ABSTRACT
In keeping with its transitional character, the triumviral period (43-30 BC)1 sees women in new roles which involve them in public affairs in ways that had not-as far as our information goes-been attempted before. There may have been diplomats before Mucia and Octavia, but there is no sign of them.2 There almost certainly were no public orations before Hortensia’s single, but significant, contribution. Above all, neither before nor after was there a woman with Fulvia’s unique combination of qualities, a combination that almost allows her to pre-empt the title of the first empress that Augustus awarded (after his death) to Livia.
