Documents of a Crumbling Marriage
The Case of Cicero and Terentia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3937326 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jo-Marie Claassen, Jo‐marie Claassen (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1996 |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue | 3/4 |
| Pages | 208 |
| Publication date | 1996-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Phoenix (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-8299 • E-ISSN: 1929-4883 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1192650 |
| OpenAlex | W2316385593 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 6 |
CICERO'S PRIVATE LIFE as evidenced in his correspondence cannot be separated from his political life: at times each part seems to work as a sort of counter-irritant to troubles in the other half. While his marriage was still intact, sometimes seemed to be all that saved the beleaguered consular's sanity. His divorce of Terentia, his wife of over thirty years, and subsequent marriage to his young ward Publilia in late 47 or early 46 B.C. (at a time when Cicero's political career seemed at an impasse) has never been satisfactorily accounted for. Cicero divorced this second wife soon after his daughter Tullia's death in 45, because she seemed pleased about it (Plut. Cic. 41.8).1 This divorce, too, seems odd, at the very least. The purpose of this paper is threefold. First will review the usually cited evidence for the disintegration of the marriage of Cicero and Terentia, starting with Plutarch, with a view to reinterpreting aspects that appear to have been misconstrued by the ancient biographer, followed by moderns. Next the evidence to be found in Cicero's letters relating to the couple's relationship will be examined, so as to establish both a psychological portrait of the family in the years immediately preceding the divorce and, if possible, a picture of the disintegration process itself. Finally, modern standard descriptors of marital strain will be applied in an attempt to assess factors perhaps previously unconsidered in the Ciceronian marital breakdown
Art · Cicero · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classics · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2012 - 2021 (10) |
| Highly cited | No |