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Submitted by Nitpicker : Anonymous
Movie : Gladiator - 2000
Nitpick Category : Historical Fact
Approximate time of Nitpick : Throughout the movie
Summary : Names (Refuted)
Detail : I'm not sure if this would count as a goof, but there seems to be a bit of an inaccuracy in Commodus's and Lucilla's names. If they were Marcus Aurelius' children, Commodus should be (something) Aurelius, (Aurelius would probably be the family name)while Lucilla's name should be just Aurelia, as Roman women simply took a feminized version of their father's surname.\n \n If there was <a href="http://www.howtoearnmoremoneyonline.com" alt="earn more money" target="_blank">more</a> than one daughter, they took a diminutive or a nickname. \n So, had there been two daughters they would have been Aurelia Major and Aurelia Minor, \n for example.

Comment By :

 25584

Summary:

 Adoptive emperor's names

Detail :

In the case of the adoptive emperors dynasty, it's quite confusing to determine the family relation from the names. The emperor known as Marcus Aurelius was born M. Annius Verus on 26/04/121, the son of M. Annius Verus and Domitia Lucilla. When the emperor Hadrian (P. Aelius Hadrianus) had to think about who would succeed him, his first choice was a L. Ceionius Commodus, who died in 132. His second choice was a toss-up between young Annius and the able senator Titus Aurelius Boionius Arrius Antoninus - he adopted the latter and under the condition that he in turn would adopt both Marcus Annius, who thus became known as M. Aelius Aurelius Verus, and L. Ceionius Commodus, the son of his earlier choice, who became known as Lucius Aelius Aurelius Verus. Titus Aurelius himself went down in history as the emperor Antoninus Pius. The 'family' name of all these emperors is Aelius. That means that if M. Aurelius had had a daughter, her given name would have been Aelia. But if he had had more, he would have probably given her an additional name to distinguish her from her sister(s). In classical, i.e. Republican times, her cognomen would have been Minor or Tertia or something like that, but in the days of the Empire, people weren't that strict anymore. As Lucilla was Marcus Aurelius' mother's cognomen, it could easily have been given to (one of) her granddaughter(s). Marcus Aurelius' son Commodus' full name was M. Aurelius Commodus Antoninus, the name Commodus no doubt having derived from and given in memory of his father's co-emperor Lucius Verus, who died in 169.


Other Comments

 

Commodus' name right

Posted At : 01/22/2008

Commodus' full name.

Posted At : 01/22/2008

Lucilla a possible name

Posted At : 01/22/2008

Named after her mother, perhaps?

Posted At : 01/22/2008

Posted At : 01/22/2008