Book contents
- Women in the Ancient Mediterranean World
- Women in the Ancient Mediterranean World
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Timeline
- Historical Contexts
- Introduction
- Part I The Deep Past
- Part II The Bronze Age
- Part III The Iron Age
- Part IV The Hellenistic Worlds
- 20 Olympias
- 21 Seianti Hanunia Tlesnasa
- 22 Terentia
- 23 Mariamne
- Part V The Age of Empire
- Notes
- Select Bibliography
- Index
22 - Terentia
from Part IV - The Hellenistic Worlds
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 January 2023
- Women in the Ancient Mediterranean World
- Women in the Ancient Mediterranean World
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Timeline
- Historical Contexts
- Introduction
- Part I The Deep Past
- Part II The Bronze Age
- Part III The Iron Age
- Part IV The Hellenistic Worlds
- 20 Olympias
- 21 Seianti Hanunia Tlesnasa
- 22 Terentia
- 23 Mariamne
- Part V The Age of Empire
- Notes
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Terentia was born around 98 bc and reportedly died aged 103, in ad 5 or 6.1 From her name, she must have come from an old and respectable family called the Terentii; one branch, the Terentii Varrones, traced itself back to a consul of 216 bc.2 The identity of her mother and father are not known, though her mother must have married twice as Terentia had a half-sister, Fabia (whose father must have been a Fabius), who was a Vestal Virgin. Terentia is best known by her male connection – she was the wife of the lawyer, philosopher, and politician Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 bc) – it is impossible to write about her without also writing about him. The couple lived in the dangerous years of the twilight of the Roman Republic and were at the very heart of the conflicts and rivalries that tore it apart. This was the era when powerful Roman warlords were already emerging to challenge the status quo, of civil war, of Sulla, Pompey the Great, and the rise of Julius Caesar.
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- Women in the Ancient Mediterranean WorldFrom the Palaeolithic to the Byzantines, pp. 179 - 187Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023