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).