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Cornelia Biography

Cornelia Image

CORNELIA. A celebrated Roman matron, younger daughter of Scipio Africanus the Elder, and mother of the great tribunes Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus and of Cornelia, the wife of Scipio Africanus the Younger. On the death of her husband, refusing numerous offers of marriage, including even one from King Ptolemy, she devoted herself to the education of her 12 children, a task for which her lofty spirit, careful education, and wide attainments rendered her admirably fitted, and which had extraordinary results. On her death a statue was erected to her memory bearing the inscription "Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi." The base, with the inscription, is now in the Capitoline Museum at Rome. To a Campanian lady who asked to see her jewels, she is said to have presented her sons as the only jewels of which she could boast. After the murder of Gaius, the second of her sons, she retired to Misenum, where she devoted herself to Greek and Latin literature and to the society of men of letters.