Marcia (wife of Cato)
Marcia | |
|---|---|
 Marcia from Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum | |
| Born | c. 80 BC |
| Spouses |
|
| Children | 1 son |
| Parent | Lucius Marcius Philippus |
Marcia (also Marzia or Martia; born c. 80 BC) was the second wife of Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis (Cato the Younger) and the daughter of Lucius Marcius Philippus.
Biography
Early life
Marcia is believed to have been born around 80 BC to
Marriages and children
After Cato divorced his first wife Atilia because of rumors about her infidelity, in 63 BC, he married Marcia whom Plutarch described as "a woman of excellent reputation, about whom there was the most abundant talk". Marcia and Cato had two or three children; however, there is controversy about whether or not she was pregnant with this third child at the time of her second marriage to Hortensius. There is no indication that their marriage was unhappy: Plutarch relates that Marcia was concerned for Cato's safety, and Appian says that Cato was extremely fond of Marcia.
Marcia's second marriage, in the year 56 BC, was to the renowned orator and advocate
At the outbreak of Caesar's Civil War in 49 BC, Marcia and her children moved back into Cato's household. Plutarch asserts that Cato remarried Marcia after Hortensius's death, whereas Appian's histories relate that Cato merely reestablished her in his own household. Either way, this caused a minor scandal, as after Hortensius' death, her return made the household rich.
Effects of the marriage exchange
Many assumptions have been made regarding Cato's character based upon his endorsement of the marriage between Marcia and Hortensius.
mourned his death.Julius Caesar on the other hand accused Cato of wife trafficking and marrying Marcia off to Hortensius simply in order to gain his wealth. "For why," said Caesar, "should Cato give up his wife if he wanted her, or why, if he did not want her, should he take her back again? Unless it was true that the woman was at the first set as a bait for Hortensius, and lent by Cato when she was young that he might take her back when she was rich." Plutarch asserts that in the reason Cato took Marcia back in 49 BC was because he was fleeing Rome with Pompey as a result of Caesar's approach and needed someone to look after his young daughters and household in his place, which Marcia did.
Cultural depictions
She is the subject of the painting
References
Citations
Sources
• The Histories of Appian trans. by Horace White: Harvard University Press, 1912 and 1913; the Foreign Wars in Vols. I and II. Book 2, page 411. Appian's Roman History at Livius.org
• Plutarch and the Family of Cato Minor. Thomas Means; Sheila K. Dickison. The Classical Journal, Vol. 69, No. 3. (Feb. - Mar., 1974), pp. 210-215 at JSTOR.
• The Parallel Lives by Plutarch published in Vol. VIII of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1919. Life of Cato Minor at LacusCurtius
• Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. William Smith (1867). Ancient Library, Vol. 2, pp. 939–940.[1]
• The Eternal Triangle, First Century B.C.. Hattie L. Gordon. The Classical Journal, Vol. 28, No. 8. (May, 1933), pp. 574-578 at LacusCurtius
• Book II: The Flight of Pompeius in '"Pharsalia (aka "The Civil War")" by Lucan (Marcus Annaeus Lucanus). Medieval and Classical Literature Library. [2]
External links
