Fulvia

Fulvia was a chick living twenty one hundred years ago, not terribly far from here.

She was born in the house of one called Bambalio, on account supposedly of his impaired speechⁱ, and so she had to go through life as Fulvia Flacca Bambula. What if your name all through Junior High was F. F. Bambula ? Nevertheless, Fulvia survived.

She was married, aged about twenty, to some nutty kid called "the Pretty" on account of him being... funny. Other than causing a lot of trouble by encouraging the plebs to get uppity he is chiefly remembered for having crashed Rome's largest annual slumber party, some sort of antique excursion into mutual mammellar mastication and other girlish delights ostensibly conducted in honor of some strictly female deity or otherⁱⁱ.

This attracted him a charge of incestum, which at the time merely meant being an asshole, and also a lifetime enmity of Cicero, which later cost the verbose pest his head. Because yes, Fulvia defeated Cicero, kept his head and stuck her hairpin in his forked tongue post mortem. How many women do you know that can stand up to the best orator of their time, and perhaps of all Antiquity for that matter ? Fulvia stood up just fine, it's Cicero that ended up a little worse for the wear.

Her husband was killed by some dude named Milo. She took care of Milo, then she remarried, to some douche that promptly died after knocking her up (at this point she already had two kids from her previous marriage).

She married again. Mark Anthony, who you remeber because of Cleopatra VIIⁱⁱⁱ but who was nobody before Fulvia married him and who survived Fulvia's presence as an absolutely abject nobody. Nevertheless, through his relation to her, and her children, and her clients, and her wealth and political clout and organisation and everything else, Mark Anthony suddenly found himself the first man in Rome upon Julius Caesar's assassination. Which she didn't instigate!

He promptly eloped to Egypt, while Fulvia held down Octavianus in Italy. For years. She'd raise an army, her inept generals would have it mowed down by the future Augustus, she'd raise another army. And another. All the meanwhile her idiot hubby was diddling Cleo, while his own legions in Gaul were waiting for orders instead of helping his faithful wife defend against his own enemies. Two years with this, under a hail of bullets that read diversly,

FVLVIAE NDICAM PET^iv
L A CALVE / FVLVIA / CULUM PAN^v

which was pretty much a first and a last in Roman warfare.

Eventually she had enough of the shit, fleed to Greece with her children and left the two idiots (Mark Anthony and Octavianus Augustus) to reconcile with each other, which they promptly did, in agreement that it was "all her fault".

Because obviously female loyalty has got to be amply rewarded, she was dedicated some imperial poetry. As follows :

Caesaris Augusti lascivos, livide, versus
Sex lege, qui tristis verba latina legis:
'Quod futuit Glaphyran Antonius, hanc mihi poenam
Fulvia constituit, se quoque uti futuam.
Fulviam ego ut futuam? quid si me Manius oret
Pedicem, faciam? non puto, si sapiam.
"Aut futue, aut pugnemus" ait. Quid, quod mihi vita
Carior est ipsa mentula? Signa canant!'
Absolvis lepidos nimirum, Auguste, libellos,
Qui scis Romana simplicitate loqui.

Which roughly says that the following filth is to be excused by her hubby and censure generally on account of it being "frank" speech^vi, and furthermore that her invite to fuck or fight will have to be set aside because the esteemed ruler would rather fuck an old decrepit hobo, and also he likes jacking off a lot.

Possibly the ablest woman in history, certainly the worst treated. The chief observation this revolting, sad story bears is that while the ample historical record of mysoginy is chiefly the result of manly fear unsupported in reality, the absent historical record of misandry would certainly find ample backing in simple point of fact. Apparently mankind's future as a species completely depends on womankind's vast and continued ability to tolerate idiocy. Which I suppose is not exactly news, nor anything but hasty generalisation. Right ?

1. Who's to distinguish speech and intellect twenty one hundred years ago ? [↩]
2. Strictly female to the degree men weren't even allowed to speak its name, which has as consequence that its name was lost to history. [↩]
3. No, she wasn't the first, and no she wasn't simply "Cleopatra", like "Madonna", you uncouth horde you. [↩]
4. Which'd reconstruct to Fulviae landicam peto, seeking Fulvia's clit. [↩]
5. Lucius Antonius / Fulvia / culum pandite (ie, open up your ass). [↩]
6. Which in this context quite frankly means, anti-woman. [↩]