Caecilia Metella Balearica

Who was Caecilia Metella Balearica?

Caecilia Metella was the second daughter of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Balearicus, consul in 123 BC. Her oldest sister was a Vestal virgin.

Metella was married to Appius Claudius Pulcher, a politician of an old, although somewhat impoverished, patrician family. As a member of an important family and married into another, Balearica was one of Rome's most esteemed matronas. She had a reputation of virtue and modesty, allied to an irreproachable conduct as a mother of two boys and three girls.

While pregnant with her sixth child, Metella had a dream of Juno complaining about the neglect of her temple. As any other Roman would, she took the dream very seriously and proceeded to clean the temple herself, with the help of the censor Lucius Julius Caesar. Shortly afterwards, Metella died in childbirth. Her youngest son was to be the notorious Publius Clodius.