The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world…
This page deals with the mothers of people who have made a significant contribution to history. In the case of everyone on the list, we have tried to find out what influence their mothers might have had on the course of their lives. Sometimes that influence was positive, sometimes not…


Alexander The Great

Born in 356, Alexander was just 33 years old when he died. In the course of his short life, he had conquered a vast empire, stretching from Macedonia to Pakistan. Through his endeavours, the dominant culture of the Middle East became suffused with Greek thought and culture. He founded the great city of Alexandria, famous, amongst other things, as a centre of Greek learning.
His mother, Olympias, had a decided influence on his life. She was a passionate woman who taught Alexander that he was descended from Achilles. Alexander took Achilles for his role model, he learned about the deeds of Achilles from the Iliad and always kept a copy of it with him.
Despite her husband Philip’s polygamy, Olympias was determined that her son would be the heir to his father’s throne. It is reputed that she may even have been involved in Pausanias’ plot to kill to kill the king. Some writers believe that Olympias had too much influence on Alexander, that the strength of his relationship with her left him unable to relate properly to other women. Whatever the truth of this, Alexander did produce an heir. Unfortunately, the child was born posthumously and the empire fell to various generals and ultimately fell apart. Olympias was murdered shortly after his death.

Famous Roman Mothers

Plutarch tells us of a famous Roman general, Gaius Marius Coriolanus, who lived during the first half of the 5th century. Exiled on a charge of attempting to set himself up as a tyrant, he joined with his former enemies, the Volscians, and led an attack on Rome. It seemed that nothing could stop him, until at the request of the women of Rome, his mother, Veturia, went to the enemy camp to plead with her son to leave the city alone. Reminding him that within the walls of Rome were his home, his gods, his mother, wife and children, she added that had she remained childless, she could at least have ended her days in freedom. Such was the shame that she aroused in her son that he withdrew, leading to his eventual murder by the Volscians. This story was thought to exemplify how a mother’s authority over her son saved the city from capture.

Cornelia Gracchus gave birth to twelve children, three of which survived to adulthood. Widowed at an early age, she refused all offers of marriage and devoted herself to the raising of her children. Most famous of these were Tiberius and Gaius, known as the Gracchi, and legend has it that when a visiting lady made a great display of her jewellery, Cornelia produced her two sons, proudly announcing ‘These are my jewels’.
The Gracchi were remembered in Roman history for their attempts to introduce laws controlling land monopolies, the price of corn and citizenship for Rome’s Italian allies. In both cases, their politics lead to their deaths and Cornelia was praised for the restrained and courageous manner in which she accepted this. A statue was erected in her honour, as she was considered to embody the highest virtues of a Roman woman.

Much in the same model as Cornelia was Aurelia, mother of Julius Caesar. Though patrician, the family was poor and, unusually for a family of their rank, their home was in the Sabura, a poor area renowned for as much for its vice as for the multi-cultural nature of its residents. It is said that Caesar’s facility with languages can be partly attributed to his polyglot upbringing. Aware of Caesar’s great intelligence, Aurelia raised him particularly strictly, but she nevertheless supported him in his endeavours. Most famously, she pleaded with the Dictator, Sulla, for Caesar’s safety and when Caesar became Pontifex Maximus, she assumed many of the responsibilities which would normally be carried out by the High Priest’s wife.
The impact that Caesar had on the world is still felt today. His rearrangement of the calendar formed the basis of the calendar we use today and the month of July is named in his honour.

The title of Augustus was conferred upon Octavian, the first of the Roman Emperors. After his death, his wife, Livia, was granted the title of Augusta, in recognition of her tremendous impact on the empire. She was the power behind the throne, consulted by Augustus in every major decision and if he might have been deemed the ‘Pater Patriae’ or ‘Father of his country’, she deserves the title of its mother. When Augustus was out of Rome, Augusta took all major decisions, supported in this by the fact that he would give her his seal for authority.

Helena was the mother of Constantine the Great, the Roman Emperor who moved the seat of Roman rule to Byzantium which he renamed Constantinople, made Christianity the state religion and presided over the Council of Nicaea. Helena was born in modest circumstances and was possibly the daughter of an innkeeper. When Constantine was made emperor, he sent for his mother and quickly established her as ‘Augusta’ a title which, when given, normally applied to the emperor’s wife. Helena, once converted to Christianity, became one of its greatest proponents. She was responsible for the first church that ultimately became St. Peter’s. At the age of 75, she made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land where she ‘discovered’ the original stable where Jesus was born and the site where His tomb would have been. She commissioned churches in both places which are still revered by people today. She became a Christian saint and is particularly venerated in the Orthodox Tradition.

