Born: 190s (circa), Italy
Died: 115 (circa)
Country most active: Italy
Also known as: Cornelia Africana
The following is excerpted from Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. Written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company.
Cornelia, (flourished about 150 B.C.) a Roman matron. She was of the highest birth in Rome, yet became the wife of T. Sempronius Gracchus, a member of a plebeian family renowned for its popular sympathies and acts. Eminent for gravity and virtue, she had a cultivated mind, and was familiar with the language and literature of Greece. After the death of her husband she was a central figure of Roman society, and gathered around her all that was noble, learned, and high-minded in the republic. She refused an offer of marriage from Ptolemy, King of Egypt, and lived to extreme old age. Her character is the purest of any woman’s mentioned in the historical period of Rome.
The following is excerpted from Woman: Her Position, Influence and Achievement Throughout the Civilized World. Designed and Arranged by William C. King. Published in 1900 by The King-Richardson Co. Copyright 1903 The King-Richardson Co.
Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi, 168 B.C.
This famous Roman lady lived in the days of the Roman Republic – a hollow mockery for a state – that existed for five hundred years, and was in reality a government by aristocracy, at first one of birth; later of wealth, selfishness, and lust. Slavery was the foundation and oligarchy the structure, and within it was full of unspeakable cruelties and crimes.
By birth Cornelia was of the very highest patrician class, her father being the P. Scipio Africanus who had destroyed Carthage, and her mother, Amelia, the daughter of the L. Æmilius Paulus, who perished at the battle of Cannæ.
She was married to T. Sempronius Gracchus, of a plebian family of wealth, renowned for their acts and sympathies with the great multitudes of the city’s suffering poor. Twelve children were born to her, three only reaching adult age.
She was highly educated in the Latin and Greek literature, was pre-eminent for virtue and gravity of character, and a central figure in Roman society during her husband’s lifetime and after. Her house was the resort of the high minded, noble, and learned of Rome.
Her daughter Sempronia married the younger of the Africanus, her two sons being those famous Gracchi, Tiberinus and Caius, both eminent soldiers and tribunes. The former sought when tribune to aid the poor by amendment of land laws and urged that the immense wealth Attilus, king of Pergamos, had left to Rome be distributed among them. At election for tribune, Tiberius and hundreds of his followers were killed in riots instigated by the patricians. Ten years later, Caius, for seeking to reform the government in the interests of the poor, employing them in building roads and other public works, was set upon in a similar riot and perished at the hand of his slave. The Romans afterward repenting, put upon the mother’s tomb, “Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi.”
The following is excerpted from “400 Outstanding Women of the World and the Costumology of Their Time” by Minna Moscherosch Schmidt, published in 1933.
A woman of ancient Rome, she embodies through the centuries the model of Italian motherhood. Descended from a patrician family, the “Gens Cornelia,” she was the daughter of Scipio Africanus, the famous general who defeated the Carthagenian power. Widow of Sempronius Gracchus, she remained faithful to his memory by refusing her hand to the King of Egypt and devoting herself completely to the education of her children, Tiberius and Caius, the strong and unfortunate defenders of the people’s rights, and a daughter, Sempronia. It is said that a Neapolitan matron went one day to visit Cornelia and showed to her a beautiful set of jewels she owned. She then asked to see Cornelia’s riches, and the Roman matron, pointing to her children, said with a smile: “These are my only gems.” After she had provided for her daughter’s marriage, and lost her two sons during the internal conflicts between the noblemen and the plebeians, she lived her last days in solitude, answering to anybody who pitied her, that “no one should call unhappy the
woman who had given birth to the Gracchi.” She was still alive when the Romans erected to her a bronze statue, writing on it these simple words: “To Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi.”
Her character is the purest of any woman’s mentioned in the historical period of Rome. She lived to an extreme old age.
The following is excerpted from A Cyclopædia of Female Biography, published 1857 by Groomsbridge and Sons and edited by Henry Gardiner Adams.
