11 Servilia’s Place in Society

All so far has been leading up to the question: does what we can ascertain about Servilia justify the idea that she played an important role in the social and political life of her time? In this chapter I attempt to place Servilia in the context of her society as a preliminary to discussing whether she could exert influence in social and political matters and, if so, how and to what extent.

A strong scholarly tradition emphasizes Servilia’s political influence.¹ Syme saw her as ‘a political force’, ‘a woman possessed of all the rapacious ambition of the patrician Servilii and ruthless to recapture power for her house’.²

Of such dominating forces behind the phrases and the façade of constitutional government, the most remarkable was Servilia, Cato’s half-sister, Brutus’ mother—and Caesar’s mistress.³

Debarred from public life but enjoying the social prestige of family or husband, the daughters of the nobilitas could not be cheated of the real and secret power that comes from influence. They count for more than does the average senator, they might effect nothing less than an ex-consul achieved by the quiet exercise of auctoritas in the conclave of his peers—and they suitably foreshadow the redoubtable princesses in the dynasty of Julii and Claudii. The notable example is Servilia, Cato’s half-sister, the mother of Brutus—and, for a season, the mistress of Julius Caesar. Her influence survived his removal—in June of 44 Servilia can undertake to get a decree of the Senate modified.⁴

Before Syme it had been suggested she was as important as Caesar—a clear exaggeration which we should dismiss.⁵ She is often named in the same context as her contemporary Sempronia, who was involved with the Catilinarian conspiracy,⁶ as Fulvia, the wife of Mark Antony,⁷ and as Livia, the wife of young Caesar.⁸ The proof of her political influence is chiefly her assumption, shared by Cicero and the rest of the council, that the deletion of part of a senatorial decree could safely be left to her.⁹ Cicero’s account, taking her statement so much for granted, suggests that this undertaking is ‘the tip of an iceberg’ and that Servilia was quite in the habit of doing this sort of thing.¹⁰ What is not so clear is how many women could rival Servilia’s auctoritas, as Syme calls it.¹¹

Some scholars who have examined closely the opportunities open to Roman women have been sceptical about their political power. Thomas W. Hillard criticized Syme’s view of Servilia trenchantly in 1983. In his opinion,

She could not help but be in the centre of high society and high politics. It does not follow that she was effective in the latter.¹²

Jane Gardner more recently argued that most women could do no more than act ‘as message-bearers’, provide ‘salons at which the men could meet privately’, or use ‘their wealth and social connexions to help ingratiate their husbands, sons or lovers with their peers’. She sees Sempronia, Servilia, and Fulvia as exceptional, but points out that we do not know that the grain-commission was dropped because of her intervention.¹³ Richard Bauman sums up his view of Servilia as follows: ‘She ought to be the greatest political strategist of the late Republic, but does not quite present as such’. He thinks her promise to change a senatorial decree was nothing special.¹⁴

Others are more inclined to credit women with influence and importance in politics. Suzanne Dixon, for instance, gives a perceptive analysis of how Cornelia, the daughter of Scipio Africanus, promoted her family’s interests, educated her children, married her daughter to Aemilianus, was invoked by her sons in public speeches, deployed patronage when they stood for office, and became an exemplar.¹⁵

On balance, this reconstruction seems the more convincing. We know that when Caesar was accumulating an enormous fortune by the conquest of Gaul, he found that one sensible investment was to make loans and gifts to men like Cicero and those seeking office in Rome to help them defray their expenses. He also sent gifts to their wives.¹⁶ Cultivating both sexes and conferring benefits in the expectation of repayment was a good insurance programme for anyone.

I incline therefore to the opinion that women had more influence than appears in our sources. Those sources, written by men, are likely to play down women’s influence for a variety of reasons. Although a man would know his mother, sisters, wife, and daughters relatively well, he was rarely around when they interacted with other women. Perhaps he simply did not often notice when they got things done. If they manipulated him, he might not realize it. A ‘softly, softly’ approach might not be recognized. Secondly, much of what women did (in their own social and religious gatherings or in contacts with their clients) might not interest him. A convention that women should focus on the domestic sphere and not take part in many areas of public life meant he would not praise them for overstepping the boundaries. Then too he might pass over in silence things of which he disapproved. I suspect that what we have is neglect, lack of interest, and ignorance rather than malicious suppression of women’s contribution to the wider society. The sources we have document the ‘tip of an iceberg’.

It is well established that men’s success in gaining elected office was based on birth (recognition of their name because of the achievements of ancestors), connexions, and, especially for new men, demonstration of ability and acceptability.¹⁷ Political influence flowed from family connexions, marriage, wealth, friends, clients.¹⁸ Women could not stand for office nor command armies—a source of clients which was decisive for men like Pompey and Caesar.¹⁹ Nor did they have legal expertise, act as defending counsel, or often frequent the Forum.²⁰ Yet, despite these enormous handicaps, as Suzanne Dixon says, ‘they could inherit and transmit large bodies of clientes and amici to further far-reaching political ambitions’.²¹

The idea that clientelae passed from father to son is well attested. For instance, the author of the African War describes Cato as contrasting the younger Cn. Pompeius’s clientelae, passed on by his father, with what his father Pompey had started with at a comparable age.²² Such clientelae had to be nurtured. Cicero mentions that Ti. Claudius Nero had distinguished clientelae in the East inherited from his ancestors which he hoped to strengthen and bind to himself by his benefactions.²³

There is evidence that women might transmit clients from their fathers to their sons.²⁴ It was also, it seems, possible for a widow to inherit such connexions from her husband. It has been plausibly argued by Kathryn Welch that Fulvia inherited loyal members of the collegia (associations of the lower-class men in the City, based for instance on trade or locality) from Clodius and deployed them in support of her second and third husbands, Curio and Antony.²⁵

The sources rarely mention women’s clients. But we hear that Sex. Roscius, a man of wealth and position in Ameria, frequented the houses of Metelli, Servilii, and Scipiones.²⁶ When his son was in desperate straits, he took refuge with the elderly Caecilia Metella, sister of Nepos (cos. 98) and daughter of Balearicus (cos. 123), whom his father had known well and in whom there still remained ‘traces of old-fashioned duty’ as a model for others. She preserved him by her courage, faithfulness, and diligence. These, as we know from other sources, were the qualities and duties of a good patronus. She took him in, fed and clothed him, and did everything that could be done from her house, while a young man, Valerius Messalla, arranged the public side of things.²⁷ Cicero specifically claims that she acquired distinction from her father, uncles, and brother, but that by her own virtue she further enhanced their reputation.²⁸ Women mattered to a family’s moral capital and its influence.

