Tullia Ciceronis

Reading notes

• Ad Atticum 3.19 §2 little Tullia

  Cicero's daughter, called by the affectionate diminutive Tulliola in the Latin. Her supplication is among the bonds that keep him from despair.

• Ad Atticum 6.4 §2 on whose match I wrote

  Cicero's daughter Tullia was being matched to a new husband (the engagement to Dolabella, settled in his absence); de condicione refers to the negotiation of the marriage-alliance, which he had entrusted to Terentia.

• Ad Atticum 10.18 §1 My Tullia was delivered on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of June

  The date is 19 May 49 BC. Tullia, Cicero's beloved daughter, was then married to P. Cornelius Dolabella, a partisan of Caesar; the boy born here was premature and did not long survive.

• Ad Atticum 11.2 §2 protect that unhappy girl

  Cicero's daughter Tullia, then married to Dolabella; her dowry was paid to her husband in instalments, and Cicero blames himself for the financial muddle that has left her short. "That unhappy girl" is one of book 11's recurring anxieties.

• Ad Atticum 11.9 §3 leaving that poor girl stripped of her patrimony

  Cicero feared he could leave his daughter Tullia nothing, his estate being forfeit or inaccessible while he was a defeated Pompeian. Her dowry to Dolabella and her own provision were now in jeopardy.

• Ad Atticum 11.17 §1 My Tullia came to me on the day before the Ides of June

  Cicero's beloved daughter Tullia, married to the dissolute Dolabella and herself in distress, travelled to join her father at Brundisium. Her devotion in his ruin is the source of the grief that closes the letter.

• Ad Atticum 12.18 §1 I shall surely consecrate her with every kind of memorial

  To "consecrate" (consecrare) Tullia is to enrol her among the divine; Cicero defends the unusual ambition by citing Greek and Latin authorities for honouring the dead in this way. This is the apotheosis project that troubled even Atticus.

• Ad Familiares 2.15 §2 the things which you hope can be moderated by my Tullia's good sense

  Dolabella, newly betrothed to Tullia, had a reputation for extravagance and erratic behaviour; Caelius apparently hoped Tullia's steadiness would steady him, and Cicero responds with gentle irony that he had said as much to Appius.

• Ad Familiares 2.16 §5 my Tullia

  Cicero's beloved daughter, married to P. Cornelius Dolabella circa 50 BC; Dolabella had run up debts before the war, and Cicero feared that political instability would make it impossible to recover her dowry or protect the marriage.

• Ad Familiares 4.5 §1 After the news was brought to me of the death of your daughter Tullia

  Tullia, Cicero's beloved only daughter, died in February 45 BC at Cicero's villa at Tusculum, shortly after giving birth following her divorce from Dolabella. Her death plunged Cicero into a famous, near-incapacitating grief; this letter from his friend Servius is the most celebrated of the consolations he received and a classic of the ancient consolatory genre.

• Ad Familiares 9.11 §1 the calamity by which I have been most grievously stricken

  The calamity is the death of Cicero's beloved daughter Tullia --- Dolabella's own wife --- in February 45 BC, shortly after she had given birth. Her loss devastated Cicero, who withdrew to Atticus's estate and to Astura and poured his grief into the lost Consolatio he wrote to console himself.