Tullia Ciceronis

Tullia Ciceronis, also Tulliola (as affectionately known to her father; 5 August 79 BC or 78 BC – February 45 BC), was the only daughter and first child to Roman orator and politician Marcus Tullius Cicero from his first marriage to Terentia. Her younger brother was Marcus Tullius Cicero Minor (born 65 BC), a consul of 30 BC.

What is known of Tullia's life is from Plutarch's account of Cicero and the letters that Cicero wrote to others, particularly to her mother and to his friend, Roman equestrian Titus Pomponius Atticus.

Tullia in 66 BC was betrothed to Gaius Calpurnius Piso Frugi (quaestor of 58 BC); she married him in 63 BC, but Piso died in 57 BC. In 56 BC, Tullia was betrothed to and married Furius Crassipes. Although they had a happy marriage, they divorced in 51 BC for reasons unknown.

During the Roman Civil War, Tullia visited her father at Brundisium. Terentia failed to provide Tullia a proper escort or sufficient money for her expenses.

In the summer of 50 BC, Tullia married Publius Cornelius Dolabella, consul of 44 BC. Despite having an unhappy marriage, she bore him two sons. The first was born on 19 May 49 BC and died the same year. Tullia and Dolabella divorced in November 46 BC.

Tullia died at Dolabella’s house in February 45 BC, one month after giving birth to her second son (who survived). Cicero was stricken by grief when Tullia died. His friends and political peers tried to comfort him and sent him letters of condolence, some of which have survived. His grief led him to divorce his second wife Publilia, who had been jealous of Tullia and showed little sympathy over her death.

In the fifteenth century, a tomb was found in Rome which was identified as Tullia’s burial place. Among other things found in it (including a corpse which looked and felt like it had been buried that day) was a perpetual lamp which was supposedly still burning after more than 15 centuries. The 17th-century English poet and preacher John Donne alludes to this legend in the eleventh stanza ("The Good-Night") of his "Epithalamion, 1613. Decemb. 26" for the marriage of the Earl of Somerset to Frances Howard:

Now, as in Tullias tombe, one lamp burnt cleare,

Unchang'd for fifteene hundred yeare,

May these love-lamps we here enshrine,

In warmth, light, lasting, equall the divine. . . .