Who dated Volumnia Cytheris?

Volumnia Cytheris (fl. 1st-century BC) was an ancient Roman actress and mimae dancer. She is foremost known as the mistress of several famous Romans.

Possibly born around 70 B.C., she was originally a slave of Publius Volumnius Eutrapelius but later became a freedwoman. On stage, she was normally referred to only as Cytheris. The name derived from "Cythera" a nickname for Aphrodite. She had relationships with Brutus and Mark Antony, which attracted a lot of attention in contemporary ancient Rome. She is mentioned as the companion of her aristocratic lovers in social occasions when the presence of a courtesan was otherwise not common, and considered shocking.

Cicero's letters recount how embarrassed he was to go to a party that she also attended, and how offensive it was for Mark Antony to give her a place of dignity in his litter:

"The tribune of the people was borne along in a chariot, lictors crowned with laurel preceded him; among whom, on an open litter, was carried an actress; whom honourable men, citizens of the different municipalities, coming out from their towns under compulsion to meet him, saluted not by the name by which she was well known on the stage, but by that of Volumnia. A car followed full of pimps; then a lot of debauched companions; and then his mother, utterly neglected, followed the mistress of her profligate son, as if she had been her daughter-in-law. O the disastrous fecundity of that miserable woman! With the marks of such wickedness as this did that fellow stamp every municipality, and prefecture, and colony, and, in short, the whole of Italy."

Later, Cicero's wife asked Cytheris to help mend the relationship between her husband and Cytheris' lover Mark Antony, so that he could return from exile in Brundisium.

Her rejection of Cornelius Gallus reportedly provided the theme for Virgil's tenth Eclogue. Gallus refers to her in his work under the name Lycoris, which alludes to one of the names "Lycoreus" the god Apollo, Greek god of music.

She is one of few free influential Roman courtesans mentioned by her contemporaries, others being Praecia and Chelidon. Cytheris' fate is unknown and she is not mentioned in any sources after a certain point.

Marcus Junius Brutus (; Latin: [ˈmaːrkʊs juːniʊs ˈbruːtʊs]; c. 85 BC – 23 October 42 BC) was a Roman politician, orator, and the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar. After being adopted by a relative, he used the name Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, which was retained as his legal name. He is often referred to simply as Brutus.

Early in his political career, Brutus opposed Pompey, who was responsible for Brutus' father's death. He also was close to Caesar. However, Caesar's attempts to evade accountability in the law courts put him at greater odds with his opponents in the Roman elite and the senate. Brutus eventually came to oppose Caesar and sided with Pompey against Caesar's forces during the ensuing civil war (49–45 BC). Pompey was defeated at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48, after which Brutus surrendered to Caesar, who granted him amnesty.

With Caesar's increasingly monarchical and autocratic behaviour after the civil war, several senators who later called themselves liberatores (liberators) plotted to assassinate him. Brutus took a leading role in the assassination, which was carried out successfully on the Ides of March (15 March) of 44 BC. In a settlement between the liberatores and the Caesarians, an amnesty was granted to the assassins while Caesar's acts were upheld for two years.

Popular unrest forced Brutus and his brother-in-law, fellow assassin Gaius Cassius Longinus, to leave Rome in April 44. After a complex political realignment, Octavian – Caesar's adopted son – made himself consul and, with his colleague, passed a law retroactively making Brutus and the other conspirators murderers. This led to a second civil war, in which Mark Antony and Octavian fought the liberatores led by Brutus and Cassius. The Caesarians decisively defeated the outnumbered armies of Brutus and Cassius at the two battles at Philippi in October 42. After the defeat Brutus took his own life.

His name has become a synonym and byword for "betrayal" or "traitor" in most languages of Europe. His condemnation for betrayal of Caesar, his friend and benefactor, is perhaps rivalled only by the name of Judas Iscariot, with whom he is portrayed in Dante Alighieri's Inferno. He also has been praised in various narratives, both ancient and modern, as a virtuous and committed republican who fought – however futilely – for freedom and against tyranny.

Marcus Antonius (14 January 83 BC – 1 August 30 BC), commonly known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic from a constitutional republic into the autocratic Roman Empire.

Antony was a relative and supporter of Julius Caesar, and he served as one of his generals during the conquest of Gaul and Caesar's civil war. Antony was appointed administrator of Italy while Caesar eliminated political opponents in Greece, North Africa, and Spain. After Caesar's assassination in 44 BC, Antony joined forces with Lepidus, another of Caesar's generals, and Octavian, Caesar's great-nephew and adopted son, forming a three-man dictatorship known to historians as the Second Triumvirate. The Triumvirs defeated Caesar's killers, the Liberatores, at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, and divided the government of the Republic among themselves. Antony was assigned Rome's eastern provinces, including the client kingdom of Egypt, then ruled by Cleopatra VII, and was given the command in Rome's war against Parthia.

Relations among the triumvirs were strained as the various members sought greater political power. Civil war between Antony and Octavian was averted in 40 BC, when Antony married Octavian's sister, Octavia. Despite this marriage, Antony carried on a love affair with Cleopatra, who bore him three children, further straining Antony's relations with Octavian. Lepidus was expelled from the association in 36 BC, and in 33 BC, disagreements between Antony and Octavian caused a split between the remaining Triumvirs. Their ongoing hostility erupted into civil war in 31 BC when Octavian induced the republic to declare war on Cleopatra and proclaim Antony a traitor. Later that year, Antony was defeated by Octavian's forces at the Battle of Actium. Antony and Cleopatra fled to Egypt where, having again been defeated at the Battle of Alexandria, they committed suicide.

With Antony dead, Octavian became the undisputed master of the Roman world. In 27 BC, Octavian was granted the honorific title of Augustus, marking the final stage in the transformation of the Republic into a monarchy, with himself as the first Roman emperor.