Mucia Tertia

Who is Mucia Tertia?

Mucia Tertia was a Roman matrona who lived in the 1st century BC. She was the daughter of Quintus Mucius Scaevola, the pontifex maximus, consul in 95 BC. Her mother was a Licinia that divorced her father to marry Quintus Caecilius Metellus Nepos, in a scandal mentioned by several sources. Her name, Mucia Tertia, would suggest that she was a third daughter, according to the Roman naming convention for women, though it is believed that this was instead to differentiate her from her two aunts. Mucia had also two younger brothers from her mother's second marriage, and she was a cousin of Q. Metellus Celer, consul in 60 BC, and of Q. Metellus Nepos, consul in 57 BC.

Mucia's first husband was the short-lived and unlucky Gaius Marius the Younger. His death at the hands of Lucius Cornelius Sulla left her a pawn of the victors.

Sulla, as dictator, needed to secure Pompey's loyalty and to do that, he arranged his marriage to Mucia around 79 BC. This marriage resulted in three children: Gnaeus Pompeius, the girl Pompeia Magna and Sextus Pompey. She had the misfortune to outlive all three of her children.