Terentia (wife of Cicero)

Terentia (* around 98 BC; † 6 AD) was the wife of Marcus Tullius Cicero .

Life

The main information about Terentia's life is provided by her husband's letters to her, his brother and his friends. No documents from her hand have survived.

origin

Terentia came from the plebeian , very wealthy family of the Terentier. Since Cicero was friends with Marcus Terentius Varro , it is quite possible that she was related to him. There is never any mention of her father. Presumably he died soon after the birth of his only child, so Terentia's substantial fortune was her heir. She owned several estates and townhouses, renting 80,000 sesterces .

Terentia had a half-sister Fabia from the patrician family of the Fabier , into whom her mother married after her father's death. Fabia was the vestal virgin who committed fornication Lucius Sergius Catilina 73 BC. Was accused.

Marriage to Cicero

Soon after Cicero's first appearance, she recognized his potential and married him at the latest in 76 BC. Her dowry of one hundred thousand denarii and the fact that she was now at least distantly related to a patrician family promoted Cicero's career.

Their two children were Tullia (* August 5th between 79 and 75 BC; † February 45 BC) and Marcus (* 65 BC), who was 30 BC. Was consul.

Plutarch described Terentia as dominant, courageous and ambitious. She would rather occupy herself with Cicero's career than with her household. Plutarch attributed to her jealousy of Clodia , the sister of Publius Clodius Pulcher , that Cicero was 62 BC. Testified in the Bona Dea scandal against Clodius. The resulting enmity of Clodius led in 58 BC. To the fact that Cicero had to go into exile.

24 letters from Cicero to his wife have been received, the oldest of them from the time of his exile, the last ones shortly before the divorce in 46 BC. Chr. Kept quite cool. These letters reveal both Terentia's sympathy for Cicero's political career and her financial commitment to him. During his exile in 58 BC When he was stripped of his citizenship and his property was confiscated, she tried to save what could be saved. Although her marriage to a man who had been deprived of civil rights officially ended, she insisted on remaining his wife. During this time she sought protection with her sister in the house of the Vestals.

When Cicero went to Cilicia as proconsul , she did not accompany him, which was probably also due to her poor health - she was already suffering from rheumatism as a young woman . The fact that she initiated her daughter's marriage to Dolabella at this time without her husband's explicit consent certainly contributed to the estrangement. As Cicero in 49 BC When she returned to Brundisium , she did not come to his reception . While Cicero did not re-enter Rome during the civil war , she managed and looked after his property. The increasingly short, meaningless letters from the following years suggest that Cicero increasingly distrusted her or her administrator Philotimos. He accused her of misappropriating money from Tullia's dowry.

divorce

Late 47 or early 46 BC C. Cicero divorced Terentia. Plutarch suspected the reason was that Terentia had poorly managed Cicero's fortune. In addition, only Tullia and not her expected him in Brundisium on his return from Cilicia. In a letter to Plautius, Cicero even accused her of treason. Perhaps she had tried to save her fortune at Cicero's expense in the turmoil of the civil war.

For Terentia, the divorce had the advantage that, as a vidua (widow, also called divorced in Latin), she could dispose of her own assets and no longer had to worry that it could be confiscated because of Cicero's political decisions or that she would suffer personal disadvantages from it. She financed her son's studies with the income from her apartment buildings.

After the divorce

Nothing is known about Terentia's life after Cicero's death, except that she outlived her husband by nearly four decades. According to Valerius Maximus and Pliny the Elder , she is said to have been 103 years old. The news that she first married Cicero's enemy Sallust and later Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus is believed to be fictional by modern scholars.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Calculated from the latest possible date of birth of Tullia, August 5th, 75 BC. Chr.
2. ↑ Plutarch, Cicero 20ff .
3. ↑ Cicero, Ad Atticum 11.2
4. ↑ Plutarch, Cicero 41
5. ↑ Susan Treggiari: Terentia, Tullia and Publilia. The Women of Cicero's Family , London 2007, pp. 129f.
6. ↑ Valerius Maximus, 8, 13, 6; Pliny, Naturalis historia 7,158.
7. ↑ Hieronymus , in Iovinianum 1, 48

literature

• Karen Ermete: Terentia and Tullia - women of the senatorial upper class . Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-631-50545-0 .
• Susan Treggiari: Terentia, Tullia and Publilia. The Women of Cicero's Family (Women of the Ancient World) . 2007, ISBN 978-0415351799

Web links

• Literature by and about Terentia in the catalog of the German National Library