Gaius Julius Caesar (name)

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Gaius Julius Caesar (

Gaius Julius Caesar
.

Julius Caesar's name

The name Caesar probably originated in Italy from a dialect of

inscriptions, where it was used to save space, and is nothing more than the letters "ae".) The leading vowels in each part of the name are long, and in Classical Latin, the whole name was pronounced [ˈɡajjʊs ˈjuːlɪ.ʊs ˈkae̯sar], or, alternatively, with praenomen pronounced trisyllabically as [ˈɡaːɪ.ʊs]
. In Greek, during Caesar's time, his name was written Καῖσαρ, which was pronounced more or less the same.

Gaius Octavius Thurinus, duly took the full name "Gaius Julius Caesar" upon Caesar's posthumous adoption of him in 44 BC (while legally he should have been "Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus", and was/is called as such by contemporaries and historians, he himself never used either of his original surnames again), and the name of Caesar became fused with the imperial dignity after Octavianus became the first Roman Emperor, Augustus; in this sense it is preserved in the German and Bulgarian words Kaiser and Tsar
(sometimes spelled Czar), both of which refer to an emperor. Compare the Hungarian, Slavic and Turkish words for "king", forms of
Charlemagne
.

The name of the dictator Julius Caesar—Latin script: CAIVS IVLIVS CAESAR—was often extended by the official filiation Gai filius ("son of Gaius"), rendered as Gaius Iulius Gai filius Caesar. A longer version can also be found, however rarely: Gaius Iulius Gai(i) filius Gai(i) nepos Caesar ("Gaius Julius Caesar, son of Gaius, grandson of Gaius").

Divus Iulius in 42 BC, the dictator perpetuo bore the posthumous name Imperator Gaius Iulius Caesar Divus (IMP•C•IVLIVS•CAESAR•DIVVS, best translated as "Commander [and] God Gaius Julius Caesar"), which is mostly given as his official historical name.[5] Suetonius also speaks of the additional title Pater Patriae,[6]
which would render Caesar's complete name as Imperator Gaius Iulius Caesar Pater Patriae Divus.

The praenomen Gaius

letter 'G' into the Latin alphabet, i.e. before the censorship of Appius Claudius Caecus in 312 BC,[7]
the name was only written as Caius. The old spelling remained valid in later times and existed alongside Gaius, especially in the form of the abbreviation C.

The only known original Roman etymology of Gaius is expressed as a gaudio parentum,

Gavius, which possibly might have lost the medial v in the course of time.[10]
But no supporting evidence has been found to this day.

The nomen Iulius

Iulius from the family's common ancestor, Aeneas' son Ascanius,[13] who was also known under his cognomen Iulus, which is a derivative of iulus, meaning "wooly worm".[14] Such nicknames were typical for cognomina and were the base of old gentilician names.[15] By tracing their descent from Aeneas, the Iulii belonged to the so-called "Trojan
" families of Rome.

Weinstock (1971) made a case for Iullus being a diminutive, i.e. juvenescent

Julians had established the identification of Iulus as their gentilician god Vediovis (also: Veiovis), who was a "young Iuppiter" himself.[16]
Therefore, Alföldi (1975) is correct in rejecting this proposed etymological origin.

Members of the Julian family later connected the name Iulus with ἰοβόλος ("the good archer") and ἴουλος ("the youth whose first beard is growing").[17] This has however no etymological value and is only a retrofitting interpretation concerned with the earlier institution of the Vediovis-cult in Rome together with a statue of Iulus-Vediovis as a (possibly bearded) archer.[18] Others derived Iulius from King Ilus, who was the founder of Ilion (Troy).[19] Weinstock called these the "usual playful etymologies of no consequence".[20]

The cognomen Caesar

See also: Julii Caesares

In earlier times Caesar could originally have been a praenomen.

Gallia Cisalpina. Apart from using the elephant as a claim for extraordinary political power in Rome,[25] the coin is an unmasked allusion to this etymology of the name and directly identifies Caesar with the elephant, because the animal treads a Gallic serpent-horn, the carnyx, as a symbolic depiction of Caesar's own victory.[26]

Several other interpretations were propagated in antiquity, all of which remain highly doubtful:

  • a caesiis oculis[27] ("because of the blue eyes"): Caesar's eyes were black,[28] but since the despotic dictator Sulla had blue eyes, this interpretation might have been created as part of the anti-Caesarian propaganda in order to present Caesar as a tyrant.[29]
  • a caesaries
    balding
    , this interpretation might have been part of the anti-Caesarian mockery.
  • a caeso matris utero[31] ("born by Caesarean section"): In theory this might go back to an unknown Julian ancestor who was born in this way. On the other hand, it could also have been part of the anti-Caesarian propaganda, because in the eyes of the Republicans Caesar had defiled the Roman "motherland", which was also reported for one of Caesar's dreams, in which he committed incest with his mother, i.e. the earth.[32]

Another interpretation of Caesar deriving from the verb caedere ("to cut") could theoretically have originated in the argument of the Julians for receiving a sodality of the Lupercalia, the luperci Iulii (or Iuliani). The praenomen Kaeso (or Caeso) was best known from the Quinctii and the Fabii, possibly derived from their ritual duty of striking with the goat-skin (februis caedere) at the luperci Quinctiales and the luperci Fabiani respectively, the Julians would then have argued that the name Caesar was identical to the Quinctian and Fabian Kaeso.[33] The identification of the cognomina Kaeso and Caesar was indeed supposed by Pliny, but is—according to Alföldi (1975)—unwarranted.[34]

Notes

  1. romanized
    : Gáios Ioúlios Kaísar

References

This article incorporates material from the

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License but not under the GFDL
.

