intriguer and a conspirator. The lines of B. c.) but after his adoption by Q. CæciPope have often been quoted,— "How pleasing Atterbury's softer hour, How shined his soul unconquered in the Tower." Epilogue to the Sat. Dialogue ii. 66 There is a slight sketch of him in Swift's Journal to Stella. Scott's Swift, vol. ii. p. 142. The date is 1710. Swift supposes an imaginary dialogue between himself and Stella, and he is speaking of a dean whom Stella is to guess. A little black man of pretty near fifty." "The same." "A good pleasant man.' Aye, the same." Cunning enough." Yes." "One that understands his own interest." "As well as any body." "A very good face, and abundance of wit... I mean Dr. Atterbury, dean of Carlisle." There are extant of his works (besides those that have been mentioned before) 1. Four volumes of Sermons. 2. His Epistolary Correspondence, which was first published in 1798, and contained his letters, many of his tracts, and other pieces; and, 3. A Part of a Correspondence respecting the Times at which the Gospels were written. After the death of Atterbury, the political part of his papers was deposited in the Scotch college at Paris. The family papers were delivered to Mr. Morice, and some of the more curious of these have been published in the Epistolary Correspondence. The authorities on which the foregoing life is founded are,-Tattler, No. 66; Edin. Rev. No. 137; Monk's Life of Bentley; Hallam, Constit. Hist. vol. iii.; Swift's Four Last Years of the Reign of Queen Anne; Lord Mahon's History of England from the Peace of Utrecht, vol. ii.; Coxe's Life of Sir Robert Walpole; Roscoe's Life of Pope; Atterbury's Epist. Corresp.; Biog. Brit. and additions in last vol.; Burnet's Own Times; Bp. Nicolson's Letters; Hurd and Warburton's Letters, pp. 228, &c.; Swift, &c. Stackhouse's Life of Atterbury is very incorrect, and a most unsatisfactory performance. ATTERBURY, a celebrated English glee composer, in the latter half of the last century. His most popular works were, Come, let us all a Maying go, a glee for four voices; Joan said to John, catch for three voices; Take, oh take those lips away, round, for three voices; and others. He died during the performance of one of his benefit concerts. (Dict. of Mus.) ATTICUS, (T. Pomponius, 109-32 lius his uncle, Q. Cæcilius Q. F. Pomponianus Atticus, (Varro de R.R. ii. 2, and Cic. ad Attic. 3, 20.) He belongs to the Pomponian house, but is better known by the appellation he derived from the favourite residence of his early life. The Pomponii were, probably, of purely Italian origin. (See Varro de R. R. 2, 1, Pomponii Vituli ;") and since their incorporation at Rome, had always remained in the class of the Equites. Pomponia, the sister of Atticus, was married to Quintus Cicero; his mother, who long survived her husband, died in her ninety-first year, B. c. 42. Atticus married, February, B. c. 56, Pilia, by whom he had Cæcilia, called playfully by Cicero, (ad Attic. vi. 5, 4; xi. 8, &c.) Attica and Atticula, afterwards the wife of M. Vipsanius Agrippa, (see AGRIPPA, and Sueton. de Illustr. Gramm. 16. Q. Cæcilius Epirota.) His uncle, and adoptive father, Q. Cæcilius, a moneylender, of indifferent reputation and rugged temper, left him his whole property, although L. Lucullus, under whose patronage it had been acquired, had been always led to believe himself the heir of the elder Cæcilius. (comp. Cic. ad Attic. 1, 1, 3, with Val. Max, vii. c. 5.) The father of Atticus, during a short life, diligently superintended his son's education, and, together with a moderate fortune, and the love of literary pursuits, transmitted to him an easy and philosophic temper. The handsome person and graceful elocution of the young Pomponius, joined to an apt and vigorous understanding, gained more applause than was agreeable to his patrician schoolfellows. Atticus was connected by marriage with the tribune P. Sulpicius, put to death by Sylla, B. c. 88; and to avoid the inconveniences, if not the dangers of this relationship, he removed in his twenty-first year from Rome to Athens, at which city, or upon his estates near Butrinto, Buthrotum, in Epirus, (Servius ad Æn. iii. 293,) he remained, without returning to Italy, until (probably) January, в. c. 64. much of his patrimony as was movable, he transferred to Athens, and became, in a manner, patron of the city. The public debts, greatly increased by the exactions of the long foreign and civil wars, he relieved by loans; and, while he refused interest, he punctually exacted repayment, that the Athenians might not become habituated to dependence. In all questions between Athens X So and the provincial government of Achaia, he was the advocate of the city; his donations of corn were a seasonable gift to a numerous and