Aurelia Orestilla, daughter of the very wealthy Gnaeus Aufidius Orestes, was woman of ancient Rome chiefly remembered for her association with the politician Catiline, who in 65 BCE attempted to take control of the Roman Senate in what came to be called the Catilinarian conspiracy.
[1] Contemporaneous Roman writers on the opposing side -- chiefly Cicero and Sallust -- write of her disparagingly as a "beautiful but profligate" woman.
[7] First-century historian Valerius Maximus wrote that Catiline lit his marriage torch for Aurelia from his son's funeral pyre, and describes the situation as having been caused by "wicked libido".
Almost two millennia later, Aurelia Orestilla continued to be used as a character of the scheming woman, as well as of the wicked stepmother,[10] as in for example Catiline His Conspiracy by 17th-century dramatist Ben Jonson (who uses Sallust as his primary historical source), and the play Catilina by the 18th century poet Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon, and the play of the same name by the 19th century writer Alexandre Dumas, in which Catiline and Aurelia drink from goblets of human blood to seal their bargain.
In exile, shortly before his death, the doomed Catiline wrote a letter to his friend Quintus Lutatius Catulus Capitolinus asking him to take care of his wife.