In the third book of his compendium of historical exempla, Memorable Words and Deeds, the first-century author Valerius Maximus offers the story of Sempronia, sister to the Gracchi and daughter of the famous Cornelia, who appeared before a public meeting in the Forum around 100 BCE. Sempronia was brought forward to identify a certain Lucius Equitius, who, by claiming to be the illegitimate son of the great Roman demagogue Tiberius Gracchus, was seeking to establish himself and his allies as heirs to the Gracchan legacy of political power and popular influence. By refusing to give Equitius the symbolic kiss which would have recognized him as a member of her family, however, Sempronia effectively disabled the faction which was using him as its figurehead and quelled the threat of renewed civil strife. Valerius Maximus adduces the story, along with several others which concern famous men, to illustrate constancy in the face of adversity–a positive, rather than a negative, example, despite Sempronia’s superficially shocking appearance in a place to which she has no legitimate claim. Valerius explains:

What do women have to do with a public meeting? Nothing, if our ancestral customs were preserved: but where domestic quiet is stirred upbythe turbulence of sedition, the authority of old habits is overturned, and what violence compels is stronger than what modesty urges and instructs. I will, therefore, relate this tale, not in order that I should use a malicious story to attack you, Sempronia... by absurdly inserting you into the weighty affairs of men, but as an honorable