Читать книгу The Everyday Life of the Romans - Harold Whetstone Johnston - Страница 8

REFERENCES: Marquardt, 7–27; Voigt, 311, 316 f., 454; Pauly-Wissowa, under cognōmen; Smith, Harper, and Lübker, under nōmen.

See also: Egbert, "Latin Inscriptions," Chapter IV; Cagnat, "Cours d'Epigraphie Latine," Chapter I; Hübner, "Römische Epigraphik," pp. 653–680 of Müller's Handbuch, Vol. I.

38 The Triple Name.—Nothing is more familiar to the student of Latin than the fact that the Romans whose works he reads first have each a threefold name, Caius Julius Caesar, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Publius Vergilius Maro. This was the system that prevailed in the best days of the Republic, but it was itself a development, starting with a more simple form in earlier times and ending in utter confusion under the Empire. The earliest legends of Rome show us single names, Romulus, Remus, Faustulus; but side by side with these we find also double names, Numa Pompilius, Ancus Marcius, Tullus Hostilius. It is possible that single names were the earliest fashion, but when we pass from legends to real history the oldest names that we find are double, the second being always in the genitive case, representing the father or the Head of the House: Marcus Marci, Caecilia Metelli. A little later these genitives were followed by the letter f (for fīlius or fīlia) or uxor, to denote the relationship. Later still, but very anciently nevertheless, we find the freeborn man in possession of the three names with which we are familiar, the nōmen to mark the clan (gēns), the cognōmen to mark the family, and the praenōmen to mark the individual. The regular order of the three names is praenōmen, nōmen, cognōmen, although in poetry the order is often changed to adapt the name to the meter.

FIGURE 5. MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

39 Great formality required even more than the three names. In official documents and in the state records it was usual to insert between a man's nōmen and cognōmen the praenōmina of his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, and sometimes even the name of the tribe to which he belonged. So Cicero might write his name: M. Tullius M. f. M. n. M. pr. Cor. Cicero; that is, Marcus Tullius Cicero, son (fīlius) of Marcus, grandson (nepōs) of Marcus, great-grandson (pronepōs) of Marcus, of the tribe Cornelia. See another example in §427.

40 On the other hand even the triple name was too long for ordinary use. Children, slaves, and intimate friends addressed the citizen, master, and friend by his praenōmen only. Ordinary acquaintances used the cognōmen with the praenōmen prefixed for emphatic address. In earnest appeals we find the nōmen also used, with sometimes the praenōmen or the possessive mī prefixed. When two only of the three names are thus used in familiar intercourse the order varies. If the praenōmen is one of the two, it always stands first, except in the poets for metrical reasons and in a few places in prose where the text is uncertain. If the praenōmen is omitted, the arrangement varies: the older writers and Cicero put the cognōmen first, Ahāla Servilius (Cic. Milo, 3, 8: cf. C. Servilius Ahāla, Cat. I., 1, 3). Caesar puts the nōmen first; Horace, Livy, and Tacitus have both arrangements, while Pliny adheres to Caesar's usage. It will be convenient to consider the three names separately, and to discuss the names of men before considering those of the other members of the familia.

41 The Praenomen.—The number of names used as praenōmina seems to us preposterously small as compared with our Christian names, to which they in some measure correspond. It was never much in excess of thirty, and in Sulla's time had dwindled to eighteen. The full list is given by the authorities named above, but the following are all that are often found in our school and college authors: Aulus (A), Decimus (D), Gāius (C), Gnaeus (CN), Kaesō (K), Lūcius (L), Mānius (M'), Mārcus (M), Pūblius (P), Quīntus (Q), Servius (SER), Sextus (SEX), Spurius (SP), Tiberius (TI), and Titus (T). The forms of these names were not absolutely fixed, and we find for Gnaeus the forms Gnaivos (early), Naevos, Naeus, and Gnēus (rare); so also for Servius we find Sergius, the two forms going back to an ancient Serguius. The abbreviations also vary: for Aulus we find regularly A, but also AV and AVL; for Sextus we find SEXT and S as well as SEX, and similar variations are found in the case of other names.

