Atticus Titus Pomponius

Atticus, Titus Pomponius, was born in 110 B.C. of an honourable Roman family. He was educated with Cicero, and from their life-long friendship he derived his fame. Leaving Rome to avoid being mixed up in the struggles between Marius and Sulla, he settled at Athens, where he won his surname by his thorough mastery of Greek. Cicero wrote to him the celebrated series of letters that has come down to us, but not a single reply from Atticus is extant, and his Annals have also perished. He appears to have been a man of singularly refined and genial character, having been able to retain the affection of such bitter opponents as Pompey and Caesar, Augustus and Antony, Cicero and Hortensius. His great wealth and powerful influence were always used to promote concord and diminish the miseries of civil war. He is said to have starved himself to death in 33 B.C. in order to escape the tortures of an incurable malady.