The newsreader guy of the HBO's show "Rome" was the absolute chad of the series (Julius Caesar and Octavian were absolute b*tches compared to him). Despite constantly changing his loyalty according to the news he was ordered to read, he not only survived all the conflicts until the end of the show, but also became more and more popular with the citizens. In fact, the IMDB page of the show lists him as one of the main characters despite not participating in the plot. With such badassey, it would not have been surprising at all to watch him preach the deposition of Romulus Augustulus by the Goths. What a LEGEND 😎💪
It is pretty curious how the Julio-Claudian dynasty used a very limited number of names for its members (Drusus and Nero were the most used). In fact, Robert Graves had a hard time writing about the family in "I, Claudius" as he tried not to confuse readers with the many characters with the same names.
I recently listened to the Audiobook of I, Claudius. He juggled the similar names quite well, the memorable one for me was Tiberius’ son Drusus, who was called Castor in the novel to not confuse him with his uncle. Really well done on Graves’ part.
Roman history would be easier to learn if we just renamed all of the romans. We basically do that anyway and it's still hard to keep track of who is who sometimes
I suppose what we have to remember is, even though historians conventionally refer to the two closely-interlinked families as the 'Julio-Claudian dynasty', what we are really looking at is two Gentes: the Julii Caesares, and the Claudii Nerones. Because the future Emperor Claudius was never adopted by any member of the Julii Claudii (and indeed, became head of the Claudii Nerones on his brother Germanicus' adoption into the Julii Caesares), we can see that the Emperors Augustus, Tiberius, and Caligula were of the Julii Caesares (because Augustus was adopted by Caesar, Tiberius was adopted by Augustus in turn, and Caligula's father Germanicus was adopted by Tiberius), and Claudius and his adopted son and successor Nero were both of the Claudii Nerones. This is reflected in the names given to junior members of the imperial family: Augustus' grandsons and adopted sons were in full Gaius Julius Caesar, Lucius Julius Caesar, and Agrippa Julius Caesar Postumus respectively, and Tiberius was; before his accession, called Tiberius Julius Caesar. Tiberius' son Drusus was in full Drusus Julius Caesar, and Germanicus was in full Germanicus Julius Caesar. Indeed, this extends even to women: Augustus' daughter was simply Julia, and Caligula's sister and daughter were both Julia Drusilla, not Claudia. By contrast, Claudius continued a lot of the naming conventions of his paternal ancestors, but he also adopted the cognomen Caesar, despite not being a member of the Julii Claudii. His daughters were also all 'Claudia', as was the short-lived daughter of Nero (and not 'Julia'). This is despite, of course, Tiberius and Caligula both being by blood agnatically descended from the Claudii Nerones, and Nero being of the Domitii Ahenobarbi by birth. Though of course, blood meant little in Roman society -the name, and it's continuation, trumped any such considerations by far.
Isn't 'Divi Filius' in respect to Augustus simply his filiation though, rather than a part of his name? Fantastic content as always, been really looking forward to what I've always found a fascinating subject. Also, I had no idea about the practice of adopting the whole of the adoptive father's tria nomina with that of the birth father's amongst the nobility later on... fascinating!
In respect to adoption and the names of the Emperors, it's worth noting that, starting with the adoptive Emperors, the original Roman onomastic practice of retaining the original nomen of the adoptee as an agnomen, but as a diminutive (like with 'Octavius' becoming 'Octavianus') has been completely abandoned: in nearly all cases, they just tack the cognomen of their adoptive father and predecessor in front of their own cognomen. What I mean is, Trajan didn't become 'Marcus Coeccius Nerva Ulpianus', Hadrian isn't 'Aelianus', Antoninus Pius didn't become 'Aurelianus' (although he did somewhat inexplicably have Hadrian's nomen of 'Aelius'), nor Marcus Aurelius 'Annianus'. Indeed, by the time you get to Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, any semblance of a system seem to break down.
Yes, absolutely. For the emperors, the new practice was a bit different, than for the rest of the aristocracy of the period, but the gist was the same. In the academic papers it's called "binary nomenclature", idr if I mention it in the video.
@@RomabooRamblings it sort of makes sense until you get to Antoninus Pius, but then the names all become random and it's almost like they're picking names at random from their ancestry or something. For example, Marcus Aurelius' younger son, Marcus Annius Verus Caesar, who was declared joint heir to his father with Commodus before his untimely death, has no reference to his Antonine forebears in his name whatsoever, he's literally just got Marcus Aurelius' original birth tria nomina as his name.
@@RomabooRamblings another thing I meant to mention is that Antoninus Pius' original name-his father died when he was 3, and he was raised by his maternal grandfather, suggests that he was formally adopted by his grandfather: his father was Titus Aurelius Fulvus, but his grandfather was Gnaeus Arrius Antoninus, which is where the 'Arrius' and 'Antoninus' come from in his original name, Titus Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus. The 'Boionius' appears to be a reference to his maternal grandmother, Boionia Procilla. As far as I know, this is something that is not mentioned by scholars.
