Hortensia

Hortensia ( 42 BC), daughter of consul and advocate Quintus Hortensius, earned renown during the late Roman Republic as a skilled orator. She is best known for giving a speech in front of the members of the Second Triumvirate in 42 BC that resulted in the partial repeal of a tax on wealthy Roman women.

Life Little is known about the life of Hortensia aside from her career as an orator. She was the daughter of Quintus Hortensius apparently by his first wife Lutatia. Her father was well known among Romans due to his moving sermons on history and law and from his rivalry with his fellow orator Marcus Tullius Cicero. As a member of the aristocracy, Hortensia grew up in a wealthy household, and thus had access to Greek and Latin literature from a young age. She later concentrated on the study of rhetoric by reading speeches by the likes of her father and prominent Greek orators.

Hortensia is also believed to have been married to her second cousin Quintus Servilius Caepio, son of Quintus Servilius Caepio the Younger.

Speech before the Second Triumvirate

In 42 BC, nearly all of Rome's state-sponsored military legions, which were under the command of triumvirs Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, and Marcus Antonius, were at war with the assassins of Julius Caesar (Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus). To fund the ongoing war, the triumvirs had resorted to selling the property of wealthy citizens killed by proscription; however, this source of revenue did not prove to be lucrative enough, and the three men voted to place a tax on Rome's 1,400 most wealthy women. The women, outraged at having been taxed for a war they had no control over, chose Hortensia to articulate their concerns to the triumvirs. (In wartime women were allowed to break tradition and engage in public speaking).

Hortensia also questioned the double standard of taxing women but excluding them from public office. Appian quoted Hortensia, stating, "Why should we pay taxes when we do not share in the offices, honours, military commands, nor, in short, the government for which you fight between yourselves with such harmful results?"

In popular culture Hortensia is the main character and subject of the 2016 novel Rivals of the Republic by Annelise Freisenbruch.

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