Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/410

Rh 392 ATAULPHUS. second siege raised by the mock emperor Attains to the office of Count of the Domestics ; and on the death of Alaric in 410, he was elected to sup- ply his place as king of the Visigoths. (Jomandes, de Reb. Get, 32.) From this time the accounts of his history vary exceedingly. The only undisputed facts are, that he retired with his nation into the south of Gaul, — that he married Placidia, sister of Honorius, — and that he finally withdrew into Spain, where he was murdered at Barcelona. Ac- cording to Jomandes {de Reb. Get. 32), he took Rome a second time after Alaric 's death, carried off Placidia, formed a treaty with Honorius, which was cemented by his marriage with Placidia at Forum Livii or Cornelii, remained a faithful ally in Gaul, and went into Spain for the purpose of suppressing the agitations of the Suevi and Vandals against the empire. But the other authorities for the time agree on the whole in giving a different re- presentation. According to them, the capture of Placidia had taken place before Alaric's death (Philostorg. xii. 4 ; Olympiod. /. c. ; Marcellin. Chronicon) ; the treaty with the empire was not concluded till after Ataulphus's retreat into Gaul, where he was implicated in the insurrection of Jovinus, and set up Attains, whom he detained in his camp for a musician, as a rival emperor ; he then endeavoured to make peace with Honorius by sending him the head of the usurper Sebastian, and by offering to give up Placidia in exchange for a gift of com ; on this being refused, he at- tacked Massilia, from which he was repulsed by Bonifacius; finally, the marriage with Placidia took place at Narbo (Idat. Chronicon which so exasperated her lover, the general Constantins, as to make him drive Ataulphus into Spain. (Oro- sins, vii. 43; Idat. Chro7iicon; Philostorg. xii. 4.) He was remarkable as being the first indepen- dent chief who entered into alliance with Rome, not for pay, but from respect. His original ambi- tion had been (according to Orosius, vii. 43, who appears to record his very words), " that what ■was now Romania should become Gothia, and what Caesar Augustus was now, that for the future should be Ataulphus, but that his experience of the evils of lawlessness and the advantages of law had changed his intention, and that his highest glory now would be to be known in after ages as the defender of the empire." And thus his marriage with Placidia — the first contracted between a barbarian chief and a Roman princess — was looked upon by his contemporaries as a marked epoch, and as the fulfilment of the prophecy of Daniel, that the king of the North should wed the daughter of the king of the South. (Idat. Chro- nicon.) He was a man of striking personal appearance, and of middle stature. (Jomandes, de Reb. Get. 32.) The details of his life are best given in Olympiodorus {ap. Phot.), who gives a curious de- scription of the scene of his nuptials with Placidia in the house of Ingenuus of Narbo (p. 59, b. ed. Bekker). His death is variously ascribed to the personal anger of the assassin Venmlf or ( Olympiod. p. 60, a.) Dobbins (Jomandes, di} Reb. Get. 32), to the in- trigues of Constantins (Philostorg. xii. 4), and to a conspiracy occasioned in the camp by his having put to death a rival chief, Sarus (Olympiod. p. 58, b.) It is said to have taken place in the palace at Barcelona (Idat. Chronicon), or whilst, according ATERIUS. to his custom, he was looking at his stables. (Olympiod. p. 60, a.) His first wife was a Sarmatian, who was divorced to make way for Placidia (Phi- lostorg. xii. 4), and by whom he had six children. The only offspring of his second marriage was a son, Theodosius, who died in infancy. (Olympiod. p. 59, b.) * [A. P. S.] ATE ( Att?), according to Hesiod (Theog. 230), a daughter of Eris, and according to Homer (//. xix. 91) of Zeus, was an ancient Greek divinity, who led both gods and men to rash and inconside- rate actions and to suffering. She once even in- duced Zeus, at the birth of Heracles, to take an oath by which Hera was afterwards enabled to give to Eurystheus the power which had boon destined for Heracles. "When Zeus discovered his rashness, he hurled Ate from Olympus and banished her for ever from the abodes of the gods. (Honi. II. xix. 126, &c.) In the tragic writers Ate appears in a different light : she avenges evil deeds and inflicts just punishments upon the offenders and their posterity (Aeschyl. Choeph. 381), so that her character here is almost the same as that of Nemesis and Erinnys. She appears most promi- nent in the dramas of Aeschylus, and least in those of Euripides, with whom the idea of Dike (justice) is more fully developed. (Blumner, Ueber die Idee des Schicksals, ^c. p. 64, &c.) [ L, S.] AT EI US, surnamed Fraetej-taius, and also Philologus, the latter of which surnames he assumed in order to indicate his great learning, was born at Athens, and was one of the most celebrated gram- marians at Rome, in the latter half of the first century b. c. He was a freedman, and was per- haps originally a slave of the jurist Ateius Capito, by whom he was characterized as a rhetorician among grammarians, and a grammarian among rhetoricians. He taught many of the Roman nobles, and was particularly intimate with the historian Sallust, and with Asinius Pollio. Foi* the former he drew up an abstract of Roman his- tory {Breviariuni rerum omnium Romanarum ), that Sallust might select from it for his history such subjects as he chose ; and for the latter he compiled precepts on the art of writing. Asinius Pollio believed that Ateius collected for Sallust many of the peculiar expressions which we find in his writings, but this is expressly denied by Suetonius. The commentarii of Ateius were ex- ceedingly numerous, but only a very few were ex- tant even in the time of Suetonius. (Sueton. de Illiistr. Grammat. 10 ; comp. Osann, Anulecta Cri- tic, p. 64, &c. ; Madvig, Opuacula Academica, p. 97, cS:c.) ATEIUS CA'PITO. [Capito.] ATEIUS SANCTUS. [Sanctus.] ATERIA'NUS, JU'LIUS, wrote a work upon the Thirty Tyrants (a. d. 259—268), or at least upon one of them, Victorinus. Trebellius Pollio {Trig. Tyr. 6) gives an extract from his work. A. ATE'RNIUS or ATE'RIUS consul b. c. 454, Avith Sp. Tarpeius. (Liv. iii. 31.) The con- sulship is memorable for the passing of the Ij'<v Aternia Tarpeia. {Diet, of Ant. s. v.) Aternius was subsequently in b. c. 448, one of the patrician tribunes of the people, which was the only timo that patricians were elected to that office. (Liv. iii. 65.) ATE'RIUS, or HATE'RIUS, a Roman juris- consult, who was probably contemporary with Cicero, and gave occasion to one of that great ora-