unemployed population; and if he refused the franchise, it was because the acceptance of it would have deprived him of his superior privileges as a Roman citizen. A statue, which during his residence among them he had declined, was erected by the grateful people upon his departure, in the most sacred region of the city, (see Lipsius Elect. i. 14.) The friend of the poorest, and the companion of the most illustrious citizens, Atticus was followed by the tears and regret of every Athenian. Atticus early formed, and, through a long life, steadily adhered to a strict neutrality in his political conduct; and, perhaps, in times when a revolution was inevitable, and the objects of every party were corrupt and selfish, his equanimity was as useful to the state, as active and decided participation. The selfishness of his system was in some degree atoned for by his humanity and zeal in the service of his numerous friends. His precision, dexterity, and good faith in the management of business, supplied the want of political occupation; and his influence or discretion were perpetually employed in the solicitation of favours for others, or in the arbitration of claims, and the settlement of quarrels. He did not forget his school friendship with the younger Marius; but supplied him with money when driven into exile, and declared a public enemy. And when Sylla, on his return from Asia, B. c. 84, visited Athens, Atticus was his constant companion; but when solicited to accompany him to Rome, his characteristic reply was, "I left Italy that I might not follow the Marians against you; do not ask me now to follow you against them." Atticus exerted his interest for Cicero on all occasions; but took no part in the many feuds created by the unguarded wit, or the political invectives, of the great orator. In the Cæsarean war, Atticus assisted with his purse such of his friends as wished to accompany Cn. Pompey, but remained himself quietly at Rome; and this was so agreeable to Cæsar, that he exempted Atticus from the loans he required from other wealthy citizens, and gave up to him his brother-in-law and nephew, Quintus Cicero, who had fought on Pompey's side at Pharsalia. After the ides of March, Atticus was the intimate adviser of M. Brutus; yet, when it was proposed to him by C. Flavius, to join in a subscription for the conspirators, he declined, saying, "that, as his personal friend, Brutus was welcome to his purse, but not as a party leader." After his retreat from Mutina, when Antony, to all appearance, was utterly ruined, Atticus proved himself the steady friend of Fulvia and his children; and, in their behalf, even risked his own popularity with the senate. And when, in requital, the triumvir exempted from proscription his friend Gellius Canus and himself, he protected upon his estates in Epirus many others of the proscribed. Aulus Torquatus, and other exiles, he provided for in their concealment in Samothrace. Servilia, the mother of M. Brutus, he always treated with distinction; and L. Saufeius, the companion of his studies for many years, was informed by the same messenger, that he had forfeited and had recovered his estates. With Octavianus Cæsar, he had an almost daily correspondence on various subjects of criticism, antiquities, poetry, and news. The marriage of his daughter with Agrippa, ultimately allied the family of Atticus to the imperial house; nor did his intimacy cease with M. Antony, because it was shared with his rivals. With the same prudence that led him to avoid public magistracies, he declined lieutenancies and legations, bails and sureties, and political prosecutions, either as principal or subscriptor; and hence he escaped impeachments and vexatious pleas. His estates passed undiminished through the civil wars, and were increased by frequent legacies, to which his exertions in the service of his friends entitled him. He combined dignity with economy in the management of his wealth. The insane passion of his contemporaries for the acquisition of landed property (latifundia), for building, and for gorgeous furniture, with the grosser luxuries of the table, was unknown to Atticus. The house on the Quirinal, Domus Tamphilana, of his uncle Cæcilius, more remarkable for its plantations than its architecture, with its old and simple furniture, contented him. His establishment of slaves was indeed numerous, but it formed a considerable part of his income. He carefully superintended their education; and the salaries of their different employments, as readers, transcribers, accountants, physicians, and artificers, repaid him. His table and habits of life were refined and frugal; nor did the increase of his fortune bring with it less regular appetites, or more ostentation. His literary pursuits were