by León, Vicki
“Read it aloud!” Cato demanded. Oh, boy. As the smokin’ hot note from Servilia was read to the titillated Roman senators, Cato learned that his half sister had been doing the wild thing with his senatorial opponent. Awkward moment. And small wonder that Cato and his conservative clique became even more rabid foes of Julius Caesar.
Caesar spent years away from Rome, fighting wars, conquering Gauls, raising money, and building his power base. Despite his long absences—or perhaps because of them—his relationship with Servilia remained feverishly hot, lasting for two decades until his shocking assassination in March of 44 B.C.
Roman high society was a complex one and relatively small, meaning that most people became intimately connected (and thus obligated) by multiple marriages, divorces, adoptions, and melded families.
The passion of Julius Caesar’s life? Servilia, his lover for decades. Tragically her own son Brutus spearheaded Caesar’s murder.
Thus when Julius Caesar was murdered on the Senate floor, Servilia not only lost the love of her life—she also became the horrified mother of an assassin: her son Marcus Brutus. She also found herself the mother-in-law of another key man in the assassination, since Cassius was married to her daughter Junia Tertia.
In the aftermath, a grieving Servilia sought to protect her murderous kin from the dire consequences of their actions, but failed. Her astute political advice, which she freely offered to friends in her political circle, including Cicero, was also rejected for the most part. She, however, survived the years of chaos and bloody civil war that tore Italy apart following the assassination—about the only one in her elite circle who did. Servilia ended her days at the country home of Titus Atticus, the great-hearted friend of Cicero, who had also mentored her son Brutus.
Servilia may not be recognized as a trailblazing “cougar” like modern-day icons from Mae West to Madonna. Nevertheless, her fascinating love story cries out to be told, doesn’t it?
Orpheus and Eurydice:
Into the mouth of hell for his mate
Orpheus was a musican, and a good one. He wrote music, too. He not only had rhythm, he could also charm wild beasts, sway the trees, and even change the course of rivers with his songs. No wonder Eurydice fell for him.
He was a kind and gentle guy, not one of those rowdy troubadours on the make. His mother was a Muse—the source of his musical roots; his dad, a prince from Thrace. Or maybe a king. He’d also mumbled something about being the son of the god Apollo.
She couldn’t even remember how and where they met, but it was love at first glance. Orpheus wooed her with stories of his adventures with the Argonauts, and how he’d played his lyre when their ship passed the islands of the Sirens. His wild and beautiful music had kept the men from hearing the bewitching siren songs and crashing upon the evil rocks around their shores. A hero, that’s what he was.
She learned he was a prophet, and had practiced the magical arts. He’d been around; he’d even been to the Underworld and back, he said.
Finally, after he’d told her all his stories, he said, “Eurydice, will you marry me?”
Of course she would, and did. Their wedding took place among her people, the Cicones. An outdoor affair. Afterward, she went for a stroll among the tall grasses in the glow of the sunshine. She was so happy. And then it happened: one of those damned satyrs showed up—they were always crashing weddings, the horny little creeps—and started chasing her. She ran fast, and was pulling away from him, looking for Orpheus, when suddenly she stumbled and fell, right into a nest of writhing vipers! Terrified, she scrambled out, but one snake bit her on the heel as she made her escape.
Oh, Orpheus …
He’d only been gone from her for a few minutes, half an hour tops; he’d just gone to have a congratulatory bump with the boys. Where could she be? When he found Eurydice, she was lying in the grasses, a calm smile on her beautiful face. She looked as though she was taking a nap, awaiting his return. Her bloody heel, the hiss of the nearby snakes, told the rest of the story.
His new bride, dead. Orpheus thought his heart would split in two with sorrow. Numbly, he picked up his lyre and began to play. His song, heavy with grief, wafted out into the world. Hearing the notes of his music, all of the gods and goddesses began to weep.
He played for hours, grieving in his own way. Finally, one of the gods whispered to him, “Go down to the Underworld, boy, and fetch her back. You alone can persuade Hades and Persephone to release your new bride.”
