Aemilia Tertia - Family and Name

Family and Name

The name Aemilia derives from her family name (nomen), the gens Aemilia being one of the five most important patrician families. Roman women of the Middle Republic customarily bore their father's family name, and were sometimes distinguished by their birth order. As with men named Quintus ("the Fifth") or Sextus ("the Sixth"), a name such as Tertia may not always mean a woman had two older sisters. Valerius Maximus gives her name as Tertia Aemilia, "the wife of Scipio Africanus and the mother of Cornelia." Aemilia is not known to have had sisters, but younger sisters are sometimes more notable for the historical record than elder. Aemilia's daughters were Cornelia Africana Major and Cornelia Africana Minor, the younger being far more famous than her mother or elder sister.