Fulvia (mistress of Quintus Curius)

Fulvia was a Roman woman of noble origin, who came from the context of the Catilinarian conspiracy of 63 BC. When she relayed news of the conspiracy to the consul Marcus Tullius Cicero .

Life

Very little is known about Fulvia. She was a woman of the old nobility and, if we may believe Sallust , probably married to a man from high society. However, she does not seem to have taken the demands that Roman society placed on an honorable matron too closely: she reveled in luxury and had an adulterous relationship with Quintus Curius , a co-conspirator of Catiline .

Fulvia at Sallust

In the portrayal of Sallust, Fulvia has still retained a certain sense of responsibility for the state and society, despite her unconventional lifestyle. Despite the serious threats from the Curius, she did not withhold important information about the conspiracy and, without directly incriminating the conspirators, told several people about their plans to carry out a coup d'état:

Erat ei cum Fulvia, muliere nobili, stupri vetus consuetudo; quoi cum minus gratus esset quia inopia minus largiri poterat, repente glorians maria montisque polliceri coepit et minari interdum ferro, ni sibi obnoxia foret, postremo ferocius agitare quam solitus erat. At Fulvia insolentiae Curi causa cognita tale periculum rei publicae haud occultum habuit, sed sublato auctore de Catilinae coniuratione quae quoque modo audierat compluribus narravit.

“He (Curius) had an old adulterous relationship with Fulvia, a woman from the nobility. When he was less agreeable to her, because he could not give so generously because of his poverty, he suddenly began to boast, to promise seas and mountains, and to threaten with the sword now and then if she did not obey him, finally to himself wilder to sign than usual. But when Fulvia found out the reason for the unusual behavior of the Curius, she did not hide this great danger for the state, but told several of the conspiracy of Catiline without naming her, what and how she had heard it. "

With her self-confident and courageous demeanor, like Sempronia , she appears as a strong personality, which is particularly emphasized by the contrast to Curius. He seems very insecure and fickle through his showing off and his threats, as he expects certain advantages from the conspiracy, but apparently does not want to risk his life. According to Sallust, Curius is the driving force behind the betrayal of the conspiracy. Only at the last moment, when the situation became too dangerous for him, did he decide to send Fulvia to Cicero to warn him of an impending attack:

Curius ubi intellegit quantum periculum consuli impendeat, propere per Fulviam Ciceroni dolum, qui parabatur, enuntiat. Ita illi ianua prohibiti tantum facinus frustra susceperant.

“When Curius realized the great danger threatening the consul, he hurriedly sent Fulvia Cicero to report the attack that was being prepared. So those were not allowed to the door and had committed such a crime in vain. "

Fulvia at Plutarch

With Plutarch things are slightly different; Plutarch doesn't mention Curius at a single word and Fulvia, who is described as a woman from noble circles, rushes to Consul Cicero in the middle of the night to convey the news of the planned attack on him:

“... but Marcius and Cethegus he (Catilina) called with the sword early in the morning as a greeting to Cicero's house and killed him with a sudden attack. Fulvia, a woman from high circles, revealed this to Cicero; she came to him that night with the warning to watch out for the men at Cethegus. "

Fulvia with Valerius Maximus

A passage in Valerius Maximus could suggest that Fulvia was still 52 BC. Was noticed by their shameless behavior:

Lupanari enim domi suae instituto Muniam (Muciam, Munatiam?) Et Flaviam (Fulviam, Fluviam?), Cum a patre tum a viro utramque inclitam, et nobilem puerum Saturninum in eo prostituit. Probrosae patientiae corpora, ludibrio temulentae libidini futura!

“After he (Gemellus) had turned his house into a brothel, he prostituted in this Munia and Flavia (Fulvia), each famous by both father and husband, as well as Saturninus, a boy of nobility. What rejected creatures it had to be who were willing to be found and indulged in the ideas of drunken lust! "

The Fulvia of Valerius Maximus could also have been another Fulvia, since all female members of the gens Fulvia bore this name. In addition, Valerius Maximus does not give any further information about their origin, ie he does not name any filiation or anything similar. In addition, there is a strong contamination of the manuscripts, which does not allow a definitive conclusion on the names of the two women mentioned; It remains to be seen whether, as Friedrich Münzer suspects, it is the same Fulvia as the Catilinarian Conspiracy.

swell

• Gaius Sallustius Crispus, De coniuratione Catilinae, annotated by Karl Vretska, 2 vol., Heidelberg 1976
• Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinae. A commentary (Mnemosyne. Bibliotheca Classica Batava 45), ed. by P. McGushin, Leiden 1977
• Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Catilina, Iugurtha, Historiarum Fragmenta Selecta, Appendix Sallustiana (Oxford Classical Texts), ed. by LD Reynolds, Oxford 1991
• Plutarch, Cicero, ed. by Friedhelm L. Müller , Aachen 1998
• Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia, ed. by Carl Kempf, Leipzig 1888
• Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia. Libri VII - IX, Vol. 2 (Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana), ed. by John Briscoe, Stuttgart 1998

literature

• Dacre Balsdon : The woman in Roman antiquity , Munich 1979
• Karl Büchner : Sallust , Heidelberg 1982
• Maria H. Dettenhofer : On the political role of aristocrats between republic and principate . In: Latomus 51 (1992), pp. 775-795.
• Friedrich Münzer, sv Fulvia, in: RE VII, 1 (1910), Sp. 280–281
• Anja Schweers: Images of women and men in ancient Rome , in: Der Altsprachliche Studium 42/2 (1999), pp. 2-14
• Bettina Eva Stumpp: Prostitution in Roman Antiquity , Berlin 2001
• Ronald Syme , Sallust , Darmstadt 1975
• Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg : The procedure against the Catilinarians or: The avoided process , in: Great processes of Roman antiquity , ed. by Ulrich Manthe and Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg, Munich 1997, pp. 85-99

Remarks

1. ↑ Sallust, Coniuratio Catilinae 23, 3-4.
2. ↑ Sallust, Coniuratio Catilinae 28, 2-3.
3. ↑ Plutarch, Cicero 16, 1-2.
4. ↑ Valerius Maximus 9, 1, 8.