FIGURE 6. CAESAR

42 But small as this list seems to us the natural conservatism of the Romans found in it a chance to display itself, and the great families repeated the names of their children from generation to generation in such a way as to make the identification of the individual very difficult in modern times. Thus the Aemilii contented themselves with seven of these praenōmina, Gāius, Gnaeus, Lūcius, Mānius, Mārcus, Quīntus, and Tiberius, but used in addition one that is not found in any other gens, Māmercus (MAM). The Claudii used six, Gāius, Decimus, Lūcius, Pūblius, Tiberius, and Quīntus, with the additional name Appius (APP), of Sabine origin, which they brought to Rome. The Cornelii used seven, Aulus, Gnaeus, Lūcius, Mārcus, Pūblius, Servius, and Tiberius. A still smaller number sufficed for the Julian gens, Gāius, Lūcius, and Sextus, with the name Vopiscus, which went out of use in very early times. And even these selections were subject to further limitations. Thus, of the gēns Claudia only one branch (stirps), known as the Claudiī Nerōnēs, used the names Decimus and Tiberius, and out of the seven names used in the gēns Cornēlia the branch of the Scipios (Cornēliī Scīpiōnēs) used only Gnaeus, Lūcius, and Pūblius. Even after a praenōmen had found a place in a given family, it might be deliberately discarded: thus, the Claudii gave up the name Lūcius and the Manlii the name Mārcus on account of the disgrace brought upon their families by men who bore these names; and the Antonii never used the name Mārcus after the downfall of the famous triumvir, Marcus Antonius.

43 From the list of names usual in his family the father gave one to his son on the ninth day after his birth, the diēs lūstricus. It was a custom then, one that seems natural enough in our own times, for the father to give his own praenōmen to his firstborn son; Cicero's name (§39) shows the name Mārcus four times repeated, and it is probable that he came from a long line of eldest sons. When these names were first given they must have been chosen with due regard to their etymological meanings and have had some relation to the circumstances attending the birth of the child: Livy in speaking of the mythical Silvius Aeneas gives us to understand that he received his first name because he was born in a forest (silva).

FIGURE 7. AUGUSTUS

44 So, Lūcius meant originally "born by day," Mānius, "born in the morning"; Quīntus, Sextus, Decimus, Postumus, etc., indicated the succession in the family; Tullus was connected with the verb tollere in the sense of "acknowledge" (§95), Servius with servāre, Gāius with gaudēre. Others are associated with the name of some divinity, as Mārcus and Māmercus with Mars, and Tiberius with the river god Tiberis. But these meanings in the course of time were forgotten as completely as we have forgotten the meanings of our Christian names, and even the numerals were employed with no reference to their proper force: Cicero's only brother was called Quīntus.

45 The abbreviation of the praenōmen was not a matter of mere caprice, as is the writing of initials with us, but was an established custom, indicating perhaps Roman citizenship. The praenōmen was written out in full only when it was used by itself or when it belonged to a person in one of the lower classes of society. When Roman names are carried over into English, they should always be written out in full and pronounced accordingly. In the same way, when we read a Latin author and find a name abbreviated, the full name should always be pronounced if we read aloud or translate.

46 The Nomen.—This, the all-important name, is called for greater precision the nōmen gentīle and the nōmen gentīlicium. The child inherited it, as one inherits his surname now, and there was, therefore, no choice or selection about it. The nōmen ended originally in -ius, and this ending was sacredly preserved by the patrician families: the endings -eius, -aius, -aeus, and -eus are merely variations from it. Other endings point to a non-Latin origin of the gens. Those in -ācus (Avidiācus) are Gallic, those in -na (Caecīna) are Etruscan, those in -ēnus or -iēnus (Salvidiēnus) are Umbrian or Picene. Some others are formed from the name of the town from which the family sprang, either with the regular terminations -ānus and -ēnsis (Albānus, Norbānus, Aquiliēnsis), or with the suffix -ius (Perusius, Parmēnsius) in imitation of the older and more aristocratic use. Standing entirely apart is the nōmen of the notorious Gāius Verrēs, which looks like a cognōmen out of place (§55).

FIGURE 8. NERO

47 The nōmen belonged by custom to all connected with the gens, to the plebeian as well as the patrician branches, to men, women, clients, and freedmen without distinction. It was perhaps the natural desire to separate themselves from the more humble bearers of their nōmen that led patrician families to use a limited number of praenōmina, avoiding those used by their clansmen of inferior social standing. At any rate it is noticeable that the plebeian families, as soon as political nobility and the busts in their halls gave them a standing above their fellows, showed the same exclusiveness in the selection of names for their children that the patricians had displayed before them (§42).