All I can come up with is "All Hail her most Imperial Majesty, Mother of the Fatherland, Overlord of Vulcan, Dominus of Kronos, Regina Andor, All Hail Philippa Georgiou Augustus Iaponius Centarius." from Star Trek Discovery regarding Roman Empire names with tittles for achievements.
Another weird thing you get with the Emperors, especially with the Adoptive Emperors and going into the Severan dynasty, is that there are several examples of somewhat dodgy adoption or filiation. So, Hadrian's adoption by Trajan was somewhat questionable, and was only confirmed after Trajan's death by his widow. Septimus Severus also got the Senate to declare him posthumously adopted by Marcus Aurelius, and erected numerous inscriptions describing himself as brother to Commodus, and son of Marcus Aurelius, then detailing his lineage by adoption all the way back to Nerva. This is also of course why Caracalla became styled officially 'Marcus Aurelius Antoninus'. Continuing on with the dodgy filiations, we have Elagabalus' mother claiming he was in fact the illegitimate son of Caracalla, something that the Senate was able to officially declare true, and is why Elagabalus also had the exact same names as Marcus Aurelius and Caracalla. And of course, Elagabalus himself adopted his cousin Severus Alexander. So, we have a partly legitimate, partly questionable official lineage that we can trace from the Emperor Nerva all the way to Severus Alexander.
The Severans weren't too delicate in following the old customs. Hadrian was, at the very least, considered by Trajan as the heir and was close to him. Btw, I was wrong to translate "nepos" as nephew in the inscription. At that time it used to mean "grandson".
@@RomabooRamblings which means that technically, all the Emperors from Nerva to Severus Alexander (Macrinus and Diadumenian excepted) were notionally of the Cocceii Nervae. Despite their being literally no reference whatsoever to either the Cocceii Nervae or the Ulpii Traianii in any of the later Emperors: it's just a weird mish-mash of Aelii and Aurelii from Antoninus Pius onwards for some reason.
Even Augustus’s adoption by Caesar was not fully above board. Caesar did name Octavian his heir in the will. However at this point posthumous adoption wasn’t legal. Being named the heir did not give you the loyalty of the clients (which was extremely important in the Roman patron system) nor did it make you exactly the same as naturally born son like Roman adoption did (which we often struggle when thinking of Roman adult adoption, to them it did supplant even natural children if you are older like with Nero and Britanicus). Octavian had to use an army to pressure the Senate to make him fully legally adopted by Caesar.
Also, interestingly, the very first recorded instance in Roman history of the practice of putting two entire tria nomina together-the birth, and the adopted one- on adoption instead of by using the adjectival form of the original birth nomen and using it as a cognomen, is with the Emperor Galba. He was born Servius Sulpicius Galba, but he was later adopted by his stepmother, Livia Ocella after his mother died when he was an infant. As a result he became, in full, Lucius Livius Ocella Servius Sulpicius Galba. It's been theorised by some historians that he did this because the Livii Ocellae were a more prominent, distinguished and famous family than the Sulpicii Galbae, and he wanted to emphasise this connection. Oddly though, he didn't use any of the names adopted from his stepmother as part of his imperial name when he became Emperor; I guess there was no need once he had reached those lofty heights in Roman society.
When my grandfather was small in Colombia, people had to learn all their last names by memory, which meant the last names of both her grandfathers and grandmothers and combined it to his name. So he had about 16 last names after his personal name. And it could be more if one new their heritable. Of courses in public documents, one used and still uses both mother and father's last names.
Indeed the office of Consul wasn't officially abolished until the 800s, when Leo VI finally got rid of it as part of his reform of Roman Law (the Basilika). However since 541AD, it had been used only by the Emperors, and only in the year they became Emperor.
Roman aristocratic name schemes and traditions were essentially a contractual blockchain that proved to others who they were, who they were part of, where they were from. who's estate they have received etc. See it as a social contract rather than a simple interpersonal identifier, or to put it another way, it's Roman bureaucracy in a personal tagline.
Interestingly enough, the Popes of Rome even to today continued to use some of the imperial titles after the collapse of the empire, as if taking up the mantle of Rome. These include Pontifus Maximus (supreme pontiff) and the PP.
There is also a singular example of Emperor Tiberius using the name 'Claudianus', which would have been the cognomen he used as an adoptee were the naming customs under the republic adhered to: it's on an inscription on the Temple of Castor and Pollux in Rome; which he restored at the request of his deceased brother Drusus the Elder; where he is described as "Tiberius Julius Augusti filius Caesar Claudianus".
