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True. So would Gaius “Caesar” Julius, BTW.
by Koshkin 7y ago
True. So would Gaius “Caesar” Julius, BTW.
- n0rbwah 7y agoSo would most people who wielded a comparable amount of power.
- thaumasiotes 7y agoGaius "Caesar" Julius? Where does that come from? Caesar was his name, Gaius Iulius Caesar.
- Koshkin 7y agoNo, "Caesar" was his cognomen (i.e. a nickname).
- thaumasiotes 7y agoYes, it was his cognomen. The cognomen is what you as a modern Westerner would think of as a name -- it is the only part of a Roman name that identifies the person. The nomen identifies the person's family, and the praenomen identifies nothing at all -- there are so few praenomina that they are conventionally abbreviated by just their first letter. (Or in the case of a couple that begin with the same letter, two letters.) Imagine if "J. K. Rowling" was, by itself, sufficient information for you to know that the first name was Joanne. The cognomen is unlike the concept referred to by the English word "nickname". It is part of the full formal name. It is fixed. It is like a nickname in that it is not assigned at birth and in that you have the option of referring to someone by cognomen or not.