Family Finances: Tullia and Terentia

This is a study of dotal arrangements and the disposition of matrimonial property as they are represented in Cicero’s correspondence. From Cicero’s explanations, suggestions and worries about his daughter’s third marriage and his own fortunes, I have tried to piece together a picture of the extent and function of a wife’s contribution to the economy of a senatorial marriage, and to gauge the scope of her material obligations to the children. For this purpose the letters are of particular value: Cicero wrote to and about his wife Terentia during his exile and, later, during a period of civil conflict, when he was not only absent from Rome, but in fear of confiscation. His situation obliged him to commit to writing those financial concerns which would otherwise have left no record. The correspondence exposes not only the arrangements actually made for the use of property within marriage, but the conventions which determined them.