zaterdag 3 april 2010

Servilia, mistress of Julius Caesar

Servilia, born about 100 B.C. and died after 42 B.C., was the daughter of Q.Servilius Caepio, praetor in 91 B.C. and of Livia, daughter of M.Livius Drusus, consul 112 B.C.
(which made Livia the sister of M.Livius Drusus, the famous tribune of the plebs of 91 B.C.)

Servilia had been married to M.Junius Brutus, tribunus plebis in 83 B.C. and bore him a son, M.Junius Brutus, the so-called ‘Liberator’, whose ashes were sent to her by Marcus Antonius after the battle of Philippi (42 B.C.)

After Gn.Pompeius Magnus had treacherously killed her husband at Mutina in 77 B.C., she had married D.Junius Silanus, consul 62 B.C.
After putting up with her unfaithfulness for quite some time Silanus finally divorced her in 61 B.C.

The couple had three children:
1. Junia (prima), married to M.Aemilius Lepidus, consul 46 B.C., future triumvir.
2. Junia (secunda), married to P.Servilius Isauricus, consul 48 B.C.
3. Junia (tertia), also calledTertulla, married to C.Cassius Longinus who perished at Philippi in 42 B.C. Tertiae survived her husband for 64 years and died in A.D.22 during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius at the age of 93.

Servilia was the sister of:
(1) Cn.Servilius Caepio, tribune of the soldiers in the war against Spartacus in 72, died in 67 B.C. at Aenus in Trace, on his way to Asia.
He had been married to Hortensia, daughter of Q.Hortensius Hortalus, consul 69 B.C. and Lutatia.

(2) Servilia (minor),married in 66 with L.Licinius Lucullus, consul 74 B.C.
Lucullus married her after his divorce from the notorious Clodia.
This Servilia too didn’t stay faithful to her husband and a divorce followed.

Our Servilia became, by the second marriage of her mother, step-sister to M. Porcius Cato Uticensis who was dominated by her.

She was during some twenty years the mistress of Caius Julius Caesar the dictator.
Judging by graffiti found on a wall her contemporaries weren’t much impressed by this formidable and influential lady.
The text read: “Caesari Servilia Futatrix”
                      (“Servilia is Caesar’s bitch”)

Both her son Marcus Junius Brutus and her son-in-law C.Cassius Longinus were the leaders of the conspiracy and murder of her lover Julius Caesar.

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