Cornelia, mother of the Gracches

Cornelia, mother of the Gracches, painting by Joseph-Benoît Suvée , 1795

Cornelia (* around 190 BC; † around 100 BC) was the second daughter of Scipio Africanus , who belonged to the Cornelier family , and Aemilia Paulla . She became the wife of the elder Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus , the consul of 177 BC. BC and 163 BC BC, and mother of the Gracchi. She was one of the most important women in Rome in the 2nd century BC. Chr.

She married Gracchus when she was already of a relatively old age to get married. The marriage was a happy one, they had twelve children together, well above Roman standards. However, only three of these children survived their childhood: Sempronia, who was married to her adoptive cousin Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus , and the brothers Tiberius and Gaius , who were supposed to oppose the political institutions of Rome with their attempts at reform. After the early death of her husband in 154 BC. She remained a widow (even if the Egyptian King Ptolemy VII is said to have been a candidate ) and devoted herself exclusively to the upbringing of her two sons. After her violent death, she withdrew from Rome to a villa in Misenum .

The sources and current research argue whether Cornelia revolted, supported, or disapproved of her sons, whose activities upset, supported, or disapproved of the conservative patrician families into which she was born. In two fragments of letters that have come down to us from Cornelius Nepos under her name , she expresses herself against it; the authenticity of these letters is, however, disputed.

Rome revered her as the epitome of the virtuous matrona , and after she died of old age, a statue was erected on her as the first woman in Rome. During excavations, a base was found that probably belonged to this statue. The inscription on it reads: Cornelia Africani f (ilia) Gracchorum (Cornelia, daughter of Africanus, (mother) of the Gracches).

Visual arts

Cornelia was regarded by her contemporaries and by posterity as a model of a virtuous wife and mother. Many artists took up the subject over time.

image	Emergence	Creator	plant
	123 / 107-100 BC	Tisicrates	Base of a statue of Cornelia, marble, 80 × 112 × 135 cm, Rome, Capitoline Museums, Senatorial Palace, Tabularium. Cornelia was the first woman in Rome to have a statue erected. The pedestal may have belonged to this statue. inscription Opus Tisicratis // Cornelia Africani f (ilia) / Gracchorum Work of Tisicrates // Cornelia, daughter of Africanus / (mother of) Gracchen
	1646	Laurent de la Hyre	Cornelia rejects the Ptolemy crown, oil on canvas, 138 × 123 cm, Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts (Szépművészeti Múzeum). After the early death of her husband, many men asked for Cornelia's hand, including the Egyptian king or heir to the throne Ptolemy. However, Cornelia knocked out the royal diadem and the hand of Ptolemy in order to devote herself entirely to the upbringing of her children.
	1794	Philipp Friedrich Hetsch	Cornelia, the mother of the Gracches, oil on canvas, 112 × 136 cm, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. According to an anecdote by Valerius Maximus , Cornelia once received a visit from a noble lady who proudly presented her magnificent jewelry. Cornelia hesitated to reply until her children came back from school and then said: "And here are my treasures". See also: cover picture, other images with the same motif .
	1855	Jules Cavelier	Cornélie, mère des Gracques (Cornelia, mother of the Gracches), statue of Cornelia with the two Gracches, marble, height about 1.60 m, Paris, Louvre.
	1893	Levi Tucker Schofield	These are my jewels (inscription: This is my jewelery), statue of Cornelia and from 8 Columbus, Ohio, Statehouse. Cornelia, who regarded her children as her most valuable jewelery, gathers eight deserving men of Ohio as well as her children as an allegory of the state of Ohio.

literature

• Hans Ulrich Instinsky : On the authenticity of the fragments of letters from Cornelia, mother of the Gracchen. In: Chiron . Volume 1, 1971, pp. 177-189 (Instinsky concludes that the fragments are certainly spurious in this form).
• Leonhard Burckhardt , Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg : Cornelia, mother of the Gracchen. In: Maria H. Dettenhofer (Ed.): A pure man thing? Women in male domains of the ancient world. dtv, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-423-04689-9 , pp. 97-132.
• Eva-Tabea Meineke: Cornelia. In: Peter von Möllendorff , Annette Simonis, Linda Simonis (ed.): Historical figures of antiquity. Reception in literature, art and music (= Der Neue Pauly . Supplements. Volume 8). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2013, ISBN 978-3-476-02468-8 , Sp. 329–336.
• Werner Suerbaum : Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchen. In: Werner Suerbaum (Ed.): The archaic literature. From the beginnings to Sulla's death (= Handbook of Ancient Latin Literature , Volume 1). CH Beck, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-406-48134-5 , pp. 456-458.

Web links

Commons : Cornelia Africana  - Collection of Images

Remarks

1. ↑ Pliny the Elder , Naturalis historia 34,31. Plutarch , Gaius Gracchus 4.2-4.
2. ↑ CIL 6, 31610 .
3. ↑ For the statue and the inscription see Mika Kajava: Cornelia Africani f. Gracchorum. In: Arctos. Acta Philologica Fennica , Vol. XXIII (1989), pp. 119-131.
4. ^ Plutarch, Caius Gracchus, 4,3 .
5. ↑ Plutarch, Tiberius Gracchus, 1.4 .
6. ↑ Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX, 4.4, init .
7. ^ Ohio Statehouse, "These are my jewels . "