Fulvia

“ Fulvia, to whom this clear-cut southern foliage was as new as the pure intensity of light that bathed it, seemed to herself to be moving through the landscape of a dream. It was as though nature had been remodelled, transformed almost, under the touch of their love: as though they had found their way to the Hesperian glades in which poets and painters placed the legendary lovers of antiquity. ”

“ Asia from the Euphrates and Syria as far as Lydia and Ionia. With difficulty then, like a man roused from sleep and a drunken debauch, he set out to oppose the Parthians, and advanced as far as Phœnice, but as Fulvia sent him letters full of lamentations he turned towards Italy, with two hundred ships. On this voyage he took up his friends who had fled from Italy, and learned from them that Fulvia had been the cause of the war, for she was naturally a busy and bold woman; but her hope was to draw away Antonius from Cleopatra, if their should be any disturbance in Italy. ”

“ To learn that Fulvia, at the very moment when he had pictured her as separated from him by the happiness and security of her life, was in reality a proscribed wanderer with none but himself to turn to, filled him with a confused sense of happiness; but the discovery that, in his own dominions, the political refugee was not safe from the threats of the Holy Office, excited a different emotion. ”

“ Their noble connections gave Fulvia the hope that they might obtain a small pension for her, and she unsuspiciously yielded to their wishes; but to her dismay she learned a few weeks later, that, thanks to their exertions, she was to be admitted as a novice to the convent of Santa Chiara. Though it was the common way of disposing of portionless girls, the liberal views of her cousins had reassured Fulvia, and she woke to her fate too late to escape it. ”

“ A smile, as if at her own vehemence, curled her lip; her glance lost its quick, sharp wildness. She clapped her hands together, and called aloud,
"Ho! Ægle! Ægle!"
And at the call a beautiful Greek girl entered the chamber, voluptuous as her mistress in carriage and demeanor, and all too slightly robed for modesty, in garments that displayed far more than they concealed of her rare symmetry.
"Bring wine, my girl," cried Fulvia; "the richest Massic; and, hark thee, fetch thy lyre. My soul is dark to-night, and craves a joyous note to kindle it to life and rapture." ”

“ Fulvia: It stains too as a shroud
The morrow's face?
Helena: You look at me—I think
You look at me, as if——?
Fulvia: No child.
Helena: Why am
I in this place? You fear for me?
Fulvia: Fear?
[ 41 ]
Helena: Yes!
A dumb dread trembles from you sufferingly.
Fulvia: It is not fear. Or—no!—has vanished quite,
Ashamed of its too naked idleness.
Helena (shuddering) : He cannot, will not!—Yet you feared!
Fulvia: Be calm:
Beauty is better so.
Helena: Ah, you are cold! ”

“ Equality of two domestic powers
Breeds scrupulous faction. The hated, grown to strength, ⁠48
Are newly grown to love; the condemn'd Pompey,
Rich in his father's honour, creeps apace
Into the hearts of such as have not thriv'd
Upon the present state, whose numbers threaten; ⁠52
And quietness, grown sick of rest, would purge
By any desperate change. My more particular,
And that which most with you should safe my going,
Is Fulvia's death. ⁠56
Cleo. Though age from folly could not give me freedom,
It does from childishness: can Fulvia die? ”

“ But Fulvia, irritated a little by what had passed, would not be silent; although she saw that Catiline was annoyed at the character the conversation had assumed, and ere the slave had filled up the beakers she addressed Lucia—
"And wherefore, dearest, would you love Cato? I could as soon love the statue of Accius Nævius, with his long beard, on the steps of the Comitium; he were scarce colder, or less comely than your Cato."
"Because to love virtue is still something, if we be vicious even; and, if I am not virtuous myself, at least I have not lost the sense that it were good to be so!" ”

“ What matter if the world fell, so long as they were together?
The gods, however, who favoured Antony, combined this time to save him. At the moment when Perugia, exhausted, was on the point of surrendering; when the army, headed by his brother and his wife, seeing no chance of the Triumvir's coming, began to lose courage, Fulvia suddenly fell ill and died. She had been the soul of the resisting army. With this support gone Lucius was not strong enough to continue the fight against such heavy odds, and he sheathed his sword. ”

