Atticus was of what we should call a gentleman’s family, and belonged by inheritance to the democratic party.  But he early resolved to stand aloof from politics, and took an effectual means of carrying out his purpose by taking up his residence at Athens.  With characteristic prudence he transferred the greater part of his property to investments in Greece.  At Athens he became exceedingly popular.  He lent money at easy rates to the municipality, and made liberal distributions of corn, giving as much as a bushel and a half to every needy citizen.  He spoke Greek and Latin with equal ease and eloquence; and had, we are told, an unsurpassed gift for reciting poetry.  Sulla, who, for all his savagery, had a cultivated taste, was charmed with the young man, and would have taken him in his train.  “I beseech you,” replied Atticus, “don’t take me to fight against those in whose company, but that I left Italy, I might be fighting against you.”  After a residence of twenty-three years he returned to Rome, in the very year of Cicero’s consulship.  At Rome he stood as much aloof from the turmoil of civil strife as he had stood at Athens.  Office of every kind he steadily refused; he was under no obligations to any man, and therefore was not thought ungrateful by any.  The partisans of Caesar and of Pompey were content to receive help from his purse, and to see him resolutely neutral.  He refused to join in a project of presenting what we should call a testimonial to the murderers of Caesar on behalf of the order of the knights; but he did not hesitate to relieve the necessities of the most conspicuous of them with a present of between three and four thousand pounds.  When Antony was outlawed he protected his family; and Antony in return secured his life and property amidst the horrors of the second Proscription.

His biographer, Cornelius Nepos, has much to say of his moderation and temperate habits of life.  He had no sumptuous country-house in the suburbs or at the sea-coast, but two farm-houses.  He possessed, however, what seems to have been a very fine house (perhaps we should call it “castle,” for Cicero speaks of it as a place capable of defense) in Epirus.  It contained among other things a gallery of statues.  A love of letters was one of his chief characteristics.  His guests were not entertained with the performances of hired singers, but with readings from authors of repute.  He had collected, indeed, a very large library.  All his slaves, down to the very meanest, were well educated, and he employed them to make copies.

Atticus married somewhat late in life.  His only daughter was the first wife of Agrippa, the minister of Augustus, and his grand-daughter was married to Tiberius.  Both of these ladies were divorced to make room for a consort of higher rank, who, curiously enough, was in both cases Julia, the infamous daughter of Augustus.  Both, we may well believe, were regretted by their husbands.

Atticus died at the age of seventy-seven.  He was afflicted with a disease which he believed to be incurable, and shortened his days by voluntary starvation.