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The Five Wives of Pompey the Great

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Shelley P. Haley
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Extract

For Roman politicians, marriage could be a tool of advancement, a way of forging alliances among the influential and the wealthy. The major figures of the late Republic used marriage to realize their political hopes and to increase their political power. Such marriages and their consequences have been discussed often and much scholarly energy has been expended in exploring the ramifications of these alliances.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , April 1985 , pp. 49 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1985

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References

NOTES

1. The connection between marriage and political advancement has been touched upon or implied in nearly every work dealing with the Roman nobility. Among the foremost of such works are Gelzer, M., Die Nöbilitat der Römischen Republik (1912), translated by Seager, R. (Oxford, 1969Google Scholar) under the title The Roman Nobility; Münzer, F., Römische Adelsparteien und Adelsfamilien (Stuttgart, 1920), p. 270, etc.Google Scholar; Taylor, L. R., Party Politics in the Age of Caesar (Berkeley, 1949), pp. 33f., 39Google Scholar.

2. In recent years, many more studies on the lives of Roman women have appeared. In a partial list one might include Balsdon, J. P. V. D., Roman Women: Their History and Habits (New York, 1963)Google Scholar; Hermann, C., Le Rôle judicaire et politique des femmes sous la republique romaine (Brussels, 1964)Google Scholar; Pomeroy, S., Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves (New York, 1975)Google Scholar; Carp, T., ‘Two Roman Matrons’, Women's Studies 8 (1981CrossRefGoogle Scholar) and reprinted in Foley, Reflections of Women in Antiquity (New York, 1981); Richlin, A., ‘Approaches to the Sources on Adultery at Rome’, Reflections of Women in Antiquity (New York, 1981)Google Scholar.

3. The life of Pompey has received a bounty of scholarly attention in recent years. The biographies most recently published include Leach, J., Pompey the Great (London, 1979)Google Scholar; Seager, R., Pompey: A Political Biography (Berkeley, 1979)Google Scholar; Greenhalgh, P., Pompey: Republican Prince (Columbus, Missouri, 1981)Google Scholar. Several articles dealing with particular details of Pompey's life and career touch upon the importance of his marriages and their subsequent relations: Gruen, E. S., ‘Pompey, the Roman Aristocracy and the Conference of Luca’, Historia 18 (1969), 71ff.Google Scholar; idem, ‘Pompey and the Pisones’, CSCA 1 (1969), 155ff.; idem, ‘Pompey, Metellus Pius, and the trials of 70–69 B.C.: the perils of schematism', AJP 92 (1971), 1ff.Google Scholar; Twyman, B., ‘The Metelli, Pompeius and Prosopography’, ANRW 1.1,816ff.Google Scholar; Wiseman, T., ‘Celer and Nepos’, CQ 65 (1975), 180ff.Google Scholar

4. Perhaps it is an exaggeration to call the union of Pompey and Antistia a political alliance. Still, Pompey stood to gain by the patronage of Antistius and his family, whatever career he chose.

5. Plutarch may be basing his interpretation upon Pompey's behaviour in his later marriages.

6. Mucia's children receive attention in the ancient sources (, Ascon. Pro M. Scaur. 17Google Scholar; , Suet. D.J. 50.1Google Scholar; Dio, 37.49.3). Mucia was fruitful also in her subsequent marriage, being delivered of a son to M. Aemilius Scaurus (, Ascon. Pro M. Scaur. 17Google Scholar).

7. Cicero, (Brut. 218–19Google Scholar) mentions an invective by C. Scribonius Curio in 55 B.C., where an affair with Caesar could have been given as grounds for the divorce of Pompey and Mucia. However, Cicero does not explicitly say this, hence it is doubtful that Plutarch is referring to this. There is always the possibility that Plutarch is referring to a letter of Cicero which is no longer extant.

8. Deutsch, M. (Phil. Quart. 8 (1929), 218–22Google Scholar) argues that the divorce was for infidelity and that Cicero's letter to Atticus with its juxtaposition of Mucia's infidelity and the Bona Dea scandal makes it ample evidence that the divorce occurred because of adultery. Deutsch believes the letter is an account of social gossip, not political intrigue. Gruen, , The Last Generation of the Roman Republic (Berkeley, 1974), p. 85Google Scholar argues that the familial connection with the Metelli gained by Pompey's marriage to Mucia had not proved politically advantageous to him and so Pompey was eager for more promising relations. He was now the leading politician and many, even Caesar, would have been eager for an association with him. One wonders, if Caesar did have an illicit liaison with Mucia, was it a plot to break up the marriage so that Pompey would be available for an alliance with Julia!

9. Even if the sentiment is pretended, it reveals a sensitivity to the attractions of quiet domestic life.

10. In keeping with this new image, Pompey did not divorce Julia despite such a recommendation from his advisers.

11. Anti-Pompeian bias is enhanced further by the presence of Lollia in the list of women seduced by Caesar. She was the wife of Aulus Gabinius, a Pompeian supporter.

12. , Plut. Cues. 14.4Google Scholar, Pomp. 47.6; , Suet. D.J. 21Google Scholar; App. B.C. 2.1.4. For discussion that Caepio is M. Brutus, see Syme, R., Roman Revolution (Oxford, 1939), p. 34Google Scholar.

13. Plutarch here provides another reference to Pompey's preference for the company of women over the execution of public duties.

14. Anderson, W. S., Pompey, His Friends, and the Literature of the First Century B.C. (Berkeley, 1963), pp. 77–80Google Scholar.

15. , Suet. Grammat. 14.1Google Scholar. I am aware that there are problems with the dating of the affair between Memmius and a wife of Pompey. Suetonius says that Nicias delivered a letter from Memmius ‘ad Pompeii uxorem’, proposing a sexual affair. The affair came to nothing and if this attempt at seduction explains the serious breach between Memmius and Pompey after 53 B.C., then the uxor being seduced would have to be Cornelia. On the other hand, Nicias does drop out of Pompey's circle in 56 B.C. and Julia thus seems a more likely candidate for Memmius' attentions than does Cornelia as in W. S. Anderson's interpretation. I wish to acknowledge and thank Professor Anderson for his help with this problem.

16. , Plut. Pomp. 55.1Google Scholar. This idea is echoed by J. Leach (above, note 3), p. 154. Cornelia is discussed by Best, E., ‘Cicero, Livy and Educated Women’, CJ 65 (1970), 200–1Google Scholar and by Anderson (above, note 14), p. 81.