Atilia daughter of C. Atilius Serranus and first wife of Marcus Porcius Cato Uticencis whom he married about 73 BC, after his intended wife, Aemilia Lepida, married Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica

Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica

Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica , in modern scholarship often as Metellus Scipio, was a Roman consul and military commander in the Late Republic. During the civil war between Julius Caesar and the senatorial faction led by Pompeius Magnus , he remained a staunch optimate...

. She was born c. 90 BC

In the words of Plutarch's Parallel Lives

Parallel Lives

Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, commonly called Parallel Lives or Plutarch's Lives, is a series of biographies of famous men, arranged in tandem to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings, written in the late 1st century...

, Life of Cato the Younger, 7:

[Atilia] was the first woman with whom he had sex, but not the only one, as was true of Laelius

Gaius Laelius

Gaius Laelius — also Caius Lelius — general and statesman, was a friend of Scipio Africanus, whom he accompanied on his Iberian campaign...

, the friend of Scipio Africanus

Scipio Africanus

Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus , also known as Scipio Africanus and Scipio the Elder, was a general in the Second Punic War and statesman of the Roman Republic...

; Laelius, indeed, was more fortunate, since in the course of his long life he only ever made love to one woman, the wife of his youth.

Cato and Atilia had a son, Marcus Porcius Cato

Marcus Porcius Cato (II)

Marcus Porcius Cato , son of Cato the Younger by his first marriage to Atilia.- Life :He was the brother of Porcia Catonis, who was first married to Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus , and later married their half-cousin Marcus Junius Brutus...

 who later died in the second Battle of Philippi

Battle of Philippi

The Battle of Philippi was the final battle in the Wars of the Second Triumvirate between the forces of Mark Antony and Octavian and the forces of Julius Caesar's assassins Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus in 42 BC, at Philippi in Macedonia...

, and a daughter Porcia Catonis

Porcia Catonis

Porcia Catonis, also known simply as Porcia was a Roman woman who lived in the 1st century BC. She was the daughter of Marcus Porcius Cato Uticencis and his first wife Atilia...

 who became the wife of her cousin Marcus Junius Brutus

Marcus Junius Brutus

Marcus Junius Brutus , often referred to as Brutus, was a politician of the late Roman Republic. After being adopted by his uncle he used the name Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, but eventually returned to using his original name...

.

Circa 63 BC, Cato divorced Atilia on the grounds of adultery (she was rumoured to have been one of the many lovers of Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

), later marrying a woman named Marcia

Marcia (wife of Cato the Younger)

Marcia was the second wife of Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis and the daughter of Lucius Marcius Philippus. She was born about 80 BC...

. Atilia is not mentioned again.