Repairing the Triumvirate: Wedding Antony

Abstract After a crisis in the Triumvirate in 40, the recently widowed Octavia and Antony wed to support the alliance—part of a new trend in which family ties reinforced attempts at civic concord. To understand the context, the chapter assesses the public roles of Antony’s most recent wife. Fulvia was a powerful late Republican matron who came to have a terrible reputation in our surviving sources. During her lifetime, Cicero laid the seeds for her infamy through his attacks on Antony, but her poor reputation developed most strongly after her death, when Antony and Octavian agreed to blame her for a rift in their relationship. That Fulvia was censured posthumously may have impacted how Octavia conducted herself as Antony’s wife, although Octavia engaged in many of the same activities when she became the wife of the Triumvir.