Terentia: What’s in a name?

Image Credit: Public Domain - Topography and Monuments of Ancient Rome

We are frequently asked about the meaning behind our name, Terentia. For us, our name is symbolic of and inspires our mission and vision of empowering cultural institutions to manage data, develop insights, and tell compelling stories in the digital age.

Terms such as digital, cloud-native, and SaaS are much more modern concepts and ways to interact with the world. But when we thought about how we are working to empower culture, the arts, and the humanities, our minds went directly to the Roman woman, Terentia.

The Historic Terentia

Little is known about Terentia. What we do know from the work of researchers is pieced together from letters and other historical papers closer to the time she lived, 98 BC – AD 6.

We know that Terentia was born into a wealthy plebeian family, though her lineage is murky due to how Roman nomenclature regarding women worked at the time, and that she was the wife of the orator and politician, Marcus Tullius Cicero. What’s also quite interesting and wasn’t standard at the time, Terentia controlled (most) of her own finances and was Cicero’s “benefactor.”

Knowing that she had this unique financial stability, we also know she was an influential woman in Roman culture who dedicated her time and these funds to the arts and her community.

Why Terentia?

We love cultural institutions. And that’s truly an understatement.

We believe strongly in what cultural institutions—museums, libraries, archives, galleries, historic sites, the performing arts—do for our educators and communities around the world. People rely on cultural institutions to fill the curriculum gaps and feed discovery and creativity.

Simply put, the historic Terentia’s example of collaboration and sponsorship best embodied and inspired our own aspiration to be enablers of who we call “the guardians of humanity”—our cultural institutions. Those who support our art, our heritage, and our legacy.

Terentia’s mission is to enable cultural institutions to engage, educate, and entertain beyond their zip code, to democratize access to education, and fuel curiosity.

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Interested in reading more about the historic Terentia? Here are a few sources to check out:

1. Terentia, Tullia and Publilia: The Women of Cicero's Family - Susan Treggiari

2. Encyclopedia of Women in the Ancient World - Joyce E. Salisbury