St Monica had three children, all of whom ultimately joined the religious life. Her husband finally converted before his death and her son, St Augustine, went on to become one of the Fathers of the Church. Augustine famously refused all entreaties by his mother to become a Christian. In fact, his way of life was so wild and so at odds with the Christian faith that it took 17 years of prayer and pleading to get him to change. Monica is remembered for her persistent hope despite his waywardness and intransigence. He converted in the year in which she died.
Augustine has great importance in the Christian Tradition both for helping to develop Christian thought and for his mystical reflections on the Divine.

St. Colmcille founded the Abbey on Iona which became a great centre of Christian thought and learning during the Dark Ages. The Book of Kells is reputed to have been written there. His mother St. Eithne, had a vision before his birth in which an angel spread before her a magnificent cloth covered in flowers. As she reached toward it, the cloth rose away from her, growing ever larger and more distant from her until it settled on a land far away. The vision was explained as meaning that her son would travel far from her and achieve great distinction in a foreign place. Thus, from the moment of his birth, Eithne knew that she would raise her son only to have him leave her.

King Suddhodana Guatama and his wife Queen Maya waited for over twenty years to have their first child. As tradition dictated, Queen Maya travelled to her birth place in order to deliver her child. On the way there, struck by the beauty of the blossoms on an Aoka tree, she stooped beneath the tree and gave birth to her son, Siddhartha, which means ‘every wish fulfilled’.
Some attribute Siddhartha’s spiritual leanings to the fact that his mother died a week after his birth, others to his uncertain future as ruler of a tiny kingdom. Either way, Siddhartha abandoned the palace at twenty years of age, forsaking his comfortable home, his wife and son, to search for enlightenment. On December 8th, in his 29th or 35th year check, under a Bhodi tree, his deep meditation brought him to the true path of Enlightenment. From then on, he was known as the Bhudda and he worked and preached until he died at the age of 80 – also under a tree.
The Buddha has over three hundred million followers today who study his ways to find True Enlightenment.

Empress Marie-Teresien was the only child of Charles VI of the Hapsburg Dynasty. Despite the political manoeuvring required to achieve her succession and her own lack of experience at the start of her reign, Marie-Teresien became known as Landesmutter, meaning Mother of the People. So seriously did she take the title that she was inclined, in intimate gatherings, to refer to her subjects as ‘children’. In one famous incident, she burst into the palace theatre, stopped the play by clapping her hands and announced the birth of her gandson by shouting ‘children, Poldi (Leopold) has just had a boy!’

A year before Napoleon’s birth, Corsica was handed over to France by the Republic of Genoa. Although technically French himself, he viewed them as the oppressors. However, if the French took his homeland, he made them give him the world. At the height of his power, he had over forty million subjects. His mother, Letizia, was a beautiful and forceful woman and towards her he had the greatest reverence. He described her as having a ‘man’s head on a woman’s body’ and gave her the title of Madame Mère – literally meaning Madame Mother. She supported him all through his life, moving to Elba to be with him and petitioning European Heads of State for his release from St. Helena.

Florence Nightengale was born in 1910 and named after the city of her birth. She was the daughter of well-to-do parents and they were unusual in that they believed in the importance of education for women. Fanny Smith encouraged Florence to be a leader, although it is fair to say that she had no idea how much of a leader her daughter would become. Florence felt she had a vocation to the sick and, turning her back on wealth and privilege, she devoted her life to nursing care. Through her persistence in keeping records and her genius at statistics, she was able to demonstrate the link between sanitary conditions and patient recovery. She founded The Nightengale School of Nursing, the first of its kind, to educate nurses in the techniques she had developed.

Marie Curie is best remembered for receiving a Nobel Prize for her outstanding contribution in developing our understanding of radium. Less touted is the contribution she made to the early education of her daughter Irene Joliot-Curie who, with her husband Frederic, also won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935.

Things they said about their mothers… Abraham Lincoln attributed his success to his mother – Everything I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother’. Harry S. Truman’s mother lived to see him become President of the United States. When asked what was the chief influence on his life, Truman replied ‘I am my mother’s son…’. Winston Churchill had great reverence for his mother who had raised a family in adverse circumstances. He called his mother his ‘Evening Star’.