Roman Women

by Alfred Brittain

When the order came from Sylla that, if he would preserve his life and serve his best interests, Cæsar must put away his wife so as to be free to form a matrimonial union with the dictator's party, there is no doubt that Aurelia's virtuous counsel supported her son's courage in refusing to comply with so tyrannical a command. The result was that Cæsar was obliged to leave the city, hardly escaping the assassin's hand; and the two women were left for two years to comfort each other as best they could in the absence of a husband and a son. That they were impoverished by the rapacious Sylla--who, when he could not touch the person of an enemy, contented himself with seizing his property--we know. Fortunate were they if their lives were not still more embittered by the knowledge of those vile slanders which came from Bithynia, for the disproof of which there is no evidence needed beside the character of him whose name was so maliciously besmirched.

After two years of loneliness, these devoted women were made happy by receiving the exile home. From that time on, Aurelia's maternal pride was satisfied by beholding the star of her son's fortunes, though at times beclouded by rivalry, always ascending and brightening. He rose from one office to another, until the day came when she saw him elected chief pontiff over the heads of two candidates who were his superiors in age, rank, and wealth. On this election he had staked everything. If he failed, his debts would overwhelm him. In the morning, as he left the little house in the Subura, kissing his mother good-bye, he had said: "Mother, I will return home pontiff, or not at all." How anxiously she must have awaited the result! All through the day, she heard his name shouted with approbation by the people on the street; and in the evening, he returned to inform her that she must move with him to the palace of the pontificate on the Via Sacra.

Cornelia was no longer there to share in Aurelia's pride and Cæsar's good fortune. During the year B.C. 68, Caesar had pronounced two funeral panegyrics. One was for his aunt, Julia, the wife of that unpolished but indomitable soldier, Marius. Little is known of this lady; but at Les Baux, in Provence, there is a monument on which are represented Marius and Julia, and between them--suggestive it may be of private trials endured by the latter--Martha, the Syrian prophetess, who accompanied and advised Marius in all his adventurous undertakings. The second funeral oration delivered by Cæsar was for his faithful wife Cornelia. Matrons so young as she were not often honored with a panegyric at their obsequies; and it testifies no less to the worth of her character than to her husband's devotion that he, in this instance, transgressed the custom with the approval of the people.

It was not long, however, before Aurelia was called upon to welcome a new bride of her son, this time to the magnificence of the pontifical abode. Marriage was looked upon by the best Romans as a citizen's duty; and for a man to abbreviate his widowed regrets was not regarded as censurable conduct; though, on the other hand, the constancy of widowed matrons was held in the highest honor. The Romans, notwithstanding their aptitude for law, cared little for consistency in their distribution of privileges between men and women.

Cæsar's second wife was Pompeia, the granddaughter of Sylla, whose family Aurelia had but little cause to love. What the mother's attitude toward the new bride was we do not know. Two things are certain from the narrative of the sequel to this marriage: Aurelia continued to maintain the position of domina in the house of her son, for it was she who had charge of the ceremonies of the Bona Dea which Clodius interrupted by his intrusion; and the inferences are all against the innocence of Pompeia, for, had she been faithful, Clodius would not have ventured into the house at such a time. She was divorced by Cæsar; but he took no active part in the proceedings against Clodius. When called upon to testify, he contented himself with the declaration that he knew nothing about the affair; which was true in a sense, inasmuch as he was not present. The matter might have been hushed, had it not been for the matrons, who could not brook that their sacred mysteries should be thus invaded. Terentia, the wife of Cicero, was especially persistent. She was a woman who interfered in political matters to such a degree that, when her husband was consul, she was spoken of sarcastically as being his colleague. Having a private grudge against Clodius, she so incited Cicero that the powerful advocate completely refuted the defendant's strong plea of an alibi.

Cæsar's testimony that he was uninformed as to what had happened at his house was not satisfactory to the prosecutor, who shrewdly inquired: "Why, then, did you divorce Pompeia?" The reply was: "Cæsar's wife must be above suspicion!"--a reply haughty enough to be characteristic of the man, and deemed a sufficient check to all further cross-examination. But, viewing the whole situation from our standpoint, it is impossible to refrain from the comment that, if Cæsar had been equipped with anything corresponding to a modern conscience, he could scarcely have had the effrontery to utter such a saying. Just and generous as he was, he was incapable of entertaining the idea that there should be but one code of morals for the woman and the man. If Cæsar's wife had said: "The husband of Pompeia must be above suspicion," it would have appeared as ridiculous to her contemporaries as it was impossible of realization.

