Donald Robertson

Well, you could, you know, at a stretch, you could view her as his first tutor.

And, you know, she's the only woman.

He mentions his sister fleetingly.

But other than that, his mother is the only woman that he acknowledges in book one of the meditations.

I think the most revealing thing about her is that Fronto is...

writes to Marcus at one point and says, I'm going to write a letter to your mum in Greek, right?

Fronto's an expert on Latin.

Marcus's mother was not just fluent in Greek, like most educated Romans would be bilingual in Latin and Greek, but she seems to be completely...

fluent in it and fronto who's the most acclaimed latin restoration in the world writes this kind of slightly pathetic letter to marcus saying could you just check it for mistakes before i send it to your mum because i'd be embarrassed you know to for her to read it and think i've you know like got the the grammar slightly wrong or something right so fronto

And in Roman society, to look to a woman like that as your superior intellectually is unusual.

And also, Fronto mentions that his wife is like a student to Marcus's mother.

He actually refers to her as Marcus's mother's client, meaning her kind of subordinate, like her student.

So a bit of a strip, but the picture kind of emerges of a woman who is like a multimillionaire, billionaire, construction industry magnate.

We have bricks with her name stamped on them that survive today.

She owned clay fields and brick and tile factories that she inherited from her family.

She never remarried after Marcus's father died.

She would have been...

in her early 20s or late teens when her husband died.

She remained single.

Marcus and her went to stay with Marcus's paternal grandfather for a while, but then they leave and they go back into her house, which again shows unusual independence in Roman society.