What is "atilia"

The gens Atilia, sometimes written Atillia, was a family at Rome, which had both patrician and plebeian branches. The first member of this gens who obtained the consulship was Marcus Atilius Regulus, in 335 BC. The Atilii continued to hold the highest offices of the state throughout the history of the Republic, and well into imperial times.

Atilia (sometimes spelt Attilia), daughter of C. Atilius Serranus and first wife of Marcus Porcius Cato Uticencis whom he married about 73 BC, after his intended wife, Aemilia Lepida, married Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica. She was born c. 90 BC

In the words of Plutarch's Parallel Lives, Life of Cato the Younger, 7:

[Atilia] was the first woman with whom he had sex, but not the only one, as was true of Laelius, the friend of Scipio Africanus; Laelius, indeed, was more fortunate, since in the course of his long life he only ever made love to one woman, the wife of his youth.

Cato and Atilia had a son, Marcus Porcius Cato who later died in the second Battle of Philippi, and a daughter Porcia Catonis who became the wife of her cousin Marcus Junius Brutus.

Circa 63 BC, Cato divorced Atilia on the grounds of adultery (she was rumoured to have been one of the many lovers of Julius Caesar), later marrying a woman named Marcia. Atilia is not mentioned again.

Category:Ancient Roman women Category:1st-century BC Romans