Download Marcus Antonius

FULVIA
1. FULVIA is seen immediately as a complete contrast to most of the historical
women we have considered so far:
a) she did not hide her political ambition;
b) she gained greatly from her three marriages in establishing her public image;
c) she understood how to take advantage of the changing political atmosphere in
the Rome state against a background of imminent ‘civil war’ – especially as
the wife of MARCUS ANTONIUS.
2. She was a contemporary of both CLODIA and TERENTIA and, in many ways,
the contrast could not have been greater.
3. Born about 83 BC and so in her 20s when the political stability at Rome began to
be seriously threatened, her first marriage was to PUBLIUS CLODIUS
PULCHER himself - making her the sister-in law of CLODIA.
4. The marriage took place about 62 BC when FULVIA was about 19 or 20 and
Publius Clodius about 29 or 30 and Fulvia seems to have been his second wife.
5. a) Be that as it may, in his defence of Milo in court in 52 BC Cicero says that
when Clodius and Milo clashed outside Rome on the Appian Way – an
encounter that led to Clodius’ death, Clodius was “without his wife, which
was hardly ever the case” (section 28).
b) There seems to be substance, then, to the claim that Fulvia went everywhere
with her husband - not the usual practice for Roman wives under ‘the
Republic’.
6. Even more interesting: when Clodius as the tribune of 58 BC was put in office
to protect the work of Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey from being reversed and
recruited at least one gang to do his bidding – leading to open thuggery in Rome
- FULVIA seems to have been associated personally with “the guilds” from
which the gangs were recruited [at least this is the claim of one modern scholar].
Something about which there seems to be little doubt is that FULVIA was
personally instrumental in instigating the riots that followed Clodius’ murder riots which saw his body cremated in the Forum by his supporters and the
Senate House burned down.
8. a) Even more important than this role, FULVIA herself seems to have retained
the loyalty of those who had been members of her husband’s gangs long
after his death and was able to bring their support to her future marriages suggesting a very close relationship on her part with those gangs.
b) Their continuing loyalty gave her power and status in her own right.
9. With Publius Clodius, FULVIA had two children (their daughter even becoming for a very
7.
short time the wife of the young Gaius Octavius, the future “emperor” Augustus).
FULVIA’S SECOND MARRIAGE
1. Very soon after the murder of Publius Clodius (in 52 BC) Fulvia married Gaius
Scribonius Curio, another leading “populist” (perhaps ‘extremist’) politician.
2. a) Although Curio came from a less “aristocratic” family than Clodius, he
appears to have had considerable means, which will have appealed, no doubt,
to Fulvia.
b) He also showed himself early on in their marriage (which took place in 52 or
51 BC after the established 10-month period of mourning) to be a willing
successor to Publius Clodius in terms of advocating a similar radical political
agenda – no doubt of interest to FULVIA if she was herself a supporter of
such policies from behind the scenes (which does seem likely).
3. CURIO was killed in 49 BC within two years of his marriage to Fulvia, as he
fought in north Africa for Julius Caesar in the civil war.
4. a) Exactly what FULVIA herself did during the earlier years of the civil war
until her third marriage in 47 or 46 BC (when she will have been about 37
years old) isn’t clear.
b) The likelihood is that she simply remained in Rome.
5. Her third marriage, to MARCUS ANTONIUS (his third marriage too), would see an
even more formidable husband-wife political alliance than that of Fulvia and
Publius Clodius - so unusual in the history of the Roman ‘Republican’ state
which was, of course, unravelling fast in the 40s BC.
FULVIA
1. Having looked at FULVIA’s first marriage to PUBLIUS CLODIUS
PULCHER and having seen
a) how she seems to have accompanied him openly and publicly as he pursued
his political career - a very unusual practice for a Roman wife, and
b) how she appears to have established a very personal link with the members of
the gangs he recruited to do his bidding, retaining those links long after
Publius Clodius’ murder, we turned to ……
2. ….. her second marriage to GAIUS SCRIBONIUS CURIO (who had a similar
radical political outlook to both Publius Clodius and herself) - a marriage
which was cut short very early when Curio was killed in North Africa fighting
for Julius Caesar’s cause in the civil war.