various; he was a poet, a genealogist, and an antiquary. His Annales, a chronological summary of the actions, the laws, and the magistrates of the Romans, (Cic. Brut. 19, 74, &c. Orat. 34, 126,) was long celebrated; and he collected similar records of the Junian, the Marcellan, the Fabian, the Æmilian, and other illustrious families of Rome. A Chronicle, in verse, of his composition, was so arranged, that the lines commemorating the lives of distinguished individuals, were inscribed beneath their statues or pictures, in the halls or galleries of their descendants. He also drew up, in Greek, an account of Cicero's consulship. It is almost needless to add, that he was the friend of men of all parties and characters, of Hortensius and Cicero, of Antony and Octavianus, of Cæsar and Cato; his strict veracity, ensuring that confidence which, in revolutionary times, is most difficult to inspire. With his accustomed caution, after the murder of his friend, he obtained from Tiro, Cicero's freedman, all the letters he had addressed to the orator; but his nature and character are sufficiently displayed in the correspondence that has been preserved. After seventy-seven years of almost uninterrupted health, a disorder, which was for some time mistaken for tenesmus, proved to be a rupture in the intestines. When the means resorted to for the cure proved ineffectual, Atticus summoned to his bedside his son-in-law Agrippa, and his friends Sextus Peducæus, and Cornelius Balbus. Having called them to witness that he had made all possible efforts for the recovery of his health, he declared his resolution no longer to feed the disease, but to abstain from sustenance, and depart tranquilly from life. Neither the tears nor entreaties of those around him had any effect upon his purpose, nor even the cessation of the disorder on the second day of abstinence. He expired on the fifth day after his interview with Agrippa, the 31st March, B. c. 32. He was buried beside the Appian road, at the fifth milestone, in the tomb of his uncle, Q. Cæcilius. Besides his large estates in Epirus, (see the Emptio Epirotica. Ad Attic. 1, 5, 7,) and his house at Rome, mention is made of a Prædium Lucretinum, Ad Attic. 7, 11, 1, and of farms near Ardea and Nomentum. The Life of Atticus, by Cornelius Nepos, formed, probably, a portion of that his torian's lost work De Historicis, (see Corn. Nep. Dio. iii. § 2.) Although a panegyric, the character of Atticus by Nepos is confirmed both by the immediate and the indirect testimonies in the letters of Cicero. Yet there is truth, as well as rhetoric, in the remark of Seneca, "that it was neither his son-in-law Agrippa, nor Tiberius, nor Drusus Cæsar, the husband, and the son of his daughter's child, but the Epistles of Cicero, that have preserved the name of Pomponius Atticus from oblivion." (Senec. Ep. xxi.) ATTICUS, (Julius,) father of Herodes Atticus, (see HERODES,) was reduced to extreme poverty by the condemnation of his father Hipparchus for high treason. The accidental discovery of an immense treasure in a house that belonged to him, near the theatre, restored him to wealth and station; and he subsequently improved his fortune by a rich marriage. According to the rigour of the law, the emperor might have laid claim to the treasure, and Atticus, in whom the memory of Domitian's reign was recent, prevented the officiousness of informers by a voluntary confession. But Nerva was emperor, and refused to accept any part of the deposit, bidding Atticus use, without scruple, the present of fortune. Atticus was still distrustful, and again wrote to the emperor, that "the treasure was too considerable for a subject, and that he knew not how to use it.' "Abuse it, then," was the good-humoured reply, "for it is all your own." Atticu made a liberal use of the imperial permission, and in his tastes and donation: was only less magnificent than his sor Herodes. When the latter, in his office of præfect of the free cities of Asia, ha persuaded Adrian to erect an aqueduc for the town of Troas, and the work, wher completed, amounted to more than double the estimate; Atticus, the father, silence the murmurs of the officers of the revenue and the remonstrances of the emperor, by taking upon himself the whole additiona expense. Atticus frequently sacrificed hecatomb to Athene, and entertained al the free citizens of Athens, at the Dionysiac, and other solemn festivals. In his will he bequeathed to each citizen the annuity of a mina, (31. 