The Story of Aurelia Cotta, Mother of Julius Caesar

On July 31, 54 BC, Aurelia Cotta, mother of Julius Caesar, died at the age of 66. An excerpt from the article:

"Aurelia: Model Mom
According to Tacitus, the art childrearing had declined by his time (the late first century A.D.). In his Dialogue on Oratory, he claims that, once upon a time, a kid “was from the beginning reared, not in the chamber of a purchased nurse, but in that mother’s bosom and embrace,” and she took pride in her family. Her goal was to raise a son who would make the Republic proud. “With scrupulous piety and modesty, she regulated not only the boy’s studies and occupations, but even his recreations and games,” Tacitus writes.

And whom does he cite as one of the best examples of such prime parenthood? “Thus it was, as tradition says, that the mothers of the Gracchi, of Caesar, of Augustus, Cornelia, Aurelia, Atia, directed their children’s education and reared the greatest of sons." He includes Aurelia and her granddaughter, Atia, as great moms whose rearing of their sons led those boys to contribute much to the Roman state, individuals with “a pure and virtuous nature which no vices could warp.”

To educate her son, Aurelia brought in only the best. In his On Grammarians, Suetonius names the freedman Marcus Antonius Gnipho, “a man of great talent, of unexampled powers of memory, and well-read not only in Latin but in Greek as well,” as Caesar’s tutor. “He first gave instruction in the house of the Deified Julius, when the latter was still a boy, and then in his own home,” writes Suetonius, citing Cicero as another of Gnipho’s students. Gnipho is the only of Caesar’s teachers whose name we know today, but as an expert in languages, rhetoric, and literature, he clearly taught his most famous protégé well.

Another way of ensuring your son’s future in ancient Rome? Obtaining a wife for him who had wealth or was well-bred – or both! Caesar was first engaged to one Cossutia, whom Suetonius describes as “a lady of only equestrian rank, but very wealthy, who had been betrothed to him before he assumed the gown of manhood.” Caesar decided on another woman with an even better pedigree, though: he “married Cornelia, daughter of that Cinna who was four times consul, by whom he afterward had a daughter Julia.” It looks like Caesar learned some of his savvy from his mama!

Eventually, the dictator Sulla, enemy of Caesar’s uncle Marius, wanted the boy to divorce Cornelia, but Aurelia worked her magic again. Caesar refused, endangering his life and those of his loved ones. Thanks to “the good offices of the Vestal virgins and of his near kinsmen, Mamercus Aemilius and Aurelius Cotta, he obtained forgiveness,” says Suetonius. But let’s be honest: who brought in her family and prominent Roman priestesses to help her baby boy? Most likely, it was Aurelia."