Servilia was the daughter of Livia Drusa and Quintus Servilius Caepio. Her parents divorced when she was quite young and her mother remarried Marcus Porcius Cato, giving Servilia a younger half-brother, Cato the Younger. After her mother and stepfather died, she was raised by her maternal uncle, Marcus Livius Drusus. She married at a young age and in 85 BCE gave birth to a son, Marcus Junius Brutus, who was given the same name as his father. Her husband was killed by Pompey in 77 BCE.
Shortly thereafter, she remarried, to Decimus Junius Silanus, and had three daughters and a son by him. It was also around this time that Servilia’s affair with Caesar began. It would last longer than any of his other relationships and seems to have been more passionate as well. She matched him in education, intelligence, and ambition and so held his attention, as he held hers in the same way. It was not a well kept secret.
In 63 BCE, during a debate in the Senate about the Catiline conspirators, Caesar was handed a note. Cato the Younger, Servilia’s half-brother, accused Caesar of siding with the conspirators and demanded to read the letter aloud. It was a love-letter from Servilia.
When civil war broke out, Servilia’s son Brutus sided against Caesar, who wound up ordering that the young man not be harmed, possibly out of affection for both Servilia and her son. Servilia and Brutus would soon be at odds themselves though. She opposed his marriage to his cousin, Porcia Catonis and may have resented the younger woman.
Even so, both women were present at the meeting of the conspirators after Caesar’s assassination and, much to Cicero’s disgust, her voice was listened to. When the conspirators fled, she represented their interests in Rome. She would outlive all of them. After her husband’s death, she retired into the care of Cicero’s friend Atticus and eventually died of old age.
Cornelius Nepos, Atticus - Epicurus.net
Suetonius, "Julius Caesar," Lives of the Caesars - Lacus Curtius
Plutarch, "Cato Minor," Parallel Lives - Lacus Curtius
Plutarch, "Brutus," Parallel Lives - Lacus Curtius
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