sed by
an advantageous marriage, in the service of the public. He had obtained
for his son Herod the prefecture of the free cities of Asia; and the
young magistrate, observing that the town of Troas was indifferently
supplied with water, obtained from the munificence of Hadrian three
hundred myriads of drachms, (about a hundred thousand pounds,) for the
construction of a new aqueduct. But in the execution of the work, the
charge amounted to more than double the estimate, and the officers of
the revenue began to murmur, till the generous Atticus silenced their
complaints, by requesting that he might be permitted to take upon
himself the whole additional expense. [68]

[Footnote 67: Hadrian afterwards made a very equitable regulation, which
divided all treasure-trove between the right of property and that of
discovery. Hist. August. p. 9.]

[Footnote 68: Philostrat. in Vit. Sophist. l. ii. p. 548.]

The ablest preceptors of Greece and Asia had been invited by liberal
rewards to direct the education of young Herod. Their pupil soon became
a celebrated orator, according to the useless rhetoric of that age,
which, confining itself to the schools, disdained to visit either the
Forum or the Senate.

He was honored with the consulship at Rome: but the greatest part of his
life was spent in a philosophic retirement at Athens, and his adjacent
villas; perpetually surrounded by sophists, who acknowledged, without
reluctance, the superiority of a rich and generous rival. [69] The
monuments of his genius have perished; some considerable ruins still
preserve the fame of his taste and munificence: modern travellers have
measured the remains of the stadium which he constructed at Athens. It
was six hundred feet in length, built entirely of white marble, capable
of admitting the whole body of the people, and finished in four years,
whilst Herod was president of the Athenian games. To the memory of his
wife Regilla he dedicated a theatre, scarcely to be paralleled in the
empire: no wood except cedar, very curiously carved, was employed in
any part of the building. The Odeum, [691] designed by Pericles for musical
performances, and the rehearsal of new tragedies, had been a trophy of
the victory of the arts over barbaric greatness; as the timbers employed
in the construction consisted chiefly of the masts of the Persian
vessels. Notwithstanding the repairs bestowed on that ancient edifice by
a king of Cappadocia, it was again fallen t