FULVIA,
An extraordinary Roman lady, wife of Marc Antony, had, as Paterculus expresses it, nothing of her sex but the body; for her temper and courage breathed only policy and war. She had two husbands before she married Antony—Clodius, the great enemy of Cicero, and Curio, who was killed while fighting in Africa, on Cæsar's side, before the battle of Pharsalia. After the victory, which Octavius and Antony gained at Philippi over Brutus and Cassius, Antony went to Asia to settle the affairs of the East. Octavius returned to Rome, where, falling out with Fulvia, he could not decide the quarrel but with the sword. She retired to Præneste, and withdrew thither the senators and knights of her party; she armed herself in person, gave the word to her soldiers, and harangued them bravely.
Bold and violent as Antony was, he met his match in Fulvia. "She was a woman," says Plutarch, "not born for spinning or housewifery, not one that would be content with ruling a private husband, but capable of advising a magistrate, or ruling the general of an army." Antony had the courage, however, to shew great anger at Fulvia for levying war against Octavius; and when he returned to Rome, he treated her with so much contempt and indignation, that she went to Greece, and died there of a disease occasioned by her grief.
She participated with, and assisted her cruel husband, during the massacres of the triumvirate, and had several persons put to death, on her own authority, either from avarice or a spirit of revenge. After Cicero was beheaded, Fulvia caused his head to be brought to her, spit upon it, drawing out the tongue, which she pierced several times with her bodkin, addressing to the lifeless Cicero, all the time, the most opprobrious language. What a contrast is here presented to the character of Octavia, the last wife of Marc Antony;—she was a true woman!