It was the year 160 AD when Appius Annius Atilius Bradua filed a complaint before the Roman Senate regarding the murder of his sister. The direct perpetrator of the crime was a freedman named Alcidemus, but Bradua was convinced that he had acted on the orders of his master. That master was none other than Herodes Atticus, the former teacher of Marcus Aurelius, a man known for his violent and misogynistic nature who had served as senator, quaestor, and praetor under Hadrian. The victim was his wife, Appia Annia Regilla, who died brutally—kicked in the abdomen while eight months pregnant. The future emperor protected Herodes, who was acquitted.

Herodes Atticus’ father, named Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes, was of Athenian origin (he claimed descent from Miltiades and Cimon) and came from a Romanized family, as suggested by the nomen Claudius. He was one of the wealthiest men in the empire. According to a letter he wrote to Emperor Nerva, his fortune came from a fabulous treasure he claimed to have discovered in a house he purchased in Athens, near the Theater of Dionysus. Although no one in his time believed this story—crediting his wealth instead to usury—it was not entirely impossible, given his family’s background.

That money may have been hidden there by his father, the banker Tiberius Claudius Hipparchus, who was rumored to have possessed one hundred million sesterces before Domitian accused him of conspiracy. Hipparchus was sentenced to death, and all his assets were confiscated. The wealth that was salvaged propelled his son into a privileged social position: in 98 AD, under Trajan’s rule, he entered the Roman Senate and was appointed praetor. The following year, he was sent to Judea as a legate, later rising to the rank of archiereus (high priest of the imperial cult) and reaching the peak of his career as consul suffectus.

Herodes Atticus Murder Wife Regilla
Bust of Herodes Atticus, husband of Appia Annia Regilla. Credit: Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons

He also entered into a strategic marriage with Vibullia Alcia Agrippina, who came from a distinguished and wealthy family. She was the mother of Herodes Atticus, who was born around 101 AD in Marathon (Greece). Little is known about his childhood, except that he spoke Latin well since he accompanied his father when he took office as consul. He later returned to Athens, where he studied Platonic philosophy under Taurus of Tyre, Polemon, and Scopelianus, eventually becoming a professional rhetorician of the Second Sophistic movement and forming friendships with philosophers such as Favorinus of Arles (whose library he would inherit) and Munatius of Tralles.

In 117 AD, he had the chance to meet Hadrian, who had just succeeded Trajan as emperor. The Greeks sent a delegation to meet him while he was in Pannonia with his army. Herodes Atticus was among the chosen envoys, but his youth—he was just seventeen—betrayed him: before the emperor, he became so nervous that he was unable to finish his speech, and out of shame, he nearly threw himself into the Danube (a similar incident happened to Demosthenes before Philip II, according to Philostratus). In the end, he chose to live, continued his studies, and by his thirties, he had begun his career in public office.

First, he served as a price supervisor, then as an eponymous archon. Around 129 AD, he hosted Hadrian in his home during a visit the emperor made to Athens, which allowed him to enter Hadrian’s inner circle (inter amicos) and be appointed senator. He subsequently became a quaestor and later a praetor. At the same time, he ran a rhetoric school where, as mentioned earlier, the future rulers Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus studied, since Emperor Antoninus Pius had hired him ad hoc in 140 AD. All of this increased his wealth, which skyrocketed when his father passed away and he altered the will to keep everything for himself (the original document had bequeathed a large sum to the citizens of Athens).

Herodes Atticus Murder Wife Regilla
Bust of Polydeucion. Credit: George E. Koronaios / Wikimedia Commons

He compensated for this move—one as inelegant as it was revealing of his dubious character—by engaging in extensive public patronage. Among his many projects, he sought to revive Nero’s plan to dig a canal in Corinth, making him the most prolific benefactor of construction projects in Roman Greece after the emperors themselves. Nevertheless, derogatory rumors circulated about him. Marcus Cornelius Fronto, another tutor of Marcus Aurelius, criticized his excessive vanity, calling him Graeculus, and represented the Athenians in a lawsuit against Herodes regarding his father’s inheritance. However, the case was ultimately dismissed. It is also possible that Fronto harbored personal jealousy toward him regarding their affections for the future philosopher-emperor.