“ Fulvia was not exactly a cozy-corner wife, as you, perhaps, have observed; yet, when she died, Antony was heartily sorry. He said so. At the time, he was far away from Rome and home—he had not taken Fulvia to Egypt with him—and was basking in Cleopatra's wiles. On a visit to Rome he next married Octavia, sister of Octavius. It was a state match. He speedily deserted her and hurried back to Egypt.
Antony—true lover and false husband, hero and fool, rake and statesman—had fifty sides to his character—and a woman was on every side. ”

“ He had long had a criminal intercourse with Fulvia, a woman of high birth, but growing less acceptable to her, because in his reduced circumstances he had less means of being liberal, he began, on a sudden, to boast, and to promise her seas and mountains; threatening her, at times, with the sword, if she were not submissive to his will; and acting, in his general conduct, with greater arrogance than ever. ”

“ It seemed astonishing to all mankind that such a tiger as he had been could be subdued by any human power. Nor was it by gentleness and mildness that Fulvia gained such power over her husband. She was of a very stern and masculine character, and she seems to have mastered Antony by surpassing him in the use of his own weapons. ”

“ Here Fulvia had lived for two years when her aunt's sudden death left her destitute; for the good lady, to atone for having given shelter to a niece of doubtful orthodoxy, had left the whole of her small property to the Church.
Fulvia's only other relations were certain distant cousins of her mother's, members of the Venetian nobility, but of the indigent class called Barnabotti, who lived on the bounty of the state. While in Treviso she had made the acquaintance of one of these cousins, a stirring noisy fellow involved in all the political agitations of the state. ”

“ She was a very beautiful and a very accomplished woman, and of a spirit very different from that of Fulvia. She was gentle, affectionate, and kind, a lover of peace and harmony, and not at all disposed, like Fulvia, to assert and maintain her influence over others by an overbearing and violent demeanor. Octavia's husband died about this time, and, in the course of the movements and negotiations between Antony and Octavius, the plan was proposed of a marriage between Antony and Octavia, which, it was thought, would ratify and confirm the reconciliation. ”

“ These girls as a rule, were married early to men of their own standing, and though the cicisbeo was not unknown after marriage he was not an authorised member of the household. Fulvia, indeed, belonged to the class most inaccessible to men of Odo's rank: the only class in Italy in which the wife's fidelity was as much esteemed as the innocence of the girl. ”

“ Fulvius a tawny Italian. It is in favour of this supposition that Constantius, who brought the Flavian gens to the imperial throne, had the agnomen Chlorus, also expressing a light complexion. Out of compliment to his family the derivatives of Flavius became common, as Flavianus, Flavia, and Flavilla. Flavio is now and then found in modern Italy, and Flavia figured in the poetry and essays of the last century. Fulvia, “the married woman,” as her rival Cleopatra calls her, was the wife of Antony, and gave her name an evil fame by her usage of the head of the murdered Cicero. ”

“ Fulvia and Lucius professed to be safeguarding the interests of Marcus and fulfilling his wishes, and Lucius adopted the cognomen Pietas as a sign of his fraternal devotion. But the moving spirit throughout was Fulvia. Cæsar’s first business in Rome was the allotment of land to the veterans. This had been begun a year before in Transpadane Gaul, on the establishment of the Triumvirate, by Asinius Pollio, left in command of that district; and Vergil has given us some insight into the bitterness of feeling which it often roused:
“Shall some rude soldier hold these new ploughed lands? ”

“ The succeeding year Publius Servilius and Lucius Antonius nominally became consuls, but in reality it was the latter and Fulvia. She, the mother-in-law of Caesar and wife of Antony, had no respect for Lepidus because of his slothfulness, and herself managed affairs, so that neither the senate nor the people dared transact any business contrary to her pleasure. Actually, when Lucius himself was anxious to have a triumph over certain peoples dwelling in the Alps, on the ground that he had conquered them, for a time Fulvia opposed him and no one would grant it ”

