The Private Life of the Romans. Harold Whetstone Johnston

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