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Cornelia, Caesars' first wife

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

Cornelia
Many were the loves in Caesar life. He sure appreciated women and women appreciated him. Thus he had many affairs with the time beauties. He never lost his head for any of them, but he always behaved himself as a gentleman. Apart of all his mistresses he was also married and he had four lawful wives.
Four wives could really seem many to us, but to have many marriages was the norm for the times. If a Roman boy did not die in infancy, he collected many spouses. At the end of the republic the relaxing of the customs and a large diffusion of the marriage called “non iustus” that was very easy to dissolve, made possible to the husbands to divorce for the most various reasons. For instance they could easily send a woman back because she was sterile, or because they wanted to discard a cumbersome tie and prepare themselves to a more pleasant or richer marriage. But one of the more frequent reason for parting was death. There were no cure for many illnesses and centuries passed before efficient treatments were discovered. It was only in the XXth century that miracle medicaments as, for instance, penicillin, were found; young people died for many illnesses and, to these, women had to add the frequent deaths in childbirth. The words “until death doesn’t us part” were never said in ancient Romans marriages: that wouldn’t mean a long time.
Caesar first wife was Cossuzia, a girl whose family did not belong to the patriciate, but was very rich. Of course, at the time, Caesar’s father was convinced that this marriage was a very good arrangement. The only thing he wanted was to ensure to Caesar the economic stability that any father dreams for his son and he couldn’t imagine which would be his son’s future. Of course, as it happened then to young people, soon Ceasar and Cossuzia found themselves betrothed. An arranged accord of course. Caesar was still a boy who wore the “toga praetexta”, the children attire, which meant that when this happened he still had not reached his sixteenth year. Of course no one of the two young people had a say in the matter and probably if very soon the marriage - if ever a marriage was celebrated – was dissolved, the two weren’t left heartbroken .
Then as soon as his father died Caesar, now independent, began to plan a marriage more consistent with his plans, Thus in the 84 B.C. when he was 18 years old he married Cornelia, whom he probably liked and who was the daughter of Cinna, a politician then at the top of his career and a man who in the social wars had warred at Marius, Caesar’s uncle, side.
From the 87 to the 84 B.C. Cinna was also consul and in all those years, while Silla was waging the Mithridatic campaign, Cinna had succeeded to master the power and had even been able to give to Rome a successful and stable government. For Caesar it was advantageous to tie himself with a powerful family of his same party, while for Cinna the marriage of his daughter with Caesar, a close relative of Marius was written in the heaven. What could have been better for them?
Of course also this was an arranged marriage but often arranged marriages works well and this was one of them. The couple had very soon a daughter Iulia that Caesar loved dearly, and either because her birth consolidated their union, or because they were happy together, the marriage was a success. Unfortunately soon their happiness was broken and their life became very difficult. Cinna who wanted to depart for Asia with an army he had collected, and take away from Silla’s hands the Mithridatic campaign, was killed by his own soldiers who didn’t want to go against Silla, and when he tried to force them, they stoned him to death.
Soon after this Silla came back to Rome and, furious and blood thirsty, he affixed the terrible proscriptions lists with the names of all the people who had to be killed. In one of them also Caesar was included.
Caesar was then 20 years old. He was grown up now, but he still had no political importance. He was put in the lists only because he had married Cinna’s daughter and Silla wanted to suppress all men related to Cinna. But this marriage was not the only reason that made Silla hate the young man. There was also one stronger then this, and that was the fact that Caesar was his great enemy Marius’ nephew.
However if Caesar would have divorced from Cornelia making plain that he was submitting to the dictator wishes, he would have been saved, but Caesar was absolutely decided not to abandon his wife just when she was in such a quandary. Apart of all this Silla had never been his ideal man.
