Servilia

Servilia Caepionis was a Roman noblewoman of the patrician Servilia gens who lived during the late Roman Republic. She is best known as the mother of Marcus Junius Brutus, one of Caesar's leading assassins, and as a long-standing mistress of Julius Caesar. The combination of Brutus's lineage and Caesar's influence placed Servilia at the center of the era's political intrigues.

Her family background placed her within the patrician elite. She married into the Caepiones, and through her marriage and her offspring she was connected to key senatorial factions. In historical sources, she is described as a politically active figure who used her position and personal ties to influence the proceedings of Rome's ruling circles. Ancient writers repeatedly note her relationship with Caesar, portraying it as a marriage of affection and political strategy, though the exact nature and duration of the affair remain subjects of scholarly debate.

Servilia's son, Brutus, became a central figure in Caesar's assassination and the subsequent civil war. The episode has colored later assessments of Servilia, who is often portrayed as a capable and ambitious matron navigating a male-dominated political environment. However, beyond these associations, the surviving evidence about her life is limited, and many specifics are uncertain.

In summary, Servilia is remembered primarily for her connections to two of Rome's most consequential historical figures—the conspirator Brutus and the dictator Caesar—and as an example cited by historians of the influence that elite women could exercise in the late Republic.