Gaius Sempronius Tuditanus was a politician and historian of the

Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kin ...

. He was

consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states throug ...

in 129 BC.

Biography

Early life

Gaius Sempronius Tuditanus was a member of the

plebeian In ancient Rome, the plebeians (also called plebs) were the general body of free Roman citizens who were not patricians, as determined by the census, or in other words " commoners". Both classes were hereditary. Etymology The precise origins of ...

gens Sempronia. His father had the same name and was

senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

and in 146 BC member of a commission of ten men who had to reorganize the political conditions in

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

. The Roman orator and politician

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the estab ...

confused several times the younger Tuditanus with his father and was informed of his mistake by his friend

Titus Pomponius Atticus Titus Pomponius Atticus (November 110 BC – 31 March 32 BC; later named Quintus Caecilius Pomponianus Atticus) was a Roman editor, banker, and patron of letters, best known for his correspondence and close friendship with prominent Roman s ...

in May 45 BC.

Career

Probably the younger Tuditanus is first attested in 146 BC as officer of

Lucius Mummius Achaicus Lucius Mummius (2nd century BC), was a Roman statesman and general. He was consul in the year 146 BC along with Scipio Aemilianus. Mummius was the first of his family to rise to the rank of consul thereby making him a novus homo. He received the ...

in his war in Greece. In 145 BC Tuditanus was

Quaestor A ( , , ; "investigator") was a public official in Ancient Rome. There were various types of quaestors, with the title used to describe greatly different offices at different times. In the Roman Republic, quaestors were elected officials who ...

. Probably because he was an adherent of the Scipiones he could pass the

curule A curule seat is a design of a (usually) foldable and transportable chair noted for its uses in Ancient Rome and Europe through to the 20th century. Its status in early Rome as a symbol of political or military power carried over to other civiliza ...

offices within the legally allowed periods without any problems. In 132 BC he was

Praetor Praetor ( , ), also pretor, was the title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to a man acting in one of two official capacities: (i) the commander of an army, and (ii) as an elected '' magistratus'' (magistrate), assigned to discharge vario ...

. Tuditanus achieved the peak of his career in 129 BC when he became consul together with Manius Aquillius. He had to govern the province of Italy and was ordered by a resolution of the senate to decide on the legitimacy of the accusations of dispossessed Roman allies whose estates had been annexed by the

Gracchi The Gracchi brothers were two Roman brothers, sons of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus who was consul in 177 BC. Tiberius, the elder brother, was tribune of the plebs in 133 BC and Gaius, the younger brother, was tribune a decade later in ...

an commission for the allocation of fields. However, Tuditanus did not want to fulfill his task. Instead he went to

Illyria In classical antiquity, Illyria (; grc, Ἰλλυρία, ''Illyría'' or , ''Illyrís''; la, Illyria, ''Illyricum'') was a region in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula inhabited by numerous tribes of people collectively known as the Illyr ...

, allegedly because of an imminent war. In this way he also prevented the allocation of additional fields. According to Livy, "Consul Gaius Sempronius at first fought unsuccessfully against the Iapydians but the defeat was compensated by a victory won through the qualities of

Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus (or Gallaecus or Callaecus; c. 180113 BC) was a consul of the Roman Republic for the year 138 BC together with Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio. He was an optimate politician and a military commander in His ...

(the man who had subdued Lusitania)." However, according to Appian, "Sempronius Tuditanus and Tiberius Pandusa waged war with the Iapydes, who live among the Alps, and seem to have subjugated them." Tuditanus was granted a

triumph The Roman triumph (Latin triumphus) was a celebration for a victorious military commander in ancient Rome. For later imitations, in life or in art, see Trionfo. Numerous later uses of the term, up to the present, are derived directly or indirectl ...

. He immortalized his victories over the Iapydes with a dedication to the river god

Timavus The Timavo River, known in Slovene as the ' or ', is a two-kilometre stream in the Province of Trieste. It has four sources near San Giovanni ( sl, Štivan) near Duino ( sl, Devin) and outflows in the Gulf of Panzano (part of the Gulf of Triest ...

Aquileia Aquileia / / / / ;Bilingual name of ''Aquileja – Oglej'' in: vec, Aquiłeja / ; Slovenian: ''Oglej''), group=pron is an ancient Roman city in Italy, at the head of the Adriatic at the edge of the lagoons, about from the sea, on the river N ...

which bore a victory inscription in Saturnian verse and of which were found two fragments in 1906. Probably the Roman poet Hostius celebrated his deeds in the poem ''Bellum Histricum''.

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...

