Prudentissima et diligentissima femina Servilia, M. Bruti mater, tra Cesariani e Cesaricidi

Abstract

This paper concerns the figure of Servilia, a matrona who lived in the late Roman Republic and who was the mother of M. Junius Brutus, the half-sister of Cato of Utica, the mistress and close friend of Julius Caesar. During her existence, she was the focus of a web of relationships with politicians belonging to different parties. In particular, the study aims to reconstruct her political behaviour ‘behind the curtain’ during the historical events which occurred after Caesar’s assassination, when she played a very important role for the Caesaricide faction, until the death of Brutus and Cassius. The analysis of literary sources, in particular Cicero’s corre-spondence, allows to underline, on the one hand, the actions that qualify her as a woman extra mores, though legitimized by the pietas that she displayed in her son’s interest; on the other hand, the use of traditionally masculine media, especially the verbal one, which alienates Servilia from the feminine canon of the mos ma-iorum but which justifies her enterprise because of the particular historical context of the late Roman Republic.