From Romulus to Romulus... not really

[lulucifer]

So my 45 minute roman culture and society midterm was today. Yes, u heard right, 45 minutes. The test wasn't long, but some of the question were odd... or I'm just over analyzing it. There's 3 questions I wasn't sure about. So the 1st one asked us to list 3 factors that contributes to life expectancy and mortality rate in ancient rome. I had a wth

Comments

[o_glorianna]

LOLOLOL. This is such an amusing post to read, because it was very tempting to write much the same stuff for my Inflammation/Infection test, but it'd be all, "And then --- asked for how fluid pressures in the brain differed from the other tissues and I had no idea what --- meant when he asked about the vascular changes and mediators for acute vs. chronic inflammation." So even if I have no idea what the content of your post was about, I get the overall idea. haha

[atomicduck]

oh man, we didn't spend as much time on naming as you apparently did, but I picked up a lot by doing various roman classes...

how I understand it is the cognomen is not usually hereditary, but the nomen always is. The praenomen can be basically anything.

in the case of freedmen, I think they often take their old master's praenomen/nomen as their own and then add their ex-slave name as a cognomen. e.g. Marcus Tullius Cicero's slave Tiro changed his name to Marcus Tullius Tiro after manumittance.

in the case of adoption, the man takes the new father's gens nomen (cognomen optional), but takes an "-ianus" version of his birth father's name as a cognomen. e.g. Gaius Octavius becomes Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus after adoption by Caesar. But I've totally never heard of a guy's name changing after marriage unless his father-in-law adopts him.

it sounds like you covered all your bases pretty well though.
Roman naming is WHACKED.

[lulucifer]

it IS wacked. the example my prof used in class for the adoption of someone was actually slightly different from the Octavius example, so it confused me even more. man, i hope he bellcurves...

[atomicduck]

aii... what was your prof's example?

[lulucifer]

the adoption of Pliny the Younger by Pliny the Elder. I believe Pliny the younger ends up having 2 cognomen (Caecilius and Secundus, in that order) and i'm not sure if the order of the cognomens is important or not, cause Octavius' cognomens are Caesar Octavianus, which is sort of the flip of Pliny's. Pliny's full name ends up being Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus with the Plinius and Secundus coming from Pliny the Elder. So Pliny the Elder's nomen and cognomen isn't next together in Pliny the Younger's name, unlike Octavius' name which has Julius and Caesar next to each other. Okay... I believe I explain that right... lol.