He fought against this imposition and at the end the only thing that Silla could do was to confiscate Cornelia dowry and take away from Caesar his office as “Flamen dialis”. As for no reason could a “Flamen dialis” divorce, now that he had been divested Caesar had no excuses for not divorcing Cinna’s daughter, but Caesar stood firm and, to save his life, he had to flee from Rome and hide himself. It was only for an incredible luck that he succeeded to move undiscovered all around the Sabina passing from a hiding to another and once, when he was nearly caught and done away by a band of pursuers, he was again very lucky: the commander of them was not as thirsty of blood as of gold. The man accepted two talents, (a large sum for those times) and let him go
At the end the Vestals and, with them, some very influent personages forced Silla to abandon the idea to put to death this unruly and bothersome Marius’ nephew, Silla complied, but he admonished them that they were really dumb and stupid because they didn’t realize how many Marius were hidden in this young man and added that they would greatly regret to have saved him.
Then Caesar rescued but with Damocles’sword still hanging over his head, joined the praetor Marcus Thermus one of his friends in Asia and warred with him. then he went in Cilicia and stayed there till when, in the 78 B.C., Silla’s death let him free to go back home. He didn’t stay there much time. Other troubles were boiling and he thought more prudent to spend some time at Rhodes where he followed rhetoric studies and where he passed the time until Rome was safe again.
At last he came back home and poor Cornelia was then able to resume her married life, but for her trouble was always brewing. Caesar was never at peace and began an active political career during which he made lots of enemies among the more influent senators. Cornelia after her father’ death an event, that ended the happy interlude of her marriage, didn’t have a single minute of peace. The joy she proved at his return and the pleasure to be reunited again did not assuage her anxiety. Being there and assisting to all Caesar activities her fears for him were rather augmented. She knew that with what Caesar did at any moment she could find herself a widow, left alone, with no help and with her six years child Iulia a to raise, but this was the kind of life one had to live with Caesar. He not only never refused any challenge but it even amused him to provoke them. Thus when his aunt Julia, Marius’ widow, died and he delivered in the forum a funeral oration to commemorate her he took the occasion to parade the images of Marius, his uncle, in the cortége.
At this moment poor Cornelia tired and ailing waited at home the results of his provocation, and we can easily imagine how she felt. The moment was a very dangerous one and nobody could imagine how the crowd would react to his provocative act, and there was no doubt that it was a very provocative one. From Silla’s victory a fiery denigration campaign against Marius had been enacted and it succeeded to make his name an anathema. Of him one could talk only with very sure friend and with a very low voice. There was no doubt that after this and so many years of silence Caesar’s act could be very daring, but, also if some Silla’s partisans tried to voice their disapproval, the mass of Romans applauded the feat and Caesar had a great success.
Of course when Corneelia learned of all this she was happy and relieved, but her regained serenity did not last long: she was very ill and some time after this she died. Her marriage had lasted sixteen years and for the most part of it she had been obliged to live alone with her daughter, trembling and waiting to receive news from her husband. She had been a very good wife and evidently Caesar loved her. Thus he decided to render public how much he cared for her, and with a real revolutionary act he decided to commemorate her in the Forum. From the traditional point of view this was quite shockin. In the Forum only important personages and old matrons were commemorated, not young ones. This had never been done and with this act Caesar exposed himself to disapprovals and critics, instead his proof of regard to his young dead spouse, whom he never abandoned and did not divorce risking his life for her during Silla’s persecutions pleased the common people and moved them.
Of course one could also think that Caesar who was a very fine psychologist had imagined the reactions of the Romans public and had done such an act to gain their favor, but this action respond perfectly to Caesar personality and I am sure that he did it and, defying all traditions, gave it to his dead spouse as one would offer a flower to a loved woman.
Thus Cornelia went out from the scene and Caesar, left alone with a teenager daughter, had to find himself a new wife.

Bibliography
Scientific divulgation
E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI, L'amore a Roma in Archeo, VII, 10 (92) October 1992, pp. 54-99

Books
E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI - Amori ed amanti tra la repubblica ed il principato, Editore. L’Erma di Bretschneider, Roma, 1992