48 The Cognomen.—Besides the individual name and the name that marked his gēns, the Roman had often a third name, called the cognōmen, that served to indicate the family or branch of the gēns to which he belonged. Almost all the great gentēs were thus divided, some of them into numerous branches. The Cornelian gens, for example, included the plebeian Dolabellae, Lentuli, Cethegi, and Cinnae, in addition to the patrician Scipiones, Maluginenses, Rufini, etc. The recognition of a group of clansmen as such a branch, or stirps, and as entitled to transmit a common cognōmen required the formal consent of the whole gēns, and carried with it the loss of certain privileges as gentīlēs to the members of the stirps.

49 From the fact that in the official name (§39) the cognōmen followed the name of the tribe, it is generally believed that the oldest of these cognōmina did not go back beyond the time of the division of the people into tribes. It is also generally believed that the cognōmen was originally a nickname, bestowed on account of some personal peculiarity or characteristic, sometimes as a compliment, sometimes in derision. So, we find many pointing at physical traits, such as Albus, Barbātus, Cincinnātus, Claudus, Longus (all originally adjectives), and the nouns Nāsō and Capitō ("the man with a nose," "with a head"); others refer to the temperament, such as Benignus, Blandus, Catō, Serēnus, Sevērus; others still denote origin, such as Gallus, Ligus, Sabīnus, Siculus, Tuscus. These names, it must be remembered, descended from father to son, and would naturally lose their appropriateness as they passed along, until in the course of time their meanings were entirely lost sight of, as were those of the praenōmina (§44).

50 Under the Republic the patricians had almost without exception this third or family name; we are told of but one man, Caius Marcius, who lacked the distinction. With the plebeians the cognōmen was not so common, perhaps its possession was the exception. The great families of the Marii, Mummii, and Sertorii had none, although the plebeian branches of the Cornelian gens (§48), the Tullian gens, and others, did. The cognōmen came, therefore, to be prized as an indication of ancient lineage, and individuals whose nobility was new were anxious to acquire it to transmit to their children. Hence many assumed cognōmina of their own selection. Some of these were conceded by public opinion as their due, as in the case of Cnaeus Pompeius, who took Magnus as his cognōmen. Others were derided by their contemporaries, as we deride the made-to-order coat of arms of some nineteenth century upstart. It is probable, however, that only nobles ventured to assume cognōmina under the Republic, though under the Empire their possession was hardly more than the badge of freedom.

51 Additional Names.—Besides the three names already described, we find not infrequently, even in Republican times, a fourth or fifth. These were also called cognōmina by a loose extension of the word, until in the fourth century of our era the name agnōmina was given them by the grammarians. They may be conveniently considered under four heads:

In the first place, the process that divided the gens into branches might be continued even further. That is, as the gēns became numerous enough to throw off a stirps, so the stirps in process of time might throw off a branch of itself, for which there is no better name than the vague familia. This actually happened very frequently: the gēns Cornēlia, for example, threw off the stirps of the Scīpiōnēs, and these in turn the family or "house" of the Nāsīcae. So we find the quadruple name Pūblius Cornēlius Scīpiō Nāsīca, in which the last name was probably given very much in the same way as the third had been given before the division took place.

52 In the second place, when a man passed from one family to another by adoption (§30) he regularly took the three names of his adoptive father and added his own nōmen gentīle with the suffix -ānus. Thus, Lucius Aemilius Paulus, the son of Lucius Aemilius Paulus Macedonicus (see §53 for the last name), was adopted by Publius Cornelius Scipio, and took as his new name Pūblius Cornēlius Scīpiō Aemiliānus. In the same way, when Caius Octavius Caepias was adopted by Caius Julius Caesar, he became Gāius Iūlius Caesar Octāviānus, and is hence variously styled Octavius and Octavianus in the histories.

53In the third place, an additional name, sometimes called cognōmen ex virtūte, was often given by acclamation to a great statesman or victorious general, and was put after his cognōmen. A well known example is the name of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, the last name having been given him after his defeat of Hannibal. In the same way, his grandson by adoption, the Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus mentioned above, received the same honorable name after he had destroyed Carthage, and was called Pūblius Cornēlius Scīpiō Africānus Aemiliānus. Such a name is Macedonicus given to Lucius Aemilius Paulus for his defeat of Persens, and the title Augustus given by the senate to Octavianus. It is not certainly known whether or not these names passed by inheritance to the descendants of those who originally earned them, but it is probable that the eldest son only was strictly entitled to take his father's title of honor.

