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Servilia Caepionis (b. c.100 BC - d. after 42 BC) is one of the few Roman women cited by ancient sources, mainly due to her being the mistress of Julius Caesar, mother of his assassin Marcus Junius Brutus, and half-sister of Cato the Younger.

Contents 1 Life 1.1 Birth 1.2 Marriages and issue 1.3 Caesar's mistress 1.4 Assassination of Caesar 2 Family tree 3 In popular culture 4 Sources 5 References 6 External links

She was a patrician, daughter of Livia Drusa (who was mother to Servilia's half-brother Marcus Porcius Cato, the Younger through a later marriage) and Quintus Servilius Caepio the Younger. Servilia was brought up in the house of the tribune Marcus Livius Drusus, a maternal uncle, after her parents' scandalous divorce. He, however, died when she was 9.

• Marcus Junius Brutus (tribune of the plebs in 83 BC, founder of the colony in Capua, killed by Pompey after the surrender of Mutina in 77 BC).

Issue:

• Marcus Junius Brutus, one of Julius Caesar's assassins.

• Decimus Junius Silanus, the consul of 62 BC

Issue:

• Junia Prima
• Junia Secunda

• married Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, the future triumvir of the Second Triumvirate.

• Junia Tertia

• married Gaius Cassius, another prominent assassin of Julius Caesar.

In 63BC she became the mistress of Julius Caesar, and remained so until his death. In the words of Plutarch's, Life of Cato the Younger, 24:

when Caesar was eagerly engaged in a great struggle with [Servilia's half-brother] Cato and the attention of the senate was fixed upon the two men, a little note was brought in from outside to Caesar. Cato tried to fix suspicion upon the matter and alleged that it had something to do with the conspiracy, and bade him read the writing aloud. Then Caesar handed the note to Cato, who stood near him. But when Cato had read the note, which was an unchaste letter from Servilia to Caesar, with whom she was passionately and guiltily in love, he threw it to Caesar, saying, "Take it, thou sot," and then resumed his speech.

Caesar was very fond of Servilia and, years later, when he returned to a chaotic Rome after the Gallic Wars, he offered her a priceless black pearl. Also, in the words of Life of Julius Caesar, 50.2:

But beyond all others Caesar loved Servilia, the mother of Marcus Brutus, for whom in his first consulship [in 59] he bought a pearl costing six million sesterces. During the civil war, too, besides other presents, he knocked down some fine estates to her in a state auction at a nominal price, and when some expressed their surprise at the low figure, Cicero wittily remarked: "It's a better bargain than you think, for there is a third off [in Latin, Tertia - a pun on her daughter Junia Tertia ]." And in fact it was thought that Servilia was prostituting her own daughter Tertia to Caesar.

Some also rumoured Tertia to be Caesar's child, but it is unlikely both rumours could be true at once.

After the assassination of Caesar by her son Brutus (and her son-in-law Cassius), the conspirators met at Servilia's house. Despite this, she herself escaped the purges of the second triumvirate unscathed. After Brutus' death she lived in the care of Cicero's friend Titus Pomponius Atticus. Her son's ashes were sent to her from Philippi and she died naturally, as did her youngest daughter Junia Tertia.

• (1)=1st husband/wife
• (2)=2nd husband/wife
• x=assassin of Caesar

Salonia (2)

Cato the Elder

Licinia (1)

Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus

Marcus Porcius Cato Licinianus

Marcus Livius Drusus

Marcus Porcius Cato (2)

Livia Drusa

Quintus Servilius Caepio the Younger(1)

Marcus Livius Drusus

Atilia (1)

Cato the Younger

Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus, adoptive son

Brutus (1)

Servilia Caepionis

Decimus Junius Silanus (2)

Servilia the younger

Quintus Servilius Caepio

Porcia Catonis

Marcus Junius Brutus x

Junia Prima

Junia Tertia

Gaius Cassius Longinus x

Marcus Porcius Cato (II)

Junia Secunda

Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (triumvir)

Descendent of Pompey the Great and Lucius Cornelius Sulla

Lepidus the Younger

Manius Aemilius Lepidus

Aemilia Lepida II

• A fictionalised Servilia appeared in the 2005 television series Rome, played by Lindsay Duncan.
• An even more fictionalised Servilia makes an appearance in the 2005 six-part mini series Empire, played by Trudie Styler.
• Servilia appears in Colleen McCullough's novel Caesar's Women, a part of her Masters of Rome Series.^[1]

• Suetonius, Julius Caesar 50
• Plutarch, Cato the Younger, Brutus
• Appian, Civil Wars
• Cicero, Letters F 12.7, A 14.21, A 15.11, A 15.12
• Cornelius Nepos, Atticus

1. ^ McCullough, Colleen (1997-02-01). Caesar's Women. Avon. ISBN 978-0380710843. 

• The interesting family connections of Servilia Caepionis