Terentia
Terentia
Circa 95 b.c.e. -Circa 8 c.e.
Household estate manager and wife of cicero
Shrewd and Wealthy. Terentia became Cicero’s first wife (circa 77 B.C.E.), and they had two children, Tullia and, later, Marcus. She was wealthy in her own right and a powerful force in Cicero’s household. She incited Cicero to action against political enemies such as Catiline and Clodius Pulcher. During Cicero’s exile (58-57 B.C.E.), she managed the whole estate. Ten years later, however, they divorced over a dispute about how Terentia handled the finances. Cicero believed she handled the money too much and that she stole some for herself. It was Cicero, though, who faced financial hardship after the divorce. Terentia had two subsequent husbands, one of them the historian Sallust. She lived to be 103 years old.
Sources
Ernst Badian, “Terentia,” in The Oxford Classical Dictionary, edited by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 1484.
Elizabeth Rawson, Cicero: A Portrait (London: Allen Lane, 1975).