We should notice that Cicero does not call Caecilia the patrona of Roscius. Instead he emphasizes the hereditary tie and describes it as hospitium (exchange of hospitality). The elder Roscius saw a lot of Caecilia, ‘qua…usus est plurimum’. She may be compared with Servilia Catuli, hospita (hostess/guest) of Dio of Halaesa, who was prepared to defend him against the governor of Sicily. Our Servilia too, it was thought, might have thrown her weight on the side of the prosecutor of Scaurus, just as Clodia backed or even initiated the prosecution of Caelius.²⁹

We remember that wealthy and respectable individuals did not care to be called clientes.³⁰ The words ‘client’ and ‘patron/patroness’ are useful to us, but they must be taken as shorthand, not as always representing the Latin. The word patrona in Latin literature is almost invariably used of a woman who had freed a certain slave, in relation to her freedman or freedwoman. Terence provides a solitary example of a patroness of a client.³¹ Cicero uses the word only of a manumitter’s wife³² or metaphorically, as when (thinking of advocacy) he calls the extortion-law patroness of the friends and allies of the Roman People or the right of appeal patroness of the citizen body.³³ Apart from the rare metaphorical use,³⁴ all post-Ciceronian examples are used to describe a manumitter: nearly all are in juristic writings.³⁵  Patronus, the masculine, is used in the same way. There are plenty of patroni in Plautus, some of them manumitters, but some patrons of clients, as one might expect in the early second century. Cicero often uses the word of an advocate. For instance, in the speech for Roscius of Ameria he recurs often to Roscius’s difficulty in finding someone to defend him in court.³⁶ The Roscii had traditionally had many patronos hospitesque (patrons and hosts/guests), but the bad kinsmen had dropped all these and betaken themselves to the protection and clientship (in fidem et clientelam) of Sulla’s freedman Chrysogonus.³⁷ This is the only place in the speech where the word may have the sense of ‘patrons of clients’ (though it may include those who had functioned as advocates).³⁸ The pattern continues in the later court speeches and in other writings: patronus is chiefly used for an advocate or manumitter. When it occurs in the sense of patron of clients, it is often linked with hospes, guest/host.³⁹ We hear occasionally of patrons of whole communities.⁴⁰

In a humorous letter the businessman M’. Curius calls Cicero his ‘great (exalted) friend’ and ‘my patron’ (‘patrone mi’).⁴¹ This man was known to Cicero from his first entry into the Forum and was further recommended to Cicero by Atticus, who was a close friend of his. Cicero and his party were entertained by him at Patrae on their journey back from Cilicia in 50 and again during the civil war. Atticus hoped Cicero would like him and he did, finding that he had a proper Roman wit. Cicero (along with Quintus, young Quintus, and members of his staff) witnessed his will (which named both Atticus and Cicero as legatees, to one-tenth and one-fortieth of the estate respectively) and was taking it back to Rome for safekeeping.⁴² Tiro, who was ill, was left behind in Patrae at the house of the Greek Lyso, and he and Curius were to look after his medical needs, Curius advancing him money when needed.⁴³ Cicero would call Curius a hospes or an amicus (friend) and talk of their bond of necessitudo (connexion) and recommend him as worthy of the friendship of Sulpicius. Although not a social equal (possibly an eques), he was a useful man for a senator to know. His obsequious address to Cicero is a joke.

In the late Republic, there was no abstract noun expressing our ‘patronage’. Patrocinium means ‘the exercise of the functions of a patronus’, ‘defence, protection’, and ‘performance as a patronus in a court of law’. The corresponding verb patrocinari means ‘to act as patronus or protector’ and ‘to act as advocate’.⁴⁴ Cicero nearly always uses the abstract noun patrocinium in the third sense, ‘acting as defending counsel’, very often figuratively, for instance ‘defence of peace’, ‘defence of pleasure’.⁴⁵ There seems to be only one Ciceronian passage concerning an individual patron and client where ‘protection’ would be the natural translation.⁴⁶ The word is not the equivalent of ‘the position of patron’ and does not express the privilege of having clients. In other authors both noun and verb mostly connote law-court—or figurative—defence. A woman did not normally act as advocate in court, so this side of a patron’s duty was not for her.⁴⁷  Patronatus, ‘the status or position of a patronus’ is used only by later jurists.

As for cliens (client), clienta (female client), and the abstract noun clientela, there are mentions in comedy,⁴⁸ Caesar uses them in descriptions of Gallic society, Cicero quite frequently in a Roman context (sixty-two examples), other contemporaries provide a few examples.

With reference to individuals of a certain status, other words, such as amicus, familiaris (familiar, intimate), and necessarius (connexion) were preferred by both parties, as a glance at Cicero’s letters of recommendation will show.⁴⁹ The most striking thing about Cicero’s letters is the wide range of people (all but one male) whom he introduces and recommends to people (especially officials of various ranks) who could help them, either in specific circumstances such as inheritance disputes, court cases, or business, or in general. The people are social equals (senators, though often junior), equites, freedmen, other Roman citizens, provincials (mostly Greeks). They have often deliberately cultivated Cicero’s friendship, have similar intellectual interests, or have helped and obliged him in various ways. The relationships may be old and may go back several generations. Often the friend has given Cicero hospitality or has visited him in Rome. Affection is often claimed. Both sides perform services (officia), the social superior in particular confers benefits (beneficia).⁵⁰ The language of a formal admission of a man into a relationship of trust is occasionally mentioned: ‘I ask … you to … take … this man … into your protection’,⁵¹ ‘we press you to take Lyso into your protection and connexion’.⁵² Such clients could be loosely described as mei and tui (‘my people’, ‘your people’, ‘mine’, or ‘yours’.⁵³

A relationship between patron and client was supposed to be characterized by officium, duty.⁵⁴ Metella was exemplary in her acceptance of this duty.⁵⁵ It was similar to the duty between friends or between family members.⁵⁶ Good faith was implicit in a relationship of fides. Vergil put wrong done to a client on a level with striking a parent. The Twelve Tables in the fifth century had set the severest penalty for a patron who wronged his client.⁵⁷ The correct result of such a patronal relationship is gratia.

Gratia signifies not only a favour done to others, and especially a favour done in return for those received, and the gratitude evinced in such a requital, but also the influence that accrues to men with a claim on the gratitude of others.⁵⁸

The beneficiary should be gratus or gratissimus (grateful, very grateful); he will feel gratitude (gratia) and give thanks (gratias). The favour is particularly or most welcome to a third party, such as Cicero (mihi pergratum or gratissimum), who will therefore also owe gratitude.⁵⁹  Gratia (influence, popularity, and esteem) accrues to the benefactor.

