Biography
Gaius Sempronius Tuditanus was a member of the plebeian gens Sempronia. His father had the same name and was senator and in 146 BC member of a commission of ten men who had to reorganize the political conditions in Greece. The Roman orator and politician Cicero confused several times the younger Tuditanus with his father and was informed of his mistake by his friend Titus Pomponius Atticus in May 45 BC.
Probably the younger Tuditanus is first attested in 146 BC as officer of Lucius Mummius Achaicus in his war in Greece. In 145 BC Tuditanus was Quaestor. Probably because he was an adherent of the Scipiones he could pass the curule offices within the legally allowed periods without any problems. In 132 BC he was Praetor.
Tuditanus achieved the peak of his career in 129 BC when he became consul together with Manius Aquillius. He had to govern the province 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 Gracchian commission for the allocation of fields. But Tuditanus did not want to fulfill his task. Instead he went to Illyria, allegedly because of an imminent war. In this way he also prevented the allocation of additional fields.
At the beginning Tuditanus’ campaign against the people of the Iapodes was not successful. But with the support of his military experienced tribune Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus he finally could gain a decisive victory. Therefore he obtained a triumph over the beaten tribe. He immortalized his victories over the Iapodes and the Histri by an inscription of a statue – which is partly preserved by Pliny the Elder – and also by a dedication to the river god Timavus in Aquileia (perhaps identical with the statue), which bore a victory inscription in Saturnians and of which were found two fragments in 1906. Probably the Roman poet Hostius celebrated his deeds in the poem Bellum Histricum.
Nothing is known about the further life of Tuditanus.
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