Herodes’ personal preferences can be inferred not only from his repeated displays of misogyny but also from a well-documented fact: he officially adopted three young men with whom he had relationships and whom he apparently loved more than his own children. These were two slaves, Achilles and Memnon, and a freedman, Vibullius Polydeuces, also known as Polydeucion. His attachment to this last eromenos (a youth in a romantic relationship with an erastes or adult) caused a major scandal—not due to the boy’s gender or age, but because of the intensity of the relationship, which was considered improper.

Moreover, when Polydeucion died before turning twenty, Herodes organized games and erected monuments—including a sanctuary—in his memory. These expressions of deep grief were ridiculed and criticized, as they closely resembled Hadrian’s mourning for his lover Antinous. To grasp the extent of this passion, the Cynic philosopher Demonax once accused Lucian of Samosata of possessing an old letter from the young man. When Herodes asked him to read it, it indeed expressed sorrow over the absence of his beloved.

Herodes Atticus Murder Wife Regilla
It is believed that this female statue, found in the Nymphaeum of Olympia, is probably of Regilla. Credit: Carole Raddato / followinghadrian.com / Wikimedia Commons

Now then, one thing was his personal solace, and another was social status, which required marriage. That is why he negotiated to marry Appia Annia Regilla, a young Roman born in the year 125, daughter of the senator Appius Annius Trebonius Gallus and his wife, Atilia Caucidia Tertulla. She and her brother, the aforementioned Appius Annius Atilius Bradua, received a good education; although his was superior, as he was destined to pursue a cursus honorum, Regilla learned Greek and studied the Greek and Latin classics, in addition to frequenting the renowned poetesses Julia Balbila and Claudia Damo Synamate. These two artists were friends of Vibia Sabina, the wife of Hadrian, so Regilla also entered the courtly circle.

At the time, she was only fourteen years old, but since the laws enacted by Augustus, it was a legal age for her father to sign the marriage agreement with Herodes Atticus, with the wedding taking place in 140; Antoninus Pius’s gift was the consulship in 143. However, initially, it was a sine manu marriage, meaning she remained under her father’s authority. Even so, the following year, she became pregnant with her firstborn, Claudius, who died within a few hours; the next year, Elpinice was born, but she did not survive long either, falling victim to smallpox or the plague. Athenais, the next child, met a similar fate—she managed to marry and have a child but died after giving birth.

Herodes alternated his stay in Rome—at the Triopion, a vast villa along the Via Appia—with frequent trips to Greece and ultimately decided to settle in his hometown, Marathon, where he owned one of his largest villas, perhaps to isolate Regilla from her relatives. There, their first son, Atticus Bradua, was born, the only one who did not die young. To teach him to read, he bought twenty-four slaves of the same age, each of whom he named with a different initial letter so that his son would learn the alphabet while playing with them. In 185, Atticus Bradua would become an ordinary consul in Rome and, two years later, an eponymous archon in Athens; it is believed that in between, he was appointed proconsul in some African province.

Herodes Atticus Murder Wife Regilla
Remains of the nymphaeum that Regilla and Herodes Atticus had built in Olympia. Credit: Roccuz / public domain / Wikimedia Commons

For the time being, however, Atticus Bradua had a rebellious nature, and his father removed him from the scene by sending him to Sparta to be trained as an ephebus. This, along with the premature death of their next son, Regillus, led Herodes to adopt Lucius Vibullius Claudius Herodes, a descendant of the Vibullii, possibly a cousin of his son-in-law, Lucius Vibullius Rufus. He also adopted the three mentioned trophimoi (the term trophimos referred to perioeci children—foreigners—who underwent Spartan education) with whom he found solace. In fact, his son would inherit only the Marathonian villa, as Herodes had it under his wife’s name.

Meanwhile, Regilla’s high status made her very popular in Athens, earning her the honor of being designated priestess of Tyche, the Greek goddess of Fortune, whose cult had just been introduced in the city, thanks to her husband’s financing of the reconstruction of the stadium intended for the Panathenaic Games. Pausanias states that Herodes covered it with white marble and statues, with the statue of the deity being made of gold.

Regilla was also named priestess of Demeter (the Greek deity assimilated in Rome as Ceres) at the sanctuary of Olympia. This position granted her the right to attend the Games, something unique among women. This tied the couple to the location, leading them to commission the construction of a nymphaeum and an aqueduct, parts of which still survive today.

