Celia E. Schultz - Fulvia: Playing for Power at the End of the Roman Republic

Series Editors: Ronnie Ancona and Sarah B. Pomeroy

This book series provides compact and accessible introductions to the life and historical times of women from the ancient world. Approaching ancient history and culture broadly, the series selects figures from the earliest of times to late antiquity.

Cleopatra

A Biography

Duane W. Roller

Clodia Metelli

The Tribunes Sister

Marilyn B. Skinner

Galla Placidia

The Last Roman Empress

Hagith Sivan

Arsino of Egypt and Macedon

A Royal Life

Elizabeth Donnelly Carney

Berenice II and the Golden Age of Ptolemaic Egypt

Dee L. Clayman

Faustina I and II

Imperial Women of the Golden Age

Barbara M. Levick

Turia

A Roman Womans Civil War

Josiah Osgood

Monica

An Ordinary Saint

Gillian Clark

Theodora

Actress, Empress, Saint

David Potter

Hypatia

The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher

Edward Watts

Boudica

Warrior Woman of Roman Britain

Caitlin C. Gillespie

Sabina Augusta

An Imperial Journey

T. Corey Brennan

Cleopatras Daughter

And Other Royal Woman of the Augustan Era

Duane W. Roller

Perpetua

Athlete of God

Barbara K. Gold

Zenobia

Shooting Star of Palmyra

Nathanael Andrade

Eurydice and the Birth of Macedonian Power

Elizabeth Donnelly Carney

Melania the Younger

From Rome to Jerusalem

Elizabeth A. Clark

Sosipatra of Pergamum

Philosopher and Oracle

Heidi Marx

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the Universitys objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.

Oxford University Press 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.

You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Schultz, Celia E., author.

Title: Fulvia : playing for power at the end of the Roman republic / Celia E. Schultz.

Other titles: Women in antiquity.

Description: New York : Oxford University Press, [2021] |

Series: Women in antiquity | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021007932 (print) | LCCN 2021007933 (ebook) |

ISBN 9780197601839 (paperback) | ISBN 9780190697136 (hardback) |

ISBN 9780190697150 (epub) | ISBN 9780190697143 (updf) |

ISBN 9780190697167 (oso)

Subjects: LCSH: Fulvia, active 1st century B.C. | WomenRomeBiography. |

RomeHistoryRepublic, 26530 B.C.

Classification: LCC DG260.F85 S34 2021 (print) |

LCC DG260.F85 (ebook) | DDC 937/.05092 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021007932

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021007933

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190697136.001.0001

For my mother,

Susann Esther Feingold-Schultz,

who would have enjoyed this project

I am very grateful to Sarah Pomeroy and Ronnie Ancona, the editors of Oxford University Presss Women in Antiquity series, for the invitation to add a volume on Fulvia, whom I have long considered the most interesting of a whole cohort of remarkable aristocratic women who took part in the major events of the last decades of Romes Republic. It is high time that Fulvia take her place on the bookshelf alongside her more famous contemporaries who have already received biographies of their own in this series and outside it: her sister-in-law, Clodia; her romantic successor, Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt; Terentia and Tullia, the wife and daughter of Fulvias bte noire, Cicero; and Servilia, the mother of an enemy of one of her husbands. Even the unnamed woman commonly known as Turia already has a volume to herself.

In keeping with the mission of this series, I have aimed to make Fulvia as accessible to as many readers as possible, while at the same time providing enough references in the notes to make this book useful to those who might want to pursue their own research. I have therefore limited citations, for the most part, to recent and important Anglophone scholarship, and I have eschewed comprehensive lists of ancient references. For tales of Fulvia and her contemporaries, I have usually cited only the fullest or most famous versions found in ancient authors.

This book is, as any book is, the product of a lot of assistance from many people. Lorena Bolaos Abarca helped with translations of Spanish-language publications. Lucio Benedetti tracked down other, more elusive publications and generously shared the image of the sling bullet that appears in navigated a week-long road trip through central and northern Italy to see collections of sling bullets. Mafalda Cipollone and Luana Cenciaioli provided access to the collection in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale dellUmbria in Perugia; Carolina Ascari Raccagni gave us a tour of the Museo Archeologico Statale di Ascoli Piceno and a lovely introduction to the town. Once I returned home, Alan Taub, at the University of Michigan School of Engineering, and his students helpfully consulted on the properties of lead. Jessica Clark, Elizabeth Greene, Gwynaeth McIntyre, Patrick Tansey, Tom Hillard, Josiah Osgood, and Kathryn Welch all patiently answered numerous questions. Kathryn Welch and Judith Hallett also graciously shared some of their unpublished research. Stefan Vranka and his staff at OUP kept me on track, and an anonymous reviewer offered many sharp-eyed suggestions for improvement. John Muccigrosso, Glenn Storey, Stephen Wheeler, Lynn Orr, Davida Manon, Miriam Manon, and especially Kathryn Welch all read early drafts of parts of this project. Audiences at the Pennsylvania State University, the University of Mississippi, and the University of Colorado let me test out some ideas, as did my students and colleagues at the University of Michigan. Julia Jeffs created the three stemmata included here, and Jan Dewitt weeded out numerous errors and omissions in the typescript. I put the finishing touches on this project during a delightful year at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study. Whatever erroneous bits remain are my own responsibility. I owe special thanks to Fulvia, for having such an interesting life that falls neatly into five chapters, complete with climax and dnouement.