His father was a prominent judge from Ithaca, but Rodotheatos passed his youth in Corfu, where he received his first lessons in the study of music with Nikolaos Mantzaros, the 'father' of the Ionian school.
After staying at Corfu for some time he travelled to Italy in order to continue his studies at the Conservatorio di Musica Giuseppe Verdi of Milan.
It seems likely that Alberto Mazzucato, who served as a music director at the Conservatorio, was one of his teachers, who had encouraged him to stage one of his first operas.
[1] According to Motsenigos, Rodotheatos also studied for seven years at the Conservatorio di Musica San Pietro a Majella in Naples between 1864 and 1871,as did many students including Cavaliere Nikolaos Mantzaros.
He was also the author of the first Greek-speaking harmony work, Πραγματεία Θεωρητικὴ καὶ πρακτικὴ περὶ ἁρμονίας (Pragmatia Theoritiki ke praktiki peri Armonias), which appeared in 1886 in Corfu.