Sempronia gens

Although the oldest branch of this gens was patrician, with Aulus Sempronius Atratinus obtaining the consulship in 497 BC, the thirteenth year of the Republic, but from the time of the Samnite Wars onward, most if not all of the Sempronii appearing in history were plebeians.

Of the many branches of the Sempronia gens, the only family which was certainly patrician bore the cognomen Atratinus, a surname originally describing someone clad in black or mourning attire.

Given the fashion for reviving old surnames in the late Republic, it seems improbable that this represented the direct line of the Sempronii Atratini, returning to prominence after more than three centuries in eclipse.

[1] Sophus, referring to someone regarded as "wise", belonged to a small, plebeian family that flourished from the time of the Samnite Wars down to the middle of the third century BC.

Tuditanus, which the philologist Lucius Ateius Praetextatus supposed to have been bestowed upon one of the Sempronii with a head like a tudes, or mallet, belonged to a family that flourished during the latter half of the third century BC.