Tiberius Gracchus Major, or Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus,…
179 BCE
Tiberius Gracchus Major, or Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, after serving in the Roman army, had been elected tribune of the plebs circa 187 BCE, in which capacity he is recorded as having saved Scipio Africanus Major from prosecution by interposing his veto.
Tiberius had been no friend nor political ally to Scipio, but felt that the general's services to Rome merited his release from the threat of trial like any common criminal.
Supposedly, in gratitude for this action, either Scipio or his son Publius Cornelius Scipio had betrothed Scipio's youngest daughter to him.
However, accounts of this are mixed with similar accounts about the betrothal of the younger Tiberius Gracchus to his wife Claudia, so the actual facts are not certain.
In both versions, the father hastens to make a betrothal to a Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, without consulting the mother (his wife), to which the wife protests until she is informed that the bridegroom is Gracchus.
Since Scipio had died in 184 BCE or 183 BCE and retired into the country well before then, and his youngest daughter Cornelia Africana was only 6 or 7 at his death, it is more likely that the betrothal took place after Scipio's death, or that Tiberius had been betrothed circa 186 BCE to an older daughter who died before the marriage could take place.
Plutarch's Life of Scipio has been lost, along with Scipio's own memoirs, and no contemporary histories or biographies of Scipio or Tiberius exist.
Tiberius is elected praetor for 179 BCE, in which year he would have been about 38 if born in 217 BCE.
During his praetorship, he successfully puts down uprisings in Spain (the Roman Hispania) and conciliates various tribes.
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