An absence of barbecued haddock

It's the Ides of March today. It was on this day in 44BC that Gaius Julius Caesar was done in by a number of senators who were attempting to save Rome from his (alleged) ambitions to be king. Except that, to Caesar, it wasn't 44BC. I rather think it was 710 AUC (anno urbis conditae - from the founding of the city) as this was one of the methods the Romans used to denote what year it was. Ironically, this method of dating was introduced by Caesar only a couple of years earlier, and it was taken into use only a year before his assassination. They also used consulships as an aide memoire - for example In the year of the Consuls Tiberius Claudius Nero and Publius Quinctilius Varus.

Now, the sharp-eyed amongst you will notice that the Romans I've mentioned above all have three names. This was referred to as the tria nomina (erm...three names!) The first, the praenomen, was a bit like our forename; it was a given name, individual to you. Except that it wasn't that individual. There were only around seventeen of these names in common use, ranging from Caius (the most popular) to Vibius (the least so), with Caia and Vibia as the feminine equivalents. There wasn't any room for innovation, so you couldn't go out on a limb and decide to call your son Brian, or your daughter Doris.

The second name, the nomen, indicated the gens (or clan) you belonged to; in other words, you were loosely associated with every other family with that nomen. Thus, Caius Julius Caesar belonged belonged to the gens of the Julii, and Mr. Varus, the consul I mentioned above, to the Quinctilii. Which sounds like a painful condition. There were a good many families in Rome, so plenty of family names, starting with Acilius and going all the way down to Volumnius. Sadly, there was no Biggus Dickus (as per Life of Brian) but the nomen Fannius might raise a chuckle among the more childish. It made me laugh...

The third name of the trio was the cognomen. This was almost, but not quite, a nickname. It would quite often refer to the physical characteristics, personality, career or place of birth of the first ancestor to bear the cognomen. Thus, the poet Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) must have had an ancestor with a big nose (that's what Naso means!); and Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus is likely to have had a red-bearded forbear. I was initially confused when it came to the orator Marcus Tullius Cicero. 'Cicero' means 'chick pea'. Does this mean that our Marcus had an ancestor who was a chick pea? Or who farmed chick peas? Or who thought he was a chick pea? No. Apparently, said ancestor had a little cleft at the end of his nose that made it look like a chick pea. Just imagine the time he had at school. When Cicero entered politics, he was advised to change his cognomen to something a bit more serious, but he refused, saying at least he wasn't a Scaurus (swollen ankled) or a Catulus (puppy).

I seem to have got rather bogged down in this Roman stuff. I had originally planned to talk to you about drains, barbecued haddock, and an afternoon walk along the beach, but all this can wait. At the risk of ruining your day, I'm going to tell you how to pronounce Roman names properly. In Latin, the letter C at the start of a word is always 'hard'. Thus, Caesar is properly pronounced Kaizar; and Cicero (not surprisingly) Kikkero. Yes, I know they always say Caesar on the History Channel. But what do they know?