Drying his tears, Orpheus once again took the fearsome journey into the Underworld. Although fear made him icy cold, he struck the strings of his lyre and began to sing. “In the end, every lovely thing goes down to you, O Hades, you are the debtor who is always paid. But I seek one who came to you too soon. I only ask one small thing, that you lend her back to me, for my love is too strong a god.”
His pleading song was so eloquent it made tears of iron run down Hades’ cheeks. “Your wish is granted, just stop that dreadful wailing,” Hades said. “You may take Eurydice back into the light of day, under one condition.”
Orpheus, trembling with happiness and fear, asked, “What must I do, O King of Tartarus?”
“Have her follow you—but do not look back at her until you reach the upper world.”
Orpheus exploded with joy at these words, and at the sight of his beloved’s ghostly form. The two lovers went through the great doors of Hades’ kingdom and began the trek to the earthly world. It was a long journey, uphill of course, dark and torturous; by the time Orpheus reached the sunlight, he’d grown anxious. Was Eurydice still behind him? He needed to see her! He turned, holding out his arms for her; and there she was, smiling—but still in the shadows of the Underworld.
In desperation he lunged after her, but it was too late. He thought he heard her whisper, “Farewell,” and she was gone. Orpheus cried out to Hades for another chance, but he was only met with silence.
Stunned, disconsolate, Orpheus began to wander through the wilderness of Thrace, playing his music, his only comfort. At length some Ciconian women of Eurydice’s people happened upon him. They were already unhappy about the whole Eurydice affair, and started throwing sticks and stones at him to shut him up. But the music of Orpheus was so haunting that even the inanimate objects refused to hit him.
Well, that did it. The women, who were already wearing their maenad gear for an upcoming Dionysian orgy, tore Orpheus to shreds and decapitated him.
They threw him into the river—his body, head, and lyre—but even as they floated out into the great sea of the Mediterranean, Orpheus’s head and his lyre kept on singing and playing. All of his parts floated to the island of Lesbos, where locals reverently gathered them up and built a shrine in his honor. The Orpheus head became an oracle that gave prophesies until the god Apollo got into a jealous snit and silenced it.
There were as many variations on the Orpheus and Eurydice story as there were Greeks, making the Orphic literature rich as well as contradictory.
Centuries later, in Plato’s time, certain men became wandering beggar-priests of what was called the “Orphic life,” practicing vegetarians who abstained from eggs, beans, and sex in order to pass along the ancient teachings and exquisite musical poems of Orpheus.
A maenad might look harmless but a band of them in full riot gear tore Orpheus the musician to shreds.
Seleucus & Family:
Father-son solution to forbidden love
Besides conquering the world, Alexander the Great had another ambitious goal: to meld the cultures he conquered into one Greek-speaking entity. One of his bright ideas? After defeating the Persians, he selected eighty of his best and brightest Macedonian officers—including a shrewd young commander named Seleucus—to marry an equal number of dazzling Persian noblewomen. With cross-cultural procreation in mind, Alex splashed out lavishly for the spectacle. One of his less subtle party favors? Gold and silver nuptial couches for each couple.
Over the long term, Alex’s efforts
fell flat—except for Seleucus, who adored his Persian bride Apama. Of the eighty, they were about the only pair to remain married. (Full disclosure: an adventurous princess, Apama had already hit the mattress with Seleucus. Several years earlier, she’d traveled to faraway India with her lover, where she’d given birth to their first child, Antiochus.)
Apama and Seleucus went on to have three more children. It’s rash to speculate about personality traits of long-ago people, but Seleucus, despite his job description, appeared to adore his wife and treat her well. On the other hand, he was one of those aristocratic Macedonian males, a group notorious for collecting wives, especially those who came with additional real estate.
Some twenty years after Alexander the Great’s death in 323 B.C., King Seleucus controlled mammoth chunks of the regions we now call Turkey, Syria, Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and even a piece of India that went beyond what Alexander had won.
