Caecilia Metella (priestess)

Caecilia Metella, also known as Caecilia Metella Balearica Major (fl. 1st century BC), elder daughter of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Balearicus, was a Vestal Virgin and a Priestess of the Goddess Juno Sospita. According to authors Pinto de Magalhães and Metello de Nápoles, Julius Caesar was saved by her influence. Caesar had been sentenced to death by the Dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, who had sentenced him to death for refusing to divorce his wife Cornelia Cinnilla Minor, younger daughter of the late consul Cinna. Her actual influence is unknown, because several Vestal Virgins and other prominent figures interceded for Caesar, on the grounds that he was Flamen dialis (Priest of Jupiter) and thus an important figure in Roman religion.

During Sulla's lifetime, Balearica Major was also the protectress of one Sextus Roscius, defended by Cicero and her nephews Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer and Quintus Caecilius Metellus Nepos Iunior in the celebrated defense "Pro Roscius". This case made Cicero's reputation, and enabled him to climb to the consulate.

Her date of death is not known, but she appears to have outlived Sulla, who died in 78 BC. Among her sister's six children were the notably iconoclastic Clodia and the patrician-turned-demagogue Publius Clodius.

Further reading

* Manuel Dejante Pinto de Magalhães Arnao Metello and João Carlos Metello de Nápoles, "Metellos de Portugal, Brasil e Roma", Torres Novas, 1998