This should be an easy question, but it is one that I don't know the answer
to, and as it has been a quiet summer on the Virgil list, I hope no one
will mind. When, and why, did we stop calling Virgil by his cognomen, Maro?
(Extra points for anyone who can explain why Tully, a gentilicium or
Great question, David, and as an art historian I haven't the least idea of
how to answer it! I do have a second part to it. Who decides or how does
one decide whether to use Virgil or Vergil? Is it an American v English
question? In Italian he is always Virgilio I don't recall ever seeing
This one isn't quite so obscure. I believe that the i spelling came to be in
the 5th century AD (http://www.bartleby.com/65/ve/Vergil.html), when the Aeneid
was used as a sort of magic 8-ball. People would randomly open the Aeneid and
interpret the first line upon which their eyes fell. The
I don't think there is any rhyme or reason why we use the nomen for some
authors and the cognomen for others. We don't, for instance, call Ovid
Naso. We don't call Horace Flaccus. And we could find any number of
other instances in which this use of nomen rather than cognomen is our
preferred
