Her ancestry can be traced to the Athenian noble woman Elpinice (a half sister of statesman Cimon and daughter of politician Miltiades the Younger).
There is a possibility that a paternal ancestor of hers received Roman citizenship, from an unknown member of the Claudius gens.
[3] She was the daughter of Roman senator Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes and the wealthy heiress Vibullia Alcia Agrippina.
[1] Her maternal grandparents were Claudia Alcia and Lucius Vibullius Rufus, while her paternal grandfather was Hipparchus and his unnamed wife.
Modern historians have argued that Tisamenis could have married a Greek aristocrat in Sparta from the Achaea Province.