1Sulla marched on Rome in 88 BCE and in 82 BCE; Caesar in 49 BCE. On Sulla see Levick 1982; Santangelo 2018; Nebelin 2022. On Caesar see esp. Ridley 2004.

2Tanner 2000, p. 541.

3It is worth pointing out that what ancient Latin and Greek texts looked like and how they were read in antiquity were different from the modern text editions that the scholarly community has constructed and uses today. In Greek texts as well as Latin texts from the second century onwards, interword space and interpunctuation were to a large extent absent, necessitating the practice of reading texts out loud in order to better comprehend them. A word count based on modern text editions, therefore, does not tell us anything about the word count in the original ancient text. Yet, it is still illustrative as to the length of a passage, i. e. the time needed to read a text (out loud). On scriptura continua and the origins of interword space in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, see Saenger 1997, esp. p. 6-17.

4The meaningful text of an anecdote on women’s movements includes the words that deal with the movement or non-movement itself, but also—when applicable—the immediate preceding or following sentence(s) when they are key to understand (i. e. to give meaning to) the act of the (non-)movement described.

5Cic. Fam. 14.18 (n° 144), 14.14 (n° 145), 16.12 (n° 146).

6E.g. Cic. Fam. 14.18 (n° 144), 22 January 49 BCE: Sed rursus illud me movet, quod video omnis bonos abesse Roma et eos mulieres suas secum habere. […] mihi plane non satis constat adhuc utrum sit melius. vos videte quid aliae faciant isto loco feminae […]—“I am concerned when I observe that all honest men have left Rome and have their womenfolk with them. […] Frankly, I have not yet made up my mind which is the better course. You must observe what other ladies of your rank our doing” (trans. Loeb Classical Library); Cic. Fam. 14.14 (n° 145), 23 January 49 BCE: Reliquum est, quod ipsae optime considerabitis, vestri similes feminae sintne Romae. si enim non sunt, videndum est ut honeste vos esse possitis.—“There remains the question, on which you yourselves, will be the best judges, whether other ladies in your position are staying in Rome. If they are not, you should consider whether you can do so without discredit” (trans. Loeb Classical Library).

7Lucan died prematurely before finishing his poem. One could only wonder what this percentage would have been in case of a completed text. On Lucan’s early death and the writing and publication of his poem, see Rose 1966.

8In order to write history, historians have framed and summarized these outbursts in historical periods, which, as Harriet Flower aptly put it (p. 4), serve “the same function as the punctuation in a sentence and the paragraphing on a page.” As a scholarly practice it is, of course, anachronistic as the Romans did not think of their lives in these phases and time periods. See Flower 2010; Pittia 2018. Discussions about the different episodes of the Republican civil wars, their start and end dates are as old as antiquity. On these discussions, see also Breed, Damon and Rossi 2010, esp. p. 8-12. Here, in order to be able to map patterns, I have opted for a scheme that follows a commonly accepted break-up in the periods 88-81, 49-45, 44-42, 41-40, 40-32 and 32-30 BCE, structured primarily by the deeds of the “great men” who have been identified as the protagonists of these violent outbursts.

9App. BC. 1.73/340, 77/351, 81/370; Plut. Sulla 6, 13, 22.

10App. BC. 2.83/149, 85/360; Luc. 2.728-736, 722-815, 8.40-108, 109-158, 187-191, 395-416, 577-591, 637-662, 739-742, 767-770, 9.51-116, 171-181, 276-278; Plut. Pomp. 66, 74-76, 78-79, 80; D.C. 42.2.3-4, 3.1, 5.7.

11Fulvia: Cic. Phil. 2.77, 5.11, 5.22, 12.1, 13.18; Cornelius Nep. Att. 9.2-3; D.C. 45.13.2. Hortensia: V. Max. 8.4.3.

12Vell. 2.76.2; Plut. Ant. 30, 32; D.C. 48.5.4-5, 10.3-4, 11.1, 15.1-2, 27.4, 28.2-3.

13Between Perugia and Actium, Octavia Minor: Plut. Ant. 33, 35, 53-54, 57; D.C. 54.5-6, 49.33.3-4. Between Perugia and Actium, Cleopatra: Hor. Ep. 9; Plut. Ant. 36, 56; D.C. 48.23.2-3, 49.40.3-4; Flor. 2.21.8-9; J. BJ. 1.262-363. War of Actium, Cleopatra: Hor. Od. 1.37; Juv. Sat. 2.108-109; D.C. 50.14.4-15.4, 50.33.1-3, 51.1.4, 51.5.3-6, 51.13.3-4.

14Of the total corpus, a slight majority of words (i. e. 8,858 words or 58 %) covers women’s movements; the remainder deals with the opposite.

15See e.g. Sheller, Urry 2006; Franquesa 2011. Whether we should indeed be speaking of a methodological “turn” has also been subject of debate, see, for instance, Faist 2013.

16For a recent overview of its impact on classical scholarship, see Woolf 2016 (with further references). See also Tacoma 2016; Horden, Purcell 2000. See also Malkin 2005.

17E.g. Noy 2000; Handley 2011.

18Foubert 2023.

19Adey, Bissell 2010 (cited in Jayaram 2016).

20Bexley 2009; Myers 2011; Pogorzelski 2011.

21On Marcia, see Cantarella 1995; Sannicandro 2007; Tansey 2013. On Cornelia Metella, see Bruère 1951; Utard 2010; Mancini 2016; Forno 2018. See also Dangel 2010; Augoustakis 2011.

22Luc. 2.285-325; Sannicandro 2007, p. 84-87. See Arena 2012.

23Lucan manipulated historical reality for dramatic effect as Hortensius had been dead for some months. See Bruère 1951; Fantham 1992, p. 140.

24On Cato’s arrangement with Marcia and Hortensius, see Plut. Cat. Mi. 25, 52, 54; App. BC. 2.99/413. Also Gordon 1933; Corbier 1991; Cantarella 1997.

25On the intertextual references to Ovid in these lines, see Bruère 1951.

26Fantham 1992, p. 144.

27See also Mulhern 2017.

28It is a moral struggle that was also felt by Cicero (Att. 9.4.2). See also Sen. Marc. 20.6. On this debate, see Fantham 1992, p. 234-235.

29Barratt 1979, n. 5-6, p. 238-266.

30Cf. Luc. 5.774-775, 8.40, 8.640.

31Luc. 5.754-759.

32Cornelia’s potential as a hostage also comes up after her departure from Lesbos in Luc. 8.410-416. Pompey considers travelling to Parthia to ask the Parthian king for help, but he is dissuaded from such action by his friends (8.414-416): Nam, quo plura iuvent Parthum portenta, fuisse | Hanc sciet et Crassi; ceu pridem debita fatis | Assyriis trahitur cladis captiva vetustae – “For, to heighten the horrid pleasure of the Parthian, he will know that she was once the wife of Crassus also: as if long due to the doom of Carrhae, she will be carried off as a captive taken in the defeat of long ago” (trans. Loeb Classical Library).