The scope of the word gratia is large.⁶⁰ It may be glossed by such words as ‘good will, favour, gratitude, popularity, esteem’. It may sometimes be rendered ‘influence’, especially when coupled, as it often is, with potentia (power), or auctoritas (authority), or dignitas (status).⁶¹ Defending counsel will often attack the gratia of the prosecution side.⁶² Cicero detects the malign influence of Clodia behind the acquittal of Sex. Cloelius and the prosecution of Caelius.⁶³  Gratia in this last sense normally springs from acquaintance with individuals, though great men may earn it from their reputation. The energetic advocate gained influence from the good will and gratitude of the friends he had defended.⁶⁴ It enables a man to get things done: posse, ‘to be able (to)’.⁶⁵ People who possess such gratia are gratiosi.⁶⁶

Instead of gratia one might speak, often pejoratively, of potentia, power.⁶⁷  Potentia may be paired with gratia,⁶⁸ or linked with opes, resources,⁶⁹ or divitiae, riches.⁷⁰ I have not found republican texts which attribute potentia to a woman.⁷¹ But Clodia is said to be powerful, potens.⁷² Suetonius tells us that Antony charged young Caesar with having dismissed Scribonia because she had too openly criticized the potentia which his mistress wielded. This probably refers to Livia before her marriage to him.⁷³ Perhaps it means Livia’s power over Caesar. But the word is commonly used of political power.

Influence sometimes stems from auctoritas (authority), a quality inherent particularly in experienced, judicious, and knowledgeable senators, magistrates, and priests.⁷⁴ Cato’s authority could sway the People.⁷⁵ Q. Metellus Celer, consul designate for 60 but a private citizen, could stop a tribune in his tracks just by his auctoritas, not by the official power (potestas) of a magistracy, which he did not yet possess.⁷⁶ Augustus also makes it clear that auctoritas may be separate from any constitutional office: after he was given the title Augustus, he excelled everyone in auctoritas, but had no more potestas than his colleagues in each magistracy.⁷⁷  Auctoritas also belonged especially to the Senate itself (hundreds of examples), and, in occasional mentions, to the Roman People, towns, the whole of Italy.⁷⁸ It goes with old age.⁷⁹ The young, of course, did not really possess it.⁸⁰ It might operate within the family as well as in public life, for Cicero speaks of paternal and fraternal auctoritas.⁸¹ It is also potent with friends.⁸² I have not found republican texts which attribute it to a woman.⁸³ But it would be appropriate if a woman had any power at all, for she was specifically excluded from the potestas of public office. Soon after our period it is employed. Asconius uses it of Servilia’s quasi-maternal authority over Cato.⁸⁴ Livy describes how Aebutius, thrown out by his mother, acts on the authority of his paternal aunt.⁸⁵ According to Seneca, Marcia’s authority over her son was like her father’s over her.⁸⁶ Quintilian claims that Sassia’s authority weighed on her son.⁸⁷ Suetonius takes for granted Vespasia Polla’s auctoritas over her son Vespasian.⁸⁸ Tacitus writes even more strongly of Livia’s restraining influence over Tiberius: ‘…because his compliance towards his mother was habitual, nor did Sejanus dare to oppose the authority of a parent’.⁸⁹

Imperium, the right to give orders, clearly belonged to the master of the house, the father, and the husband. But it may also be exercised by a mother over a child.⁹⁰ Orders from a wife to a husband might be disliked. But they are pictured as occurring in the topsy-turvy world of comedy.⁹¹ The mistresses of elegy also bully their lovers. Dominance of wife over husband might happen.

We must look at how relations founded on gratia and auctoritas and so on worked in practice. Cicero’s networking was clearly intense in the years of Caesar’s dictatorship, as we see from his letters of recommendation, although his political influence was not great. He still remained a consular. He was still worth cultivating because of his oratorical powers; he was still determined to protect and support his friends as far as he could and he could dispense advice and persuasion. He knew whom he could ask for help. He could still pull strings. We might see his influence as a patron as comparable with that of a well-placed and intelligent senatorial woman.

It will be clear that many connexions are forged because of propinquity. Cicero knew neighbours in Arpinum,⁹² or in places where he had villas,⁹³ or places to which he travelled on private or public business.⁹⁴ Although a woman’s travels were often confined to Italy, she could make similar contacts. Senators held a formal reception (salutatio), often every day, when strangers might present letters of introduction or be brought in by friends; friends and clients might call and then form an escort; others might present petitions or ask for advice. It is not until the time of Tiberius that a female member of the imperial family started to hold an official salutatio.⁹⁵ But women in the late Republic could receive many visitors, no doubt using the grand spaces frequented by the men’s crowds of visitors earlier in the day. It was, moreover, easier and more appropriate for a woman petitioner to approach a politician’s wife than to approach the politician directly.⁹⁶ It may be taken for granted that many of a woman’s callers were women, not only friends making a social visit, but women of lower rank seeking favours for themselves or for their husbands and sons. The child Servilia must have observed the importance her uncle Drusus attached to having the right sort of house to receive hordes of clients, his relationship with Italians, and his system of organizing his receptions. Although his clients might in theory have been inherited by Drusus Claudianus and then Livia Drusilla (and one wonders if this was part of her attraction for the future Augustus), they might also have had contact with Drusus’s mother, widow, and niece. Clients could have several patrons, energetic or useful on varied occasions.

Clients and friends were not made only in formal calls. Women went shopping, attended sacrifices and festivals, and dined out or invited guests to dinner.⁹⁷

Some clients were called amici (friends) but not all amici were clients. The language of amicitia (friendship) is appropriate between near equals.⁹⁸ Courtesy demanded that in public life many would be accorded the title who were not intimate personal friends. We have already seen that Cicero would insist on the existence of strong intimacy and affection between himself and people whom he wished particularly to recommend. (We need not believe that this was true in all instances.) Clientela and amicitia shaded into each other.

Servilia might inherit clients and friends from her father, mother, and husbands and pass them on to her children. She might also make new clients, by freeing slaves or supporting people who needed help, and she might make new friends among people of her own order—Caesar, most obviously. As far as I know, no-one so far has tried to put names to her contacts. We do not have the wealth of information which enabled Syme to illuminate the circles of Pompey, Caesar, or Augustus. But something may be attempted.

Different degrees of acquaintance must be assumed. Individuals known to her would run the gamut from intimate friends and confidant(e)s—if not the ideal equal friends of philosophic theory—through humbler friends and dependants, to ex-slaves or tenants. There might be a mass of clients (including ex-slaves, tenants, or petitioners) whose names she did not know or need to know.

