Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Translation question

From:Mikael Johansson <mikael.johansson@...>
Date:Thursday, December 7, 2000, 18:22
> Patrick Dunn tleiceiç: > > Being something of a Rome buff, I actually know this. A cognomen was > > essentially a personal nickname used to distinguish a person from the
many
> > other people in his or her gens named the exact same thing (Romans were > > notoriously uncreative at naming, even resorting to numbers quite > > frequently). > > So, could you explain the three names. Which one referred to the gens? > How was the cognomen given?
Praenomen Nomen gentis Cognomen Thus Marcus Tullius Cicero was one of the Tullians, his first name was Marcus (they had some 6-8 names for each gender, and after taht went on numbering them -- thus Quintus Horatius Flaccus...), and his Cognomen was Cicero (possibly his _branch_ of the Tullians). Gaius Iulius Caesar was of the Iulians (who traced back to Aeneas himself, and thus to Venus), of the _branch_ called Caesar due to the voluminous hair. // Mikael Johansson