A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

patrician and plebeian. This gens was of great antiquity, and one of its members, A. Sempronius Atratinus, obtained the consulship as early as B. C. 497, twelve years after the foundation of the republic. The Sempronii were divided into many families, of which the ATRATINI were undoubtedly patrician, but all the others appear to have been plebeian : their names are ASELLIO, BLAESUS, DENSUS, GRACCHUS, LONGUS, MUSCA, PITIO, RUFUS, RUTILUS, SOPHUS, TUDITANUS. Of these, Atratinus, Gracchus, and Pitio alone occur on coins. The glory of the Sempronia gens is confined to the republican period. Very few persons of this name, and none of them of any importance, are mentioned under the empire.