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.