Servilia’s place in society was based first of all on her patrician family. ‘Servilia belonged.’⁹⁹ Suzanne Dixon points out that all women of leading families automatically had influence: ‘the argument is not that, say, Servilia and Fulvia had political power, but that the social and economic position of a Claudia or Aemilia was such that she was implicated, by means of family and patronage, in actions which a modern commentator would term political’.¹⁰⁰ Despite the disadvantage of an exiled grandfather and short-lived father, Servilia was well connected with several noble families, especially the Cornelii, Caecilii Metelli, the Livii Drusi, Porcii Catones. Syme in The Roman revolution described three groups as the core of the ruling class in the 70s: the Caecilii Metelli, the Claudii, and the kin of the famous Cato. ‘With these three groups were linked almost all the chief members of the government.…’¹⁰¹ More recent scholarship has modified this view, which Syme never applied mechanically. As Wiseman puts it, ‘…all the great politicians were linked by family ties of one sort or another.…If every family tie entailed a political imperative, the Roman politicians would have been paralysed.’¹⁰² But our concern for the moment is with the social, not the political. In Servilia’s own generation, there were adfinitates (connexions by marriage) with Iunii Bruti and Silani, Atilii, Marcii, Domitii, Hortensii. In the next, she was related by marriage to the Claudii Pulchri, Servilii Vatiae, Aemilii Lepidi, Cassii Longini, Licinii Luculli, Calpurnii Bibuli, and others. Policies and political measures often cut across such ties, but at the very least they gave Servilia the entrée as a kinswoman into many noble houses and introduced her into wider social circles. Even when Cato and Bibulus took an optimate line opposed to Caesar or threw in their weight behind Pompey, she could demand their family loyalty. Just as she would rally support for the protection of Lepidus’s children, so she could expect some protection and support from him when he was triumvir.

What of Servilia’s circle of friends? We have seen that Cicero belonged to it, at least after the Ides and although he found her caustic and impatient.¹⁰³ She will have known him for many years and perhaps had contact with him when he was working closely with the absent Caesar in the later 50s.¹⁰⁴ That might imply that she knew his wife and daughter too. Atticus clearly was on more intimate terms with her. His biographer’s summing-up is: ‘He cultivated the friendship of Servilia no less after Brutus’s death than before it.’¹⁰⁵ To some extent, Servilia was worth cultivating because she was Brutus’s mother. Atticus’s relationship with Brutus was close and had been so since at least 51.¹⁰⁶ We do not know which friendship came first. Atticus probably valued her for herself as well as for her son’s sake, and for the varied and numerous contacts which her age and position in the family gave her. Atticus had a genius for friendship with people of all political complexions. Nepos’s statement comes in the context of a long passage on Atticus’s political neutrality and his friendships. In the civil war he remained on good terms with both Pompey and Caesar.¹⁰⁷ After the Ides he was daily in Brutus’s company—which will mean he saw a great deal of Servilia—and gave him a generous subsidy when he left Italy.¹⁰⁸ Then, when Antony was declared a public enemy (22 April 43), he protected Antony’s wife, children, and friends.¹⁰⁹ When Antony was again in the ascendant, he protected the proscribed, and continued to frequent Servilia, in accordance with his habit of succouring the afflicted.¹¹⁰ The conjunction in this list of Servilia and Antony’s wife Fulvia—the only women specifically mentioned—is interesting. They are Syme’s two great examples of powerful women.

Some of Servilia’s contacts may come from her association with Caesar.¹¹¹ Of Caesar’s supporters in 49, Syme says,

Caesar’s following was heterogeneous in composition—at its kernel a small group of men paramount in social distinction, not merely nobiles but patrician; on the outer fringe, many excellent Roman knights, ‘the flower of Italy’.¹¹²

We can take it for granted that from her youth onwards Servilia knew all the patricians and probably all the men of consular descent. I am interested here in people whom she might know at least partly through their connexion with Caesar.

Among Caesar’s intimates and supporters we know that Caesar’s agent L. Cornelius Balbus was her confidential friend. She must have known his other great equestrian agent Oppius, the senators Hirtius and Pansa, who had been with Caesar in Gaul, and the banker Curtius Postumus. Matius, who lamented Caesar’s death and was a friend of Lepidus, might have been on friendly terms with her, though not, after the Ides, with Brutus and Cassius.

Servilia knew L. Cornelius Balbus well enough to confide in him.¹¹³ This fascinating character was a Spaniard from Gades enfranchised by Pompey in 72 for his military service.¹¹⁴ From being a familiaris of Pompey, while still young he got to know Caesar and served on his staff in 62 and 59, acting as his partner in many undertakings.¹¹⁵ He is described as very close to Caesar (his familiaris and carissimus [very dear] to him).¹¹⁶ His enormous workload as Caesar’s most trusted agent (from at least 48,¹¹⁷ along with Oppius) is particularly attested when he was directly involved in Cicero’s affairs and enjoying great influence over Caesar while looking after his multifarious business and public administration in Italy.¹¹⁸ After Caesar’s murder, we find him close to the consul designate Hirtius and dealing with young Caesar.¹¹⁹ He rose to a consulship in 40. The perfect intermediary, he was a useful man to know. Servilia presumably had to do with him at least since 62 and probably before, when she was involved with Caesar. He took an apparently kindly interest in what happened to Brutus and Cassius in 44.¹²⁰

The political importance of an eques like Atticus, Balbus, or Oppius was normally wielded behind the scenes. It is similar in this to the influence of women¹²¹ or of exceptionally important freedmen like Pompey’s Demetrius or Q. Cicero’s Statius.¹²² But, unlike women or freedmen, equites could hold military offices, serve as judges, and rise to the Senate. The status this gave enabled the exceptional few, like Balbus and Oppius, to act as Caesar’s overt agents even in public matters.¹²³

Although this is not directly attested, Servilia will have known Oppius, the other great equestrian agent of Caesar. In 54, he was acting as Caesar’s agent on his building projects in Rome and dealing with the despatch and receipt of letters to and from Caesar and his legates.¹²⁴ When he and Balbus were running Caesar’s affairs in Rome in the 40s, he mediated between Caesar and Pompeians such as Cicero. He will have had dealings with Brutus, Cassius, and Servilia. After Caesar’s death, he was diplomatic in not advertising his grief and he helped young Caesar.¹²⁵ He wrote a memoir of Caesar and another, presumably hostile, of Cassius.¹²⁶

In 46, Cicero listed Caesar’s friends with whom he was popular and had influence as the senators Hirtius, Pansa, and Postumus and the equites Balbus, Oppius, and Matius.¹²⁷ We can confidently add Hirtius, Pansa, Matius, and Postumus to Servilia’s acquaintance.

