The marriage produced two children, Pompeia (who became Julius Caesar's second or third wife) and Quintus Pompeius Rufus.
She remarried Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus Livianus, who became consul in 77 BC, a year after the death of Sulla.
Violent upheavals soon ensued out of the ongoing rivalry between Sulla and his former mentor the ageing Gaius Marius.
In 86 BC, while Sulla was in Asia Minor pursuing his war against King Mithridates VI of Pontus, he was stripped of his imperium by Marius and his colleagues, and forced into exile.
Cornelia and her new husband took rapid steps to safeguard Sulla's estates from the resulting mock trials and proscriptions during Marius's seventh consulship.