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Those familiar with the history of the 50s and 40s in the late Roman republic will be familiar with the marriage of Caesar's daughter Julia to Pompeius, which was used to cement the political alliance between them and Crassus commonly called 'the first triumvirate'. But this was not the only marriage used to cement a political alliance during this period, not only on the side of Pompeius, Crassus and Caesar, but also among the staunchest of their opponents. Looking at all of this sort of detail - who was married to whom, who the children were married off to, who held office when, etc., the exercise of 'prosopography' - became a popular way of analysing how Roman politics worked, but it has fallen out of favour, as critics claimed that it was too rigid an explanation and that political groupings were more complicated and less consistent than such an analysis might indicate.1 But the analysis of such detail can still prove useful in the determination of connections and relationships, which in turn can assist in understanding political actions and motivations. This paper will look at some of the marriage connections, to see if they do indicate any consistent trends which in turn will help to explain how a particular group was held together.
Let us begin with the marriages of the men who made up 'the first triumvirate'.
Caesar was married three times, and an analysis of these three marriages shows some of the difficulties of using prosopography to determine the consistency of political groupings.2 His first marriage (see Stemma 1), from 84 to 69, was to Cornelia, daughter of L. Cornelius Cinna, consul continuously from 87 to 84, a Marian supporter and therefore opponent of Sulla (Suet. Iul. 1.1-2; Plut. Caes. 1.1-2). This marriage made sense for Caesar, since it allied him to one of the dominant political figures at the time, but also linked him to the Marian cause - he was himself related to Marius who was married to his aunt - a cause to which he was ideologically inclined, as demonstrated by his strongly popularis stance later in his career and a link which he was to emphasise regularly.4 When Sulla returned in 83 and established control over Rome, he...