5. Daughter of L. Metellus Dalmaticus, consul in B. C. 119, and not of Q. Metellus Pius, the pontifex maximus, consul in 80, as has been inferred from Plutarch. (Sull. 6.) Her father's praenomen is Lucius, and he is said to have rebuilt the temple of
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the Dioscuri (Cic. pro Scaur. 2. §§ 45, 46, with the commentary of Asconius), which point to L. Dalmaticus as her father. She was first married to M. Aemilius Scaurus, consul in 115, by whom she had three children, the eldest of whom was the M. Scaurus defended by Cicero (Cic. l.c. pro Sest. 47; Plut. Sull. 33, Pomp. 9; Plin. Nat. 36.15. s. 24.8), and afterwards to the dictator Sulla, who always treated her with the greatest respect. When she fled from Cinna and Carbo in Italy to her husband's camp before Athens, she was insulted from the walls of the city by Aristion and the Athenians, for which they paid dearly at the capture of the city. She fell ill in 81, during the celebration of Sulla's triumphal feast; and as her recovery was hopeless, Sulla for religious reasons sent her a bill of divorce, and had her removed from his house, but honoured her memory by a splendid funeral. (Plut. Sull. 6, 13, 22, 35.) She purchased a great deal of the property confiscated in the proscriptions. (Plin. l.c.)