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Porcia (wife of Brutus)

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For the Italian commune, see Porcia (PN).

Porcia Catonis (died 42 BC) was a Roman woman, daughter of Marcus Porcius Cato Uticencis and his first wife Atilia. Porcia was married first to Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus (her father's political ally), but a few years later Quintus Hortensius, an old man known for his rhetorical skills, asked for Porcia's hand in marriage. However, Bibulus who was unwilling to let her go, refused to divorce her. Instead Cato took the surprising step of divorcing Marcia and giving her to Hortensius; he re-married her following Hortensius' death.

Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus died in 48 BC following Pompey defeat at the battle of Pharsalus and then in 46 BC her father Cato committed suicide following his defeat in the battle of Thapsus. Following her father's death she married Marcus Junius Brutus, her first cousin whom she greatly loved. Plutarch tells that she was addicted to philosophy and that she had a full of an understanding courage, resolved not to inquire into Brutus's secrets before she had made this trial of herself. He goes on to describe an event where Porcia gave herself a deep gash in the thigh for Brutus saying that she had tried herself and she could bid defiance to pain.

On the day of Caesar's assassination, Plutarch tells that she was extremely disturbed with anxiety to the point where, upon her fainting, her maids feared that she was dying. When Brutus and the other assassins fled Rome to Athens, it was agreed that Porcia should stay in Italy. Porcia was overcome with grief to part from Brutus, but strove as much as was possible to conceal it, however, story goes, whenever she came across a painting of Hector parting from Andromache, she'd burst into tears. A friend of Brutus, Acilius, heard of this he quoted Homer where Andromache speaks to Hector to which Brutus said he would not say what Hector said to Andromache in return saying, "For though the natural weakness of her body hinders her from doing what only the strength of men can perform, yet she has a mind as valiant and as active for the good of her country as the best of us".

Porcia committed suicide before Brutus' death in the battle of Philippi in 42 BC, reputedly by swallowing live coals, however some modern historians believe that Servilia, Brutus' mother who had never liked Porcia, might have killed her. In Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, she is spelled Portia and it is reported that she swallowed fire. She and Brutus had a son, who died in childhood in 43 BC.


Sources

  1. ^ Tacitus, Publius Cornelius; Grant, Michael (1996). The Annals of Imperial Rome (PDF) (3 ed.). London, England: Penguin Classics. p. 436. ISBN 9780140440607. Retrieved 6 February 2025.
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