On the Names of Aelivs Caesar, Adopted Son Of Hadrian.1

A. S. L. Farquharson

doi:10.1017/S0009838800025209

On the Names of Aelivs Caesar, Adopted Son Of Hadrian.1

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009

A. S. L. Farquharson

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Historians of the Roman Empire have been nearly unanimous in giving the ill-fated Caesar whom Hadrian designated as his successor the cognomen Verus ascribed to him by Spartianus.2 Following the same biographer Annalists have given the names Aurelius and Annius to his father and grandfather. Noris in his Epistola Consularis3 maintained against Pagi that the original names of this prince were Lucius Ceionius Commodus, that neither he nor any of his family bore the names Aurelius, Annius, or Verus ascribed to them in the Historia Augusta, but that the name Verus has been mistakenly reflected upon him from his more famous son L. Verus Augustus the colleague of M. Aurelius Antoninus. De Tillemont4 rejected Noris’ opinion on purely literary grounds, saying, ‘il est bien difficile de croire qu'un auteur ait esté assez ignorant et assez malheureux pour nommer toujours un prince, mesme en faisant exprès son histoire, d'un nom qu'il n'a jamais eu.’ By consequence the mistake, if mistake it be, is become inveterate and is repeated5 down to our own day. Klebs6 alone rejects the jiame, and the error is not corrected in Dr. Bury's edition of Gibbon.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Classical Quarterly , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , January 1908 , pp. 1 - 8

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009838800025209 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Classical Association 1908

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² Hist. Aug. i. 23. 10, ii. 2.

³ Graevius, Thesaurus Ant. Rom. Tom. xi. p. 424 c et seq.

⁴ Hist, des Empereurs (1691), Tom. ii. p. 592; cf. p. 273.

⁵ E.g. by Gibbon, Merivale, Duruy, Gregorovius, Schiller.

⁶ Prosopographialmp. Rom. i. p. 327 ‘Reiiciendum est testimonium biographorum, qui nomina priuati et Caesaris, patris et filii, Veri et Marci foede conflarunt.’ Also Dr. Routh tacitly: Introduction, Golden Book, p. x.

^{page 2 note 1} E.g. the mistakes in Dr. Bigg's introduction to the Clarendon Press translation (1907) of M. Aurelius’ Meditations, pp. 5, 6.

^{page 2 note 2} Xiph. Epit. Dion. (Dindorf 1864) lxix. 17; cf. lxx. 1. 1.

^{page 2 note 3} l.c. 20.

^{page 2 note 4} l.c. 21. Zonaras, (ed. Par.) i. 591.

^{page 2 note 5} Xiph. lxx. 2 § 2.

^{page 2 note 6} Xiph. lxxi. 1 § 1. Zonaras, i. 594.

^{page 2 note 7} Hist. Aug. iii. 1. 7; cf. Orelli et Henzen, Insc. Lat. Sel. Collectio, 852, 853; Cohen, M. sous l'Empire Rom. ii. p. 443.

^{page 3 note 1} Hist. Aug. i. 23. 10.

^{page 3 note 2} Hist. Aug. ii. 2.

^{page 3 note 3} l.c. § 6.

^{page 3 note 4} Hist. Aug. v. 1 § 6.

^{page 3 note 5} E.g. Hist. Aug. i. 1. 2.

^{page 3 note 6} Orelli, 6086; cf. 1681, 4354 and C.I.L. i. 581 = C.I.L. iii. 720.

^{page 3 note 7} Orelli, 826, 827, 828, 829, 830, 5461. Cohen, ii. pp. 257 et seq.

^{page 3 note 8} Hist. Aug. ii. 6. 6.

^{page 3 note 9} Hist. Aug. v. 1. 3.

^{page 4 note 1} Hist. Aug. v. I. 3: n.b. the omission of Aurelius.

^{page 4 note 2} l.c. v. 2. 9.

^{page 4 note 3} l.c. v. 3. 5.

^{page 4 note 4} E.g. Orelli etc Henzen, 5482, 5200, but especially C.I.L. ii. 47. 1643.

^{page 4 note 5} E.g. Orelli etc Henzen, 857, 5468, 7277. Cohen, iii. p. 134 (this also gives his mother's name Lucilla; cf. O. et H. 5467. 856).

^{page 4 note 6} Eckhel Doctr. Numm. Vet. vii. 69, Hist. Aug. iv. I. 10, xvi. 6. S; Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iv. 12 (Leipzig 1903), p. 326.

