Antistia (wife of Pompey)
Antistia (fl. 86-82 BCE) was a Roman woman and the first of the five wives of Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, later known as Pompey the Great.
Little is known of Antistia outside her marriage to Pompey. She was promised to Pompey in marriage by her father, the lawyer, orator and senator Publius Antistius, in 86 BCE. In 82 BCE, Pompey divorced her in favour of Aemilia, the stepdaughter of Sulla, at the dictator's urging.
Family[edit]
The gens Antistia were a plebeian family, relatively obscure in the early 1st century BCE. Antistia's father, Publius Antistius, rose to prominence in the early 80s BCE, judged by later observers such as Cicero as among the best of a poor crop of orators active at that time (88 BCE).[1]
Publius Antistius belonged to a large generation of Roman orators whose members were all born around 124 BC and flourished during Cicero's youth.[2] Having previously been regarded as a mediocre speaker and spending many years in political obscurity, [1] Antistius was elected tribune of the plebs in 88 BCE. In this role, he gained prominence for his successful opposition to the candidacy of Gaius Julius Caesar Strabo for Consul, on the grounds that Strabo had not previously held the necessary office of praetor.[3][4] Cicero records that he was considered to have argued his case exceptionally well, speaking "at greater length and with greater penetration" than a renowned orator, Publius Sulpicius, a fellow tribune who spoke on the same side of the debate as him.[5] His success in the case greatly increased demand for his legal and oratorical services, such that Cicero recalls that 'every cause of importance' was brought to him.[6]
Having dominated politics in the previous years, Sulla was absent from Rome for much of the First Mithridatic War (89-85 BCE), allowing his enemies, Gaius Marius and then Cornelius Cinna, to gain political supremacy. Cicero described this as a time of lawlessness and corruption,[7] and Antistius's prominence has been taken as evidence for his implication in the judicial irregularities of the period.[8]
The gens Antistia would later be raised to patrician status by Octavian in 29 BCE.[9]
Marriage to Pompey[edit]
In 86 BC,[lower-roman 1] in his capacity as iudex,[lower-roman 2] Antistius presided over the trial of Pompey for embezzlement of public funds (peculatus) during the Social War.[15] The trial has been largely characterised as a sham, with its outcome assured from the start.[16] Antistius showed favour to Pompey throughout the trial, and secretly promised Antistia to him in marriage while the proceedings were still ongoing - a fact which, however, became common knowledge: when Antistius announced the verdict of acquittal, Plutarch reports that the crowd began shouting 'Talasio!', the customary acclamation of a marriage.[17]
Antistia's marriage to Pompey has thus been interpreted as 'the most characteristic example of political marriage, and ... the most pitiful and pathetic':[18] as a cynically-minded attempt by Antistius to increase his standing through alliance to an up-and-coming young nobleman, and by Pompey as an equally cynical attempt to avoid any chance of an adverse verdict, as well as to gain the favour and patronage of Antistius and his family.[18]
Divorce[edit]
In 82 BC, Sulla and his wife Metella persuaded Pompey to divorce Antistia in favour of Sulla's stepdaughter, Aemilia. The reasons for the marriage are ambiguous, and perhaps mixed: Plutarch explains the marriage through Sulla's desire to reward Pompey for his successful service in the civil war against the Marians during 83–82, and to make a marriage alliance with a capable man who could be of use to him.[19] However, the marriage has also been characterised as Sulla's attempt to neutralise the potential threat of Pompey's popularity and growing power.[20]
The divorce seems to have been painful for Pompey: Plutarch writes that it 'befitted the needs of Sulla rather than the nature and habits of Pompey',[21] in that Aemilia was already pregnant (and soon to die in childbirth) by her current husband, the future consul Manius Acilius Glabrio. The remark may also allude to Pompey's passionate nature and, perhaps, his attachment to Antistia.[22] For Antistia, the divorce was doubly unfortunate: her father had been killed during a senate-meeting at the Curia Hostilia in the same year by Marian supporters, led by the praetor Junius Damasippus, who viewed Antistius as unreliable, despite his earlier co-operation, due to his marriage alliance with Pompey. Her mother, Calpurnia, had also killed herself upon hearing the news.
