Cicero - Anthony Everitt [36]
The court burst into loud applause and Roscius was acquitted. (Unfortunately, the future fate of the players in the drama is unknown.) Cicero had scored a brilliant victory and in one bound joined the front rank of Roman orators. However, the achievement was not without risk.
Cicero insisted that he was not attacking Sulla, who (he claimed) knew nothing about the case, but it was hard to read the speech other than as a critique of the regime. The Dictator was in a position to take revenge on an impertinent young advocate if he wanted to do so. Soon after Cicero compounded the offense by taking on another case with political overtones, that of a woman from Arretium who challenged Sulla’s withdrawal of her Roman citizenship.
In any event, the Dictator took no action against Cicero. Perhaps he could not be bothered to intervene in a minor matter of this kind; he was beginning to lose interest in the exercise of power and withdrew into private life in the following year.
The chief result of Cicero’s defense of Roscius was a flood of briefs. In the months that followed he brought a rapid succession of cases to court—as he recalled, “smelling somewhat of midnight oil.” He was soon suffering severely from overwork.
He did, however, make time to find a wife. This would help him stabilize and enhance his finances and, if he chose well, extend his political connections. It seems that in or around 79, at the age of twenty-seven, Cicero married Terentia. Apparently much younger than he was, she came from a wealthy, perhaps aristocratic family and brought with her a dowry of 480,000 sesterces. This was a substantial fortune, well beyond the sum of 400,000 sesterces required for entry into the equestrian order. She owned woods and pastureland, probably near Cicero’s villa at Tusculum. Little is known about her background, except that her half-sister, Fabia, was a Vestal Virgin. She had a strong character, as Plutarch observed: “Terentia was never at any time a shrinking type of woman; she was bold and energetic by nature, ambitious, and, as Cicero says himself, was more inclined to take a part in his public life than to share with him any of her domestic responsibilities.”
The traditional Roman wedding was a splendid affair designed to dramatize the bride’s transfer from the protection of her father’s household gods to those of her husband. Originally, this literally meant that she passed from the authority of her father to her husband, but at the end of the Republic women achieved a greater degree of independence, and the bride remained formally in the care of a guardian from her blood family. In the event of financial and other disagreements, this meant that her interests were more easily protected. Divorce was easy, frequent and often consensual, although husbands were obliged to repay their wives’ dowries.
The bride was dressed at home in a white tunic, gathered by a special belt which her husband would later have to untie. Over this she wore a flame-colored veil. Her hair was carefully dressed with pads of artificial hair into six tufts and held together by ribbons. The groom went to her father’s house and, taking her right hand in his, confirmed his vow of fidelity. An animal (usually a ewe or a pig) was sacrificed in the atrium or a nearby shrine and an Augur was appointed to examine the entrails and declare the auspices favorable. The couple exchanged vows after this and the marriage was complete. A wedding banquet, attended