C. Vibius Pansa Caetronianus served in Gaul under Caesar and entered the Senate, holding the tribunate in 51.¹²⁸ He could be called a common friend of Cassius and Cicero in 45.¹²⁹ As we have seen, he was apparently in contact with Cassius’s mother and brother in 43 and Servilia did not want to offend him in 43, which implies that she knew him too and hoped he might serve her interests. Cicero in the Brutus, addressing Atticus and Brutus, calls him ‘our Pansa’.¹³⁰ After the Ides, despite being the son-in-law of Q. Fufius Calenus (cos. 47), he took a moderate line¹³¹ and Cicero thought him very friendly to Brutus and Cassius, as long as it was expedient.¹³² This clearly implies outward cordiality and contact while they were all in Rome after the assassination. That Pansa’s doctor (Glyco, who failed to save him when he was wounded at Forum Gallorum)¹³³ was married to the sister of a client of Brutus may suggest a further connexion between the two patrons.

A. Hirtius had acted as Caesar’s secretary in Gaul, probably as legatus alongside Q. Cicero, and wrote the last book of the Gallic War and the whole of the Alexandrine War, as well as a pamphlet against Cato, which may not have endeared him to Servilia.¹³⁴ He acted as an intermediary for Caesar¹³⁵ and was close to Balbus and Oppius.¹³⁶ He mediated for Pompeians after Pharsalus.¹³⁷Soon after the Ides, he was negotiating between Antony and the assassins.¹³⁸ Cicero did not trust him, especially after the Ides, because of his affection for Caesar.¹³⁹ Brutus and Cassius hoped Cicero could make Hirtius take their side, but Cicero thought this a hopeless plan.¹⁴⁰ Hirtius, however, wanted the ‘Liberators’ to stay in Italy.¹⁴¹ When he was consul in 43, moving against Antony and to the rescue of D. Brutus, he could be called a friend of Cicero, D. Brutus, and Cassius.¹⁴² Both as Caesar’s close friend and as a practised mediator, this highly cultivated man can hardly have neglected Servilia either before or after Caesar’s death.¹⁴³ It is not clear that he could have counted as a friend to Servilia, but they moved in the same circles. She could have attempted to use him, as she did Pansa.

The eques C. Matius was a moderate Caesarian in 49, when he had expressed criticism of some of Caesar’s other followers, and was employed by Caesar as a go-between to wavering senators.¹⁴⁴ He continued to mediate between Caesar and Cicero (and perhaps other Pompeians) after Pharsalus.¹⁴⁵ He claimed to have disapproved of the civil war and to have taken no advantage of his friendship with Caesar (thus contrasting with Servilia and Rabirius Postumus).¹⁴⁶ But he disapproved violently of the murder of Caesar, in part because he could now see no issue out of Rome’s difficulties.¹⁴⁷ He protested strongly against the self-styled ‘authors of freedom’, who bullied those who mourned Caesar. He hoped they would be sorry.¹⁴⁸ At this point, despite the probability that they had known each other for years, it is hard to see how any contact with Servilia would have gone smoothly. (If we knew for sure that Servilia too mourned Caesar and thought the assassination a political blunder, there would be more to be said.) Matius was sufficiently interested in Brutus to recollect and relay a remark of Caesar’s in Bithynia, after Brutus had spoken vehemently on behalf of King Deiotarus, a remark which Caesar used to repeat: ‘It’s hard to know what this man wants, but what he wants he wants very much.’¹⁴⁹ Cicero regarded him as hostile to Brutus, though Matius disliked Brutus’s suspicion of him.¹⁵⁰ He was on good terms with another member of Servilia’s family, Lepidus, the only person he had visited between 15 March and 7 April.¹⁵¹ Servilia may be presumed to have known him, though her feelings about him may have been mixed after the Ides.

C. Curtius Postumus, later C. Rabirius Postumus, was an eminent financier, who was involved in Caesar’s plans for Egypt in the 50s, strongly supported him when the civil war broke out, and was promoted to the Senate. He went on to back the young Caesar and may have survived long enough to be the addressee of a Horatian Ode (2.14).¹⁵² Again, his importance to Caesar must mean that Servilia knew him.

We might conjecturally add C. Trebatius Testa, another protégé of Caesar’s, who would become eminent as a jurist under Augustus.¹⁵³ Servilia surely knew Caesar’s nominee to the suffect consulship of 44, Dolabella. These men are only ‘the tip of the iceberg’. When Caesar visited Servilia or she visited him she would come across not only his senatorial and equestrian friends, supporters, and contacts, but his closest attendants, freedmen, and slaves.

Servilia will have known well various associates of Cato. Although we cannot establish that she was close to any of them, it will still be of some interest to collect a list of the men of varied status who were close to her half-brother. He is portrayed by Plutarch as living on terms of intimacy with his slaves, freedmen, and humbler friends, as well as those of his own status. We find him chatting to them, embracing them on meeting and parting, and saying goodnight.¹⁵⁴ Cato had a network of friends, informants, and supporters.¹⁵⁵

His devoted disciple¹⁵⁶ the senator M. Favonius is an obvious example. Favonius was a new man.¹⁵⁷ Pushy,¹⁵⁸ impulsive,¹⁵⁹ and tactless, he was much disliked.¹⁶⁰ But he staunchly followed Cato,¹⁶¹ sometimes taking an even harder line.¹⁶²

Scribonius Curio (cos. 76) was an intimate, but critical, older friend.¹⁶³ Q. Lutatius Catulus (cos. 78, died c.61 or soon after), and Q. Hortensius Hortalus (cos. 69, died 49) were consistent friends and allies.¹⁶⁴ Catulus was stepson of a Servilia, perhaps our Servilia’s aunt. Hortensius had married this elder Servilia’s daughter, Lutatia. Cicero counted as someone whom Cato sometimes consulted, advised, and supported.¹⁶⁵ A Marcellus was Cato’s friend from boyhood, probably M. Claudius Marcellus, the bitterly anti-Caesarian consul of 51.¹⁶⁶ A certain Canidius went ahead of Cato to Cyprus to act on his behalf and may have been there as quaestor, but Cato dismissed him abruptly, which presumably led to a breach.¹⁶⁷ If a quaestor, he was a new man.¹⁶⁸ The senator L. Postumius seems also to be an associate of Cato. He died in Caesar’s civil war.¹⁶⁹ Although Servilia will have been acquainted with such men, she need not have seen much of them, except for Favonius, Cato’s close ally, and Catulus and Hortensius, her kinsmen.

