CHAPTER I

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LATIN NOMENCLATURE.

Hitherto we have had to deal with names at once explained by the language of those who originally bore them. With a very few exceptions, chiefly in the case of traditional deities, the word has only to be divided into its component parts, and its meaning is evident, and there was a constant fabrication of fresh appellations in analogy with the elder ones, and suited to the spirit of the times in which they were bestowed.

But on passing the Gulf of Adria we come upon a nation of mingled blood, and even more mingled language, constantly in a condition of change; their elder history disguised by legends, their ancient songs unintelligible to the very persons who sang them, their very deities and rites confused with those of Greece, till they were not fully understood even by their most cultivated men; and their names, which were not individual but hereditary, belonging to forgotten languages, and often conveying no signification to their owner.

The oldest inhabitants of Italy are thought to have been Pelasgi, which is argued, among other causes, from the structure of the language resembling the Greek, and from the simple homely terms common to both; but while the Pelasgi of the Eastern Peninsula became refined and brought to perfection by the Hellenes, the purest tribe of their own race, those of the Western Peninsula were subjected to the influence of various other nations. In the centre of Italy the Pelasgians appear to have been overrun by a race called Oscans, Priscans, or Cascans, who became fused with them, and called themselves Prisci Latini, and their country Latium or Lavinium. Their tongue was the elder Latin, and the Oscan is believed to have supplied the element which is not Greek, but has something in common both with Kelt and Teuton. These Latins were, there can be no doubt, the direct ancestors of the Romans, whose political constitution, manners, and language, were the same, only in an advanced condition.

Roman legend and poetry brought the fugitive Æneas from Troy to conquer Latium, and found Alba Longa; and after the long line of Alban kings, the twins, Romulus and Remus, founded the City of the Seven Hills, and filled it with Latins, _i. e._ the mixed Pelasgic and Oscan race of Latium. The first tribe of pure Oscans who came in contact with the Romans were the Sabines, who, after the war begun by the seizure of the Sabine women, made common cause with Rome, and thus contributed a fresh Oscan element to both blood and language. The Oscan race extended to the South, divided into many tribes, and their language was spoken in a pure state by the southern peasantry far on into Roman history. The numerous Greek colonies which caused the South to be termed Magna Græcia, became in time mingled with the Oscans, and gave the whole of Apulia, Bruttium, and Calabria, a very different character from that of central Italy.

Northward of Latium was the powerful and mysterious race calling themselves the Raseni, and known to the Romans as Tusci. They are usually called Etruscans, and their name still survives in that of Tuscany. They are thought by some to have been Keltic, but their tongue is not sufficiently construed to afford proof, and their whole history is lost. Their religion and habits were unlike those of their Roman neighbours, and they were in a far more advanced state of civilization. In the time of Tarquinius Priscus they obtained considerable influence over Rome, many of whose noblest works were Etruscan; and though this power was lost in the time of Tarquinius Superbus, and long wars were waged between Rome and Etruria, the effects of their intercourse lasted, and many institutions were traceable to the Etruscan element. Of the Roman families, some considered themselves descended from different Latin tribes, others from Sabines, others from Etruscans; and their genealogy was carefully observed, as their political position depended upon it.

Their nomenclature was, in fact, the immediate parent of our own.

Every Roman citizen had necessarily two names. The second of these was the important one which marked his hereditary position in the state, and answered to our surname. It was called the _nomen_, or name, _par excellence_, and was inherited from his father, belonging also to the entire _gens_, or tribe, who considered themselves to have a common ancestor, and who, all alike, whether wealthy or otherwise, took the rank of their gens, whether patrician, equitial, or plebeian. The daughters of the gens were called by the feminine of its name, and sometimes took that of the gens of their husband, but this was not always the custom.

Besides these large tribes, there were lesser ones of families. If an ancestor had acquired an additional appellation, whether honourable or ludicrous, it passed to all his male descendants, thus distinguishing them from the rest of their gens, and was called the cognomen. For instance, after Marcus Manlius had saved the capitol, Capitolinus would be the cognomen not merely of himself but of his posterity.