When Seleucus turned sixty, he lusted for just a little more territory— and thus married a superb young specimen named Stratonice, kin to several other Macedonian generals who’d been part of the Alexander inner circle. Taking his new bride to his capital of Antioch, Syria, the king named another city after Stratonice to make her feel at home. In addition, he gave his young wife “honorary goddess” status by setting up a local temple to worship Stratonice as Aphrodite.
These attentions may have given heartburn to Seleucus’s longtime wife Apama, who’d already had various cities named after her. Being older and wiser, she resigned herself to the newcomer. By now her son Antiochus was a strapping young man, training to succeed his father.
This celebrity case of love sickness had a happy ending: son wins dad’s new wife, first wife retrieves original husband.
Suddenly, however, he fell ill with a mysterious disease and stopped eating. In despair, Seleucus paid outrageous sums to bring in Erasistratos, the most famous physician in the Greek world, to take the case. The doc was initially stymied because he couldn’t find physical symptoms of the malady. Being, however, a believer in psychosomatic disease, he hung out in the sickroom, observing family and friends as they came and went. All the visitors seemed to drain Antiochus’s vitality, with one exception: Stratonice, the young queen in blooming health.
Erasistratos was a learned man. He also adored the love poetry of Sappho, who’d lived several centuries earlier. He was familiar with her apt descriptions of passionate love—flushed face, sweaty body, faltering voice, irregular heartbeats—and he saw all these symptoms in Antiochus. Clearly the young man was lovesick; and at the same time, he recognized and felt guilty about the inappropriate nature of his passion for his stepmother.
So the doctor took King Seleucus aside, saying to him, “Your son has the disease of love for a woman, but a hopeless love.” Being a ruler and used to getting his way, Seleucus was astonished, demanding to know how to rectify the situation. Since he knew that the king loved his son dearly, Erasistratos delicately told him that Antiochus was in love with Stratonice.
After the initial shock, Seleucus clearly saw that he should step aside and let his son follow his desire. (Never mind what Stratonice thought; it was 293 B.C., after all.)
When the whole matter was resolved, King Seleucus then announced to his people that he was handing over the reins of his Upper Asia empire to the next generation, his son and Stratonice.
He actually offered to marry the young couple.
In this heartwarming story (written about by Greek historian Plutarch and others), everyone achieved happiness in this odd situation, even and especially Apama, the faithful first wife of Seleucus, who got him all to herself until his death at age seventy-seven. Young Antiochus the First won his true love and joyously went about founding nearly as many cities as Alexander the Great. The Seleucid dynasty and empire remained a vigorous force in the world and stayed independent of Roman rule until 190 B.C.
Helen of Troy:
Homer launches a durable hit
The face that launched a thousand ships? Oh yeah, the ravishing Helen of Sparta. (She was born a Spartan; the Troy add-on came later.) Didn’t she elope with a guy named Paris? And cause the Trojan War somehow?
Well, yes and no.
Before reading further, keep in mind that her entire story with all its contradictions and implausibilities is the equivalent of an early reality show. Yes, there were Mycenaean princesses in the twelfth century B.C. And yes, there were places called Sparta, Troy, and Athens, and indeed, they often fought wars.
Helen’s dad was King Tyndareus of Sparta, although the god Zeus also claimed paternity. When she was twelve, King Theseus of Athens abducted and raped her. In some accounts, she gave birth to his child. Eventually, Helen’s brothers engineered a revenge kidnapping to return Helen to Sparta.
Although a little shopworn, Helen was put on the eligible bride list. Masses of suitors responded. Frankly terrified at the mob of aroused males around the palace door, Tyndareus stressed over his decision. Odysseus, one of the suitors, sensing an opportunity, offered to help Tyndareus if the king would support his courtship of the babe he really had his eye on: Penelope of Ithaca. Odysseus then devised an oath that all the suitor dudes had to take. He made them agree to defend whoever won the bride, swearing the oath on the innards of a freshly killed horse, so everybody knew the king was dead serious.
