The medicine and doctors of Horace / by Eugene F. Cordell.

Date:
[1901?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The medicine and doctors of Horace / by Eugene F. Cordell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    16/28 (page 12)
    [237] tor, Spurius Postumius Albinus Magnus and Eegillensis, and many others. Sometimes in the case of very distinguished men there was more than one of these additional cognomina or titles, and it was no unusual thing for names to undergo change in course of time, old titles being dropped and new ones assumed. Among friends, the mode of address was usually by the gens nomen or the cognomen, the pr^nomen being reserved for formal or polite address, something like Mr., Eev., Dr., Sir. In eight of the epistles of Horace, omitting doubtful ones, his correspondents are addressed by their cognomina; in six the gens name is used and in one both; not once is the praenomen used. The same rule pre- vails throughout the entire work, the praenomen never being employed. The poet refers to himself most often as Hora- tius, once only as Flaccus and once as Quintus. Of Latin authors who mention him, according to Horace Delphini, eight speak of him as Horatius and five as Flaccus. From all this, we may conclude that in Celsus Albinovanus the poet has omitted part of the name of his friend, quite cer- tainly the prjenomen and most probably the gens name also, especially as we never find Celsus used in this sense. Celsus, then being the cognomen or third name, what shall we say of Albinovanus. Its position here, as well as in the names Marcus Tullius Albinovanus, Caius Pedo Albino- vanus and Publius Tullius Albinovanus also mentioned in the literature, show that it was a cognomen and not a family or gens name, one therefore least important and most liable to change. It may have been an accidental name, by which he was known to his intimate friends or in early life, but dropped later when he achieved reputation and literary re- nown, the other three containing all that a Eoman patrician required. I have examined a great many editions, lives, transla- tions, etc., of Horace with reference to this theory, and have found it mentioned but once and then with disap- proval. It seems to have been first brought forward and Orelli regards Albinovanus as an agnomen; 3d ed. (Baiterns), 1852. 36 0rellixis, op. cit.