Herodes Atticus Murder Wife Regilla
The Odeon of the Athenian Acropolis was built in Regilla’s honor by order of her widower. Credit: Guillermo Carvajal / labrujulaverde.com

Delphi and Corinth were other places where Regilla was honored. However, she could not have imagined that she was about to meet the tragic end of her life. It was the year 160, and she was thirty-five years old, pregnant for the sixth time—eight months along, no less. According to Philostratus, Herodes Atticus “for trivial reasons, ordered his freedman Alcimedon to strike her. Beaten in the womb, the woman miscarried and died.” This account aligns with what we know of her husband, a man so hot-tempered that he allegedly assaulted Antoninus Pius before he donned the purple, back when he was governor of the province of Asia.

The news reached Rome, and Bradua, Regilla’s brother, accused his brother-in-law before the Senate, which immediately organized a tribunal to judge the case. Both Bradua and Herodes personally presented their cases, and after hearing their respective versions, the senators acquitted the accused. Why? It remains unknown, just as the exact events leading to Regilla’s death—beyond the murderous intervention of Alcimedon—are unclear. It is suspicious that a mere freedman would dare to strike his mistress on his own accord, and even more so that her husband did not denounce him, suggesting complicity.

The fact that Alcimedon continued to serve Herodes and that the latter adopted his two daughters seems to confirm this. In fact, the actual killer received no punishment whatsoever. Philostratus—who was born ten years later—does not clarify much, as he was sympathetic to Herodes and believed in his innocence, arguing that Bradua “did not provide any convincing evidence”. Bradua based his accusations on his noble status (“you have nobility in your heels”, his brother-in-law mocked him, referring to the silver buckle worn by patricians on their footwear) and on his ostentatious displays of grief “beyond all measure”. He built many posthumous monuments in her honor, including the Athenian Odeon and the Pirene Fountain in Corinth. However, Lucian of Samosata mocked him for covering his home in black marble, even though he admitted that “he was also slandered for this, as if it were a feigned gesture”.

Herodes Atticus Murder Wife Regilla
The so-called Tomb of Regilla is actually a temple of Ceres built in her honor by Herodes Atticus. Today, it is the church of San Urbano alla Caffarella. Credit: Roundtheworld / Wikimedia Commons

The truth is that even his son, Atticus Bradua, who was fifteen at the time, did not believe him. This permanently severed their relationship and led to his exclusion from the will. Regilla’s final resting place remains unknown, though it is likely in Greece (Athens, Cephisia, Marathon?). In Rome, however, her widower dedicated a cenotaph to her and commissioned a panegyric from the physician-poet Marcellus of Side. The ninety-four hexameter verses were inscribed on slabs, which are now preserved in the Louvre. It was also rumored that her remains were transferred to the temple of Ceres, which Herodes had built and which was later converted into the church of San Urbano alla Caffarella.

To understand the surprising exoneration of Herodes Atticus, one must consider his immediate surroundings. Despite the fact that Bradua, the accuser, held considerable importance—his grandfather was related to Marcus Annius Verus (Hadrian’s brother-in-law and father of Faustina the Elder, wife of Antoninus Pius)—and that he was serving as ordinary consul that year (alongside Titus Clodius Vibius Varus), the intervention of Marcus Aurelius must have been decisive. He had not yet ascended to the throne but had always protected his former teacher, as he had done previously by exonerating him from an accusation of tyranny, instead punishing his freedmen with only mild sentences. He would do so again in 175, in gratitude for Herodes’ support against the usurper Avidius Cassius.

In the end, for Philostratus, “truth ultimately prevailed”. If Herodes Atticus was guilty, justice came in 177 by way of nature: tuberculosis took his life. He was given a state funeral at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, which he had once adorned. By then, he had reconciled with the Athenian people, showering them with money after they had turned their backs on him for how he had treated his son. As he was also a renowned writer—though his works have been lost—he had written his own epitaph: “Here lies Herodes of Marathon, son of Atticus. His body rests in this tomb, his fame circulates throughout the world.”

This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on January 31, 2025: ¿Asesinó Herodes Ático a su esposa Apia Annia Regila? Un extraño caso en el que nadie fue condenado gracias a la protección de Marco Aurelio

SOURCES

Filóstrato, Vidas de los sofistas

Pausanias, Descripción de Grecia

Vicente Picón y Antonio Gascón (eds.), Historia Augusta

Luciano, Obras

Sarah B. Pomeroy, The murder of Regilla: a case of domestic violence in antiquity

Wikipedia, Apia Annia Regila

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