3. Her third marriage, as we noted, saw an even more formidable husband-wife
team created than had existed during her first marriage.
FULVIA’S THIRD MARRIAGE (TO MARCUS ANTONIUS)
1. FULVIA, marrying again in 47 or 46 BC, at the height of the civil war, certainly
gave Marcus Antonius all the help she could in his political career after their marriage
and it is claimed (probably with justification) that she put huge effort at a later date into
defending him, for example, from Cicero’s verbal attacks – especially his persistent
attempts to destroy Marcus Antonius’ reputation in his 14 Philippics, delivered between
2nd September 44 BC and 21st April 43 BC after Caesar’s assassination.
2. She still had the support of those who had been in the gangs of her first husband
and was able to win them over to Marcus Antonius’ cause by having him associate
himself closely with her and Publius Clodius’ two children.
3. All in all she was a huge asset to her third husband, interacting with his soldiers
and strengthening her own status accordingly.
4. She was, therefore, a strong support when he, for a short time, after the death of
Julius Caesar (whose right-hand man he had been) was the leading man in Rome.
FULVIA ON LATER COINS OF MARCUS ANTONIUS
MARCUS ANTONIUS
As FULVIA did what she could to prevent her husband being declared a public
enemy, against a background of mounting tensions between the Senate (which
backed Octavian, great-nephew and heir to Julius Caesar) and Marcus
Antonius, she gained more and more the enmity of Cicero.
6. This hostility found progressive expression in Cicero’s 14 Philippics against
Marcus Antonius: in the early speeches she is treated with ‘polite indifference’;
in the later ones she is depicted as a ‘greedy and cruel’ woman.
7. a) With their agreement to work together and the creation of the [“second”]
“Triumvirate” in late November 43 BC, Marcus Antonius, Gaius Octavius
(now ‘Octavian’) and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus launched bloody
proscriptions – leading to multiple deaths and confiscations.
b) FULVIA’s role in these proscriptions is debatable.
5.
8. Cassius Dio (ca AD 220) says that she personally ordered the deaths of many “from
greed and hatred” but Appian (fl. ca. AD 140) names only two incidents in which she
was involved - the second the more dramatic of the two, namely her
mistreatment of the dismembered body of CICERO (perhaps the most
distinguished of the victims of the proscriptions) - a theme picked up by at
least one modern artist, namely the Russian Pavel Svedomsky (1849 – 1904).
“FULVIA WITH THE HEAD OF CICERO” PAVEL SVEDOMSKY
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4.
FULVIA IN “THE PERUSINE WAR” (late 41 – early 40 BC)
Whatever her earlier public role, FULVIA exerted her greatest influence on the
events leading to “the Perusine War”.
Octavian and Marcus Antonius, despite being official allies began to ‘compete’
with each other from at least 41 BC onwards, the final (and only) military
confrontation not coming until early September 31 BC.
a) While Marcus Antonius was in “the East” pursuing his own goals, Octavian
was trying to find land in Italy for 40,000 demobilized troops.
b) Finding land involved the confiscation of territory from 18 Italian
communities which had found themselves on the ‘wrong’ side in the earlier
conflict between Julius Caesar and ‘the Republicans’.
Presumably in the belief that it would undermine Octavian’s reputation with the
troops if he failed in his mission, Antony’s brother, LUCIUS ANTONIUS,
joined by FULVIA, opposed his efforts and took the side of those who were to
be dispossessed.
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8.
9.
Armed conflict erupted and Lucius Antonius found himself, in the end, besieged
for months in the city of Perusia (modern Peruggia) until it fell in February 40 BC.
While it is not easy to ascertain the role of FULVIA in this ‘war’, all indications
are that she did not hold back, that she was well known to the soldiers on both
sides, and that she did (in some capacity) address her brother-in-law Lucius’
troops.
When this short but violent conflict ended, both LUCIUS ANTONIUS and
FULVIA (who was not in the city of Perusia herself) were allowed to escape, although
Perusia was put to the sword.
She fled, with her children [she and Marcus Antonius had two sons who would be about
5 or 6 years old at the time] to her husband in Athens.
Marcus Antonius almost immediately set off to Italy to patch things up with
Octavian, allegedly not happy with the role FULVIA had played.
