Aemilia Paulla

Aemilia Tertia, also known as Aemilia Paulla (c. 230–163 or 162 BC), was the wife of the Roman consul and censor Scipio Africanus. She was the daughter, possibly the third surviving daughter, of the consul Lucius Aemilius Paullus and the sister of the consul Lucius Aemilius Paulus Macedonicus.

The name Aemilia derives from her family name (nomen), the gens Aemilia being one of the five most important patrician families. Roman women of the Middle Republic customarily bore their father's family name, and were sometimes distinguished by their birth order. As with men named Quintus ("the Fifth") or Sextus ("the Sixth"), a name such as Tertia may not always mean a woman had two older sisters. Valerius Maximus gives her name as Tertia Aemilia, "the wife of Scipio Africanus and the mother of Cornelia." Aemilia is not known to have had sisters, but younger sisters are sometimes more notable for the historical record than elder. Aemilia's daughters were Cornelia Africana Major and Cornelia Africana Minor, the younger being far more famous than her mother or elder sister.

Aemilia Tertia's marriage to Scipio Africanus took place no later than 215 BC. They were very happily married, according to Livy, Polybius, and other classical historians. They had two sons and two daughters, the younger being the famous Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi.

Aemilia Tertia was allegedly of a very mild disposition, but was fiercely loyal to her husband who upset many Senators by challenging the older leaders in their military strategy, and conservative Romans by his adoption of some parts of Greek lifestyle. The Greek historian Polybius who was living in the household of her brother Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus for some time, and who almost certainly was an eye-witness, wrote of Aemilia Tertia:

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