07-07-2009, 11:43 AM
Hi,
You are right Duncan, he is not a clear example. Younger sons could take their cognomen from the name of their mother. Some famous examples are emperors Vespasianus (from Vespasia) and Domitianus (from Domitia). So, Nonianus could come from Nonia, as supposed by Syme. But first of all, the mother of M. Servilius Nonianus is not known and second of all, in an article in Historia (21, 1972), H. Aigner explores both possibilities (adoption and a Nonia, who would have been the daugther of the senator Nonius, proscribed by M. Antonius) and concludes in favour of an adoption into the gens Servilia of the father of M. Servilius Nonianus, consul of 35 AD. He himself being consul suffectus in 3 AD.
Greets,
Hans
You are right Duncan, he is not a clear example. Younger sons could take their cognomen from the name of their mother. Some famous examples are emperors Vespasianus (from Vespasia) and Domitianus (from Domitia). So, Nonianus could come from Nonia, as supposed by Syme. But first of all, the mother of M. Servilius Nonianus is not known and second of all, in an article in Historia (21, 1972), H. Aigner explores both possibilities (adoption and a Nonia, who would have been the daugther of the senator Nonius, proscribed by M. Antonius) and concludes in favour of an adoption into the gens Servilia of the father of M. Servilius Nonianus, consul of 35 AD. He himself being consul suffectus in 3 AD.
Greets,
Hans
Flandria me genuit, tenet nunc Roma
