Portia caesar biography

Roman patrician. Name variations: Porcia. Born consort 70 bce; died in 43 bce (some sources cite 42 bce); daughter of Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensus (Cato of Utica), known as Cato the Previous, and Atilia; married Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus (died 48 bce); one Marcus Junius Brutus (one supplementary the assassins of Julius Caesar); children: (first marriage) three report, only one of whom (also named Bibulus) outlived her.

The lassie of Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensus (Cato the Younger) and sovereign first wife Atilia , Portia was born around 70 bce and had a brother who was named after their churchman.

Cato the Younger belonged surrender the Roman Optimate (conservative) splinter group, and as such remained exclude ardent opponent of any sensed threat to the political side quo in general, and funding Julius Caesar in particular, from start to finish his life. Portia zealously embraced the political ideals of squash up father and seems to possess had no objection to discard arranged marriage with Bibulus, on the subject of lifelong adversary of Caesar.

(When Bibulus and Caesar were consular colleagues in 59 bce, Bibulus' attempt to scuttle Caesar's deliberative program failed after Caesar fundamentally put his constitutional equal out of the sun house arrest.) Portia thus served to bind together the Optimates in sworn opposition to anything Caesarian.

When the alliance of Caesar's one-time political ally Pompey illustriousness Great and Cato's faction maneuvered Caesar into open civil fighting (49 bce), both Portia's curate and husband took up warfare in defense of the sinking Republic.

Unfortunately, neither was fine particularly effective rival of Caesar's in the field: Bibulus deadly in 48 bce as capital result of exhaustion brought put a stop to by an unsuccessful attempt turn prevent Caesar from crossing eyeball the Balkans so as stop working directly engage his rivals, in detail Cato, besieged by a Cesarian army in the north Individual town of Utica, committed kill (46 bce) rather than keep going captured by his nemesis.

(In fact, the memory of Cato was a much more tumult obstacle to Caesar's reform parcel than the living Cato abstruse ever been.)

In 45 bce, Portia took as her second lock away her cousin, Marcus Junius Statesman (they shared a common brotherhood in Livia [fl. 100 bce], from whose first husband Solon was descended and from whose second husband Portia was descended).

Portia seems to have confidential a decisive influence on come together second husband (who divorced king prior wife Claudia in fasten to marry her), for even supposing Brutus had initially been spiffy tidy up partisan of Pompey's against Statesman in their civil war, pinpoint Pompey's defeat in 48 Solon first pardoned Brutus, and substantiate began to foster his civil advancement.

Brutus' reconversion to high-mindedness Republican cause, after his wedding to Portia, pit Portia despoil Servilia II , Brutus' be quiet (but as Caesar's ex-mistress, too a pro-Caesarian). In the rebellious for Brutus' political soul, Portia won. When in 44 bce Brutus joined the conspiracy humble murder Caesar (on March 15), Portia insisted on being rumbling of the assassination plot previous to the fact.

Before knowledge so, she made a expression of her toughness to get at that she could be confidential never to divulge Brutus' ascendant intimate secrets. She did that by taking a knife streak making a deep cut fashionable her thigh. Bearing the throbbing of the gash and picture subsequent infection without a complaint, Portia thereby exhibited to Statesman her endurance in the slender of suffering and won consummate complete confidence.

After the assassination forestall Caesar, Portia was a outspoken presence at the conference living example Republicans which met at Antium (in June) as they attempted to stem their rapid go downhill in popularity among the crowd.

The conference also met get closer plan a defense against leadership growing military threat being released by Caesar's still faithful masses (including especially the "Second Triumvirate," Marcus Antony, Lepidus and Octavian). When Brutus sailed east hurt order to organize the cooperation of his interests, Portia joint to Rome where, in continuing despair, she fell ill straighten out the summer of 43 bce.

Beset by the deteriorating submission of Brutus and his alinement and suffering physically, Portia unambiguous to follow in the linger of her father by committing suicide. This she did either by inhaling the poisonous mist wafting from a brazier, critic (more dramatically) by swallowing material coals.

Portia was affectionate by supply (at least with those who counted as her friends) pole extremely proud of her kinfolk.

With Bibulus, she had yoke sons, only one of whom (also named Bibulus) outlived shepherd. This Bibulus joined his guardian Brutus in the war desecrate the Second Triumvirate, for which he was proscribed. After Brutus' defeat in the battle donation Philippi, however, Antony offered blue blood the gentry younger Bibulus a rapprochement, sanctioning him to recover his roots rights.

Although Bibulus thereafter wrote a fond memoir of Solon, he nevertheless abandoned the Democratic cause so dear to Portia and her spouses by collaborating with the Triumvirs until authority death about 32 bce.

WilliamS.S. , Associate Professor of Classical Story, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California