Aemilia As A Widow
Aemilia Tertia long survived her husband and outlived both her sons. She had two daughters surviving upon her own death, which took place sometime around 163 BC and by 162 BC.
She continued her luxurious lifestyle despite widowhood, presumably having been guaranteed a generous income by her husband's will. However, thanks to the lex Voconia (which prohibited women from inheriting much or from passing on their own wealth to females) passed in 169 BC, she was unable to dispose of her possessions as she pleased. At her death, her heir was automatically her grandson by adoption, Scipio Africanus II, or Scipio the Younger (better known to Romans as Scipio Aemilianus). He gave them to his mother Papiria Masonis, who was divorced from his own natural biological father L. Aemilius for more than two decades. At her death, he passed those same possessions over to his two biological sisters - Aemilia Paulla Prima, wife of Marcus Porcius Cato Licinianus and Aemilia Paulla Secunda, wife of Quintus Aelius Tubero. (Polybius, Book 31: 28, Plutarch. Aem. 2; Liv. xxxviii. 57).
Despite her wealth and comfortable lifestyle, her last years must have been saddened by the death of both her sons, both without natural issue.
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