10. Very soon after his departure FULVIA died, near Corinth, from some unknown
illness – in her early 40s.
After Fulvia’s death
1. a) In his propaganda after her death, OCTAVIAN (perhaps understandably)
blamed FULVIA for “the Perusine War”: she was a convenient scapegoat.
b) The poet Martial (fl. ca. AD 80) even preserves a VERY pornographic poem
about FULVIA which he attributes to Octavian himself.
2. What is more surprising is that, in his propaganda, MARCUS ANTONIUS
seems to have done the same - namely blame FULVIA for the conflict
between himself and Octavian.
3. It was perhaps politic, after her death, for him to do so - her strong personality
was no longer an influence on him.
As a token of the reconciliation between OCTAVIAN and MARCUS
ANTONIUS, the latter (in October 40 BC) married Octavian’s (long-suffering) sister
OCTAVIA a) who seems to have had no say in the matter;
b) who immediately took Fulvia’s two young children (now aged 7 and 5) by Marcus
Antonius under her wing;
c) who already had three children (now aged 1, 1, and a babe in arms) from her own first
marriage;
d) who would, within four years have two daughters, by Marcus Antonius; and
e) who by 30 BC (ten years into her marriage) would also take in Marcus Antonius’ three
children (who, at the time, would have been 10, 10, and 6) by Cleopatra.
This could well have meant a household of ten children ranging between 17 and 6.
4.
OCTAVIA
1. If Fulvia was one of the most politically active women of her time, OCTAVIA
her passive counterpart – generally
withdrawn, although possibly giving political advice at one point.
2. She was certainly held up by her contemporaries as the perfect example of what
a traditional Roman wife and mother should be - above all else obedient and
not involving herself in public matters
3. Her father died when she was 10 and it was her step-father who oversaw her
education.
4. It was he, too, who arranged her first marriage (some time before 54 BC) when she was
about 15 to Gaius Claudius Marcellus, 19 years her senior, friend of Cicero,
one of the consuls for 50 BC and a determined opponent of Julius Caesar at
every stage of Caesar’s later career, even though he was married to Caesar’s
great-niece.
(born in 69 BC and about 14 years Fulvia’s junior) was
OCTAVIA
on a gold
aureus of
Marcus
Antonius
(the second living
Roman woman (after
Fulvia) to appear on
a Roman coin)
5. Together Octavia and Marcellus had three children to whom OCTAVIA was devoted –
especially to her son Marcellus (with the same name as his father).
6. Little suggests that she was in any way assertive, although both she and her new
husband do appear to have taken a stand when
a) Julius Caesar’s daughter, Julia, died, leaving Pompey a widower, and
b) Julius Caesar proposed that Octavia and her husband should divorce so that she
could marry Pompey.
7. OCTAVIA was eventually left a widow at 29 in 40 BC just at the moment when her
brother OCTAVIAN and MARCUS ANTONIUS were trying to repair their strained
relationship and at exactly the time when Marcus Antonius had been widowed by the
death of FULVIA.
8. As we have seen, OCTAVIA became the pawn of political manoeuvring and was
quickly married (at 29) to Marcus Antonius (now 43), although the Roman Senate
had to approve the marriage since OCTAVIA was pregnant by her deceased
husband at the time.
9.
And yet she proved to be the loyal wife who moved immediately to “the East”
with her new husband - to Athens, where both her daughters by him were
born, ANTONIA THE ELDER and ANTONIA THE YOUNGER (the mother of the
future “emperor” Claudius).
10. For four years she travelled with Marcus Antonius - until he abandoned her for
CLEOPATRA.
11. Thereupon she returned to Italy, although we are told by three ancient writers she
had earlier, especially in 37 BC, played an important role as a negotiator between
her husband and her brother.
12. In late 40 BC Octavian had promised that, once things had stabilized in Italy and
the West, he would send 20,000 troops and a large fleet to assist Marcus
Antonius in his planned eastern campaign against the Parthian Empire.
13. Now, in 35 BC, Octavian sent him 2,000 troops (a tenth of what had been promised) and a small
fleet, which OCTAVIA was required to accompany.
