The exercise of biography, with its own inherent difficulties, becomes particularly perilous when the subject is a personality from antiquity, with many essential documents typical of later periods missing. Writing the biography of a Roman woman of the Republic is still more difficult, as women are only seldom mentioned by male writers and historians. Susan Treggiari nevertheless provides a sound analysis of her chosen subject. Having explored the lives of the women of Cicero's family (Terentia, Tullia and Publilia, 2007), she now proposes to dive into a collective biography of Servilia, mistress of Caesar and mother of his murderer Brutus, and her family. This study, relying on a well-known body of literary sources, is not a mere description of the extreme rivalry of the Roman aristocratic clans which turned to be responsible for the collapse of the Republic in the first century b.c. It allows the reader to understand how a woman of high rank like Servilia could not only live as a witness of the events of her time, but also be an actor in events through the influence that a matron born in a senatorial clan could enjoy.
Written in simple, almost conversational language, the book is aimed at non-specialists and specialists alike. It consists of twelve chapters and six appendices, three of which are biographical and prosopographical notes, and a large up-to-date bibliography. The preface and the first chapter present an overview of the mode of government and society of the republican period. This synthesis is designed to provide readers who are not experts with the keys necessary to understand the world in which Servilia lived. The following part consists of eight chronological chapters, beginning with an overview of Servilia's family (ch. 2), then looking at her childhood (ch. 3) and youth, from her adolescence to her marriage and the birth of Brutus (ch. 4).
The next five chapters offer a chronological review of her life, mainly consisting of the marital strategies employed for each of her children; these led to new familial connections, and with them the progressive increase in her clan's power. Here we see that the individual, whether it be Servilia or other women of her family, disappears behind the building of the clan's gloria. An exception to this scheme is to be found in her long-lasting extra-marital affair with Caesar, ‘the only man with whom she shared a freely chosen relationship of physical passion’ (119), which lasted most likely until Caesar's death.
The lack of sources clearly mentioning Servilia before the Ides of March is a problem that T. solves by conveying the wider knowledge available for this period concerning the life of matrons of the aristocracy. Her application of this material to her subject results in a profusion of suppositions: ‘She may have …’; ‘There may have been …’. Trying to reconstitute a person's possible thoughts or actions is undoubtedly risky, as T. is of course well aware. This is where T.'s remarkable labour in searching for possible parallels with women of the English political class and the different treatments of the character of Servilia in English literature (Appendix 5 and 6) comes into play. Bringing to bear undeniable erudition, and never quick to pass off suppositions as facts, T. attempts to compensate for the lack of direct sources by looking for a likely midpoint between what is known of Servilia and what is in general known of matrons of her rank. The result, in some ways reminiscent of the methodology of narrative psychology, is immersive, and undoubtedly constitutes the chief originality and value of this book.
In ch. 10, T. deals with the direct consequences of Caesar's assassination. When the power and the lives of the men of her family, especially of her son, are threatened, Servilia appears in ancient sources showing the ability to take decisions which affect the course of events. Several occasions are mentioned, but T. discusses one of particular interest which shows how much power Servilia could have enjoyed: this is when Cicero reports that Servilia promised to have a senatorial decree altered according to the advantage of her family (Cic., Att. 15.11.2; 15.12.1).
The two final chapters develop the reasons why Servilia was able to play such an important role in the social and political life of her time. T. explores how Servilia and matrons in general benefited, like their male counterparts, from the relationships based on influence (auctoritas), power (potentia) and gratitude (gratia) that were characteristic of members of the ruling class. T. reminds us that Servilia was not a woman in the mould of a Clodia or a Fulvia, and while she enjoyed a high degree of influence used with intelligence, she never crossed the line of what was permitted to women, even of her class. In this respect, her actions may find a parallel in those of Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, or Iulia, daughter of Caesar (278). For the author, ‘the question is not how much potentia women could achieve by direct means in public life, but how much auctoritas they could enjoy in their lives and in the lives of others’ (279). Thus T. succeeds in showing quite how far power and politics were after all a family business, in which women had a profoundly significant role to play.
