Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Porcia

PO'RCIA. 1. The sister of Cato Uticensis, was brought up with her brother in the house of their uncle M. Livius Drusus, as they lost their parents in childhood. She married L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, who was consul in b. c. 54, and, like her brother, one of the leaders of the aristocratical party. We learn from Cicero that she was at Naples in b. c. 49, when her husband was besieged at Corfinium by Caesar. (Cic. ad Att. ix. 3.) In the following year, b. c. 48, she lost her husband, who fell in the battle of Pharsalia. She herself died towards the end of b. c. 46, or the beginning of the next year, and her funeral panegyric was pronounced by Cicero, and likewise by M. Varro and Lollius. (Plut. Cat. 1, 41; Cic. ad Att. xiii. 37, 48.)

2. The daughter of Cato Uticensis by his first wife Atilia. She was married first to M. Bibulus, who was Caesar's colleague in the consulship b. c. 59, and to whom she bore three children. Bibulus died in b. c. 48 ; and in b. c. 45 she married M. Brutus, the assassin of Julius Caesar. She inherited all her father's republican principles, and likewise his courage and firmness of will. She induced her husband on the night before the 15th of March to disclose to her the conspiracy against Caesar's life, and she is reported to have wounded herself in the