A COIN OF MARCUS ANTONIUS
DEPICTING HIMSELF AND
OCTAVIA
BEFORE THE TWO SEPARATED
14. The usual explanation given for Octavian’s sending only one tenth of what had
been promised and OCTAVIA in 35 BC is that he was conveying a subtle
message to Marcus Antonius:
“If you want the resources originally promised, dissociate yourself from your
Egyptian mistress Cleopatra and return to your duties as a Roman husband and
father.”
15. Marcus Antonius sent OCTAVIA back to Italy and by 32 BC he had divorced her.
OCTAVIA AFTER HER DIVORCE
1. She never remarried.
2. And, after the suicide of her ex-husband and Cleopatra following their defeat at
the hands of Octavian in September 31 BC at the Battle of Actium, she took in (as
we have seen) Cleopatra and Marcus Antonius’ three children, twins now aged 10,
and a 6 year old.
3. With her brother now “master” of the Roman world, she probably busied herself
with domestic matters, withdrawing from ‘society’.
4. a) Her withdrawal became even more pronounced after 23 BC with the sudden
death of her son Marcellus (from her first marriage) at the age of 19, two years after
his marriage to JULIA, the only child of Octavian (since 27 BC “CAESAR
AUGUSTUS”).
b) Octavia had always been very close to Marcellus and was devastated by his
death and, it seems, never recovered fully.
5. As part of the emerging “imperial house”, OCTAVIA was present, we are told,
when the poet Virgil gave a private recitation of three of the twelve books of his
Aeneid to Augustus and members of his family.
6.
At the part where Aeneas, in the Underworld (Book 6), is shown the souls of
those yet to be born by the ghost of his dead father - and Virgil read:
A godlike youth in glitt'ring armor shine,
With great Marcellus keeping equal pace;
But gloomy were his eyes, dejected was his face.
He saw, and, wond'ring, ask'd his airy guide,
What and of whence was he, who press'd the hero's side:
"His son, or one of his illustrious name?
How like the former, and almost the same!
Observe the crowds that compass him around;
All gaze, and all admire, and raise a shouting sound:
But hov'ring mists around his brows are spread,
And night, with sable shades, involves his head."
"Seek not to know," the ghost replied with tears,
"The sorrows of thy sons in future years.
This youth (the blissful vision of a day)
Shall just be shown on earth, and snatch'd away.
No youth shall equal hopes of glory give,
No youth afford so great a cause to grieve;
Ah! couldst thou but break thro' fate's severe decree,
A new MARCELLUS shall arise in thee!”
OCTAVIA, at these lines, is said to have swooned.
7. This story (related by Aelius Donatus in his Life of Vergil ca AD 350) appealed enough
to at least two modern artists for them to depict the scene on canvas, namely
Jean-Joseph Taillasson (1787) and Jean-Baptiste Wicar (1790-93).
Jean-Joseph Taillasson
“Virgil Reading The
Aeneid to Augustus
and Octavia” (1787)
Jean-Baptiste Wicar
“Virgil Reading The
Aeneid to Augustus,
Livia, and Octavia”
(1790-93)
8. Augustus was extremely fond of his sister OCTAVIA (despite making her a political
pawn) and, at some point, built and dedicated a portico in her name – the remains of
which are still visible:
The
PORTICVS
OCTAVIAE
9. Augustus is ALSO said to have consulted his sister when, after the appropriate
period of mourning for Octavia’s son, Marcellus, he decided his daughter JULIA
(Marcellus’ widow) [now aged 16] should re-marry - this time to his close associate
Marcus Vipsanius AGRIPPA, the same age as Julia’s father, namely 40.
10. a) But this consultation was not entirely out of brotherly affection.
b) For Agrippa to be free to marry JULIA he first had to divorce OCTAVIA’s
daughter, the Elder Claudia Marcella, and, while Octavia’s permission was
not necessary for this, Augustus seems to have wished to obtain it – out of
respect.
11. OCTAVIA died in 11 BC aged 58.
OCTAVIA
JULIA,
daughter of
Augustus
and niece of
OCTAVIA
While there is little agreement about who is who on the ARA PACIS AVGVSTAE
(The Altar of the Augustan Peace) commissioned in 13 BC but not completed and
dedicated until 9 BC, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the retiring figure
in the background who seems to be asking her daughter ANTONIA the Younger
and her husband DRUSUS to be quieter is OCTAVIA: