the
treasure was too considerable for a subject, and that he knew not how
to use it. Abuse it then, replied the monarch, with a good-natured
peevishness; for it is your own. Many will be of opinion, that Atticus
literally obeyed the emperor's last instructions; since he expended
the greatest part of his fortune, which was much increased 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.

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. 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, * 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 repair