We may well give as little heed as did Cæsar himself to the calumnious stigma upon his name which disgraces the pages of the historians and the verse of Catullus. Yet, setting this aside as unworthy of credence, evidence seems to prove abundantly his propensity for those gallantries which were considered among the least reprehensible immoralities by the men of his time. The names of many women were connected with that of the great soldier in a manner which is detrimental to the reputation of all concerned. Unless higher criticism of a most radical and partial kind is adopted in the study of the ancient historians, we must take their word that ladies of the highest quality surrendered to Cæsar's attractions. It is said that Pompey was wont to refer to the chief pontiff as Ægisthus; and that when he spoke of him it was with a sigh which was elicited not so much on account of Cæsar's greater success in affairs of State as by his rivalry in the affections of Mucia, who, like Clytemnestra, was won by the pontiff while her husband was absent in war. Posthumia, wife of Servius Sulpicius, Lollia, wife of Aulus Gabinius, and Tertulla, wife of Marcus Crassus, come under the same indictment. The husbands named were close friends of the man who shared with them in their conjugal rights, as well as climbed over their shoulders in political ascendency; and they served him well in the furtherance of his latter-mentioned projects. It has been argued that if Cæsar's conduct had really been as blameworthy as is alleged, he could not have retained the amity of these men; but the argument proves nothing. What if he were a sufficient adept in policy--a thing not unknown in the history of human experience--to be able to command the hands and the heads of the husbands through the hearts of their wives?

There was one woman who had for Cæsar a passionate attachment which was returned by him with an ardent and lasting affection in which political ambition played no part. This was Servilia, the half-sister of Cato and the mother of Marcus Brutus. Unfortunately, this lady's regard for her powerful lover did not carry with it the confidence and the friendship of her brother and her son. Modern writers, notably Froude and Baring Gould, strive to eliminate everything of an unworthy nature from the mutual affection which is known to have existed between Servilia and Cæsar; but their argument is devoid of historical proof. Much as we may be inclined to eradicate from the character of the great Roman everything that is unpleasant, it will not do to ignore or explain away every tittle of evidence that has been handed down by the ancient authorities on this subject. It may have been but the unfounded surmise of the gossips that it was a billet-doux from his sister which caused Cato to demand of Cæsar, during an acrimonious Senatorial debate, that he make known the contents of a note the latter had just received; nevertheless, we have it on the authority of Plutarch that Cæsar believed Brutus to be his own son. In this the great Imperator may very easily have been mistaken; but as to the fact that he had reason to believe in the possibility of such a thing, surely the conclusions of modern writers should have less weight than the plain statements of the ancient historians, which are the sole and only source of any knowledge whatsoever that we may have on the subject. It is true that slanderers were even coarser-minded and less restrained among the Romans of those days than they are in our own time; and among them Cicero was as preëminently conscienceless as he was clever. Hence, it is not necessary for us to take seriously his pun on the name of Servilia's daughter, when, remarking on the low price at which Servilia obtained some lands from Cæsar, he says: "Between ourselves, Tertia [or, a third] was deducted," intimating that the mother profited by her daughter's dishonor.

Calpurnia, the daughter of L. Calpurnius Piso, was the third wife of Cæsar. For fourteen years she occupied the Regia, the pontifical residence, as its domina. Thus she was the highest lady in Rome and in the Empire. That she became the consort of Cæsar for reasons of expediency is very probable; but that she was possessed of a deep and lasting affection for her husband, which was reciprocated by him with tender regard, is shown by their conduct on the eve of his death. During the years of Calpurnia's union with Cæsar, though he crowded them with events of tremendous import in the history of Rome, nothing whatever is recorded of his wife. Her name has come down to us untarnished with any scandal; which, considering the fact that the historians of that time incorporated such stories in their records on the least possible warrant, is a very strong testimony to the purity of her life, which was devoted to furthering the interests of Cæsar among his friends, caring for his home during his many and lengthened absences, and ministering to his comfort in the short respites which his innumerable cares afforded him. All that we really know of her character is revealed in his time of danger, in which everything is to her credit.

In the plot of Julius Cæsar, Shakespeare, with historical accuracy, introduces only two feminine characters: Calpurnia and Portia, the latter the worthy wife of the noblest of the conspirators. Were they friends, these two ladies, as their husbands were supposed to be? Did they visit each other and engage in the discussion of those topics which were then current in the atriums and gardens of Rome? Did Calpurnia sometimes spend an afternoon with Portia in her house on the Aventine; and though somewhat chilled by the austere and philosophical demeanor of the descendant of the Censor, yet cordially invite her to the more magnificent palace of Cæsar? This we do not know. Possibly the terrible event which was in store cast a shadow upon any intercourse which the women may have had; especially since Cato, the brother of Portia, had found in Calpurnia's marriage occasion for denunciation, for the reason that her father was immediately thereupon made consul.