54In the fourth place, the fact that a man had inherited a nickname from his ancestors in the form of a cognōmen (§49) did not prevent his receiving another from some personal characteristic, especially as the inherited name had often no application, as we have seen, to its later possessor. To some ancient Publius Cornelius was given the nickname Scīpiō (§49), and in the course of time this was taken by all his descendants without thought of its appropriateness and became a cognōmen; then to one of these descendants was given another nickname for personal reasons, Nāsīca, and in course of time it lost its individuality and became the name of a whole family (§51); then in precisely the same way a member of this family became prominent enough to need a separate name and was called Corculum, his full name being Pūblius Cornēlius Scīpiō Nāsīca Corculum. It is evident that there is no reason why the expansion should not have continued indefinitely. Such names are Publius Cornelius Lentulus Spinther, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer, and Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio. It is also evident that we can not always distinguish between a mere nickname, one belonging strictly to this paragraph, and the additional cognōmen that marked the family off from the rest of the stirps to which it belonged. It is perfectly possible that the name Spinther mentioned above has as good a right as Nasica to a place in the first division (§51).

55 Confusion of Names.—A system so elaborate as that we have described was almost sure to be misunderstood or misapplied, and in the later days of the Republic and under the Empire we find all law and order disregarded. The giving of the praenōmen to the child seems to have been delayed too long sometimes, and burial inscriptions are numerous which have in place of a first name the word pūpus (PVP) "child," showing that the little one had died unnamed. One such inscription gives the age of the unnamed child as sixteen years. Then confusion was caused by the misuse of the praenōmen. Sometimes two are found in one name, e.g., Pūblius Aelius Aliēnus Archelāus Mārcus. Sometimes words ending like the nōmen in -ius were used as praenōmina: Cicero tells us that one Numerius Quīntius Rūfus owed his escape from death in a riot to his ambiguous first name. The familiar Gāius must have been a nōmen in very ancient times. Like irregularities occur in the use of the nōmen. Two in a name were not uncommon, one being derived from the family of the mother perhaps; occasionally three or four are used, and fourteen are found in the name of one of the consuls of the year 169 A.D. Then by a change, the converse of that mentioned above, a word might go out of use as a praenōmen and become a nōmen: Cicero's enemy Lūcius Sergius Catilīna had for his gentile name Sergius, which had once been a first name (§41). The cognōmen was similarly abused. It ceased to denote the family and came to distinguish members of the same family, as the praenōmina originally had done: thus the three sons of Marcus Annaeus Seneca, for example, were called Mārcus Annaeus Novātus, Lūcius Annaeus Seneca, and Lūcius Annaeus Mela. So, too, a word used as a cognōmen in one name might be used as a fourth element in another: for example in the names Lūcius Cornēlius Sulla and Lūcius Cornēlius Lentulus Sura the third and fourth elements respectively are really the same, being merely shortened forms of Surula. Finally it may be remarked that the same name might be arranged differently at different times: in the consular lists we find the same man called Lūcius Lūcrētius Tricipitīnus Flāvus and Lūcius Lūcrētius Flāvus Tricipitīnus.

56 There is even greater variation in the names of persons who had passed from one family into another by adoption. Some took the additional name (§52) from the stirps instead of from the gēns, that is, from the cognōmen instead of from the nōmen. A son of Marcus Claudius Marcellus was adopted by a certain Publius Cornelius Lentulus and ought to have been called Pūblius Cornēlius Lentulus Claudiānus; he took instead the name Pūblius Cornēlius Lentulus Marcellīnus, and this name descended to his children. The confusion in this direction is well illustrated by the name of the famous Marcus Junius Brutus. A few years before Caesar fell by his hand, Brutus, as we usually call him, was adopted by his mother's brother, Quintus Servilius Caepio, and ought to have been called Quīntus Servīlius Caepiō Iūniānus. For some reason unknown to us he retained his own cognōmen, and even his close friend Cicero seems scarcely to know what to call him. Sometimes he writes of him as Quīntus Caepiō Brūtus, sometimes as Mārcus Brūtus, sometimes simply as Brūtus. The great scholar of the first century, Asconius, calls him Mārcus Caepiō. Finally it may be noticed that late in the Empire we find a man struggling under the load of forty names.

