icanus the Elder,
mother of the Gracchi and of Sempronia, the wife of Scipio Africanus the
Younger. On the death of her husband, refusing numerous offers of
marriage, she devoted herself to the education of her twelve children.
She was so devoted to her sons Tiberius and Gaius that it was even
asserted that she was concerned in the death of her son-in-law Scipio,
who by his achievements had eclipsed the fame of the Gracchi, and was
said to have approved of the murder of Tiberius. When asked to show her
jewels she presented her sons, and on her death a statue was erected to
her memory inscribed, "Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi." After the
murder of her second son Gaius she retired to Misenum, where she devoted
herself to Greek and Latin literature, and to the society of men of
letters. She was a highly educated woman, and her letters were
celebrated for their beauty of style. The genuineness of the two
fragments of a letter from her to her son Gaius, printed in some
editions of Cornelius Nepos, is disputed.

See L. Mercklin, _De Corneliae vita_ (1844), of no great value; J.
Sorgel, _Cornelia, die Mutter der Gracchen_ (1868), a short popular
sketch.

CORNELIUS, pope, was elected in 251 during the lull in the persecution
of the emperor Decius. Two years afterwards, under the emperor Gallus,
he was exiled to Centumcellae (Civita Vecchia), where he died. He was
very intimate with St Cyprian, and is commemorated with him on the 16th
of September, which is not, however, the anniversary of his death. He
died in June 253.

CORNELIUS, CARL AUGUST PETER (1824-1874), German musician and poet, son
of an actor at Wiesbaden, grandson of the engraver Ignaz Cornelius, and
nephew of Cornelius the painter, was born at Mainz on the 24th of
December 1824. In his childhood his bent was towards languages, but his
musical gifts were carefully cultivated and he learned to sing and to
play the violin. Cornelius the elder, anxious for his son to become an
actor, himself taught the boy the elements of the art. These theatrical
studies, however, were interrupted early by a visit paid by Peter
Cornelius to England as second violin in the Mainz orchestra. On
returning home young Cornelius made his stage debut as John Cook in
_Kean_. But after two more appearances, as the lover in the comedy _Das
war Ich_ and as Perin in Moreto's _Donna Diana_, he practically
abandoned the stage for music, his idea being to become a comic ope