Clients and freedmen took the gentile name of their patron, and when the freedom of Rome was granted to a stranger, he took the gentile name of him from whom it was received, thus infinitely spreading the more distinguished nomina of the later republic and early empire, and in the Romanized countries gradually becoming the modern hereditary surname, the convenience of the family distinction causing it to be gradually adopted by the rest of the world. When the last of a gens adopted the son of another clan to continue his line, the youth received the nomen and one or more cognomina of his new gens, but brought in that of his old one with the augmentative _anus_. As for instance, Publius Æmilius Paullus being adopted by Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, became Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Æmilianus, and his daughter was simply Cornelia. Again, Caius Octavius, as adopted into the Julian gens, became Caius Julius Cæsar Octavius; and the emperors being all adopted, arrived at such a multitude of names that the accumulation was entirely useless, and they were called by a single one.

Added to all these family names, each man had his own individual name, which was bestowed in later times, or more properly registered when, at the age of fourteen, he laid aside the childish tunic and bulla, or golden ball, which he had worn from infancy, put off the toga prætextala, and assumed the _toga virilis_, or manly gown, white edged with purple, which was the regular official Roman dress. In the latter days, the prænomen was given on the eighth day, with a lustratio or washing of the infant. There was a very small choice of Roman prænomina, not above seventeen; an initial was sufficient to indicate which might be intended, nor did ladies receive their feminines in the earlier times. By which name a man might be called was arbitrary; the gentile name was the distinction of rank, and perhaps the most commonly used by his acquaintance, unless the tribe were very large, when the cognomen would be used; and among brothers the prænomen was brought in first as the Christian name is with us. The great Marcus Tullius Cicero was called Cicero by those who only knew him politically, while to his correspondents he was Tullius; his son, of the same name, was termed Marcus Cicero; his brother, Quintus Cicero; and Caius Julius Cæsar figures in contemporary correspondence as C. Cæsar.

In Christian times, the lustratio at the giving of the prænomen became Holy Baptism, thus making our distinction between baptismal and hereditary names. The strict adherence to the old prænomina had been already broken into, especially in favour of women, who had found the universal gentile name rather confusing, and had added to it feminine prænomina or agnomina, had changed it by diminution or augmentation, or had taken varieties from the other gentes to which they were related. Christianity had given individuality to woman, and she was no longer No. 1, or No. 2, the property of the gens. Significant names, Greek names, or saintly ones were chosen as prænomina, and the true Christian name grew up from the old Roman seventeen. Besides these, the numerous slaves, who formed a large part of the Roman population, had each a single name. Some of these were in their own language, disguised by Latin pronunciation; others were called by Greek or Latin words; others bore their masters' names. Many of these slaves were among the martyrs of the Church, and their names were bestowed on many an infant Christian. Others were afterwards formed from significant Latin words, but far fewer than from Greek words, the rigid hereditary customs of Latin nomencloture long interfering with the vagaries of invention, and most of these later not being far removed from classical Latinity.

It should be observed that the original Latin word, especially if descriptive or adjectival, usually ends in _us_, representing the Greek ος, and in the oblique cases becoming _i_ and _o_—in the vocative _e_. When it was meant to signify one of or belonging to this first, the termination was _ius_—thus from Tullus comes one belonging to Tullus—Tullius, in the vocative _i_; and again, one of the gens adopted into another, would become Tullianus,—Tullus, Tullius, Tullianus. The diminutive would be _illus_, or _iolus_, and in time became a separate name: Marcus, Marcius, Marcianus, Marcellus. In the adoption of Latin by the barbarous nations, the language was spoken without the least attention to declension; the Italians and Spanish used only the dative termination, making all their words end in _o_; but the former preserving the nominative plural _i_, and the latter the accusative plural _os_, while the French stopped short at the simple elementary word, and while finishing it in writing with an _e_, discarded all pronunciation of its termination. The vocative was their favourite case in pronunciation, and has passed to us in our usual terminal _y_. The _a_ of feminine names was retained by Italy and Spain; cut off by France, Germany, and England.[51]

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Footnote 51:

Niebuhr, _Rome_; Arnold, _Rome_; Smith, _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_; Max Müller.

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