Etymology of the name of Julius Caesar
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Using the Latin alphabet as it existed in the day of Julius Caesar (100 BC – 44 BC) (i.e., without lower case letters, "J", or "U"), Caesar's name is properly rendered GAIVS IVLIVS CAESAR (the form CAIVS is also attested and is interchangeable with the more common GAIVS). It is often seen abbreviated to C. IVLIVS CAESAR. (The letterform Æ is a ligature, which is often encountered in Latin inscriptions where it was used to save space, and is nothing more than the letters "ae".) In classical Latin, it is pronounced (in IPA) [ˈgaːius ˈjuːlius ˈkaisar]. In Greek, during Caesar's time, his name was written Καίσαρ which is pronounced the same as in Latin. This pronunciation equates with the pronunciation of the great German (Kaiser) monarch. Clearly, these German and Russian names were not derived from the Middle Ages Ecclesiastical Latin, such that the familiar part "Caesar" is [ˈtsjeːsar] from which modern English pronunciation, a much-softened [ˈsiːzə(ɹ)] is derived from.
Roman nomenclature is somewhat different from the modern English form. Gaius, Iulius, and Caesar are Caesar's praenomen, nomen, cognomen, respectively. In modern usage, his full name might be something like "Gaius Iulius-Caesar", where Caesar denoted him as a member of the 'Caesarian' branch of the 'Iulian' family. His grand-nephew, Gaius Octavius duly took the name "Gaius Julius Caesar" upon his posthumous adoption in 44 BC, and the name became fused with the imperial dignity; in this sense it is preserved in the German and Russian words Kaiser and Tsar (sometimes referred to as Czar), both of which refer to an emperor. Compare the Slavic word for "king", kral from the name of Charles the Great.
[edit] Meaning of "Caesar"
- According to Sextus Pompeius Festus, the cognomen "Caesar" derived from caesaries, 'hair', and indicated that the founder of this branch of the family was born with a full head of hair (Julius Caesar himself was, ironically, balding).
- Pliny the Elder (Historia Naturalis vii (in English)), on the other hand, says natus primusque Caesarum a caeso matris utero dictus, that the first Caesar was so called because he was cut from his mother's womb (see Caesarean section). It is not clear exactly which Caesar Pliny intended, but it is not Julius: his mother was still alive when he reached adulthood, and C-section was until modern times only sensible when the mother was dying. Moreover, the family name "Caesar" had already been in the family for generations before Julius Caesar's birth.
- A third etymology, proposed by Ludwig von Doederlein, derives the name from caesius, 'grey'. (See Caesar in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities.)
- For Spartianus (Life of Aelius Verus, chapter 2), it was the "Moorish" (maybe Punic) word for "elephant" and it was assigned to a Julius who had killed such a beast (William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, v. 1, page 536)
- Spartianus also advances that it came from the impressive blue (caesii) color of his eyes. This is disputable since earlier Julii were named Caesar and Suetonius says they were black.
