Predictably, and maybe unfairly, Cicero’s letters throw most of the blame at the wife, but they also capture some of the arguments in uncannily modern terms. On one occasion, when Pomponia snapped, ‘I feel like a stranger in my own house’, in front of guests, Quintus came out with the classic complaint ‘There, you see what I have to put up with every day!’ After twenty-five years of this, they eventually divorced. Quintus is supposed to have remarked, ‘Nothing is better than not having to share a bed.’ Pomponia’s reaction is unknown.
