Cornelia

This is me trying to bring more attention to Cornelia, Caesar's first wife.

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A timeline of relationships covered in this post:

• 84 – Caesar marries Cornelia
• 82 – Caesar refuses Sulla's order to divorce her
• 69 – Cornelia dies
• 63 – The first record of a relationship with Servilia
• 48 – The start of a relationship with Cleopatra

Anywhere you look, there is a popular notion that Servilia and Cleopatra were Caesar's greatest loves. Both women were colorful characters, so it's understandable that they attract more attention. In comparison, Cornelia becomes practically a nonentity since nothing is known about her personality.

But even if we can't see the story from her point of view, we can certainly see it from Caesar's:

"In the course of his sixteenth year he lost his father. In the next consulate, having previously been nominated priest of Jupiter, he broke his engagement with Cossutia, a lady of only equestrian rank, but very wealthy, who had been betrothed to him before he assumed the gown of manhood, and married Cornelia, daughter of that Cinna who was four times consul, by whom he afterwards had a daughter Julia; and the dictator Sulla could by no means force him to put away his wife. Therefore besides being punished by the loss of his priesthood, his wife's dowry, and his family inheritances, Caesar was held to be one of the opposite party. He was accordingly forced to go into hiding, and though suffering from a severe attack of quartan ague [malaria], to change from one covert to another almost every night, and save himself from Sulla's detectives by bribes." – Suetonius 

"The wife of Caesar was Cornelia, the daughter of the Cinna who had once held the sole power at Rome, and when Sulla became master of affairs, he could not, either by promises or threats, induce Caesar to put her away, and therefore confiscated her dowry. Now, the reason for Caesar's hatred of Sulla was Caesar's relationship to Marius. For Julia, a sister of Caesar's father, was the wife of Marius the Elder, and the mother of Marius the Younger, who was therefore Caesar's cousin." – Plutarch 

"To Gaius Marius he was closely related by blood; he was also the son-in-law of Cinna, whose daughter no consideration of fear would induce him to divorce, whereas Marcus Piso, a man of consular rank, had divorced Annia, who had been the wife of Cinna, in order to win Sulla's favour. Caesar was only about eighteen years of age at the time of Sulla's dictatorship; and when a search was made for him with a view to putting him to death, not, it is true, by Sulla himself, but by his minions and partisans, he escaped from the city at night by assuming a disguise which effectually concealed his rank." – Velleius Paterculus 

"Now, in the case of elderly women, it was ancient Roman usage to pronounce funeral orations over them; but it was not customary in the case of young women, and Caesar was the first to do so when his own wife died." – Plutarch

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1. People often say that the reason behind Caesar's defiance of Sulla was pride, not love. For example, in his podcast "Death Throes of the Republic," Dan Carlin says: "Caesar had guts. Real guts. He would tell people who had the power to lop his head right off "no" when they told him to do something. It happened to him when dictator Sulla told him that he needed to divorce his wife, and Caesar said no. And all the historical evidence suggests that Caesar's wife was not someone he had a passionate attachment to. After all, he was having affairs all the time. But Sulla told him to do this or essentially face the consequences, and Caesar told him where to go."

Sometimes it feels like people are reluctant to ascribe love as the motive for Caesar's defiance because they think it would sound cheesy or naive. Like something out of romance novels. In contrast, Caesar's being in love with Servilia and Cleopatra is acceptable because he is a politician and general who kicks asses and wins hearts.

But I don't find it naïve. At this time, Caesar is 18 years old. A perfect age to be driven by higher ideals like love, with all the vigor of youth. There was a literal bloodbath following Sulla's victory. No one had as unfortunate a predicament as Caesar, being connected by marriage to not one but two of Sulla's worst enemies (Marius and Cinna). Severing one would have solved half his problems. But if he were to abandon Cornelia, she would be all alone as Cinna's daughter, with no one to protect her. People forge strong bonds when they go through trials and tribulations together. It's human nature. To me, his defiance of Sulla is not about being a badass macho man. It's about loving and protecting your family.

2. Let's move to the elephant in the room: Caesar's womanizing.

The double standards are visible here as well. Caesar's promiscuity does not stop people from believing that he was madly in love with Servilia and Cleopatra, but is seen as proof that he didn't love Cornelia. That is, if it can even be proven that he was acting promiscuously during their marriage.

Carlin's "he was having affairs all the time" is especially mind-boggling because he's talking about Caesar at 18. As if someone was keeping an eye on the love life of an 18-year-old boy to record it for posterity. We don't have a timetable for Caesar's womanizing to say, "Ah, yes, this is when he started having affairs!"

Cornelia died young. Caesar was only 31 when it happened. The majority of the abuse that his enemies would hurl at him for his womanizing fell on his first consulship in 59 BC. He had plenty of time to gain that reputation in the decade following her death.

A side note on Goldsworthy's biography of Caesar… Goldsworthy opens chapter 5 with 70 BC, noting that Caesar and Cornelia "had now been married for some fifteen years." Using this as a lead-in, he ventures off into a loooong discussion on Roman views on marriage and extramarital sex → Caesar's affairs → the most valued qualities in women of the senatorial class. Goldsworthy's choice to group them by theme is understandable. But its placement inadvertently creates the impression that, by 70 BC, Caesar was already known as a philanderer. And by the time Goldsworthy gets to Cornelia's death, it already feels like Caesar has slept with every other woman in town. It really skews the perception of the topic. Goldsworthy's book is a go-to for anyone interested in learning about Caesar, so he wields significant influence in that regard. Carlin used him as one of his sources, by the way.

3. Another point that gets brought up in Cleopatra's favor is Caesarion. As in none of Caesar's other mistresses bore him a child, so that makes her special.

But the same special regard does not seem to extend to Cornelia, even though she is the mother of his only legitimate child. And that child was both beloved by him and of great help to him. In 46 BC, Caesar staged funeral games in honor of his daughter. The first time such games were held to honor a woman. 

For comparison, he never acknowledged Caesarion. We don't even know if he was really Caesar's son or if Cleopatra just claimed that he was. The popular media loves to portray him as undoubtedly Caesar's son, but the boy's paternity is not certain at all. Caesar's close friend, Gaius Oppius, wrote an entire book to refute Cleopatra's claims.

Simply by virtue of being a bigger name, Cleopatra is placed on the same level or even higher than Cornelia, as if she were his full-fledged partner.

4. When he was with Servilia, she wasn't his only lover. And he didn't marry her, even though he was divorced. He chose a political marriage instead (to Calpurnia). 

His affair with Cleopatra combined business with pleasure. He needed a loyal ruler on the Egyptian throne to prevent his opponents from getting their hands on it. Since he put her on the throne, he could expect her loyalty. And in the case of disloyalty, he could take it back. That they also got along was a bonus.

If what he had with them was love, then what do we call his feelings for Cornelia? He gifted Servilia with an expensive pearl; he became a fugitive for the sake of Cornelia. Who is more likely to have been the greatest love of his life out of the three of them?

In my opinion, if there was a woman whom Julius Caesar truly loved, it was Cornelia. Affairs with Servilia and Cleopatra were just that: affairs.

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"His marriage to Cornelia was marked by Caesar’s stubborn refusal to divorce her, when Sulla demanded it, and by what Plutarch suggests was the wholly unprecedented funeral oration Caesar delivered when she died in 69 BC, which may be indications of a relationship which was personal rather than political." – Jeremy Paterson