A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

Smith, William

A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. William Smith, LLD, ed. 1890

the wife of T. Pomponius Atticus, the friend of Cicero. We know nothing of her origin, and scarcely any thing of her relations. The M. Pilius, who is said to have sold an estate to C. Albanius, about B. C. 45 (Cic. Att. 13.31), is supposed by some to have been her father, but this is quite uncertain. The Q. Pilius, who went to Caesar in Gaul in B. C. 54 (ad Att. 4.17), was undoubtedly her brother; and he must be the same as the Pilius who accused M. Servilius of repetundae in B. C. 51 (Cael. ad Fam. 8.8). His full name was Q. Pilius Celer; for the Q. Celer, whose speech against M. Servilius Cicero asks Atticus to send him in B. C. 50 (Cic. Att. 6.3.10), must have been the same person as the one already mentioned, as Drumann has observed, and not Q. Metellus Celer, as the commentators have stated, since the latter had died as early as B. C. 59. With the exception, however of the M. Pilius and Q. Pilius, whom we have spoken of, no other person of this name occurs.

Pilia was married to Atticus on the 12th of February, B. C. 56 (Cic. ad Q. Fr. 2.3.7), and in the summer of the following year, she bore her husband a daughter (ad Att. 5.19, 6.1.22) who subsequently married Vipsanius Agrippa. This appears to have been the only child that she had. Cicero, in his letters to Atticus, frequently speaks of Pilia; and from the terms in which he mentions her, it is evident that the marriage was a happy one, and that Atticus was sincerely attached to her. From her frequent indisposition, to which Cicero alludes, it appears that her health was not good. She is not mentioned by Cornelius Nepos in his life of Atticus. (Cic. Att. 4.16, 46, 5.11, 7.5, 16.7; Drumann's Rom. vol. v. pp. 87, 88.)