Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ancient Romans)

There are about 5,000 citizens of ancient Rome about whom we have some biographical information, and for a variety of reasons, naming each one uniquely for articles is not straightforward. Even the most famous Romans can be problematic: Caesar usually means Julius Caesar, but this cognomen was later used by all Roman emperors. The problem is not unique to Wikipedia: the Oxford Classical Dictionary has an appendix of alternative names by which some Romans are known, while the Prosopographia Imperii Romani and Pauly-Wissowa use a numbering system.

This convention is intended to support the use of the most common name in English, to cover cases of ambiguity, and to provide guidance for obscure personages.

Article titles

See also: Roman naming conventions

Common names as regularly used in English are preferred to the Latin forms or official nomenclature, which should be created as redirects. Examples of article titles:

• Livy, with the redirect Titus Livius
• Pliny the Younger, with the redirects Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus and Plinius Minor
• Germanicus, with the redirect Germanicus Julius Caesar
• Trajan, with the redirect Marcus Ulpius Traianus

For most Roman men, articles should be titled using the tria nomina of praenomen, nomen gentilicium, and cognomen, together with whatever additional surnames are usually included in published sources. WP:CONCISE does not require the shortest possible unique collocation of names. Exceptions should include the most famous Romans, who are frequently known by only part of their names, as above, and the Roman emperors, as below. Romans whose names were changed due to adoption should appear under their most familiar names. Under the Empire, many prominent individuals had long, "polyonymous" nomenclatures, frequently consisting of two or more complete names, arranged in various orders. For these individuals, use the tria nomina or similar form by which the person is most frequently called in reliable sources. Examples:

• Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus, not Fabius Rullianus.
• Publius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus, not Publius Asiaticus.
• Marcus Junius Brutus, not Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus. Hardly ever known by his adoptive name, even though it was technically correct.
• Publius Pomponius Secundus, not Publius Calvisius Sabinus Gaius Pomponius Secundus. A polyonymous person usually known by a shorter version of his name.

Note that this guideline applies only to article titles—within articles or tables individuals may be referred to in various ways.

Do not use abbreviations or filiations in article titles (see below), but users will benefit from having these forms as redirects: Cn. Pompeius Magnus for Pompey. Redirects should also help with orthography found in older literature: Caius Julius Caesar for Julius Caesar.

Honorifics and offices are included in the article title only when necessary for disambiguation; see below.

Emperors

For articles on Roman emperors, use the common name in English sources: Caligula, not Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus or the more generic and ambiguous Gaius.

• Roman emperors are usually treated as the primary topic for commonly used Latin names: Titus, Claudius, Nero.
• Emperors who are clearly not the primary topic of their most common English name are disambiguated by the English title emperor: Julian (emperor).
• Some emperors of late antiquity are most commonly known in English by numerical succession: Theodosius II and Valentinian III.

A few exceptions have been made when a name is far more commonly used in English for another figure.

Abbreviations and filiations

Abbreviations and filiations used in Roman nomenclature by specialist publications unnecessarily confuse the general reader, and are mostly to be avoided. Although abbreviations of praenomina (first names) should not be used in article titles or the bold lead, they may be useful for concision in tables (for example, list of Roman consuls is introduced with a key to abbreviations) or for sidebars and navigational templates.

Abbreviations for common praenomina are standardized (for a list, see praenomen#Masculine names). When expanding abbreviations, be aware that C. stands for Gaius, and Cn. for Gnaeus, though Caius and Cnaeus may be found in older literature; M. for Marcus and M'. for Manius are easily confused.

Filiations are sets of abbreviations that denote ancestry:

Marcus Baebius Q. f. Cn. n. Tamphilus
expanded: Marcus Baebius Quinti filius Gnaei nepos Tamphilus
translation: "Marcus Baebius Tamphilus, son of Quintus, grandson of Gnaeus"
article title: Marcus Baebius Tamphilus

Names incorporating filiation should not appear as article titles or in the bold lead, but can be used for redirects, or for prosopographical lists, where the convention should be explained.

Disambiguation

Article titles for the biographies of ancient Romans often need to be disambiguated. The Romans used a limited number of names, and family names were carried on for generations (see Category:Prosopography of ancient Rome, and prosopographical lists such as Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi for a specific example). Article titles may be disambiguated through an epithet or agnomen commonly used in English or by a parenthetical word or phrase: Antoninus Pius, Constantine the Great (an anomaly among article titles for emperors), Gaius Papirius (Pontifex Maximus). Other forms of disambiguation include:

• Highest office. Men who had a public career should usually be distinguished by the highest office held, as in Lucius Valerius Flaccus (consul 195 BC), Lucius Cornelius Scipio (praetor 174 BC), Quintus Servilius Caepio (quaestor 103 BC) and Marcellinus (magister officiorum).
  • If the term of office is one year, then preferably the year should be included beside the office, even if the individual is the only of his name to have held it, so that readers and editors can easily identify the period in which such person flourished. If a man held the office more than once, use only the year of his first term.
  • If the year of the office is not known, and only the terminus ante quem is known, use phrasing such as Gaius Servilius Geminus (praetor before 218 BC).
• Notability. A Roman who held no office may be distinguished by most notable activity, occupation, or role: Gaius (jurist), Procopius (usurper).
  • This form of disambiguation may be used instead of highest office if the figure achieved greater notability in another area: Marcus Antonius (orator).
  • "General" is usually too vague to disambiguate Roman men, as the English word represents a broad category of military commands and titles among the Romans, and such commands were common among the ruling elite.
• Personal relationship. If a person's primary notability is a familial or other personal relationship to a better-known person, it may be acceptable to disambiguate accordingly: Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (husband of Claudia Antonia).

Gens articles

There are currently over 450 articles on Roman gentes, most of which were originally created with the titling style "Blankia (gens)". Even though the word gens (plural gentes) should not be considered disambiguating, some editors over the years have deleted it as unnecessary disambiguation, and moved some of the articles to the bare nomina, which would normally designate individual women of these gentes. As a result, this style is now deprecated, and new articles in this series are being created without parentheses, i.e. "Blankia gens", a style followed by a number of notable reference sources. All older articles have been moved to this style as well. The Latin word gens is feminine in gender, thus modifying the gender of the gens (e.g., the Julii), as feminine in agreement, regardless of the gender of the individual members; the name of the gens appears as an adjective, not as an element of a compound word. The articles must therefore be titled with the nomen in the feminine form: e.g. the article for persons named "Caecilius" and "Caecilia" will use "Caecilia".