, in his geographical work, quoted an inscription on the statue of Tuditanus (whom he called the conqueror of the Istrians because the Iapydes lived in

Istria Istria ( ; Croatian language, Croatian and Slovene language, Slovene: ; ist, Eîstria; Istro-Romanian language, Istro-Romanian, Italian language, Italian and Venetian language, Venetian: ; formerly in Latin and in Ancient Greek) is the larges ...

) which listed the Roman towns in Istria, gave the river Arsa as the border with Italy and stated that the area was 400 kilometres wide.

Personal life

He may have been the father of Sempronia; she married Decimus Junius Brutus who was the son of

Works

Tuditanus was also an author but only a few fragments of his works have been preserved. Cicero emphasized his elegant style. In the internal Roman power struggles Tuditanus belonged to the

Optimates Optimates (; Latin for "best ones", ) and populares (; Latin for "supporters of the people", ) are labels applied to politicians, political groups, traditions, strategies, or ideologies in the late Roman Republic. There is "heated academic dis ...

and wrote a tendentious treatise on Roman constitutional law (''libri magistratuum'') in at least thirteen books for the political support of his party. On the other side Marcus Junius Congus Gracchanus was the author of a similar work, ''De potestatibus'', at least seven books in length, that served the purposes of the party of the Gracchi. Both works were the earliest of their kind in the Roman literature. The ''libri magistratuum'' dealt with the intercalation, the appointment of the Plebeian Tribunes, the

nundinae The nundinae (), sometimes anglicized to nundines,. were the market days of the ancient Roman calendar, forming a kind of weekend including, for a certain period, rest from work for the ruling class (patricians). The nundinal cycle, market w ...

(market and feast days of the old Roman calendar), etc. Because some quotations (e.g., about the original inhabitants of

Latium Latium ( , ; ) is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire. Definition Latium was originally a small triangle of fertile, volcanic soil (Old Latium) on whi ...

called Aborigines, about the discovery of books, that allegedly belonged to the legendary Roman king

Numa Pompilius Numa Pompilius (; 753–672 BC; reigned 715–672 BC) was the legendary second king of Rome, succeeding Romulus after a one-year interregnum. He was of Sabine origin, and many of Rome's most important religious and political institutions are a ...

, etc.) do not seem to fit into a work about constitutional law, some scholars attribute to Tuditanus another work dealing with the history of Rome from its foundation to the 2nd century BC. It was probably the Roman universal scholar

Marcus Terentius Varro Marcus Terentius Varro (; 116–27 BC) was a Roman polymath and a prolific author. He is regarded as ancient Rome's greatest scholar, and was described by Petrarch as "the third great light of Rome" (after Vergil and Cicero). He is sometimes calle ...

who found out that Tuditanus used the annalists

Cato the Elder Marcus Porcius Cato (; 234–149 BC), also known as Cato the Censor ( la, Censorius), the Elder and the Wise, was a Roman soldier, senator, and historian known for his conservatism and opposition to Hellenization. He was the first to write histo ...

and

Lucius Cassius Hemina Lucius Cassius Hemina (2nd centuryBC) was a Roman historian. Life Little is known of his life. He apparently composed his annals in the period between the death of Terence and the revolution of the Gracchi. Work L. Cassius Hemina is principall ...

as sources for his works, as well as the fact that his account corresponded with that given by his contemporary Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi, but differed (because of the above-mentioned) from that by Junius Gracchanus. And it was again Varro who delivered the most preserved quotations of Tuditanus by later authors (

Dionysius of Halicarnassus Dionysius of Halicarnassus ( grc, Διονύσιος Ἀλεξάνδρου Ἁλικαρνασσεύς, ; – after 7 BC) was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Emperor Augustus. His literary sty ...

, and

Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, usually referred to as Macrobius (fl. AD 400), was a Roman provincial who lived during the early fifth century, during late antiquity, the period of time corresponding to the Later Roman Empire, and when Latin was ...

). But two quotations by

Aulus Gellius Aulus Gellius (c. 125after 180 AD) was a Roman author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome. He is famous for his ''Attic Nights'', a commonplace book, or ...

(''Attic Nights'' 7.4.1 and 13.15.4) go back to the historian Quintus Aelius Tubero (whose son of the same name was consul in 11 BC) and the augur Messalla respectively.Friedrich Münzer, ''Realencyclopädie'', vol. IIA 2, col. 1442-1443

References

Sources

*Friedrich Münzer: "Sempronius (92)". In: '' Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft'', vol. IIA, 2 (1923), col. 1441–1443. * H. Peter, ''Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae'' (HRR) 1, p. 143-147. {{DEFAULTSORT:Sempronius Tuditanus, Gaius 2nd-century BC historians 2nd-century BC Roman consuls Latin historians Tuditanus, Gaius