Cossutia | |
|---|---|
 Cossutia, fiancée of Julius Caesar | |
| Born | |
| Died | As early as 84 BC Possibly in Pisa |
| Known for | Possibly being the first wife of Julius Caesar |
| Spouse | Julius Caesar (disputed) |
Cossutia was a Roman woman who became engaged to Julius Caesar prior to his reaching adulthood. There has been debate among historians on whether the marriage actually occurred.
Cossutia belonged to a very wealthy equestrian family from Pisa. [1]
Cossutia appealed to Caesar, [2] although the Cossuti were not even novi homines . [3] She was recommended to Caesar by his father and it is believed that the future dictator of Rome married Cossutia after he began wearing the toga virilis. [4] Both families issued coins with her image and were inscribed with Uxor Caesaris. [5] No children sprang from this relation. In 84 BC, after his father's death, Caesar left Cossutia and married Cornelia, as that was more pragmatic than the earlier relation to Cossutia. [2] It is also possible that Caesar chose to leave her to marry Cornelia because he had been nominated as Flamen Dialis , a role which demanded marriage to a patrician via confarreatio . [6]
Cossutia perhaps died in Pisa, Italy in 84 BC. [7]
In the past it was commonly accepted that Caesar and Cossutia were married, but more recent opinions differ. Among those arguing that Caesar was never married to Cossutia are Ludwig Friedrich Otto Baumgarten-Crusius, Napoleon III, Charles Merivale, James Anthony Froude, Theodore Ayrault Dodge, William Warde Fowler, Ernest Gottlieb Sihler, Adolf von Mess [ de ], and John Carew Rolfe. [4] The French author Marie-Nicolas Bouillet [ fr ] lists Cossutia first, then Cornelia, Pompeia, and Calpurnia, as wives of Caesar. The ancient historian Plutarch largely ignores Cossutia, [7] but names her as one of Caesar's wives. [8] Suetonius also used the word for an official divorce when describing the separation. [9] [10]
Cossutia appears as a major character in the opera Young Caesar , and as a minor character in several novels. [11]
Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus was Roman emperor from AD 14 until 37. He succeeded his stepfather Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC to Roman politician Tiberius Claudius Nero and his wife, Livia Drusilla. In 38 BC, Tiberius' mother divorced his father and married Augustus. Following the untimely deaths of Augustus' two grandsons and adopted heirs, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, Tiberius was designated Augustus' successor. Prior to this, Tiberius had proved himself an able diplomat, and one of the most successful Roman generals: his conquests of Pannonia, Dalmatia, Raetia, and (temporarily) parts of Germania laid the foundations for the empire's northern frontier.
Publius Cornelius Dolabella was a Roman politician and general under the dictator Julius Caesar. He was by far the most important of the patrician Cornelii Dolabellae but he arranged for himself to be adopted into the plebeian Cornelii Lentuli so that he could become a plebeian tribune. He married Cicero's daughter, Tullia, although he frequently engaged in extramarital affairs. Throughout his life he was an extreme profligate, something that Plutarch wrote reflected ill upon his patron Julius Caesar.
Servilia was a Roman matron from a distinguished family, the Servilii Caepiones. She was the daughter of Quintus Servilius Caepio and Livia, thus the maternal half-sister of Cato the Younger. She married Marcus Junius Brutus, with whom she had a son, the Brutus who, along with others in the Senate, assassinated Julius Caesar. After her first husband's death in 77, she married Decimus Junius Silanus, and with him had a son and three daughters.
Pompeia was either the second or third wife of Julius Caesar.
Vipsania Julia Agrippina nicknamed Julia Minor and called Julia the Younger by modern historians, was a Roman noblewoman of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. She was emperor Augustus' first granddaughter, being the first daughter and second child of Julia the Elder and her husband Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. Along with her siblings, Julia was raised and educated by her maternal grandfather Augustus and her maternal step-grandmother Livia Drusilla. Just like her siblings, she played an important role in the dynastic plans of Augustus, but much like her mother, she was disgraced due to infidelity later on in her life.
