Cossutia

Cossutia from Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum

Cossutia was a woman from a modest Roman family who became engaged to Julius Caesar prior to his assuming the toga of manhood.

Cossutia appealed to Caesar,[1] although the Cossuti were not even novi homines.[2] She was recommended to Caesar by his father and it is believed that the future dictator of Rome married Cossutia after he began wearing the toga virilis.[3]

No children sprang from this relation. In 84 B.C., after his father's death, Caesar left Cossutia and made a marriage to Cornelia that was more pragmatic than the earlier relation.[1]

Cossutia perhaps died in Pisa, Italy in 84 B.C.[4]

Scholarly disagreement

Modern sources differ, some maintaining that Caesar was never married to this woman. Among these include Ludwig Friedrich Otto Baumgarten-Crusius, Napoleon III, Merrivale, James Anthony Froude, Dodge, Warde Fowler, Ernest Gottlieb Sihler, von Mess, and John Carew Rolfe.[3] The French author Bouillet lists Cossutia first, then Cornelia, Pompeia, and Calpurnia, as wives of Caesar. Plutarch largely ignores Cossutia,[4] but names her as one of Caesar's wives.[5]

Notes

  1. 1 2 Women of Caesar's Family, The Classical Journal, Volume 13, 1918, pp. 502-506.
  2. ↑ Betrothed Whom Caesar Rejected, Frederick Stanley Dunn, University of Oregon extension monitor, Volume 1, Issue 2, 1913, pp. 1-4.
  3. 1 2 Discussions Caesar's First Wife, Classical Philology, Volume 12, 1917, pg. 93.
  4. 1 2 American Notes and Queries, Volume 1, 1888, pg. 20.
  5. ↑ Caesar: Life of a Colossus, Adrian Goldsworthy, Yale University Press, 2008, pg. 49.
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