EROICHE MADRI ITALICHE E ROMENE
ITALIC AND ROMANIAN HEROIC MOTHERS

Summary/Abstract: Rarely has it been possible to pay a fairly comprehensive homage to the maternal figure, a legendary personality. There are very persuasive examples, in the context of Latinity. Of Roman antiquity, the wife of the talented military and politician Tiberius Sempronio Gracco, the virtuous Cornelia, remains unforgotten. Cornelia has remained, over the centuries, a model of virtuous Roman matron, par excellence, an excellent educator of descendants. After the heroic death of the aforementioned two male heirs, victims of the revenge hatched by the noble landowners opposed to the division of land to the populace, the mother continued to proudly tell of her children, who did not fear death, in order to see deserved justice done to the populace humble. Teresa Garibaldi remains a very special figure. Beloved daughter of Giuseppe and Anita Garibaldi, she married the young Garibaldi general Stefano Canzio. They had 16 children, not all of which reached mature age, but the many survivors had numerous offspring, reaching up to the present. Thinking about the demographic catastrophe we are witnessing in Europe is certainly due. Two strong-tempered mothers from the Romanian Middle Ages deserve to be mentioned: The Aromena noblewoman Margareta, known as Muşata; from the nickname Mușata – which in the Aromeno dialect means Beautiful – derives the name of the Muşatini dynasty, which gave 26 ruling princes in Moldavia. Another relatively recent example concerns the second lieutenant Ecaterina Teodoroiu (Cătălina for the family). She remains the only female officer in the world who, in the Great War, died boldly leading her troop of soldiers to assault. Always, history will give us wings with its bright and also, very often, painful teachings.

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