Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi

The group represents Gaius and Tiberus Gracchus with their mother Cornelia.

Cornelia was the daughter of the Roman general Scipio Africanus Major, and wife of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. Her two sons, Tiberius and Gaius, known as the Gracchi, also held important public office. It was told of Cornelia, who was a woman noted for her virtue and abilities, that she was once visited by a Roman matron who ostentatiously showed off her jewellery. When she asked to see Cornelia’s, the latter produced her two young sons, saying, ‘These are my jewels,’