22 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



Rome, and one of the most beautiful types of the learned 

 women of her time, was the celebrated daughter of the 

 elder Scipio Africanus Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi. 

 She is famous on account of her devotion to her two sons, 

 Tiberius and Caius. She was their teacher; and it 

 was her educated and refined mind that, more than any- 

 thing else, contributed to the formation of those splendid 

 characters for which they were so highly esteemed by their 

 countrymen. Plutarch informs us that these noble sons 

 of a noble mother "were brought up by her so carefully 

 that they became beyond dispute the most accomplished 

 of Roman youth; and, thus, they owed perhaps more to 

 their excellent upbringing than to their natural parts." 1 

 One is not surprised to learn that this noble lady was 

 almost idolized by the Romans, and that they erected a 

 statue to her with the inscription, "Cornelia, Mother of 

 the Gracchi." 



Scarcely less distinguished and accomplished was an- 

 other Cornelia, the wife of Pompey, the Great. "Besides 

 her youthful beauty, ' ' writes Plutarch, in his Life of Pom- 

 pey, "she possessed other charms, for she was well versed 

 in literature, in playing on the lyre, and in geometry, and 

 she had been used to listen to philosophical discourses with 

 profit. Besides this, she had a disposition free from all 

 affectation and display of pedantry blemishes which such 

 acquirements usually breed in women. ' ' 



Then there was the cultured and devoted Aurelia, the 

 mother of Julius Cassar. It is safe to say that this emi- 

 nent man was as much indebted to his mother for his suc- 

 cess and greatness as were Tiberius and Caius Gracchus 

 to the benign influence and careful teachings of the gentle 

 and virtuous Cornelia. Highly educated and of com- 

 manding personalities, both these women, like many others 



x Cf. his Tiberius Gracchus. Cicero says of them, "Non tarn in 

 gremio educates quam sermone matris." 

 2 Ibidem, Life of Pompey. 