4s. 7d.) After his restoration to opulence, it was discovered that Julius Atticus was lineally descended from Miltiades, Cecrops, and Zeus. From an anecdote preserved by Philostratus, (De Vitis Sophistar. lib. i. xxi.) Atticus would seem to have been of a rather intolerant temper, since on ATT the arrival of the sophist Scopelianus at Athens, whom he engaged as tutor to his son Herodes, he overthrew all the statues of the ancient rhetoricians in his house and gardens, saying," that they had done his son nothing but harm," because their precepts had not taught him to discourse extemporarily; and he afterwards recompensed an oration, pronounced in praise of himself, jointly by the young Herodes and his tutor, with a present of fifteen talents to Scopelianus, and of fifty to his son. (See Philostrat. in Vit. Sophistar. lib.i. xxi. 7. and lib. ii. i. c. 1-4.) ATTICUS, a Platonic philosopher in the second century, who lived under the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. He opposed some of the opinions of Aristotle. (Biog. Univ.) ATTICUS, patriarch of Constantinople in the fifth century. 406 he was appointed to succeed St. In the year Chrysostom, on his deprivation, in the see of Constantinople; but the appointment was rendered almost invalid by the settled hostility of both laity and clergy, who were much attached to their former pastor. He composed a treatise, De Fide et Virginitate, for the daughters of the emperor Arcadius. ATTILA, son of Mundzuk, followed his uncle Rua, or Rugilas, in the government of the Hunnish hordes, who had been settled for nearly sixty years in the countries north of the Euxine, and who had just received the territory of Pannonia by the favour of the imperial general Etius. Attila had a brother Bleda, who was associated with him in the government, and whose name appears as a party to the treaty concluded, in the year of their accession, with the Byzantine court. But Attila could "bear no rival near the throne," and his brother was shortly removed by him from the empire and the world. About this time, a Hunnish herdsman saw that the foot of one of his heifers was bleeding from a wound, and searching for the cause, discovered a sword buried in the ground, and whose point projected upwards. This sword, which was put into the hands of Attila, was asserted to be that of the god of war, -a deity whom his nation worshipped under the figure of a naked sword, and this incident was published as a certain indication of the will of heaven that Attila should rule alone. The limits of the kingdom thus acquired it is difficult to ascertain. He is spoken of by ancient writers as ruler of Germany but whilst some of the moderns 308 ATT (as Deguignes) maintain that his empire stretched into the heart of Asia, and that he made alliance with the emperor of China against their common enemies; others have denied that his kingdom extended beyond the eastern limits of Europe. The words used, however, must denote in any sense a vast extent of country. But it is not so much the square miles of barren and almost uninhabited country overrun by the Huns, or the rich tributes extorted by Attila from the degenerate Romans, that have marked him out in the world's history; an utter barbarian, compared with whom the Gothic tribes were highly civilized, and before whose savage impetuosity the Goths, the bravest of the brave, were west of Europe with a devastation so forced to yield, he swept from east to adversaries the appellation of "the awful, that he earned from his astonished scourge of God." history are his war with the Byzantine The most important points of Attila's empire, and his expedition to the west of Europe. A peace had been concluded with the emperor Theodosius by Attila at the beginning of his reign, made up of Attila, and the most abject submisof the haughtiest exactions on the part sion on that of the emperor. was recklessly broken by the Hun, who, But this at the instigation of Genseric, king of the Vandals, fell upon the Illyrian provinces, destroyed more than seventy cities and forts, defeated the army of the empire in three battles, laid waste the country between the Black Sea and the Adriatic, of Greece, and reduced the greater part and from the Danube to the boundaries of the inhabitants to slavery. Peace was made on condition of an addition to the cession of a tract of land south of the tribute of gold paid by the Romans, the Danube, a ransom for the Roman captives, and the free dismissal of the Huns taken prisoners by the Romans. Theodosius, after weakly submitting to these and other indignities, attempted to poison his barbarian adversary; but the treachery, suggested by one of the imperial eunuchs, through the interpreter of the embassy to the Gothic ambassador of Attila, Edecon, was defeated by the repentance of the latter, and fresh humiliations were necessary on the part of Theodosius to avert the consequences of this attempted breach of the law of nations. Shortly after this attempt, Theodosius died, and the firmness of his successor Marcian, who