CORNELIA,The mother of the Gracchi. In this lady every circumstance of birth, life, and character, conspired to give her a glowing and ever-living page in history. Two thousand years have passed away, and yet her name stands out as freshly, as if she had been co-temporaneous with Elizabeth and Mary. She was the daughter of Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Hannibal. Such descent could hardly have received an addition of glory or distinction. But, such was the life of Cornelia, that even the fame of Scipio received new lustre. She was married to a man, who, though he tilled many high Roman offices, yet derived still greater dignity from her virtues. This was Tiberius Gracchus, the grandson of Sempronius, who was eulogized by Cicero for wisdom and virtue. He was thought worthy of Cornelia, and the event proved that one was as remarkable as the other, for what in that age of the world must have been deemed the highest excellencies of the human character. Tiberius died, leaving Cornelia with twelve children. Her character was such, that Ptolemy, King of Egypt, paid his addresses to her, but was rejected. She devoted herself to the care of her house and children; in which duties she displayed the sweetest sobriety, parental affection, and greatness of mind. During her widowhood, she lost all her children except three, one daughter, who was married to Scipio the younger, and two sons, Tiberius and Caius Gracchus. Plutarch remarks, that “Cornelia brought them up with so much care, that though they were without dispute of the noblest family, and had the happiest geniuses of any of the Roman youth, yet education was allowed to have contributed more to their perfections than nature.”
She also gave public lectures on philosophy in Rome, and was more fortunate in her disciples than her sons. Cicero says of her, that “Cornelia, had she not been a woman, would have deserved the first place among philosophers.”
Cornelia, like all the leading women of Rome, had imbibed the heroic, or ambitious spirit of the age. She is said to have made remarks to her sons which seemed to spur them on more rapidly in their public career. The result was not very fortunate; for though her sons sustained the highest name for purity of character; though they have come down to us, distinguished as the Gracchi, and though they were associated with the popular cause, yet their measures were so revolutionary and violent, that they were both destroyed in popular tumults.
Cornelia survived the death of her sons, which she bore with great magnanimity. They had been killed on consecrated ground, and of these places she said, that “they were monuments worthy of them.” She lived subsequently a life of elegant and hospitable ease, surrounded by men of letters, and courted by the great. We cannot have a better idea of the close of her life, and of the high estimation in which she stood, than by the very words of Plutarch. This writer closes the lives of the Gracchi with the following account of Cornelia:—
“She took up her residence at Misenum, and made no alteration in her manner of living. As she had many friends, her table was ever open for the purpose of hospitality. Greek, and other men of letters she had always with her, and all the kings in alliance with Rome expressed their regard by sending her presents, and receiving the like civilities in return. She made herself very agreeable to her guests, by acquainting them with many particulars of her father Africanus, and of his manner of living. But what they most admired in her was, that she could speak of her sons without a sigh or a tear, and recount their actions and sufferings as if she had been giving an account of some ancient heroes. Some therefore imagined that age and the greatness of her misfortunes had deprived her of her understanding and sensibility. But those who were of that opinion seem rather to have wanted understanding themselves; since they know not how much a noble mind may, by a liberal education, be enabled to support itself against distress; and that though, in the pursuit of rectitude. Fortune may often defeat the purposes of Virtue, yet Virtue, in bearing affliction, can never lose her prerogative.”
The whole life of Cornelia presents a beautiful character; and from the facts which have come down to us we may draw these inferences. First; Cornelia must have been educated in a very superior manner by her father. For in no other way can we account for her knowledge and love of literature; nor for the fact, that while yet young she was regarded as worthy of the most virtuous and noble men of Rome. Second; she must have been from the beginning, a woman of fixed principles and undaunted courage; for, in no other manner can we give a solution to her rejection of the King of Egypt, her unremitting care of her family, the high education of her sons, and the great influence she held over them. Third; she must have cultivated literature and the graces of conversation; for, how else could she have drawn around the fireside of a retired widow, the men of letters, and even the compliments of distant princes?
In her lifetime a statue was raised to her, with this inscription: Cornelia mater Gracchorum. She died about 230 years before Christ.