Scribonia was the second wife of Octavian, later the Roman Emperor Augustus, and the mother of his only biological child, Julia the Elder. Through her youngest daughter she was the mother-in-law of the Emperor Tiberius, great-grandmother of the Emperor Caligula and Empress Agrippina the Younger, and great-great-grandmother of the Emperor Nero.
Aurelia was the mother of the Roman general and statesman Julius Caesar.
Calpurnia was either the third or fourth wife of Julius Caesar, and the one to whom he was married at the time of his assassination. According to contemporary sources, she was a good and faithful wife, in spite of her husband's infidelity; and, forewarned of the attempt on his life, she endeavored in vain to prevent his murder.
Octavia the Younger was the elder sister of the first Roman emperor, Augustus, the half-sister of Octavia the Elder, and the fourth wife of Mark Antony. She was also the great-grandmother of the Emperor Caligula and Empress Agrippina the Younger, maternal grandmother of the Emperor Claudius, and paternal great-grandmother and maternal great-great-grandmother of the Emperor Nero.
Julia was the daughter of Julius Caesar and his first or second wife Cornelia, and his only child from his marriages. Julia became the fourth wife of Pompey the Great and was renowned for her beauty and virtue.
Julia was the wife of the Roman consul Gaius Marius and a paternal aunt of future Roman dictator Julius Caesar.
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman senator, a supporter of his brother-in-law, Gaius Marius, and the father of Roman statesman Julius Caesar.
Cornelia was either the first or second wife of Julius Caesar, and the mother of his only legitimate child, Julia. A daughter of Lucius Cornelius Cinna, Cornelia was related by birth or marriage to many of the most influential figures of the late Republic.
Marcia was the second wife of Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis and the daughter of Lucius Marcius Philippus.
Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of senators on the Ides of March of 44 BC during a meeting of the Senate at the Curia of Pompey of the Theatre of Pompey in Rome where the senators stabbed Caesar 23 times. They claimed to be acting over fears that Caesar's unprecedented concentration of power during his dictatorship was undermining the Roman Republic. At least 60 to 70 senators were party to the conspiracy, led by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, and Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus. Despite the death of Caesar, the conspirators were unable to restore the institutions of the Republic. The ramifications of the assassination led to his martyrdom, the Liberators' civil war and ultimately to the Principate period of the Roman Empire.
Publius Licinius Crassus was one of two sons of Marcus Licinius Crassus, the so-called "triumvir", and Tertulla, daughter of Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus. He belonged to the last generation of Roman nobiles who came of age and began a political career before the collapse of the Republic. His peers included Marcus Antonius, Marcus Junius Brutus, Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, the poet Gaius Valerius Catullus, and the historian Gaius Sallustius Crispus.
The career of Julius Caesar before his consulship in 59 BC was characterized by military adventurism and political persecution. Julius Caesar was born on 12 July 100 BC into a patrician family, the gens Julia, which claimed descent from Iulus, son of the legendary Trojan prince Aeneas, supposedly the son of the goddess Venus. His father died when he was just 16, leaving Caesar as the head of the household. His family status put him at odds with the Dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who almost had him executed.
The military campaigns of Julius Caesar were a series of wars that reshaped the political landscape of the Roman Republic, expanded its territories, and ultimately paved the way for the transition from republic to empire. The wars constituted both the Gallic Wars and Caesar's civil war.
The Luca Conference was a 56 BC meeting of the three Roman politicians of the First Triumvirate — Caesar, Pompey and Crassus — that took place at the town of Luca, near Pisa. Luca was the southern most town in the then Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul, where Caesar was serving as Governor. The meeting renewed the fraying political alliance, and further cemented the three men's increasing consolidation of power in the Roman Republic.
The first-century-BCE Roman statesman and commander Pompey the Great was married five times. These marriages were not only romantic matches, but political arrangements, often dictated by Pompey's political career and need to form alliances with other powerful Roman men.
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