Others were presumably equites. Munatius Rufus was a confidential friend, who wrote a memoir of Cato.¹⁷⁰ He too had been in Cyprus.¹⁷¹ He was present, along with Servilia, at the family council which considered a marriage alliance with Pompey and was close to Atilia and Marcia.¹⁷² He was entrusted with Cato’s younger son in 49.¹⁷³

Statilius was a young man who was in Africa with Cato in 46. He refused to leave when Cato was sending his friends away from Utica, although as a ‘hater of Caesar’ he was particularly at risk. The philosophers Apollonides and Demetrius, to whom Cato relinquished the task of persuading him to join the evacuees, failed to get him on to the ship but later succeeded in persuading him not to follow Cato in death.¹⁷⁴ We are told that a brother of M. Vipsanius Agrippa was also among the young men present.¹⁷⁵ We would expect such young men to pay courtesy calls on Servilia after they returned to Rome. Agrippa’s brother would have been useful to her as a channel to young Caesar, if he cultivated her.

Deiotarus, the king of Galatia, was a guest-friend whom Cato inherited from his father and who entertained Cato in the East.¹⁷⁶ He was in Rome in 45 and was accused before Caesar. He is likely to have sought help from Servilia.

Cato, like other wealthy Romans, picked up a number of educated companions, usually Greeks. He particularly liked to attach philosophers to himself. When military tribune, Cato had persuaded the aged Stoic Athenodorus Cordylion of Tarsus to live with him in the camp and to come back to Rome with him. He stayed with Cato for the rest of his life.¹⁷⁷ The Stoic Antipater of Tyre was a companion from the early days, but we do not know how long he spent in Italy.¹⁷⁸ In 63 Cato took philosophers with him on what was expected to be a long holiday in Lucania.¹⁷⁹ The philosopher Philostratus was with him in Sicily in 49.¹⁸⁰ Several Greek friends and aides were with him in Africa in 46. Apollonides the Stoic¹⁸¹ and Demetrius the Peripatetic¹⁸² were there on his last evening until he retired to read and rest, after even his son had been sent away.

That evening, Cato summoned his freedman, the doctor Cleanthes, to dress a minor injury.¹⁸³ Another freedman, Butas, was sent twice to the port to check that the evacuees had left safely.¹⁸⁴ After Butas had reported the second time, Cato stabbed himself in the stomach and fell from his bed, making such a noise that his son and others rushed in to help him. Cleanthes replaced Cato’s bowels and sewed up the wound, but Cato ripped up his handiwork and so died.¹⁸⁵ This Butas, according to Plutarch, acted as a political agent.¹⁸⁶

Servilia can hardly have avoided contact with some of these, at least Deiotarus, Athenodorus, Butas, Cleanthes, and probably Apollonides and Demetrius. Contact with Cato’s learned entourage makes us wonder how interested she may have been in Greek culture and the philosophical discussions of the day.

Servilia will have known a number of other men who were friends of Brutus.

Some of Brutus’s friends had previously been friends of Cato. The most important was Favonius, who was an ex-Pompeian like Brutus and one of his inner circle. He may have got to know Brutus partly through Cato. Brutus tolerated his rough manners.¹⁸⁷ He sounded out his views about Caesar and found that he held civil war to be worse than illegal monarchy. So he did not invite him to join the assassins.¹⁸⁸ But Favonius advertised his solidarity with them and followed Brutus abroad.¹⁸⁹ After the second battle of Philippi, when he was a prisoner, he saluted Antony as imperator, but abused young Caesar.¹⁹⁰ He was executed. Then there was Canidius, of whom Brutus thought well at the time of their service with Cato in Cyprus. He may have been later connected with Lepidus and it is not clear that he was still a friend of Brutus at that time.¹⁹¹ Another, younger friend of Cato, Statilius, probably a new man and fellow senator, was passed over for the conspiracy because, as an Epicurean, he held that a wise man should not disturb himself for the sake of the lower classes.¹⁹² But he later supported the tyrannicides and was killed at Philippi.¹⁹³

We have found the senators Labeo and Casca in Servilia’s consilium (council) in July 43.¹⁹⁴ Pacuvius Labeo was a distinguished jurist,¹⁹⁵ a new man in the Senate,¹⁹⁶ and joined the conspiracy because Brutus was leading it.¹⁹⁷ He was recognized as being close to Brutus and had a few weeks earlier confidently disavowed as a forgery a letter written to the Senate in Brutus’s name.¹⁹⁸ He was to serve as lieutenant to Brutus the following year¹⁹⁹ and commit suicide.²⁰⁰

P. Servilius Casca Longus, a plebeian Servilius but one who apparently claimed kinship with Servilius Ahala, as Servilia did, was allegedly supporting Cassius when he picked up the diadem which Antony had laid at Caesar’s feet at the Lupercalia and put it on Caesar’s lap. This move was supposedly meant to embarrass or discredit Caesar, but the source is probably Augustus’s autobiography and the story is suspect.²⁰¹ On the Ides of March he was the first to stab Caesar.²⁰² He held the tribunate in 43.²⁰³ He would be deposed afterwards by the triumvirs. In 42 he served under Brutus, was with him at Philippi, and committed suicide with his brother, a fellow assassin.²⁰⁴

Plutarch claims that C. Ligarius was a close friend of Brutus.²⁰⁵ If he means Q. Ligarius, Cicero’s client, this is the one who, after a quaestorship c.54, had served as legatus in Africa in 50, sided with the Pompeians, and been exiled and recalled by Caesar, before joining the conspiracy. Or, if Brutus’s friend was really Gaius, he may be a brother who was proscribed with T. Ligarius in 43.²⁰⁶ Appian ranked Q. Ligarius as a close friend of Brutus.²⁰⁷ Probably all three brothers could count as friends.

The L. Sestius who contributed ships to Brutus was probably quaestor in 44.²⁰⁸ He was son of Cicero’s client, the praetorian P. Sestius (tr. 57), and of Albania, daughter of a senator called C. Albanius.²⁰⁹ Always a devoted follower of Brutus, he fought for him in the civil war and was proscribed. After Philippi he was restored and became a friend of young Caesar, but kept alive the memory of Brutus, produced eulogies, and kept portraits of him.²¹⁰ He would go on to become suffect consul in 23, after Augustus resigned the consulship. His old comrade Horace would honour him with an ode (1.4) at that time. He must surely have called on Brutus’s mother, at the very least.

