McClure, Samuel Sidney (1857-1949) (“S.S.”). Irish-born American publisher. McClure immigrated to the U.S. at age nine, living with his family in Indiana. Despite poverty and the limited education he had received in Ireland, he graduated from high school and then Knox College in Illinois. He then moved to Boston, MA, where from 1882 to 1884 he edited the Wheelman, a bicycling magazine. Despite opposition from her parents, he married his Knox College classmate Harriet Hurd in 1883. The couple had four biological children (Eleanor, Bess, Mary, and Robert), and adopted one (Enrico). In 1884, S.S. started McClure’s Syndicate, which placed fiction in newspapers across the country. In 1893 with his college classmate John Sanborn Phillips he started McClure's Magazine, which was best-known for the "muckraking" exposés by writers such as Ida Tarbell and Lincoln Steffens, but which also published literature. After his cousin H.H. McClure, who worked for the McClure Syndicate, brought Cather to S.S. McClure’s attention, McClure, Phillips & Co. brought out Cather’s first book of fiction, The Troll Garden (1905). When most of the editorial staff, including Steffens and Tarbell, resigned from McClure’s in 1906, he hired Cather as an editor; she later became managing editor. After she left her position at McClure’s in 1912 and when S. S. McClure had lost control of the magazine still bearing his name, Cather ghost wrote his autobiography (McClure’s serial 1913-1914, book publication 1914). McClure made repeated—and ultimately failed—attempts to reestablish himself in journalism and magazine publishing, often trying to enlist Cather in these enterprises. She almost went with him to Europe in 1915 to report on the war for the Evening Mail, and she remained personally loyal to her mercurial and often-irresponsible former employer. He served as the prototype for Marcus O’Mally, editor of the Outcry, in her story “Ardessa” (1918), and it has been suggested that Cather modeled the courtship and marriage between Myra and Oswald Henshaw in My Mortal Enemy (1926) on that of the McClures.

Antonius, Marcus (83 BCE-30 BCE). Roman general and politician. Marcus Antonius, more commonly known as Mark Antony, was born in Rome to Julia and Marcus Antonius Creticus. He served with Julius Caesar during his conquest of Gaul (54 BCE-50 BCE) and supported Caesar again during his civil war with Pompey (49 BCE-45 BCE). After Caesar’s death, Antony entered into a triumvirate with Caesar’s heir, Octavian, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, in which they agreed to govern Rome’s territories through a shared autocracy for a five-year period. Following this agreement Antony took control of the eastern provinces, which eventually led him to relocate to Alexandria and form a political alliance and romantic relationship with Egypt’s queen, Cleopatra. The triumvirate formally ended in 32 BCE, and after devastating military losses to Octavian during the War of Actium he fled to Alexandria, where he and Cleopatra committed suicide.

Tiberius (42 BC-37 AD). Roman emperor. Tiberius, born Tiberius Claudius Nero, was born to Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. In 39 BC Drusilla divorced his biological father and married Caesar Augustus, the first emperor of Rome. Tiberius succeeded Augustus as the second emperor of Rome in 14 AD, and during his reign greatly expanded the Roman empire, extending its borders as far as modern day Germany. Tiberius died in his villa in Misenum and was succeeded as emperor by Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, also known as Caligula.

Nero Claudius Caesar (37-68 CE). Roman emperor. Born in Antium, on the western coast of Italy, Nero was a great-grandson of Augustus Caesar; his mother Agrippina, a sister of the emperor Caligula, married the new emperor, Claudius and persuaded him to adopt Nero as his successor. In 54, when Nero was sixteen, became emperor. In 64 the great fire of Rome destroyed much of the city on the Palatine Hill; several ancient authorities considered Nero responsible, and reported that he sang “The sack of Ilium” in costume while it burned, leading to the legend that Nero fiddled while Rome burned, to which Willa Cather referred. After rebellions in Rome and abroad, Nero fled Rome and forced his secretary to kill him.

Thayer, William Roscoe (1859-1922). American historian. Born in Boston, MA, William Roscoe Thayer was educated privately in Europe and the U.S. He graduated from Harvard in 1881, and received his MA from Harvard in 1886. He wrote on Italian history as well biographies of American and Italian men. In 1914 Thayer was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and served on Harvard’s Board of Overseers. In 1908 he hosted Italian historian and writer Guglielmo Ferrero, with whom Cather corresponded when she was an editor at McClure’s.