The contest for Helen’s hand in marriage was on.
The suitor competition was won by Menelaus, partly because he had pricey guy-toys—sixty ships. He and Helen settled in, starting having babies. He was tickled at daddyhood—plus Tyndareus had stepped down, and they were now rulers of Sparta.
On the other side of the Mediterranean lived a young prince of Troy named Paris. For some inexplicable reason, Olympia’s head deity Zeus tapped Paris to judge his upcoming “most beautiful goddess” contest— there were three contestants, and boy, did Aphrodite want to win. She offered Paris a bribe: name her as hottest goddess, and she would make sure that he would win the world’s most beautiful mortal woman. Paris readily obliged, and the love goddess got the crown, enraging rival deities Athena and Hera.
Now it was Aphrodite’s turn to hold up her end of the bargain. So she helped Paris get himself invited to Sparta, where King Menelaus threw a nine-day welcoming feast for him. During the partying, Paris started wooing Menelaus’s wife, even writing “I love you, Helen!” on the wine-spattered tablecloth one night. Fortunately, Menelaus noticed nothing. Soon thereafter, he was called to faraway Crete to bury his grandfather; naturally he asked Helen to run the kingdom and entertain their guests.
He had barely sailed out of sight when Paris and Helen made plans to run away. She’d already been abducted once, so she knew the ropes. Thinking ahead, she left all but one of her kids behind but had the foresight to pack gold, some palace treasures, and five serving women.
After various adventures at sea, the couple arrived in Troy to great acclaim. To a man, the Trojans thought Helen was totally hot. Soon after their arrival, Helen found a stone dripping blood near the castle and immediately recognized it as a powerful aphrodisiac. From that moment on, she dribbled it on Paris’s cereal every morning to keep that testosterone percolating. Soon fertile Helen began popping out more babies.
Helen of Troy, the most popular reality show of the twelfth century B.C., was all about making love and war.
Meanwhile King Menelaus had returned from Crete and was quite disgruntled at the abduction of Helen. He immediately went to Mycenae to lobby his brother-in-law Agamemnon. “Dang it, I’m the injured party here! Paris really abused my hospitality.”
Agamemnon sympathized. “If our demand for Helen’s return, and a decent compensation offer, aren’t forthcoming from King Priam, Paris’s father, we’ll go to war!”
King Priam stonewalled them; so Menelaus immediately rounded up all the suitors who’d stood on the bloody horse entrails and sworn that they’d defend whoever won Helen’s hand, insisting that the crime needed swift punishment. Or, as he put it, “No
body’s wife is safe!”
In that shaky fashion, the Trojan War began, with most of the Greek kings and leaders siding with Menelaus against the Trojans.
Helen may not have launched a thousand ships (a few hundred is more like it), but she was an amazing catalyst.
During the war’s ten-year duration, Helen would come to regret her part in it—and the Trojans would come to hate her for the deaths she caused. But not Paris’s family. In fact, when Paris got killed, Helen coolly moved on to his brother Hector—and then to his youngest brother.
When Troy surrendered, the city afire, Helen once again confronted her husband Menelaus, who’d sworn to kill his faithless wife with his own sword. As the enraged king lifted it to strike, Helen let her robe slip from her shoulders. At the sight of her still-magical breasts, he dropped his weapon. Pretty awesome, given the number of children she’d birthed and nursed.
We don’t know much more, other than that cults devoted to Helen of Troy sprang up around Greece, from Sparta to the Greek islands and Athens. Even more extraordinary is the worshipful durability of her legend to the present day.
Pericles & Aspasia:
Married to love, not to marriage
You think it’s tough being a single woman and a foreigner in our country today? Try being an unattached non-Athenian during that Greek city-state’s Golden Age, roughly 480 to 399 B.C. Aspasia, for example, a delightful and charismatic Greek who emigrated from Miletus in Asia Minor, continuously bumped up against Athenian sneers toward nonlocals.
