A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

7. C.SemproniusTuditanus, C. F. C. N., the son of No. 6, was praetor B. C. 132, fourteen years after his father had been sent as one of the ten commissioners into Greece. (Cic. Att. 13.30.3, 13.32.3.) He was consul in B. C. 129, with M'. Aquilius. On the proposition of Scipio Africanus, the decision of the various disputes, which arose respecting the public land in carrying the agrarian law of Gracchus into effect, was transferred from the triumvirs who had been appointed under the law, to the consul Tuditanus; but the latter, perceiving the difficulty of the cases that were brought before him, avoided giving any decision by pleading that the Illyrian war compelled him to leave the city. In Illyricum he carried on war against the Iapydes, and at first unsuccessfully, but he afterwards gained a victory over them chiefly through the military skill of his legate. D. Junius Brutus, who had previously earned great glory by his conquests in Spain. [BRUTUS. No. 15.] On his return to Rome, Tuditanus was allowed to celebrate a triumph over the Iapydes. (Vell. 2.4; Cic. de Nat. Deor. 2.5; Appian. B. C. 1.19, Illyr. 10 ; Liv. Epit. 59 ; Fasti Capit.) Tuditanus was an orator and an historian, and in both obtained considerable distinction. Cicero says of him (Brut. 25) : --"Cum omni vita atque vietu excultus atque expolitus, turn ejus elegans est habitum etiam orationis genus." Dionysius (1.11 ) classes him with Cato the Censor as among λογιωτάτους τῶν Ῥωμαίων συγγραφέων. His historical work is likewise quoted by some of the other ancient writers. (Ascon. in Cornel. p. 76, ed. Orelli ; Gel. 6.4, 13.15; Macrob. 1.16; Krause, Vitae et Frag. Histor. Rom. p. 178, foll.) This Tuditanus was the maternal grandfather of the orator Hortensius, since his daughter Sempronia married L. Hortensius, the father of the orator.