Among the younger officers, recruited from the lecture rooms of Athens, who survived Philippi, was the cultivated patrician M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus (cos. suff. 31), whom Servilia will have known well from his childhood.²¹¹ His father was the consul of 61 and his mother was Hortensia, the orator’s sister and the aunt of Brutus’s adoptive father’s wife. He may conceivably have been married to Calpurnia, daughter of Bibulus and Porcia.²¹² His half-brother L. Gellius Poplicola (cos. 36) was called a friend of both Brutus and Cassius. Gellius allegedly plotted against Brutus in 42 and was forgiven, which did not stop him making a further plot against Cassius. He subsequently joined Antony and, later, Caesar.²¹³ Messalla’s sister was married to the younger Ser. Sulpicius and was the mother of the poetess Sulpicia. Cicero warmly recommended Messalla to Brutus when he joined him in the East in the summer of 43. He praises him for his eloquence and good sense, integrity, and patriotism.²¹⁴ Messalla, though close to Brutus, forever spoke of Cassius as his general.²¹⁵ Despite his juniority, he ranked as a legate, commanded Cassius’s right wing in the first battle of Philippi, and was offered the command when his generals died.²¹⁶ After Philippi, Messalla joined Antony and then eventually left him for Caesar. He went on to distinguish himself as triumphator, orator, and patron of poets. He left reminiscences of Brutus in a historical work of some sort about his own times.²¹⁷ He shared with Brutus the affectation of writing ‘simus’ for ‘sumus’ (‘we are’).²¹⁸ As a survivor of the civil war, he is likely to have had contact with Servilia.

Appian lists eight men as friends of both Brutus and Cassius, who sounded them out as possible members of the conspiracy against Caesar.²¹⁹ These are shadowy characters and no clear reason to link them with Servilia emerges.

Plutarch mentions a number of friends who will have been of equestrian status. There is Atilius (who could be a connexion of Cato’s first wife, Atilia).²²⁰ P. Volumnius, a philosopher and fellow student had accompanied Brutus on campaign from the beginning and was with him at the end, but refused to help him commit suicide, and later wrote about him.²²¹ On the field of Philippi, Lucilius saw barbarian cavalry intent on capturing Brutus, so he surrendered and claimed that he was Brutus. He was spared by Antony for his gallantry and became his faithful companion.²²² There is also a certain Flavius, attested as a distinguished eques and probably a banker.²²³ Cn. Lucceius of Cumae saw a good deal of Brutus: he will have been a local aristocrat.²²⁴ In 44 The ‘Liberators’ had supporters from the country towns, whom they formally sent away.²²⁵

I am tempted to add the louche P. Vedius, who like Brutus had interests in the East and who took too personal an interest in his sister, the wife of Lepidus. Servilia may also have known Vedius’s possible connexion, Nicias of Cos, perhaps a friend of Cassius, and certainly of Brutus, Atticus, Cicero, and Dolabella.²²⁶ Atticus himself was, of course, a close friend of Brutus, from at least 51.

The Scaptius who was part of Servilia’s consilium in 43 is another disreputable figure. He carried news to her from Brutus in 44 and organized the sending of letters to Brutus in 43.²²⁷ He is probably the same as the better attested of the two, M. Scaptii, who were both financial agents of Brutus in the East in 51–50.²²⁸ Scaptius worked in Cilicia, under the governorship of Ap. Claudius Pulcher, Brutus’s father-in-law, who had allowed him special facilities to collect debts. He was a familiaris of Brutus, who had recommended him to Cicero, the new governor.²²⁹ Cicero discovered that he was unscrupulous and oppressive in his methods and charged the provincials illegal rates of interest. It then emerged that Scaptius was only an agent, and Brutus himself the real creditor.²³⁰ It seems likely that the man was of equestrian standing.²³¹ After he had caught him out in a blatant attempt to pull the wool over his eyes, Cicero had told Atticus he was shameless and a bad lot.²³² But even in 51 Cicero’s main concern had been not to offend Brutus. So he was able to have a working relationship with the dishonest and tricky Scaptius in 44–43 and to engage with him in Servilia’s council. Servilia clearly had to use him. It may be doubted whether she shared the abhorrence of modern scholars. She had not been overscrupulous about profiting from Caesar’s confiscations.

Like Cato, Brutus had Greek clients. The rhetorician Empylus is probably to be identified with Empylus of Rhodes.²³³ Strato was a Greek from Macedonia or Epirus who had studied rhetoric along with Brutus and who helped with his suicide. His patron after Brutus’s death was Messalla, who later introduced him to young Caesar. They were both in Caesar’s train in the Actium campaign.²³⁴

We do not know how much interest Servilia took in philosophy or poetry or history. But the circles of Caesar, Cato, and Brutus gave her the opportunity to participate in literary life. I like to imagine the surviving friends of Brutus, such as Messalla and even the freedman’s son Horace, paying their respects to Servilia in the 30s.

Servilia, of course, met new people through other relations and friends. Looking at contacts Servilia may have had through her lover or kinsmen threatens to obscure her individuality and her opportunities for making friends and acquaintances for herself. But here more guesswork is necessary.

Direct attestation of Servilia’s own friends, apart from Atticus and Cicero, is predictably sparse. We can guess that she counted Sulpicius, his wife Postumia, and their young son as friends, since she pushed the son’s candidacy as a husband for Tullia.

One text is telling for Servilia’s influence within the family and the expected effect of personal affection on the result of a court case. When M. Aemilius Scaurus was prosecuted for extortion in 54, a remarkable group of counsel came to his aid, including Hortensius. But Scaurus, we are told, was particularly apprehensive about the presiding praetor Cato and P. Valerius Triarius, one of the prosecutors.

He was very much afraid of M. Cato, who was presiding…over that court, because of the friendship which existed between him and Triarius, for Triarius’s mother Flaminia and Triarius himself were fond of Servilia the sister of Cato, who was the mother of M. Brutus, and on intimate terms with her, and she furthermore held the authority of a mother over Cato.²³⁵

Triarius was presumably about the same age as Brutus and Flaminia a contemporary of Servilia, but both of rather lower rank. If Servilia had chosen to influence Cato, it would have been a major beneficium. What is important for us is that she was thought capable of such intervention, in the interests of friendship and in a trial when a varied collection of nobiles took the other side. It is also of some interest that Asconius presumes that a friend of Servilia would be a friend of Cato.

