The many Attici

There are many who do not like our choice of names. We do not particularly care, but we wanted to make sure there were no negative connotations associated with the name Atticus. So, naturally, we googled it.

According to Wikipedia, Atticus could refer to the following:

* Archbishop Atticus of Constantinople (406–425)

* Atticus Finch, the central character in To Kill a Mockingbird

* Titus Pomponius Atticus (110 BC/109 BC – 32 BC), an ancient Roman littérateur / philosopher

* Herodes Atticus (c. 101-177), a Greek rhetorician

* Atticus (c. 175), an Academic philosopher and author of lost Plato commentary

* Atlas moth, genus Atticus

* Atticus Circle, a non-profit advocating for LGBT issues in Texas

* Atticus Clothing, a clothing line developed by musicians

* Atticus (band), an alternative rock band from Knoxville, Tennessee

* Atticus Rhodes, a character in the English dub of the Japanese anime Yu-Gi-Oh! GX

* Atticus, a novel by American writer Ron Hansen

Of course, we got the name from To Kill a Mockingbird, a book I read for the first time in my second trimester. I can't believe it took me so long to read it, but I grabbed it one day in our tiny downtown library and could not put it down in the two days it took me to finish it. After watching the movie a few weeks later with Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, I was hooked on the name.

And as for all of the other above references to Atticus, I am perfectly ok with all of them. I especially like the non-profit advocating for LGBT issues and the alternative rock band from Knoxville (my mom went to high school and college there, so we have lots of connections to the city). But my favorite Atticus is Titus Pomponius Atticus because this is what we read about him:

"In one his collections of biographical sketches, Cornelius Nepos described the life of an Epicurean from the first century B.C., the banker, publisher, and close associate of Cicero, Titus Pomponius Atticus:

Titus Pomponius Atticus, descended from the most ancient Roman ancestry, kept uninterrupted the equestrian rank inherited from his forbears. His father was industrious, by the standards of those days wealthy, and greatly interested in literature. He, in accord with his love of letters, educated his son in all those branches of learning in which boyhood should be made to share. As a boy, in addition to a natural capacity for learning, he also had an exceptionally agreeable expression and tone, so he not only swiftly learned passages that were set, but also recited them extremely well. As a result he had a distinguished reputation among his peers and shone forth more brightly than his high-born schoolmates could bear with indifference. Thus he roused them all by his own zeal: among their number were—Lucius Torquatus, the younger Gaius Marius, and Marcus Cicero; with all of whom he became so close that no one was dearer to them throughout his life.

His father died early. As a young man, because of his being an in-law of Publius Sulpicius, who was killed while tribune of the plebians, he had some share in that danger; for Anicia, a cousin of Pomponius on his mother's side, had married Servius, Sulpicius' brother. So when Sulpicius was killed and Atticus saw that the state was thrown into strife by the disorder Cinna incited, and that he was given no opportunity to live in keeping with his rank without offending one side or the other—the citizens' loyalties were divided with some favoring the party of Sulla, others that of Cinna—he thought it was the right time to devote himself to his studies and moved to Athens. Nevertheless, when the younger Marius had been declared an enemy of the state, he helped him from his own resources and assisted his escape with money. And in order that his travels abroad should do his estate no harm, he moved a substantial part of his fortune to Athens.

There he lived in such a manner that he became greatly beloved by all Athenians, and for good reason. For apart from his personal charm which was already abundant in his youth, he often relieved their public want from his own resources; when they were obliged to roll-over the public debt and were unable to obtain reasonable terms for it, he always intervened on terms where he never accepted usurious interest rates from them nor allowed them to remain in debt beyond the term fixed. Both conditions were advantageous to them, since he neither suffered their debt to become overdue by his leniency nor to grow through compounding of the interest. He augmented this service by a further act of generosity: he gave them all six modii [~50 liters] of wheat per person: the equivalent measure being called a medimnus at Athens.

His behavior in Athens was such that he showed himself to be at one with the humblest and equal with the mighty. The result was that they bestowed upon him all the public honors possible and desired to make him a citizen. This gift he was unwilling to take advantage of, because the jurists hold that if one becomes a citizen elsewhere, Roman citizenship is forfeited. So long as he lived there, he opposed the erection of any statue to him, but when he left he could not stop them. And so they put up several statues to him and Phidiae in their most sacred places, for in all the administration of the state's business, they treated him as both agent and adviser. It was, therefore, fortune's foremost gift that he was born in that very city where rulership over the world resided, so that it was for him both his fatherland and home; on the other hand, it was a mark of his wisdom that when he moved to the city which surpassed all others in its antiquity, culture, and learning, he was dearer to it than all other men....

At dinner-parties no one heard any entertainment other than a reader, which is quite delightful in my opinion, nor was there ever a dinner at his house without some reading to please his guests' minds not less than their bellies; for he invited people whose way of life was not incompatible with his own. When the great increase in his wealth occurred, he made no change in his daily routine and displayed such moderation that neither on the 2 million sesterces [~ 62,500 troy ounces of silver] which he had inherited from his father did he live with insufficient splendor, nor on 10 million sesterces [~ 312,500 troy ounces of silver] did he live in greater extravagance than before, and on both fortunes maintained the same level. He had no gardens, no expensive villa near Rome or by the sea, nor any country estate in Italy, except for those at Arezzo and Mentana. All his income came from the estates in Epirus and Rome. From this one can see that he measured the usefulness of money not by quantity but by reason.

He never told lies nor could endure them. Hence his courtesy did not lack severity nor his gravity charm, so that it was difficult to understand whether his friends more respected or loved him. Whenever a request was made him, he gave his word scrupulously, because he thought it not generous but rather capricious to the extent that one could not perform. He was also so careful in attending to what he had promised them that he gave the impression of carrying out not a mandate for another but his own business. He never tired of a venture once undertaken, for he thought his own reputation was involved in it, and than that there was nothing dearer to him. Thus the consequence was that he looked after all the business affairs of the Ciceros, of Marcus Cato, Quintus Hortensius, Aulus Torquatus, and of many Roman equestrians besides. From this the judgment is permissible that he avoided administration of the state's business not from indolence but from choice.

What more should I tell of Atticus' devotion to his family? I heard him priding himself on just this at his mother's funeral, whom he buried at the age of ninety, being himself sixty-seven, that he never had occasion to need reconciliation with his mother nor quarreled with his sister, who was roughly his own age. That is a sign either that no conflict had ever occurred between them or that he was so indulgent towards his family that he judged it vicious to be angry with those whom he ought to love. Nor did he do this because of nature alone, although we all obey her, but also on account of his principles, for he had so fully perceived the precepts of the principal philosophers that he employed them for conducting his life, not for show."

Hopefully our little Atticus can live up to such a great name.