Mark Antony and the women at his side *

In Rome, power/potestas was an all-male affair exercised only by magistrates or patres familias. It was never defined, performed, or symbolised in the form of a male-female couple. The question of who was able to hold potestas and who not was a decisive criterion of gender division and defined the Roman male citizen. Yet Roman politics also depended on a web of various social relations like kinship, friendship, and patronage, and Roman aristocratic women were expected to cultivate and to participate in these relations and their inherent social powers. The aristocratic domus was thus presided by a power couple, and some domus became more relevant than others during the first century bce. The case of Mark Antony and his Roman wives demonstrates not only the shifting of these social power structures at the end of the Republic but also presents a Roman magistrate who integrated the women at his side in his self-representation. The chapter discusses both the exceptionality of this case as well as the exceptionality of such “coupleness” in Roman politics to throw light on the complexities inherent to the constellation of ruler and consort in Rome