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Question concerning names


Hecto

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Here is my question, why is it that in some writings (IE: Cicero's letter "M. Tullius Cicero, son of Marcus, greets Cn. Pompeius, son of Cneius, Imperator.") a "Cn." appears which, from the way I understand nomenclature, would stand for "Cneius" but in recent writings, it is pictured as "Gnaeus" ?

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According to Plutarch (de quaest. Rom. 54), a freedman named Sp. Carvilius created the distinction between C anf G in the 3rd century BCE.

 

Before that, they were effectively the same letter.

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