Pompeia wife of Julius Caesar, Grand-daughter of Sulla History Biography
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Pompeia (fl. 1st
century BC) was the second wife of Julius
Caesar. Her parents were Quintus
Pompeius Rufus, a son of a former consul,
and Cornelia,
the daughter of the Roman
dictator Lucius
Cornelius Sulla.
Caesar married Pompeia in 67 BC, after
he had served as quaestor in Hispania,
his first wife Cornelia having
died the previous year in giving birth to her son who was stillborn. Caesar
was the nephew of Gaius
Marius, and Cornelia had been the daughter of Lucius
Cornelius Cinna so
that they were related to both the leaders of the losing populares side
in the civil war of the 80s BC.
In
63 BC Caesar was elected to the position of Pontifex
Maximus, the chief priest of the Roman state religion, which
came with an official residence on the Via
Sacra. In
62 BC Pompeia hosted the festival of the Bona
Dea ("good
goddess"), which no man was permitted to attend, in this house. However
a young patrician named Publius
Clodius Pulcher managed
to gain admittance disguised as a woman, apparently for the purpose of
seducing Pompeia. He was caught and prosecuted for sacrilege.
Caesar gave no evidence against Clodius at his trial, and he was
acquitted. Nevertheless, Caesar divorced Pompeia, saying that "my wife
ought not even to be under suspicion." This
gave rise to a proverb,
sometimes expressed: "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion."
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