Little is known of Antistia's reaction to the divorce, or of her life afterwards,[23] though Plutarch reports that her mother killed herself over it.[24][25] The affair has been taken as evidence of Roman women's lack of control over their marital lives, and the overarching importance of political concerns over personal in aristocratic Roman marriages.[20] However, the parallels between Plutarch's account of Pompey's divorce from Antistia and his account of Caesar's refusal to divorce his own wife Calpurnia, when ordered to do so by Sulla,[26] have led to the suggestion that the framing of the narrative as found in Plutarch may originate with a Caesarian propagandist, perhaps Oppius, whom Plutarch consulted while working on the Life of Pompey.[23]
Footnotes[edit]
- ↑ The trial is generally dated to 86 BC based on the statement by Plutarch that it occurred shortly after the death of Pompey's father in 87.[10] Hillman[11] rejected the argument of Sumner[12] that Antistius must have first have been aedile to be able to preside over a court, and that the trial should thus be dated to 85 to allow for an aedileship the previous year.
- ↑ Plutarch seems to describe Antistius as a praetor, but this conflicts with a statement by Velleius Paterculus that he had the rank of aedile when he died. It is generally assumed that Plutarch simply made a mistake when reporting his rank.[13][14]
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Kaster, p. 126; Katz, p. 60.
- ↑ Sumner, p. 109; Kaster, p. 111.
- ↑ Drumann, p. 39, no. 7.
- ↑ Cicero, Brutus 226
- ↑ Kaster, pp. 111, 126; Gruen, p. 242; Katz, p. 60.
- ↑ Cicero, Brutus 227
- ↑ Kaster, p. 126.
- ↑ Hillman, p. 178.
- ↑ Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, p. 209 ("Antistia Gens").
- ↑ Gruen, p. 244 (note 131).
- ↑ Hillman, pp. 177–180, 191.
- ↑ Sumner, p. 111.
- ↑ Gruen, p. 245 (note 133).
- ↑ Hillman, pp. 183 (note 27), 185–186.
- ↑ Gruen, pp. 244–245; Hillman, pp. 180–182.
- ↑ Gruen, p. 245.
- ↑ Plutarch, Life of Pompey, 4.3
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Haley, Shelley (1985). "The Five Wives of Pompey the Great". Greece and Rome. 32 (1): 49.
- ↑ Plutarch, Life of Pompey, 9.1
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 Haley, Shelley (1985). "The Five Wives of Pompey the Great". Greece and Rome. 32 (1): 49.
- ↑ Plutarch, Life of Pompey 9.2
- ↑ As described in Plutarch, Pompey 53.1
- ↑ 23.0 23.1 Haley, Shelley (1985). "The Five Wives of Pompey the Great". Greece and Rome. 32 (1): 50.
- ↑ Hallett, Judith P. (2014). Fathers and Daughters in Roman Society: Women and the Elite Family. Princeton University Press. p. 141. ISBN 9781400855322. Unknown parameter
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- ↑ Plutarch, Life of Pompey 9
- ↑ Plutarch, Life of Caesar 1
Bibliography[edit]
- Bauman, Richard A. (1983). Lawyers in Roman Republican Politics: A study of the Roman jurists in their political setting, 316–82 BC. Munich: C.H. Beck. ISBN 3-406-09114-8. Search this book on
- Drumann, Wilhelm (1899). Paul Groebe, ed. Geschichte Roms in seinem Uebergange von der republikanischen zur monarchischen Verfassung, oder: Pompeius, Caesar, Cicero und ihre Zeitgenossen (in Deutsch). 1 (2nd ed.). Berlin: Gebrüder Borntraeger. Search this book on
- Gruen, Erich S. (1968). Roman Politics and the Criminal Courts, 149–78 B.C. Cambridge, MA, US: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-28420-8. Search this book on
- Harris, Robert (2017). Imperium. London: Penguin Random House. ISBN 9781784756147. Unknown parameter
|orig-date=ignored (help) Search this book on - Hillman, Thomas P. (1998). "Notes on the trial of Pompeius at Plutarch, Pomp. 4.1–6" (PDF). Rheinisches Museum für Philologie. 141 (2): 176–193. JSTOR 41234316.
- Kaster, Robert A. (2020). Cicero: Brutus and Orator. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-085785-1. Search this book on
- Katz, Barry R. (1977). "Caesar Strabo's struggle for the consulship – and more" (PDF). Rheinisches Museum für Philologie. 120 (1): 45–63. JSTOR 41244887.
- Sumner, G.V. (1973). The Orators in Cicero's Brutus: Prosopography and Chronology. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-5281-9. Search this book on
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