Servilia (wife of Lucullus)


Servilia, also known as Servilia Minor or Servilia the Younger was the second wife of Lucullus.

Biography

Early life

There is some debate as to who her father was. Older authors who follow Plutarch deem her to be the daughter of Quintus Servilius Caepio and Livia, thus the younger full sister of Servilia Major and Quintus Servilius Caepio Minor and half-sister to Cato the Younger and Porcia. More modern historians tend to assume she was actually the daughter of Quintus Servilius Caepio Minor, thus a niece of Cato.

Marriage

Lucullus married her on his return from the Third Mithridatic War, after divorcing his first wife Clodia. Servilia bore him a son whose name is uncertain. She was unfaithful to her husband with his enemy C. Memmius. Lucullus, after putting up with her conduct for some time out of regard to Cato the Younger at length divorced her. On the outbreak of the civil war in 49 BC, she accompanied Cato, with her child, to Sicily, and thence to the Roman province Asia. Cato left her behind in Rhodes, while he went to join Pompey.

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