I have a question. Is the person in the inscription at 15:15 Antoninus Pius? it would make sense but google gives me conflicting answers of his full name, although it may be that he changed his name at some point (most likely)
I honestly didn’t realize it before you said so. I thought it meant it was a name too eroded or something so black was a placeholder. Pretty silly (and funnily enough Silius was one of the names).
The practice of using established cognomina as praenomina is evident in the naming practices of the Julio-Claudians: Germanicus, on being adopted by Tiberius, becomes 'Germanicus Julius Caesar', even though 'Germanicus' was previously a Cognomen ex virtute posthumously to his biological father Drusus the elder. The names of the son of Tiberius, Drusus the younger, also shows this practice: he was named at birth as Nero Claudius Drusus, but when his father was adopted by Augustus, he became 'Drusus Julius Caesar', moving the name 'Drusus' from cognomen to praenomen. Likewise, Nero on his adoption by Claudius becomes 'Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus', using the Cognomen 'Nero' (common amongst the Claudii Nerones) as instead a praenomen.
Also: Agrippa Postumus, who was originally "Marcus (Vipsanius) Agrippa Postumus", on his adoption by his grandfather Augustus becomes instead "Agrippa Julius Caesar". Again, moving his original Cognomen to first place to become a praenomen.
Hi Danielle,I think when you look at modern Italo-Americans (like Sylvester Stallone,Robert De Niro or Al Pacino)you can clearly see the northern-italian look,the nose,the skin ...-do you guys agree...?!🙄
I think it is a little ridicules that the Roman word for black is censored in the the names of Mr. 48 names. There is a country that bears the same name - is that one censored out on youtube as well, just because it sounds like a slur used against p.o.c. by racists?
My speculation is that Saul of Tarsus, as his was previously known, became "Paul" when he was granted Roman citizenship by Lucius Sergius Paulus, the proconsul of Cyprus. This may have become his "full citizen" name. It doesn't follow the convention that I've laid out in the video, but I think it would be in line with St. Paul's views to abandon his Jewish name in that context.
I don’t think Paul would have completely abandoned his Jewish name when he was made a citizen, since that happened prior his conversion to Christianity. And he was very devout and learned jew originally. Still an interesting response and great video!
I got to admit, I may be going into the details a bit too deep, but every time I myself think of a question on the topic, I feel the need to answer it in the video.
@@Insectoid_ yeah, but it's a valid note. I may have to ease people into these longer form heavier videos more gradually if I want the channel to grow.
Hello there friend. I was looking for information on the history of surnames and their legal and/or lawful precedence and use through history. Currently on my birth certificate, I have a first name and a Christian name which is boxed in as my full name. My surname appears to be an assumption based on my fathers inherited family name. On looking up latin translations for "surname" I keep getting cognomen as a result. I am wondering now about Praenomen, I assume something similar to a first name. I'm looking forward to hearing more as the Christian part of this story begins. My intention is to get to the bottom of this birth certificate issue, and discover the foundations that created the name that enslaves us, ie what we call a surname today, when it is incorporated into a ...praenomen? Or an individuals Christian name. Example. John Paul Smith A Christian birth certificate has only "John Paul" as name. Said Christian then goes to the bank or a legal state and asks for a social security(a financial security right?) number, or goes to a bank to open an account. In order for a Christian to be re-presented in what I have heard called the underworld, or "babylon", ie the legal system, they must incorporate a surname name with their Christian name to create a legal person, which would hold the surname, or cognomen as an identifier and marker to show they are either a fictional fraud, or there is a second birth certificate that someone else is holding for all these people with surnames. As for me, I only have one birth cert I know of and there is no surname. I don't expect an answer, most often I encounter confusion or apathy, but I thought to mention this here as you appear to have really gone into this topic at the foundational level. I'm looking for the moment in history when the Christian name began to inherit a surname as well. And I'm very much looking forward to just getting a foundational look at the birth of the Christian name! Thanks for posting your work and I hope to watch many more episodes. Well done! Ps. to save people time or confusion, just youtube search "The Justinian Deception" to get an idea of the kind of stuff i'm talking about. Maybe you have encountered this theory already and have some thoughts on it that you might share.
It varied across Europe; but roughly circa 1200-1400. There were some Eastern Roman families in Constantinople that had surnames from much earlier though; from the late 800s onwards, for example the Lecapeni.
Ahaha, what, you can't even use a COUNTRY NAME, I repeat A UNITED NATIONS MEMBER STATE'S name in a video? Are you kidding me, YouCrap? We all live in Amerikkka, apparently.
It's sad...people in general slaughter Latin in the way it should spoken. The same is done to the German Language by English Speakers trying to formulate German into English syntaxes. I cringe every time I hear Latin and German names spoken into English! Errrgghh!
![Names in the Early Roman Empire - [Evolution of Roman Names, part 2]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