  1. ^ L.R. Palmer, The Latin language (Bristol 1954), p. 69.
  2. ^ The occurrence of the double i, as e.g. in Iulii or Gaii, was customary for Latin writings after the end of the Republic. The single i (Iuli, Gai etc.) is Republican Latin.
  3. ^ Caius is the old-Latin variant of Gaius (see also below).
  4. Plutarchus, Caesar 46; Suetonius, Divus Iulius 30 Archived 2012-05-30 at archive.today
  5. Divus
    ("god"), which derived from Caesar's god name Divus Iulius (at the latest since early 44 BC), and is therefore (as part of his name) per se untranslatable.
  6. ^ Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, Divus Iulius 76 Archived 2012-05-30 at archive.today; the neuter variant Parens Patriae is also known from a statue of Caesar in Rome.
  7. ^ RE XVI 1661
  8. ^ Auct. de praen. 5: Gai iudicantur dicti a gaudio parentum; quoted in Paulus Diaconus, abridged summary of Sextus Pompeius Festus, De Verborum Significatu
  9. ^ Cp. e.g. RE XVI 1668, pp. 14ff; Frederic D. Allen, "Gajus or Gaius?", Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 2, 1891, pp. 71–87
  10. ^ Proposed e.g. by George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 8, 1897, pp. 103–184
  11. ^ Publius Vergilius Maro, Aeneid 1.272 & 6.756
  12. ^ Maurus Servius Honoratus, Commentary on the Aeneid of Vergil 1.267
  13. ^ Sextus Pompeius Festus, De verborum significatu 340 M. (460 L.); RE 10.106 & 953
  14. ^ Later used by Pliny for the wooly part of a plant; early form: Iullus
  15. ^ E.g. claudus ("lame", "crippled") for Claudius, Petro ("bumpkin", "fool") for Petronius etc.
  16. Capitol). Aeneas had been divinized as Iuppiter indiges, which supported the identification of Aeneas' son Iulus as the "young Iuppiter" Vediovis, especially since Iulus had inaugurated Aeneas' cult and had built him a temple in Alba Longa
    .
  17. ^ Servius, Commentary on the Aeneid 1.267.
  18. ^ Cf. the identification of Vediovis with Iuppiter and Apollo (see above; Rev. Num. 1971; Chiron 2, 1972; Sydenham 76 et al.).
  19. ^ Verg. Aen. 1.267, in: Servius (and Dan.) Commentary on the Aeneid 1.267.
  20. ^ "Divus Julius", Oxford 1971, p. 9.
  21. ^ Auct. de praen. 3. Quoted in Stefan Weinstock: Divus Julius (Oxford 1971/2004).
  22. Servius
    , Commentary on the Aeneid 1.286 i.a.; cp. Pauly-Wissowa RE X 464 sq.
  23. Thames
    .
  24. ^ Suetonius, Divus Iulius 37.2 Archived 2012-05-30 at archive.today. In addition Cassius Dio (43.22.1) mentions elephants as part of Caesar's entourage after a banquet in Rome on the fourth day of the same triumph.
  25. ^ Artemidorus established that the elephant, undoubtedly a symbol of honor (and arrogance), denoted a δεσποτης ("lord"), a βασιλευς ("imperator [of Rome]"; "king [in Greece]) or a και ανηρ μεγιστος ("man in high authority") on the Italian mainland. Therefore the coin would have to be seen as a presage for Caesar's future dominion. (From Stevenson et al.: A Dictionary of Roman Coins: Republican and Imperial. London 1889.)
  26. Pompeius was levying troops, and the Metelli had also tried to stop Caesar from confiscating the state treasury in the Temple of Saturn
    , where Caesar eventually had his coins struck. Therefore Caesar's propaganda communicated not only the taking of the treasure but also the taking of his enemies' symbol and placed his own victory over Gaul above the Metellan victories.
  27. ^ Historia Augusta, Aelius 2.3
  28. ^ Suetonius, Divus Iulius 45 Archived 2012-05-30 at archive.today
  29. ^ Ludwig von Doederlein also proposed an origin from caesius, but rather interpreted it as "grey" and applied it to the color of the skin or perhaps of the eyes (Synon. III 17, mentioned in "Caesar", in Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, 1898).
  30. ^ According to Sextus Pompeius Festus.
  31. ^ Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7.7
  32. ^ Suetonius, Divus Iulius 7 Archived 2012-05-30 at archive.today; Cassius Dio 37.52.2
  33. ^ A later Republican inscription mentions a member of the Julian family named K(AESO) IVLIVS (CIL 12.2806).
  34. ^ Andreas Alföldi: "Review of St. Weinstock, Divus Julius". In: Gnomon 47 (1975). 154–179.
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