Marcia (wife of Cato The Younger) - Marriages

Marriages

There is little information known about Marcia other than in regard to her marriages to Cato and Hortensius.

After Cato divorced his first wife Atilia because of rumors about her infidelity, in 63 BC, he married Marcia, ""a woman of excellent reputation, about whom there was the most abundant talk" (Plutarch). Marcia bore him two or three children; however, there is controversy about whether or not she was pregnant with this third child at the time of her second marriage to Hortensius. There is no indication that their marriage was unhappy: Plutarch relates that Marcia was concerned for Cato's safety, and Appian says that Cato was extremely fond of Marcia.

Marcia's second marriage, in the year 56 BC, was to the renowned orator and advocate Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, whom Cicero styled as "king of the courts". Hortensius was an admirer and friend of Cato’s, and he was eager to be more closely related to Cato and his family. Although Hortensius' own wife (daughter of Q. Lutatius Catulus) had just died without leaving Hortensius an heir, an alliance with Cato seems to be the chief reason for Hortensius, nearing 60 years old, to request to be married to Cato’s daughter Porcia, who was only about 20 years old at the time. However, because Porcia was already married to M. Calpurnius Bibulus and the age difference was so great, Cato refused to give his consent. Hortensius immediately suggested that he marry Marcia instead because she had already borne Cato his heirs. Due to Hortensius' ardor, Cato acquiesced, but only on the condition that Marcia's father, L. Marcius Philippus, approve as well. With Philippus' consent obtained, Cato divorced Marcia, thereby placing her under her father's charge. Hortensius promptly married Marcia, and she bore him an heir. After Hortensius' death in 50 BC, she also inherited much of Hortensius' considerable wealth.

At the outbreak of the civil war in 49, Marcia and her children moved back into Cato’s household. Plutarch asserts that Cato remarried Marcia after Hortensius's death, whereas Appian's histories relate that Cato merely reestablished her in his own household.