^{page 4 note 7} E.g. O. et H. 6315. 3422. Cohen, iii. Coins of Marcus, 235, 237, 386, 394, 450, 580, 1043, etc.

^{page 4 note 8} E.g. Epistulae Frontonis (ed. Naber) ii. 5.

^{page 4 note 9} Gruter, p. 1021; cf. Noris, Graevius Tom. xi. p. 451, I.G.I. 1052, C.I.L. v. 8110¹⁷².

^{page 4 note 10} Hist. Aug. iv. 7. 5.

^{page 4 note 11} Hist. Aug. iv. 7, 6 and 7.

^{page 4 note 12} Hist. Aug. v. 4. 1.

^{page 4 note 13} Euseb. v. I. refers to Lucius, vide v. 5.

^{page 5 note 1} Epist. Frontonis pp. 94 et seq.

^{page 5 note 2} Naber, p. 130.

^{page 5 note 3} Galen, πρὸς τδὺς περὶ τύπoυ (Kühn) vii. 478.

^{page 5 note 4} For Severus instead of Verus cf. Hist. Aug. vii. I. 10.

^{page 5 note 5} περὶ τ***ν ἰδίων βιβλίων xix. 18.

^{page 5 note 6} Gruter, p. 300.C.I.L. vi. 1984.

^{page 5 note 7} Orelli, 5472, 5483

^{page 5 note 8} Orelli, 848.

^{page 5 note 9} Cohen, iii. M.A. pp. 12–26; cf. Cohen, iii. M.A. p. I (cf. 778 with 30). L.V. I. 8 (pp. 130, 171, 173).

^{page 5 note 10} Given on Cohen's authority, iii. p. 170. I can find no other epigraphic evidence. The same question arises as to Geta.

^{page 6 note 1} Literary evidence only.

^{page 6 note 2} C.I.L. xv. 732 (vide Mommsen's note) shows that Hist. Aug. ii. 7. 2 is incorrect.

^{page 6 note 3} Coins. C.I.L. vi. 998.

^{page 6 note 4} Many variants: coins and inscriptions.

^{page 6 note 5} Inscriptions only.

^{page 6 note 6} Once only with Aelivs, C.I.L. vi. 1021, 1012.

^{page 6 note 7} Hist. Aug. ii. 2. 6.

^{page 6 note 8} The mistake would be easier since the two biographies were together in the old order.

^{page 6 note 9} E.g. Aurelius Victor actually calls M. Aurelius, M. Boionius, giving him for nomen one of his adoptive father's cognomina.

^{page 6 note 10} Clinton Fasti Romani i. 92 commits the blunder ascribed to Spartianus. As consul for A.D. 106 he gives L. C. C. Verus, citing as his authority Noris, the very author who had cleared up the confusion.

^{page 6 note 11} Prosper Commodo et Rufo. Noris (Graevius xi. p. 287) Commodo et Prisco.

^{page 6 note 12} C.I.L. vi. 1348, 1349, 2056 (A. A. p. 504). O. et H. 2260.

^{page 7 note 1} Hist. Aug. i. 24. 1.

^{page 7 note 2} Bernhardy emends to Ceionium Verum; if it is to be emended, a simpler reading is Aurelium or Aelium— This would agree with the other confusions.

^{page 7 note 3} Hist. Aug. ii. 5. 12.

^{page 7 note 4} The error (possibly a clue to its origin) is well illustrated by Rufinus. Eusebius (iv. 14) says: ‘Mάρκος Aὐρή3BB;ιος Oὐ***ρος, Ἀντων***νος, υἱὸς αὐτο*** (i.e. Eὐσεβο***ς), σὺν καὶ Λουκίῳ ἀδελφ*** διαδέχεται.’ Rufinus: ‘M. Aurelius Verus et Antoninus filius eius cum Lucio fratre succedunt;’ cf. pp. 382, 383 (iv. 26).

^{page 7 note 5} We have the form Annianus of Marcus.

^{page 7 note 6} Eutropius, viii. 10. 1, viii. 9. 1.

^{page 7 note 7} Hist. Aug. xxix. 8 ‘in filium meum Verum multa dixerunt, et de Antonino (so the best MSS.) quae dixerint, comperisse te credo.’

^{page 7 note 8} Hist. Aug. ii. 7. 2.

^{page 7 note 9} Orelli, 904; cf. 917.

^{page 7 note 10} Histoire des Empereurs, l. c.

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