Fulvia: the power broker of ancient Rome

As the wife of three successive political heavyweights, Fulvia attained a level of influence that few Roman women could have dreamed of. But is her legacy as a cruel opportunist entirely fair? Danny Bird reveals all...

- Danny Bird

After Marcus Tullius Cicero, the great orator and defender of Roman republicanism, was murdered in 43 BC by agents loyal to Mark Antony, his killers delivered his severed head and hands to Rome. There, they were displayed on the speaker's rostrum in the Forum after Antony's wife, Fulvia, came to gloat over the gruesome spectacle. Removing the pins from her hair, she repeatedly stabbed Cicero's now-still tongue - symbolically silencing the man whose eloquence had done so much damage to her husband's standing, as well as her own honour. Or so the story goes...

Fulvia's life has become entwined in the story of Rome's transition to one-man rule. Born to Marcus Fulvius Bambalio and Sempronia during the twilight years of the Roman Republic, she was a scion of two of the city's most respected and wealthiest plebeian families - part of the general citizenry, as opposed to the privileged patrician class. At a time when politics was a male vocation, Fulvia's innate political instincts distinguished her as an outlier during some of the Republic's most climactic events.

TROUBLE AND STRIFE

Fulvia initially gained prominence through her marriage to Publius Clodius Pulcher, an ambitious demagogue who appealed to the plebeians. When he was killed in 52 BC by associates of his political rival, Titus Annius Milo, Fulvia had his bloodied corpse displayed in the street, whipping up a mob of his supporters and sparking Milo's exile.