A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

SEMPRONIA, SENECA. 777
as well as many other towns on the Euphrates (Ascon. in Melon. p. 41, ed. Orelli). Orelli supand the Tigris, and she constructed -the hanging poses that she may be the same as the wife of
gardens in Media, of which later writers give us Brutus mentioned above.
such strange accounts. Besides conquering many SEMPRO'N1A GENS, patrician and plebeian.
nations of Asia, she subdued Egypt and a great This gens was of great antiquity, and one of its
part of Ethiopia, but was unsuccessful in an attack members, A. Sempronius Atratinus, obtained the
which she made upon India. After a reign of consulship as early as B. C. 497, twelve years after
forty-two years she resigned the sovereignty to her the foundation of the republic. The Sempronii
son Ninyas, and disappeared from the earth, were divided into many families, of which the
taking her flight to heaven in the form of a dove. ATRATINI were undoubtedly patrician, but all the
Such is a brief abstract of the account in Dio- others appear to have been plebeian: their names
dorus, the fabulous nature of which is still more are ASELLIO, BLAESUS, DENSUS, GR.CCHUS,
apparent in the details of his narrative. We have LONGUS, MUSCA, PITIO, RUFUS, RUTILUS, SOalready pointed out, in the article SARDANAPALUS, PHUS, TUDnTANUS. Of these, Atratinus, Gracclsus,
the mythical character of the whole of the Assyrian and Pitio alone occur on coins. The glory of the
history of Ctesias, and it is therefore unnecessary Semprornia gens is confined to the republican
to dwell further upon the subject in the present period. Very few persons of this name, and none
place. A recent writer has brought forward many of them of any importance, are mentioned under
reasons for believing that Semiramis was originally the empire.
a Syrian goddess, probably the same who was SEMUS (:7iios), a Greek grammarian of unworshipped at Ascalon under the name of Astarte, certain date, wrote, according to Suidas (s. v.), eight
or the Heavenly Aphrodite, to whom the dove was books on Delos, two books of 7repio3ot, one on
sacred (Lucian, de Syria Dea, 14, 33, 39). Hence Paros, one on Pergamus, and a work on Paeans.
the stories of her voluptuousness (Diod. ii. 13), Suidas calls him an Elean, but it appears from
which were current even in the time of Augustus Athenaeus (iii. p. 123, d.) that this is a mistake,
(Ov. Am. i. 5. 11) (Comp. Moveis, Die Plhonizier, and that he was a native of Delos. His work on
p. 631). Delos (AXtnaKcd or AVrAnas) was the most imSEMO SANCUS. [SANCUS.] portant, and is frequently referred to by Athenaeus,
SEMON, an engraver of precious stones, be- and once or twice by other writers (Athen. iii.
longing to an early period, as is clear from the only p. 109, f., iv. p. 173, e., viii. pp. 331, f., 335, a.,
work of his which is extant, namely, a stone in xi. p. 469, c., xiv. pp. 614, a., 637, b., 645, b., xv.
the form of a scarabaeus, engraved with the name p. 676, f.; Steph. Byz. s. v. Tsyvpa; Etym. Magn.,HMONOZ, but in the reverse order, and in archaic s. v. BiCfALos). Athenaeus also quotes (xiv. pp.
characters. It is very rare to find an old Greek 618, d., 622, a-d.) his work on Paeans (7rEpl
gem inscribed- with the name of the engraver, 7raldvcov). We likewise find in Athenaeus (iii. p.
although this was the usual practice in the Roman 123, d.), a reference to a work of Semus on Islands
period. (R. Rochette, Lettre a M. Schorn, p. 153, (Nelaids), but it has been suggested with much
2d ed.) [P. S.] probability that this is a false reading for Ar;mad's.
SEMPRO'NIA. 1. The daughter of Tib. Grac- (Vossius, De Histor. Graecis, p. 497, ed. Westerchus, censor B. C. 169, and the sister of the two mann.)
celebrated tribunes, married Scipio Africanus minor. SE'NECA, M. ANNAEUS, was a native of
WVe know nothing of her private life or character. Corduba (Cordova) in Spain. The time of h}is
On the sudden death of her husband, she and her birth is uncertain; but it may be approximated to.
mother Cornelia were suspected by some persons of He says (Contr. Praef. i. p. 67) thathe considered
having murdered him, since Scipio did not like that he had heard all the great orators, except
her on account of her want of beauty and her Cicero; and that he might have heard Cicero, if
sterility, and she likewise had no affection for him. the Civil Wars, by which he means the wars beBut there is no evidence against her; and if Scipio tween Pompeius and Caesar, had not kept him at
was really murdered, Papirius Carbo was most pro- home (intra coloniam meam). Seneca appears to
bably the guilty party. [ScIPiO, No. 21, p. 750.]1 allude in this passage to some of Cicero's letters (ad
(Appian, B. C. i. 20; Liv. Epit. 59; Schol. Bob. Fam. vii. 33, ix. 16), in which Cicero speaks (of
pro Mil. p. 283.) Hirtius and Dolabella being his " dicendi discipuli "
2. The wife of D. Junius Brutus, consul B. C. (B. C. 46). It is conjectured that as Seneca might
77, was a woman of great personal attractions and be fifteen in B. c. 46, he may have been born on or
literary accomplishments, but of a profligate cha- about B. c. 61 (Clinton, Fasti), the year before C.
racter. She took part in Catiline's conspiracy, Julius Caesar was praetor in Spain. Seneca was
though her husband was not privy to it (Sall. Cat. at Rome in the early period of the power of Au25,40). Asconius speaks of a Sempronia, the daugh- gustus, for he says that he had seen Ovid declaiming
ter of Tuditanus, and the mother of P. Clodius, who before Arellius Fuscus (Contr. x. p. 172). Ovid
gave her testimony at the trial of Milo, in B. c. 52 was bolrn B. c. 43. Seneca was an intimate friend
of the rhetorician M. Porcius Latro, who was one
and dammed up the Euphrates. As Nitocris pro- of Ovid's masters. He also mentions the rhletoribably lived about B. c. 600, it has been maintained cian Marillius, as the master of himself and of
that this Semiramis must be a different person Latro. He afterwards returned to Spain, and
from the Semiramis of Ctesias. But there is no married Helvia, by whom he had three sons, L.
occasion to suppose two different queens of the Annaeus Seneca, L. Annaeus Mela or Mella, the
name; the Semiramis of Herodotus is probably as father of the poet Lucan, and Marcus Novatus.
fabulous as that of Ctesias, and merely arose from Novatus was the eldest son, and took the name of
the practice we have noticed above, of assigning Junius Gallio, upon being adopted by Junius Gallio.
the great works in the East of unknown authorship Seneca was rich, and he belonged to the equestrian
to a queen of this name. class. The time of his death is uncertain; but he