“ She had always thought herself immune from jealousy, because of her conscious superiority over all other women. Now, little by little, it was eating into her heart. How could she be sure that Octavia was really a fright? that she had no power to charm? Was it true that her thick-set body had no attraction for Antony? After all, she had nothing to depend on but the word of a common man in the street. She recalled the affection that Antony had had for the hideous Fulvia; why should he not care for this new wife who was at least amiable and virtuous? ”

“ Though Fulvia, the faithful wife of Antony, could scarcely keep together his party at Rome against the power of Octavianus, his colleague in the triumvirate, and though Labienus, with the Parthian legions, was ready to march into Syria against him, yet he was so entangled in the artful nets of Cleopatra, that she led him captive to Alexandria; and there the old warrior fell into every idle amusement, and offered up at the shrine of pleasure one of the greatest of sacrifices, the sacrifice of his time. The lovers visited each other every day, and the waste of their entertainments passed belief. ”

“ And she assumed a far prouder bearing over the affair than did he, because she had a truer cause; to give any one authority to hold a triumph was greater than to celebrate it by securing the privilege from another. Except that Lucius donned the triumphal apparel, mounted the chariot, and performed the other rites customary in such cases, Fulvia herself seemed to be giving the spectacle, employing him as her assistant. ”

“ To play the part she ascribed to him was his only portion; and he resolved at least to play it like a man.
With what composure he might, he assured Fulvia of his desire to serve her, and asked if she had no hope of obtaining her release from the Holy See. She answered: none, since enquiry must reveal that she was the daughter of a man who had been prosecuted for heresy, and that after his death she had devoted the small sum he had left her to the publication of his writings. ”

“ But at any rate, when this news was announced, both sides laid down their arms and effected a reconciliation, either because Fulvia had actually been the original cause of their variance or because they chose to make her death an excuse in view of the fear with which each inspired the other and the equality of their forces and hopes. The arrangement made allotted to Caesar Sardinia, Dalmatia, Spain and Gaul, and to Antony all the districts that belonged to the Romans across the Ionian Sea, both in Europe and in Asia. The provinces in Libya were held by Lepidus, and Sicily by Sextus. ”

“ The historian gives this characterization of Fulvia: "a woman not born for spinning or housewifery, nor one that could be content with ruling a private husband, but prepared to govern a first magistrate, or give orders to a commander-in-chief. So that Cleopatra was under great obligations to her for having taught Antony to be so good a servant, he coming to her hands tame and broken into entire obedience to the commands of a mistress." Evidently, we must regard Mark Antony as being the great historical type of the "henpecked" husband ”

“ He never minded being subordinate to Julius Cæsar. By women he is not only attracted but governed; from the effect of Cleopatra’s taunts we can see that he had been governed by Fulvia. Nor has he either the patience or the steadfastness of a born ruler. He contends fitfully, and is prone to take the step that is easiest at the moment. This is the reason why he consents to marry Octavia. It seems the shortest way out of an awkward situation. He does not intend even to try to be true to her. He will not think of the distant consequences. ”

“ Everyone, indeed, knows what they are all, without exception, worth in household matters; besides which, in connection with war, likewise, it is known who were Camilla, Harpalice, Valasca, Tomyris, Penthesilea, Molpadia, Orizia, Antiope, Hippolyta, Semiramis, Zenobia, and, finally, Mark Antony's Fulvia, who so often took up arms, as the historian Dion tells us, to defend her husband and herself. ”

“ No more light answers. Let our officers Have notice what we purpose. I shall break The cause of our expedience to the queen, And get her leave to part. For not alone The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches, Do strongly speak to us; but the letters too Of many our contriving friends in Rome Petition us at home: Sextus Pompeius Hath given the dare to Caesar, and commands The empire of the sea; our slippery people,— Whose love is never link'd to the deserver Till his deserts are past,—begin to throw Pompey the Great, and all his dignities, Upon his son; ”