Cornelia Metella

Cornelia Metella (c. 73 BC[1] – after 48 BC) was the daughter of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica (who was consul in 52 BC and originally from the gens Cornelia) and his wife Aemilia.[1] She appears in numerous literary sources, including an official dedicatory inscription at Pergamon.[2]

  1. ^ a b Ronald Syme points out that in 74 BC, Cornelia's father was the romantic rival of Cato for Aemilia, Cornelia's mother; their marriage followed soon after and provides the earliest possible date for their daughter's birth. The latest date for Cornelia's marriage to young Crassus would be 54 BC, before he left to join his father for the ill-fated Parthian campaign; Cornelia is unlikely to have been younger than 15 at the time, and so her latest year of birth would be 69 BC. See Syme 1980, reprinted in Roman Papers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), vol. 3, p. 1225.
  2. ^ Greek inscription translated into Latin as Cornelia Q. Metelli Pii Scipionis filia. Despite her father's testamentary adoption by Metellus Pius, Cornelia is never called Caecilia Metella in any extant sources. Münzer supposed that she retained the gens Cornelia name because she was born before her father's adoption, which was a legal formality. Linderski 1996, p. 150.