Sassia (1st century BC)

Sassia was a woman of Larinum in ancient Rome who lived in the 1st century BCE. She was notable for her role in some events described in Cicero's speech Pro Cluentio . ^[1]

She was married three times. Her first husband was Aulus Cluentius Habitus, with whom she had a son Aulus Cluentius A. f. Habitus and a daughter, Cluentia. After the elder Cluentius's death, she married her son-in-law, Aulus Aurius Melinus, the widower of her late daughter Cluentia. ^{[1] [2]}

Melinus was preparing to accuse Statius Albius Oppianicus -- Sassia's former brother-in-law, who had been married to Sassia's first husband's sister, also named Cluentia -- of the murder of a kinsman, when Oppianicus was appointed chief magistrate of Larinum and managed to have Melinus included in Sulla's proscriptions, during which Melinus was killed. ^[1]

After Melinus's death, Oppianicus proposed marriage, but Sassia rejected him on account of him having children from a previous marriage, and said she could not marry him unless he killed two of his three sons. Oppianicus obliged and murdered his children, after which he became Sassia's third husband. ^[1]

In 74 BCE, the younger Cluentius accused Oppianicus, his step-father, in court of trying to poison him, a crime of which Oppianicus was narrowly convicted, though many of the jurors were themselves subsequently convicted of accepting bribes. ^{[1] [3]}

After the elder Oppianicus died, the younger Cluentius was accused of his murder by Oppianicus's son, also named Oppianicus, supposedly with the support of Sassia, who disliked her son. ^[4] At the trial in 66 BCE, Cluentius was defended by the orator Cicero, whose defense speech, Pro Cluentio , still exists. In it, Cicero paints both the younger Oppianicus and Sassia as villains. ^[1]

Cicero alleged that the elder Oppianicus left Sassia after she had an affair with a plebeian named Sextus Albius, and Oppianicus was not poisoned at all, and instead died from a fever after being thrown from his horse. Cluentius was acquitted, though modern scholars believe he did, in fact, murder his step-father. ^[1]

During all these trials, Sassia lost her good name but held on to her fortune, and was never convicted or imprisoned of any crime. ^[1]

References

1. Lightman, Marjorie; Lightman, Benjamin (2008). "Sassia". A to Z of Ancient Greek and Roman Women. Facts On File, Incorporated. pp. 291–292. ISBN   9781438107943 . Retrieved 2025-02-01.
2. Hersch, Karen K. (2010). The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity. Cambridge University Press. p. 297. ISBN   9780521124270 . Retrieved 2025-02-01.
3. Gardner, Jane F. (1998). Family and Familia in Roman Law and Life. Clarendon Press. p. 216. ISBN   9780191584534 . Retrieved 2025-02-01.
4. Tempest, Kathryn (2011). Cicero: Politics and Persuasion in Ancient Rome. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 75. ISBN   9781847252463 . Retrieved 2025-02-01.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Smith, William (1870). "Sassia". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology . Vol. 3.