Porcia (daughter of Catos)
Porcia (* before 67 BC; † 42 BC (?)), Also Porcia Catonis or Portia , was the daughter of the Roman politician Marcus Porcius Cato the Younger and wife of the Caesar murderer Marcus Junius Brutus .
Life
Porcia was the daughter of Cato the Younger and his first wife Atilia, the daughter of an Atilius Serranus. From her, Cato let himself be 63 BC. Divorced because he suspected them of adultery. Porcia had a younger brother, Marcus . Your date of birth is unknown. Plutarch only mentions that at their second marriage in 45 B.C.E. Was still very young. Since they were around 53 BC Was already a mother and the minimum age for the marriage of Roman girls was 12 years, her birth will be in the time before Cato's stay as a military tribune in Macedonia (67-65 BC). Marriage proposals of Pompey 61 BC And of Hortensius 56 BC. Her father Cato refused to Porcia.
In her first marriage she was married to Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus , the colleague of Gaius Julius Caesar in his first consulate in 59 BC. She had a son with him. Possibly it was Lucius Calpurnius Bibulus, who already 42 BC. Fought in the Battle of Philippi and 32 BC. Died as governor of Syria . Quintus Hortensius Hortalus , who lived around 53 BC. Chr. Sought a closer connection to Cato, tried to persuade him to give him Porcia as his wife. He even promised Bibulus to give her back when she had given birth to him. But Bibulus did not get involved in the deal. Instead, Cato left his own wife Marcia to Hortensius .
After Caesar 49 BC After crossing the Rubicon , the optimates Cato and Bibulus Pompeius joined them. 48 BC Bibulus died as a naval commander in the civil war . After the lost battle at Pharsalus, Cato fled to Utica, where he lived in 46 BC. Took life. Shortly afterwards, Porcia's cousin Marcus Iunius Brutus divorced his wife, the daughter of Appius Claudius Pulcher , and married in 45 BC. Chr. Porcia. They had a son together who, however, was born in 43 BC. Died and a daughter.
When Brutus joined the conspiracy against Caesar, she first tested her ability to suffer by injuring herself with a knife. Then she insisted that Brutus' companion and Cato's daughter be let in on his secrets. Plutarch reports that on the day of the murder, the lack of news about Brutus affected her so much that she fell faint, whereupon the rumor spread that she had died.
After the murder of Caesar and the escape of the assassins, Porcia stayed in Rome and probably died in July 43 BC. BC, as can be inferred from Marcus Tullius Cicero's letter of condolence to Brutus. The representation in Plutarch contradicts this : After she recovered, he reports, citing Porcia's son from his first marriage, she wanted to travel to Greece with Brutus, but stayed in Italy and - back in Rome - followed suit Brutus' death taken life by eating hot coals. Plutarch doubts the authenticity of a letter from Brutus accusing his friends of not preventing Porcia's death.
There is no doubt that Porcia did not survive her husband. The tradition that she took her own life when she found out about his death is a fiction, the purpose of which was to make her appear as an exemplary wife and a worthy daughter of Cato.
family tree
literature
- Coppélia Kahn: Roman Shakespeare. Warriors, Wounds and Women . Routledge, London et al. 1997, ISBN 0-415-05450-8 , pp. 96-105 .
- Renate Schrodi-Grimm: The suicide as virtue heroine . An early modern image and its reception history . Dissertation, University of Göttingen 2009, p. 166-176 ( full text ).
- Linda Simonis: Porcia. In: Peter von Möllendorff , Annette Simonis, Linda Simonis (ed.): Historical figures of antiquity. Reception in literature, art and music (= Der Neue Pauly . Supplements. Volume 8). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2013, ISBN 978-3-476-02468-8 , Sp. 789-796.
- Meret Strohmann: Porcia [2]. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 10, Metzler, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-476-01480-0 , column 157.
Remarks
- ↑ Plutarch: Cato minor 7, 3.
- ↑ Plutarch: Cato 23, 3.
- ↑ Plutarch: Brutus 13, 3.
- ↑ Plutarch: Cato 25, 2.
- ↑ Bernhard Kytzler : Women of antiquity. From Aspasia to Zenobia . Artemis, Munich & Zurich 2000, ISBN 3-7608-1224-4 , pp. 140-141.
- ↑ So Plutarch: Brutus 13, 3; according to Cato 25, 2 there were even two sons.
- ↑ Plutarch: Cato 25, 2-4.
- ^ Plutarch, Brutus 13.
- ↑ Plutarch, Brutus 15.
- ^ Cicero: ad Brutum 1, 9
- ↑ Plutarch, Brutus 23.
- ↑ Plutarch, Brutus 53, 5 with reference to Valerius Maximus 4, 6, 5 and Nikolaos of Damascus .
- ↑ Plutarch, Brutus 53: 6-7.
- ↑ See Josiah Osgood: Caesar's Legacy , Cambridge 2006, p. 99 f.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Porcia |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Porcia Catonis; Portia |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Daughter of the younger Cato, wife of Brutus |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1st century BC Chr. |
| DATE OF DEATH | uncertain: 42 BC Chr. |