In a forthright introduction to her excellent biography of Fulvia, British classicist Jane Draycott points out that “we have more literary, documentary and archaeological evidence” for her than for “almost any other Roman woman during the Late Republic”. These were the chaotic decades leading up to Octavian being installed as Emperor Augustus in 27 BCE.
Draycott writes that much of the evidence for Fulvia is negative in the extreme. “Nearly all of the authors writing during her life or immediately after her death were enormously hostile towards her … Later authors took those portrayals and doubled down on them, adding spicy details that may be true or may simply be exaggerated falsehoods, designed to infuriate as well as titillate.”
The cover of Fulvia: The woman who broke all the rules in Ancient Rome shows a shocking scene imagined by a 19th-century Italian painter. That’s not a lover in bed with Fulvia – it’s the severed head of her and her husband Mark Antony’s sworn enemy, the proscribed orator Cicero, with her hairpins piercing his tongue. She is recorded as having done this (though definitely not in her bed) after his assassination, when his hands and head were cut off and publicly displayed in Rome. His ceaseless, lurid attacks had included calling her “a thoroughly rapacious female” and “a woman as cruel as she is greedy”.
Many others, particularly Octavian, joined in. She was “repeatedly publicly pilloried in front of the entire Roman Senate and wider Roman society for daring to step outside the confines of the domestic sphere”. This “deliberate and systematic destruction of her reputation ensured that the allegations made against her have survived for two millennia, while most attempts at defence have faded from view”.
Portrayals of her were also “heavily influenced by the author’s feelings about her husband” at the time. The Late Republic featured incessant battles of every kind, from elections and trials to gang clashes and outright war, between constantly shifting sets of rival candidates for the most powerful positions in the ruling Roman hierarchy.
Elite Roman women were not supposed to play any part in these contests, despite being drastically affected by them. As soon as they started menstruating, they were expected to marry men chosen by their male elders, in a market dominated by considerations of status, wealth and alliance. They were then to suffer dutifully through the exile or death of husbands or their frequent divorces and remarriages, often to far younger women, prompted by perceived political or material advantage, when ex-wives might lose all access to their children.
Yet Draycott shows a surprising number of elite women are known to have become politically involved, exerting their influence to improve the fortunes of their husbands and relatives. They included Fulvia’s aunt and her future sister-in-law.
Fulvia’s first marriage, probably when she was 15 or 16, was unusual: her husband, Publius Clodius Pulcher, was not markedly older than her, and his acquired last name meant “beautiful” (with golden curly hair). His family, the Claudii, was far more prestigious than hers, but he had a dodgy reputation and high debts. As an only child, Fulvia had an enormous inheritance from both sides of her family.
During roughly 12 years they had a son and daughter and spent a remarkable amount of time together, in public as well as in private.
After she helped Clodius fight an election, he was murdered by the henchmen of his plebeian rival Milo. Instead of holding his funeral with all due ceremony, Fulvia ensured that mobs of rioting supporters carried his bloody corpse to the Forum, where they built his funeral pyre.
New Zealand author Kaarina Parker’s stunning first novel, Fulvia: Power. At any cost, with its elegant classical cover, culminates in this scene, but she shows Fulvia herself leading the procession. As Parker frankly explains, she has deliberately varied some known details for the sake of the story: Fulvia is 18 when she meets Clodius, has sex with him before the wedding, and gives birth to her daughter before her son. Clodius’s murder takes place close to Rome; after Milo is found guilty, Fulvia permits her devoted servants to slaughter him, too.
Parker’s writing deftly avoids the distracting pitfalls that can beset historical novels. She brings Fulvia and those closest to her vividly to life, as she convincingly invents a sequence of significant scenes that are known to have taken place but left no recorded details – especially when only women were present.
Though Parker was able to consult a wide range of scholarship, Draycott’s book came out too late for her novel. But it’s likely to prove useful for her sequel, due next year, covering the later part of Fulvia’s life from her marriage to Mark Antony around 48 BCE to her death less than a decade later.
As Draycott notes, Antony’s “presence and prominence” ensured Fulvia was much more visible in contemporary sources during this period – but again, mainly through ongoing attacks because, for example, she toured the legions with him and watched rebellious soldiers being beaten to death.
When Antony was declared a public enemy in 43 BCE, Fulvia and his mother Julia successfully lobbied on his behalf. In his absence, she helped build and lead an army to support his faltering cause. The year it was defeated, Antony met Cleopatra in Egypt. Fulvia, who had fled to Greece, became ill and died there alone.
Draycott’s account of these dramatic years is brilliantly assembled. She concludes that Fulvia’s “most serious transgression, and the one used against her again and again by her enemies, was her desire to provide for herself and her family”.
All the determined attempts to “demonise and marginalise her ultimately succeeded in transforming her into one of the most enigmatic and fascinating women of the Roman Republic”.
The best way to encounter and understand Fulvia is to read both these books. And Parker’s sequel is likely to be eagerly awaited.
Fulvia: The woman who broke all the rules in Ancient Rome, by Jane Draycott (Atlantic, $37.99), and Fulvia: Power. At any cost, by Kaarina Parker (Echo Publishing, $36.99), are out now.
