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Fulvia, Clodius widow

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti


Fulvia belonged to a rich, but not noble family. The fact that her ancestors were plebeians limited her possibility to do the kind of marriage that she wanted, but as she was sly and ambitious, she still succeeded in finding a husband who belonged to one of the most important patrician family of Rome. Of course among all the young men that she deemed desirable she had to be content with Clodius who didn’t have a cent and was also much talked about from the moral point of view. However he belonged to the great gens Claudia and it was a bargain both for wife and husband. With her marriage Fulvia got the social position she wanted and to that she could also add that she had gained a very young and handsome husband, and for his part Clodius, beside filling with gold his coffers, had a fascinating and decorative young wife whose rich patrimony put in order his finances and helped him to advance in the political career, but what was more important than anything else was the fact that the two were very happy. They fell in love at such a point that they could never detach one from the other. Even when Clodius had to leave Rome for a long voyage he always brought his wife with him and Fulvia always went heedless of all the hardness and difficulties of the trip. thus it was only by chance that she didn’t assist to the fight that Clodius had with Milo at Boville and did not see her husband killed before her eyes. This day, as a matter of fact, Clodius instead of going by coach decided to ride to Rome and thence she saw him only when he was dead. The reactions of the young woman when they brought back his body were so violent that we read all about them in the historic chronicles and her presence to Milo process heavily contributed to his conviction.
However Fulvia was not the kind of woman to stay eternally faithful to her dead husband memory. Besides she had lots of suitors. Many were the ones who, going regularly to Clodius’s house, had been fascinated by her beauty, and many were the other ones who, ambitious and wishing to have a successful career, realised the advantage that her rich dowry would give to their political future. Thus, not much time elapsed before she decided to dry her tears and marry one of them, a young man as noble and in that moment as penniless as Clodius had been: young Curio.
This second husband, who, for his special tendencies in the erotic field, was by Cicero called “old Curio’s little daughter”, had always been closely tied to the various personages of the times, and not only he was one of Clodius’s best friends, but even more closest he had been with Mark Anthony. In fact, irony of the destiny, in the far away times Curio had lost his head for the future husband of his young wife. Anthony then was extremely handsome and Curio immediately put his eyes on him: The boy, little more than adolescent, was insatiable for all kind of pleasures and he was leading a life which exceeded his means. The vicious patrician saw immediately the possibilities that his tendency offered him, and he began to push the boy in this trend sure that very soon he would be ruined. Curio’s father was rich and esteemed and Mark Anthony creditors accepted without hesitation the voucher that the son of such a potent patrician gave them. Thus Curio saved the reckless young man from his awkward situation. What happened afterward, due to his tendencies, was what it had to be, however Cicero provided to take away any doubt that still his public could have and , in his Philippics he put in clear what relation existed between the two young men and enriched it by many other details.
Anyway Curio had only been a brief interlude in Anthony’s life. The boy had been obliged to adapt himself to it because he had been forced by the circumstances, not certainly for a strong tendency to sodomy. As soon as the conditions of his finances allowed him to do what he liked he circled himself with many women of all kind and social conditions. Also Fulvia must have been among them. He had liked her from the first moment they met, when, still very young, he had made part of Clodius’s gang, Clodius however didn’t like the interest that Anthony proved for his wife, and the young suitor had to leave Rome. When he came back in 50 B.C. he found Fulvia still married, but this time with the man who had pushed him to the road of vice. Then he certainly didn’t have many scruples in seducing her, and in 49 B.C. when Curio died, he married Fulvia becoming her third husband.
The first two time Fulvia was left a widow and her two husbands had died a violent death. Now Cicero went on loudly asking her to cast evil eye on her new husband. He found that by the deaths of Clodius and Curio she had well proved that she could do it, and now he wanted her to lose no time and send also her third husband to hell. But the woman had no intention to meet his wishes and moreover Mark Anthony was offended by Cicero’s wishful thinking. Thus the new couple didn’t lose any time to put the orator on the proscription lists and had his head and his hand brought to their house. To sum it up Fulvia proved certainly to be a jinx but her curse was all for Cicero and it hit him.
Willful and scheming as she was and always interferring in politics and in the Republic’s affairs Fulvia also created all kind of difficulties to her husband. Unluckily Anthony didn’t react with the due strength. He had always let women dominate him and overall he never opposed the beautiful ones to do whatever they wanted and Fulvia was beautiful. Also if we will admit that, as Velleius Paterculus wrote in his history, Fulvia had only the body of a woman, we must confess that it was a very attractive one. However, profiting of her husband’s weakness and of the high position he reached after Caesar’s death. Fulvia committed every kind of excesses and at he end she was universally hated.
Anthony was the only one who was never indignant,and their relation held well for still a long time. The situation among the two began to break only when after the Filippi battle Anthony had to go to Asia Minor and here he met Cleopatra After this moment there was no other woman for him and the brief interlude of two years in which he lived with his third wife Octavia, didn’t succeed to make him forget the Egyptian queen.


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

Book
E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI - Amori ed amanti tra la repubblica ed il principato, Casa editrice. L’Erma di Bretschneider, Rome, 1992