Calpurnia (Caesar's wife)

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Calpurnia (* around 77 BC in Rome; † ibid.) Was the third or fourth and last wife of the Roman politician and dictator Gaius Iulius Caesar .

Life

Calpurnia was the daughter of the Roman senator Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus . In April 59 BC BC she became the last wife of Caesar, who held the consulate for the first time that year . As is customary in the Roman upper class, the marriage served to strengthen a political connection, which made it easier for Calpurnia's father to be elected consul for the following year. At the same time, Caesar's daughter Julia , whom he had from his first wife Cornelia , was married to the much older Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus in order to strengthen the relationship between the two most powerful men in Rome at the time. The fact that Caesar (instead of the 40-year-old Servilia he had loved for a long time ) took such a young (18-year-old) wife as his wife was probably due to his desire for a son and heir, but the marriage did not result in any Children.

In order to be able to marry a daughter of Pompey, Caesar considered 52 BC. To divorce Calpurnia, but it did not get that far.

It is not known how Calpurnia expressed herself about Caesar's extramarital affair with the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra VII . Resided in one of the houses of the dictator in Rome and thus became the talk of the town.

According to some sources, Calpurnia had died on the night before the Ides of March 44 BC. A nightmare in which she foresaw her husband's death; she dreamed that the roof of her house (according to Plutarch, the gable erected as a sign of honor by Senate resolution) would collapse and that Caesar would be killed in her lap. Despite her best efforts, she did not succeed in preventing her (non-superstitious) husband from going to the Senate. There he was murdered under the leadership of Brutus and Cassius .

Shortly afterwards, Calpurnia handed over Caesar's papers (including state files) and property to the consul Marcus Antonius . Nothing is known about her further life. The grave inscription of a servant of the Calpurnia was found.

Eponyms

In 1982 the asteroid (2542) Calpurnia was named after her.

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Depending on whether the young Caesar was only engaged to Cossutia (Suetonius, Caesar 1, 1) or married, as Plutarch, Caesar 5, 7 implies.
  2. ^ Suetonius , Caesar 21; Plutarch , Caesar 14, 8; Pompey 47:10; Appian , Civil Wars 2, 14; Cassius Dio 38, 9, 1.
  3. ↑ So Kytzler (see Lit.), p. 43.
  4. ^ Suetonius, Caesar 27.
  5. ^ Suetonius, Caesar 81, 3f .; Plutarch, Caesar 63, 8-12, quoting from Livy (fragment 58 from Book 116 of his Roman History); Appian, Civil Wars 2, 115f .; Cassius Dio 44, 17, 1; Obsequens 67; among others
  6. ^ Plutarch, Antonius 15; Appian, Civil Wars 2, 125.
  7. ↑ CIL 6, 14211 .
  8. ↑ Minor Planet Circ. 6834
personal data
SURNAME Calpurnia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION third wife of Caesar
DATE OF BIRTH around 77 BC Chr.
PLACE OF BIRTH Rome
DATE OF DEATH 1st century BC BC or 1st century
Place of death Rome