Circa 187 - Before 100 B.C.E.
Wife And Mother

Early Years. Cornelia was one of four children, two sons and two daughters, born to Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus and Aemilia. Between 175 and 170 she was married to the plebeian Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, a man some twenty years her senior and an opponent of her father in political matters. Tiberius himself had a distinguished political career that may have led Cornelia's guardian to choose him as her husband, or perhaps it was at Cornelia's bidding.

Widowhood. According to Plutarch, there was a story that Tiberius once found a pair of snakes on his bed. When he consulted the augurs about what he should do, they told him that he had to choose to let one live and to kill the other, but if he killed the female snake, Cornelia would die; if he killed the male snake, his death...