refused to continue the payment of the tribute, repelled the Hunnish armies from the frontiers of the eastern empire to those of the Visigoths in Gaul. The daughter of Theodoric, king of these latter, had been barbarously and ignominiously punished by her father-in-law Genseric, king of the Vandals, for an alleged attempt to poison him; and Genseric sought in the alliance of Attila protection against the powerful vengeance of Theodoric. One of the Frankish princes had also solicited the assistance of the Huns against his brother. A further pretext for war against the Romans themselves was found by Attila, in his alleged claim of the hand of Honoria, the sister of Valentinian III., emperor of the West, who had offered herself to him in marriage, to escape from the confinement of a cloister, to which she had been condemned for her incontinence. Under pretence, therefore, of claiming his self-offered bride, with such a dowry as barbarians in that age were wont to exact, and professing also to answer the calls which had been made upon him for assistance, Attila set out with a large army of Huns and tributaries, which was swelled by continual accessions as he proceeded westward towards the territories of the Visigoths. The decisive battle was fought at Châlons. The combined army of the Goths and Romans had been partially routed by Attila, and king Theodoric slain, when his son Torrismund, who held a height commanding the field of battle, turned the fortune of the day, and routed the Hunnish army so completely, that the approach of night alone saved them from utter destruction. At least 160,000 of the Huns are said to have fallen in the battle; and Attila had already prepared a pile on which to escape captivity by self-slaughter, when the jealousy of Etius, the Roman general, saved him; he persuaded Torrismund, whose dangerous aggrandizement he feared, to return to the kingdom, which, by his father's death, devolved upon him. This was the last great attempt of Attila against the Roman empire. A threatened descent upon Rome during the next year was averted by the usual bribe of an increased tribute, and he promised shortly to return if Honoria, to whose hand he still laid claim, were not delivered to him. But this claim he was never to enforce. The bursting of a blood-vessel, on the night of his marriage with another wife, ended the life of the Hunnish monarch, and delivered Europe, and perhaps Asia, from terror. He was buried by night, attended by his chief warriors; immense spoils were thrown into the grave, and the captives who had opened it, according to the barbarous Scythian custom, mentioned by the earliest historians, were massacred on the spot. The moral picture of Attila may be gathered from the history of his life. The portrait of his person, the large head, swarthy visage, scanty beard, deepseated small eyes, and flat nose, is that of a genuine Tartar; and the accuracy of the description is one proof, amongst others, of the fidelity of the historian. (Ersch und Grüber.) Attila, Atli, Etzel, plays also a prominent part in ancient German poetry. The Edda songs, in the shape in which we now possess them, belong to the eighth century; those of Atli are somewhat more recent; both, however, refer to, and are based upon, still more ancient songs. According to the opinion of P. C. Müller, king Atli and the river Rhine are not the Etzel and the Rhine of German traditions, but are to be referred to recollections of the original Asiatic abodes of the Scandinavians; an opinion, however, adopted but by very few. The Edda does not exhibit the relation between Etzel and Attila the king of the Huns, but this relation becomes more apparent in Hildebrand's song and in Eckehard. In the Niebelungen Noth, we find Bleda, the brother of Attila, as Bloedelin, and the Kenka apparently as Helche. If tradition transferred the external circumstances of Attila upon Etzel, still it left his character (mixed up as it is with the poetical composition and arrangement) untouched, and in the most striking agreement with history. Etzel exhibits a certain unchivalrous behaviour, compared with the Burgundian kings. Much in the Niebelungen corresponds with the historical data of Etzel's power and extent of conquest. He is called the "grôze voget," (1133, 2;) and further "Von Roten zuo dem Rîne, von der Elbe unz an daz mer. Sô ist künec deheiner so gewaltic niht." There were in Attila's army minstrels, who sung the deeds of the famous chief; and it is stated, that in Bavaria there exist still songs on Attila, composed in an ancient dialect. Popular traditions report, that grass would not afterwards grow on any place trodden by the hoof of his horses. (Klemm's Attila nach des Geschichte, Sage und Legende. Leipzig, 1827. Grimm. &c.) |