ABSTRACT
Terentia has, on the whole, had a bad press from modern scholars.1 Cicero’s critics blame him without exonerating her. Biographers of Cicero tend to like him and to sympathise with him against his wife. Here is an extreme example:
While he enjoyed vigorous health and prosperous fortunes, he tolerated with a calm mind the arrogance [alterezza] of his wife Terentia, whose character led her to domineer [spadroneggiare] in the household, in such a way that, while she meddled in the public business of her husband, she completely neglected domestic interests and let them be overturned in financial disorder.
