History would be complete or truthful
which left out the women. Although the Roman woman was not supposed to
take any share in public affairs, although she was, until she married,
subject to the authority of her father, and afterwards to that of her
husband, there are innumerable stories which show how great was the real
part played by women in Roman life, even in quite early times. They were
often as well educated as the men, sometimes better.

This was clearly the case with Cornelia, the daughter of Scipio
Africanus, and wife of Tiberius Gracchus the elder. Left a widow when
the eldest of her three children, named Tiberius after his father, was
but a lad, she conducted their training herself. From her her sons and
daughter learned to be simple and hardy in their habits, truthful and
upright in their minds, and to care for things of the spirit rather than
of the body, as she did herself. When her friends boasted to her of the
rich furnishing of their houses, of their robes of silk, their ornaments
and jewels, Cornelia would turn to her children and say, 'These are my
treasures.' She taught Tiberius and Caius and their sister that what
mattered was not what a man had but what he was. They were rich. They
bore an honoured name. But these things would not give honour unless
they had the soul of honour in themselves. They must strive not for
their own pleasure or comfort or even for their own personal glory, but
to live a life of true service to their fellow citizens. And that meant
that they must see things as they were, and not be contented with the
names people gave them. They wanted to see Rome great and to help it to
grow greater. She taught them that a city, like a man, was great only
when it strove for right and justice. Mere wealth and power did not make
it so.

These thoughts sank into the minds of the young Gracchi. As they grew up
they cared for Greek learning, art, and literature, poetry, and all the
things that make life beautiful, as Scipio Aemilianus and Laelius did;
but it troubled them, as it had not troubled Scipio, that these good
things reached only the few, while the great body of the people had no
share in them at all. To them, as once to Caius Flaminius, it seemed
wrong as well as dangerous that Rome should be made up, as they saw that
it was, of two sorts of people, ever more and more separated from each
other; the few who had everything and the many who had nothing. They
could not feel, as Coriol