Fulvia
The Woman Who Broke All the Rules in Ancient Rome
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
'A thoroughly rapacious woman...as cruel as she is greedy' Cicero
'A woman who took no thought for spinning or housekeeping...meddlesome and headstrong' Plutarch
'[She] caused the death of many, both to satisfy her enmity and to gain their wealth' Cassius Dio
'She acted in a haughty manner towards those who were placing her in a position to be arrogant' Orosius
'Nothing of the woman in her except her sex' Velleius Paterculus
The charismatic Fulvia amassed a degree of military and political power that was unprecedented for a woman in Ancient Rome. Married three times to men who moved in powerful circles, including Marc Antony, Fulvia was not content to play the usual background role that was expected of a wife - instead she challenged the Roman patriarchy and sought to increase her influence in the face of determined opposition.
It's rare to know so much about a particular Roman woman, but Fulvia was so despised by her male detractors that she was much written about. Acclaimed historian Jane Draycott has used original sources to piece together Fulvia's life and sort fact from fiction, while also exploring the role of women in Roman society.
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In this evocative account, historian Draycott (Cleopatra's Daughter) revisits the story of Fulvia, the wife abandoned by Marc Antony in his pursuit of Cleopatra. Fulvia was born in 80 BCE to an upwardly mobile mother who married a wealthy but stuttering senator just long enough to have her. Fulvia's inheritance allowed her to marry Clodius, a handsome patrician in need of a fortune to fund his political ambitions. The pair "enjoyed each other's company immensely" (Clodius flouted decorum by allowing his wife to accompany him in public), but tragedy struck when Clodius was killed by a fellow senator during a battle. That harrowing moment led to Fulvia's political ascendance; rejecting the womanly virtue of "pudicitia," or restraint, she instead incited a mob to arrest her husband's killer. Fulvia remarried and lost to battle another wealthy husband before marrying Marc Antony, a union that eventually made her the most powerful woman in Rome—it was she who demanded the head of Cicero, as he had backed her first husband's murderer. When Marc Antony left her, however, her power drained away; she died "alone" and "unattended" in 40 BCE. Draycott uses the dramatic saga to explore how marriage organized political power and how even politically savvy women were sidelined without the cover of marriage. It makes for a fresh, insightful, and at times spellbindingly romantic chronicle of ancient Rome's power players.
