Fulvia

I was born of the Fulvii, a plebeian house of standing. I learned early that Rome moves by kinship, debts, and courage in the streets as much as by magistracies. Through marriages to Clodius, then Curio, then Marcus Antonius, I joined causes I judged worth the risk. From each I gained friends, enemies, and obligations—and I repaid them in public.

When Clodius was cut down in 52, I would not let his name be buried with him. I gathered his partisans, kept his laws alive, and pressed his enemies. Curio fell in Africa when Caesar’s war had scarcely begun. In time I married Antonius. After Caesar’s murder, as Rome fractured and the Second Triumvirate took form, I stood openly with my husband. Confiscations and harsh settlements were laid at my door; let the record show how often blame is given to a woman so that men may seem blameless. As for tales about Cicero’s head—leave them to those who feed on invective.

In 41–40, with Lucius Antonius, I raised towns and veterans in Italy when Octavian sought to master all. Call it defense of Antonius’s dignitas or of our allies’ claims to land—it was necessity. Perusia fell, Lucius surrendered, and I withdrew east. Illness took me at Sicyon. The historians who mock me also confess, unwillingly, that I moved soldiers, councils, and crowds without ever holding office. By that measure, judge what I did in a republic already dying.