Aemilia Tertia - Children

Children

The sources for this section are the histories of Livy and Polybius, as well as William Smith's Dictionaries, all available online.

Aemilia Paulla and Scipio Africanus had four surviving children, two sons and two daughters. His two sons failed to become consuls, although both became praetor in 174 BC. The elder may have married but no wife nor issue are known; the younger fell into dissolute ways and never married. Both suffered from ill-health which prevented them pursuing a military career.

The daughters did better, being granted fifty talents of silver as dowry each (then a very large sum), of which the half was paid immediately upon their marriages and the other half (twenty-five talents) became due within three years of their mother's death.

• Publius Cornelius P.f. P.n. Scipio Africanus (fl. 174 BC); he became a priest or Augur in 180 BC (like his maternal uncle), was flamen dialis or priest of Jupiter (according to his tomb inscription), and served as praetor in 174 BC. Some sources seem to imply that he was married, but his wife, if any, is unnamed. He appears to have died at some point after 174 BC, and probably before 167 BC (Battle of Pydna) where Scipio Aemilianus is already known as his adoptive son. He was certainly dead by 163 BC-162 BC when his own mother died, leaving her money to his adoptive son and heir. The date of his adopting Scipio Aemilianus is also unknown, but probably took place between 174 BC and 167 BC when his brother was probably dead.

• Lucius Cornelius P.f. P.n. Scipio (fl. 174 BC); he led a dissolute lifestyle, and was expelled from the Senate in the year that he was elected praetor. (Livy) This son is most notable for having been captured by pirates c. 192-191 BC, and being released without ransom before the Battle of Magnesia which would cause his father political problems. Date of death unknown, but he probably died between 174 BC and 170 BC. No wife or issue are mentioned by any Roman historian, and he probably died unmarried.

• Cornelia Africana Major (fl. 174 BC), eldest daughter of Aemilia was born approximately 201 BC; her date of death is unknown, but she probably married c. 182 BC, judging by the year in which her son became consul. Her husband was her own second cousin. It is not known, however, if this was the first marriage between cousins of the same gens (a practice that would have been previously avoided on grounds of consanguinity i.e. sharing the same blood line descent), or whether such marriages were not totally unknown prior to Cornelia's marriage. Scipio Nasica Corculum, consul in 162 BC and 155 BC, censor 159 BC, and later Princeps Senatus until overthrown, i.e. not chosen again, and Pontifex Maximus until his death in 141 BC.
  • Her husband was the son of the eponymous consul of 191 BC who was himself son of Scipio's elder paternal uncle Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus); her father-in-law and husband were both distinguished jurists. Cornelia Major's date of death is not known. She had one known son or one surviving son, Scipio Nasica Serapio, also consul and Pontifex Maximus 141 BC-132 BC, who left descendants surviving to 45 BC or later. Sadly, Scipio Nasica Serapio is better known for his role in his cousin Tiberius Gracchus's death in 133 BC. This grandson left descendants, of whom the most distinguished in the Late Republic were Metellus Scipio and his daughter Cornelia Metella (who died childless). Descendants in the female line, if they exist, remain unknown to prosopographers and historians.

• Cornelia Africana Minor (c.192-121 BC), the younger daughter, was born about 190 BC, married in 172 BC, and died in 121 BC after her youngest child Gaius Sempronius Gracchus committed suicide to avoid execution. Better known as Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi, she was the wife of the middle-aged but distinguished consul Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, twice consul and censor (died 154 BC), to whom she bore 12 children, most of whom died very young despite their parents' assiduous care. Three children survived to adulthood, two of them being the Brothers Gracchi -- Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and Gaius Sempronius Gracchus, the latter born in the year that his father died suddenly, and the eldest, a daughter Sempronia, being wife of her mother's first biological cousin and her own second cousin Scipio the Younger. Tiberius Gracchus's own three sons died very young, and her youngest son Gaius left only a daughter Sempronia. Sempronia and Scipio Aemilianus had no children, which contributed to the bitterness in their marriage.
  • Thus c. 45 BC, Cornelia Africana Minor's only surviving descendant was Fulvia Flacca Bambula. Fulvia was the first ever non-mythological Roman woman to appear on coinage, and through her three marriages gained access to power. Her first marriage to Publius Clodius Pulcher produced two children: a son, also named Publius Clodius Pulcher, and a daughter, Clodia Pulchra, who later married Octavian. Her second marriage to Gaius Scribonius Curio produced another son. Fulvia's third and final marriage to Mark Antony produced two sons: Marcus Antonius Antyllus and Iullus Antonius. Further descendants, stemming from Iullus Antonius, were alive in the later reign of Augustus Caesar.