliodorus ran to the camp in fear about his suit; and being summoned sooner than he thought, he tried to postpone to his sick colleague; but the man who summoned the suits, being insolent, did not allow this, but led him into the courts unwilling and dragging him by the beard. And when he came in and looked boldly at the emperor and asked time of the water, and managed the very deprecation cleverly, saying, "It will seem strange to you, greatest emperor, that one objecting to himself should contend alone in the suit, having no instructions," the emperor leaped up, calling Heliodorus "a man such as I have never yet known, a discovery of my own times" and such things, shaking his hand and the fold of his cloak. At first, then, an impulse to laugh fell upon us too, thinking that he was spitting upon him, but when he gave him the right to ride at public expense, and his sons, as many as he had, Fortune was admired as displaying her own strength through things so paradoxical, and much more was this shown from what followed. For when the Arabian understood that by some good spirit his affairs were advancing, he made full use of the emperor's impulse, like those shipowners who shake out the sails full in fair voyages, and said, "O king, grant me time for a display of declamation," and the king said, "I hear; and speak on this: Demosthenes, having broken down before Philip, and fleeing a charge of cowardice." And as he declaimed, the emperor not only provided himself well-disposed, but prepared the praise from others too, looking fearfully at those who heard without praise. And indeed he set him over the greatest of the advocacies at Rome, as more suited to courts and suits. When the emperor died, an island was assigned to him, but, taking a charge of murder on the island, he was sent up to Rome to make his defense to the commanders of the legions, and seeming clear of the charge, the island too was given back to him. And he grows old at Rome, neither courted nor neglected.

33.1. Aspasius the sophist was brought forth by Ravenna, and Ravenna by the Italians, and his father Demetrianus educated him, knowing well the critics of speeches. Aspasius was much-learned and much-heard, and praising novelty, but nowhere falling into tastelessness, from using what he knew in season. And this, no doubt, is best in music too, for the seasons of the tones gave a voice both to the lyre and the flute and taught melody. But devoting himself to expounding in approved fashion and with simplicity, he neglected breath and amplitude, and not having improvisation from nature, he secured it by toil.

33.2. He came too to many parts of the earth, both being with the emperor and moving about by himself. He presided over the chair at Rome, in his youth most of good repute, but growing old with the charge of not wishing to give way to another. The quarrel of Aspasius with Philostratus the Lemnian began at Rome, but grew greater in Ionia, increased by Cassianus and Aurelius the sophists. Of these the one, Aurelius, was such as even to declaim in taverns over the wine there, while the other was such as to be bold toward the chair at Athens through the occasions which he abused, but to teach no one except Periges the Lydian. About the manner of the quarrel I have spoken, and why should I again interpret what has been sufficiently shown? But that there is something good to be found even from an enemy was shown in many human affairs, but most of all in these men; for, being at variance, Aspasius gained for himself improvisation with fluency, since Philostratus was renowned in this part too, and the other in turn chastened his own speech, hitherto running wild, toward that man's precision.

33.3. The letter composed by Philostratus on how one ought to write letters is aimed at Aspasius, since, having come into the imperial correspondence, he wrote some letters more contentiously than was fitting, and others not clearly, neither of which befits an emperor; for an emperor, whenever he writes, needs not enthymemes nor arguments, but opinion, nor again obscurity, since he speaks laws, and clarity is the interpreter of law.

33.4. Aspasius, then, was a pupil of Pausanias, but not without a hearing of Hippodromus, and he was teaching at Rome already well advanced in age when these things were being written by me. So much about Aspasius. But concerning Philostratus the Lemnian — and what this man was in the courts, what in public speaking, what in compositions, what in declamations, how great in extempore speech — and concerning Nicagoras the Athenian, who was crowned herald of the Eleusinian temple, and Apsines the Phoenician, how far he advanced in memory and precision, it is not for me to write, for I would even be disbelieved as showing favor, since I had friendship with them.