57 Names of Women.—No very satisfactory account of the names of women can be given, because it is impossible to discover any system in the choice and arrangement of those that have come down to us. It may be said in general that the threefold name was unknown in the best days of the Republic, and that praenōmina were rare and when used were not abbreviated. We find such praenōmina as Paulla and Vibia (the masculine forms of which early disappeared), Gāia, Lūcia, and Pūblia, and it is probable that the daughter took these from her father. More common were the adjectives Maxuma and Minor, and the numerals Secunda and Tertia, but these unlike the corresponding names of men seem always to have denoted the place of the bearer among a group of sisters. It was more usual for the unmarried woman to be called by her father's nōmen in its feminine form, Tullia, Cornēlia, with the addition of her father's cognōmen in the genitive case, Caecilia Metellī, followed later by the letter f (=filia) to mark the relationship. Sometimes she used her mother's nōmen after her father's. The married woman, if she passed into her husband's hand (manus, §35) by the ancient patrician ceremony, originally took his nōmen, just as an adopted son took the name of the family into which he passed, but it can not be shown that the rule was universally or even usually observed. Under the later forms of marriage she retained her maiden name. In the time of the Empire we find the threefold name for women in general use, with the same riotous confusion in selection and arrangement as prevailed in the case of the names of men at the same time.

FIGURE 9. TRAJAN

58 Names of Slaves.—Slaves had no more right to names of their own than they had to other property, but took such as their masters were pleased to give them, and even these did not descend to their children. In the simpler life of early times the slave was called puer, just as the word "boy" was once used in this country for slaves of any age. Until late in the Republic the slave was known only by this name corrupted to por and affixed to the genitive of his master's first name: Mārcipor (=Mārcī puer), "Marcus's slave." When slaves became numerous this simple form no longer sufficed to distinguish them, and they received individual names. These were usually foreign names, often denoting the nationality of the slave, sometimes, in mockery perhaps, the high-sounding appellations of eastern potentates, such names as Afer, Eleutheros, Pharnaces. By this time, too, the word servus had supplanted puer. We find, therefore, that toward the end of the Republic the full name of a slave consisted of his individual name followed by the nōmen and praenōmen (the order is important) of his master and the word servus: Pharnacēs Egnātiī Pūbliī servus. When a slave passed from one master to another he took the nōmen of the new master and added to it the cognōmen of the old with the suffix -ānus: when Anna the slave of Maecenas became the property of Livia, she was called Anna Līviae serva Maecēnātiāna.

59 Names of Freedmen.—The freedman regularly kept the individual name which he had had as a slave, and was given the nōmen of his master with any praenōmen the latter assigned him. Thus, Andronicus, the slave of Marcus Livius Salinator, became when freed Lūcius Līvius Andronīcus, the individual name coming last as a sort of cognōmen. It happened naturally that the master's praenōmen was often given, especially to a favorite slave. The freedman of a woman took the name of her father, e.g., Mārcus Līvius Augustae l Ismarus; the letter l stands for lībertus, and was inserted in all formal documents. Of course the master might disregard the regular form and give the freedman any name he pleased. Thus, when Cicero manumitted his slaves Tiro and Dionysius he called the former in strict accord with custom Mārcus Tullius Tīrō, but to the latter he gave his own praenōmen and the nōmen of his friend Titus Pomponius Atticus, the new name being Mārcus Pomponius Dionysius. The individual names (Pharnaces, Dionysius, etc.) were dropped by the descendants of freedmen, who were anxious with good reason to hide all traces of their mean descent.

60 Naturalized Citizens.—When a foreigner was given the right of citizenship, he took a new name, which was arranged on much the same principles as have been explained in the cases of freedmen. His original name was retained as a sort of cognōmen, and before it were written the praenōmen that suited his fancy and the nōmen of the person, always a Roman citizen, to whom he owed his citizenship. The most familiar example is that of the Greek poet Archias, whom Cicero defended under the name of Aulus Licinius Archiās in the well-known oration. He had long been attached to the family of the Luculli and when he was made a citizen took as his nōmen that of his distinguished patron Lucius Licinius Lucullus; we do not know why he selected the first name Aulus. Another example is that of the Gaul mentioned by Caesar (B. G., I, 47), Gāius Valerius Cabūrus. He took his name from Caius Valerius Flaccus, the governor of Gaul at the time that he was given his citizenship. It is to this custom of taking the names of governors and generals that is due the frequent occurrence of the name Julius in Gaul, Pompeius in Spain, and Cornelius in Sicily.