Cornelia
1.
A daughter of Scipio Africanus Maior, and mother of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus. Cornelia
occupies a high rank for the purity and excellence of her private character, as well as for
her masculine tone of mind. She was married to Sempronius Gracchus, and was left on his death
with a family of twelve children, the care of whom devolved entirely upon herself. After the
loss of her husband, her hand was sought by Ptolemy Philometor, king of Egypt, but the offer
was declined. Plutarch speaks in high terms of her conduct during widowhood. Having lost all
her children but three—one daughter, who was married to Scipio Africanus the
younger, and two sons, Tiberius and Gains—she devoted her whole
time to the education of these. Valerius Maximus relates an anecdote of Cornelia, which has
often been cited. A Campanian lady, who was at the time on a visit to her, having displayed
to Cornelia some very beautiful ornaments which she possessed, desired the latter, in return,
to exhibit her own. The Roman mother purposely detained her in conversation until her
children returned from school, when, pointing to them, she exclaimed, “These are my
ornaments!” (
Haec ornamenta mea sunt, Val. Max. 4 init.). Plutarch
informs us that some persons blamed Cornelia for the rash conduct of her sons in after-life,
she having been accustomed to reproach them that she was still called the mother-in-law of
Scipio, not the mother of the Gracchi (
T. Gracch. 8). She bore the untimely
death of her sons with great self-control, and a statue was afterwards erected in honour of
her by the Roman people, bearing for an inscription the words “Cornelia, mother of
the Gracchi” (
C. Gracch. 4).
2.
Daughter of Metellus Scipio, married to Pompey after the death of her first husband,
Publius Crassus. She was remarkable for the variety of her accomplishments and the excellence
of her private character. Plutarch makes her to have been versed, not only in the musical
art, but in polite literature, in geometry, and in the precepts of philosophy (
Plut. Pomp. 55). After the battle of Pharsalus,
when Pompey joined her at Mitylené, Cornelia, with tears, ascribed all his
misfortunes to her union with him, alluding at the same time to the unhappy end of her first
husband, Crassus, in his expedition against the Parthians. (Cf. Lucan, viii. 88.) She was
also a witness, from her galley, of the murder of her husband on the shores of Egypt (
Plut. Pomp. 79).
3.
A daughter of Cinna. She was Iulius Caesar's second wife, and mother of Iulia, the wife of
Pompey. She died young. Plutarch says it had been the custom at Rome for the aged women to
have funeral panegyrics, but not the young. Caesar first broke through this custom by
pronouncing one upon Cornelia (
Plut. Caes. 5).
