Ah they and welcome to Emperor's of Rome, a Roman history podcast from Latrobe University.

I'm your host Matt Smith and with me today is Associate Professor

Rianna Evans, Senior Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at Latrobe

University. This is episode CXV I I, I, I,

Cornelia, mother of the Grackai.

What we do know about Cornelia is mostly through the lens of her famous sons.

But to the Romans, she was much more than that.

She was put on a pedestal, in bronze form, no less,

as the ideal mother for Roman women to aspire to,

and may have been quite influential in

politics in her time. Here's Rianna Evans.

Cornelia was an elite and aristocratic Roman woman known to be very educated often brought out as the ideal

exemplar of a virtuous Roman woman. We don't know exactly when she was born

sometime between 195 and 190 BC.

So we don't know too much about her young life,

but she really comes to prominence

because of people she's related to

and the family that she marries into and her offspring.

So predictably.

I guess so.

The very fact that she's an elite woman means that she's in a position to be more prominent anyway, but there are plenty of elite

Roman Republican women that we don't know about. She's born into a very notable family

...