It is disappointing that Flaminia is the only woman friend directly attested. In an earlier chapter we looked at kinswomen, some of whom survived into Servilia’s adulthood. There must have been a number of women’s circles in which she participated frequently, for instance the group of high-born women who went to the annual rite in honour of the Bona Dea. She and they would pay calls on each other, attend sacrifices and festivals, and dine in each other’s houses.

A woman of Servilia’s standing could not do without a large staff of slaves and freed slaves, on her estates and in domestic service. Confidential freedmen were vital agents in all sorts of business and built up their own networks. Of her no doubt considerable household of slaves and freed slaves, one freedman is attested in an epitaph: a certain Stephanus, ‘freedman of Servilia wife of Silanus’.²³⁶ We know also a freedman of Silanus, who will have been inherited as a dependant by the Iuniae and probably as a client by Servilia. He was married to a freedwoman of one of the two Porciae.²³⁷ It is conjectured that a certain Servilia Nais, mistress of Servilia’s half-nephew Ahenobarbus, was a freedwoman of Servilia.²³⁸ The contacts of slaves and freedmen mirror those of their owners.

Our scattered information on Servilia’s contacts suggests, at the least, that she had relationships of varying degrees of closeness with a wide variety of people, from men and women of her own aristocratic status to more ordinary senatorial families, equites, the hangers-on of noble families who frequented their houses and were supported by them in return for services, and trusted servants.

Servilia will have made enemies, but I find no certain attestation. It has been held that she inherited family enmities too. Hinard claimed that she inherited a ‘vendetta’ against M. Aemilius Scaurus, because her father had prosecuted his father back in the late 90s, and that she was behind Scaurus’s trial in 54.²³⁹ The evidence does not support this. More importantly, the sources do not reflect any malicious gossip which might have come from personal enemies.

We know little about Servilia’s wealth, except for the pearl and the estates which came from Caesar. It was probably considerable.²⁴⁰ She would have inherited something from both parents. Her father (who died after her mother) had only two children, who will have shared the bulk of his estate. Her brother Caepio’s fortune seems to have been large. Quite probably her dowry and inheritance together amounted to nearly half her father’s estate.²⁴¹

Her mother, Livia, had had a second family with Cato, so she had a total of four children. They should have had a substantial inheritance. If Livia died before her second husband, she would surely have provided for Servilia and her son Caepio. The rest of her fortune could go to Cato to provide for her other two children. If Cato died first, she will have inherited something from him and augmented what she could leave to his children. She will previously have had her own fortune from the Drusi and her mother, Cornelia. Since her brother Drusus was exceptionally well off, it is likely that her inheritance from her father was considerable. The inheritance from Cato should have been transmitted to his children by their mother and perhaps the rest of her estate divided between all four.

We know a little of what Servilia’s half-brother the younger Cato possessed. He inherited a moderate fortune of 120 talents (?720,000 denarii = 2,880,000 sesterces) as his share of his father’s property.²⁴² He inherited from his half-brother, as co-heir with his niece.²⁴³ He got 100 talents (?600,000 denarii = 2,400,000 sesterces) from a cousin called Cato.²⁴⁴ There was an inheritance from his friend Lucullus.²⁴⁵ It is striking, but not surprising, that Plutarch neglects to mention any inheritance from the wealthy Livia. There were estates in Lucania, with a villa or villas suitable for a period of philosophical leisure.²⁴⁶ He was unusually frugal in his expenses, though he could not maintain the standards of the Elder Cato. He ostentatiously limited himself to an entourage of fifteen slaves, two freedmen, and four friends (all mounted while he went on foot) when he was military tribune in Macedonia in 67–66. The servants included a baker and a cook.²⁴⁷ More surprisingly, only twelve slaves, we are told, attended him and his son in the civil war.²⁴⁸ There was no reason for his half-sister to parade such restraint.

We know for certain that Servilia acquired amplissima praedia (distinguished estates) when Caesar had the property of Pompeians put up for auction. These included at least one expensive farm, sold, it is alleged, for two-thirds of its value. There was also a Neapolitan town house or villa which had belonged to a certain Pontius. Cicero was disgusted that she, the mother of the tyrant-slayer, possessed this. Presumably he found it repugnant that she benefited from Caesar’s generosity when she later had the distinction of being mother to his killer.²⁴⁹

The house at Antium usually ascribed to Servilia’s son may well have been hers. It is impossible to decide if the house at Circeii which Cicero mentions belonged to her rather than Brutus.²⁵⁰ We would expect her to have villas in the countryside or on the coast. (Her half-sister Porcia might have been the owner of a property at Naples where her son went to find her.)²⁵¹ It may also be wondered, as Münzer suggests, whether the horti Serviliani (a suburban park or gardens on the outskirts of Rome, usually with buildings which could be used for leisure and entertaining) belonged to Servilia.²⁵² This property is attested from the period when it had been taken over by the emperor (Nero or a predecessor). Servilia’s brother has been proposed as the original owner.²⁵³ But Servilia by 59 was probably richer than he ever was. Nothing prevents the conjecture that she was able to satisfy a taste for rus in urbe, as Valeria Messallina later did, and as did her contemporaries Clodia, Lucullus, Pompey, Caesar, Drusus Claudianus, and Sallust.²⁵⁴

She had had a chance to inherit substantial property from her father, mother, brother, and both husbands.²⁵⁵ The vicissitudes of her grandfather and first husband have no observable effect. She might have had legacies from others: her grandmother, aunt, half-brother and half-sister, friends, freedmen. As the only survivor of her generation of siblings and half-siblings, she must have found a good deal of the family property, and consequently authority, concentrated in her hands.

When a man needed liquid capital, he might turn among others to his mother, as young Caesar did in order to pay the bequests of the elder Caesar.²⁵⁶ Seneca’s mother similarly deployed her wealth to support her sons’ careers.²⁵⁷ While men’s wealth was often tied up in land and houses, women had jewels, plate, rich stuffs, luxurious furniture, and cash as liquefiable or liquid assets.²⁵⁸ We know Servilia had a remarkably valuable pearl. Possibly she had a taste for jewellery. She subsidized Brutus, when he needed to hold games and probably when he needed to fight a civil war.

Wealth gave a woman the ability to display herself in public, her hair and face carefully groomed by expert maids, dressed in fine stuffs and adorned with jewels, attended by male and female slaves, often carried in a litter by matched porters or riding in a carriage with fine horses.²⁵⁹ It meant she could own and furnish luxurious houses to entertain her friends and receive her clients. She could educate her children, subsidize her sons, and dower her daughters. Subject to a guardian’s consent, which she could easily obtain, she could make a will and use it in her lifetime to influence her heirs and legatees. Wealth secured her status and allowed her to act. Influence went hand in hand with property.