CLASSICAL CORNER
FORTEANA FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD COMPILED BY BARRY BALDWIN
268: HOT TODDY
(You’ll soon get this titular point) From time to time, I write memoirs about my old (Lincoln, 1948-56) School for the Old Boys’ (now girls too) annual Newsletter.
Most recently was a survey of the nicknames bestowed on our masters. Some were, and remain, clear. For easy instance, the chemistry master was dubbed ‘The Baron’ for his imperious manner. The headmaster was the ‘GAFF’ simply via his initials GAF. Others, though, have dimmed with the passage of time. I now have absolutely no idea why two successive history masters were ‘Buster’ and ‘Ganymede’. Not to mention the appellation ‘Tinket Man’ given to the physics beak – makes him sound like a proto-Claudio Ranieri.
One comment I received was from a current master at the school, observing that nowadays the habits of nicknaming their teachers seems to have lapsed – sad comment on contemporary British youth. Surely, they still proscribe each other? For obvious reasons, I was ‘Baldy’, later graduating to ‘Hank’, a dubious compliment for my being associated with that author of once-scandalous novels, Hank Jansen. This might have surprised Fort. According to Jim Steinmeyer’s biography (p16), he was nicknamed ‘Toddy’, not for any exotic reason but simply to distinguish him from father Charles Nelson. Still, we all know that Hot Toddy is a very FORTifying drink.
The ancients might also have been surprised, as the following roll call will show.
Brief interlude. Nicknames in fiction would make a separate essay. Some classically related ones include ‘Old Momus’ given to a classics master in
Tom Brown’s Schooldays, ‘Caligula’ for a demented Latin teacher in the Swedish film Frenzy, and ‘Himmler of the Lower Fifth’ for that paradigm of pedantry Andrew Crocker Harris in Rattigan’s The Browning Version – he was also obviously known as ‘The Crock’.
In the re-make of the superb Michael Redgrave film, Himmler was replaced by ‘Old Hitler’, apparently because the studio moguls feared modern audiences would not know who Himmler was – certainly an insult to us oldsters, but as for the young?
In HF Ellis’s delightful stories about maths teacher AJ Wentworth, his headmaster’s (“a classicist of modest attainments”) sobriquet moved with the times, mutating from ‘The Squid’ to ‘The Atomic Pile’.
Moving bionically back to antiquity, the Greek Olympian gods had their share of descriptive epithets: Zeus ‘The CloudGatherer’, Poseidon ‘The Earth-Shaker’, Athene ‘The Owl-Eyed’ – Homer’s Hera is ‘Cow-Eyed’, and so on. Likewise, Homer’s human heroes: Achilles ‘Fleet-Footed’, Hector both ‘Horse-Tamer’ and ‘Man Killer’, Diomedes ‘Good at the War Cry’ – bit of a let-down, that one…
(El Sid Vicious, anyone?)
Mark 3.17 reports of Christ: “And James, the son of Zebedee, and John, the brother of James, he surnamed ‘Boanerges’, which is ‘The Sons of Thunder’.”
Two footnotes here. Many website articles dispute this translation. And Zebedee has nothing to do with The Magic Roundabout.
For pagan balancing antecedents, Roman poets Lucretius (bk3 v1034) and Virgil ( Æneid, bk6 v842) dub the two Scipios – generals in the Punic Wars – ‘The Two Thunderbolts of War’.
Rather different was their contemporary commander Fabius, nicknamed ‘The Hesitator’ for his policy of conducting guerrilla warfare against Hannibal without engaging in open battle – the origin of modern ‘Fabian Tactics’, and indeed of the Fabian Society (gradualism rather than revolution).
Aristophanes and fellow-comedians are predictably lavish with offensive nicknames, not sparing even supreme democratic leader Pericles, branded as ‘Squillhead’ (details in Plutarch’s biography).
One of the 60 individuals who formed a Comedians’ Club in Athens was a certain Callimedon, nicknamed (Athenæus, ch614d) ‘Lobster’ – tribute to his stinging humour.
Græco-Macedon had Alexander the Great, Rome Pompey the Great, Byzantium Constantine the Great. None need explanation. But, observe the symmetry: one Great per civilisation.
Post-Alexander luminaries bore less illustrious hypocorisms, such as Demetrius ‘The Besieger of Cities’ – Not ‘Taker of Cities’, and Antigonus ‘The One-Eyed’, with Ptolemy ‘Fat Gut’ down at the complimentary bottom.
Interject here a couple of people much lower down the social scale. Scholar Didymus was called ‘Brazen-Gut’, because he had supposedly written 3,500 books – in later years, he would confess to forgetting many of them. And the call-girl known as ‘Water-Clock’ for the precision with which she timed her clients’ efforts – reminds me of Jane Fonda checking her wristwatch while on the job in Klute.
Various Roman cognomina indicate particular physical traits: Balbus (Stammerer), Calvus (Bald), Crispus (Curly), Flaccus (Big Ears – no Noddy, though), Naso (Long Nose), Strabo (SquintEyed). They suggest that a family ancestor bore this characteristic. The Romans loved mocking physical deformities: hard to think they never used these as nicknames.
Julius Cæsar was less the victim of these than of rival politicians’ epigrams. “Every wife’s husband, every husband’s wife,” jeered one, alluding to his bisexuality. “Only sober man to wreck the constitution,” gibed another. The downto-earth songs of his squaddies in their triumphal march through Rome dubbed him ‘The Bald-Whoremonger’.
An anonymous website questioner asks: “I am especially curious to know if Augustus had any nicknames.” Well, that very title is one of sorts, acquired when Octavian adopted ‘Augustus’, i.e. ‘Mr Wholly Holy’.
His tippling ways earned Tiberius Claudius Nero the punning moniker ‘Biberius Caldius Mero’, translatable as ‘Hot Boozer of Neat Wine’. Revenge for this may explain his habit of making men drink a lot, then bind up their genitals to prevent them from urinating, enjoying their consequent agony.
(Analogous story. According to Kepler, astronomer Tycho Brahe badly needed to pee at a dinner party, but for fear of seeming rude did not excuse himself. At
home, he was unable to go, and died (1601) after 11 days of agonising inability to pass water.)
Caligula and Nero head most lists of worst Roman emperors, though don’t forget the lesser-known Commodus and Elagabalus. ‘Caligula’ is a Michael Caine ‘Not Many People Know That’ case. His real name was the common-or-garden Gaius. ‘Caligula’ is Latin for ‘Little Hob-Nailed Boot’, ascribed to him by Roman soldiers who had him dressed up in infant-sized armour when he was living with them in his father’s camp.
‘Little Bootie’, then. Well, after all, Roman soldiers were always after their booty. On his triumphal accessional entry into Rome, the populace greeted him with various appellations, including ‘Star’, ‘Chick’, ‘Babe’, ‘Pet’ (must have been folk from Newcastle there). He was soon to prove how misdirected these compliments were.
Two Caligulan footnotes: contrary to modern belief, he did NOT make his horse Consul – only intended to, prevented by assassination. Still, looking around our present lot of politicos, could have done worse.
Second, the best screen Caligula is NOT Malcolm McDowell (playing him in a manner pitched between IF… and Clockwork Orange) in THAT notorious Bob Guccione abomination (1979), but largely forgotten American Jay Robinson in Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954).
Given his similarities, I ignore chronology to present Caracalla (AD 211217), now remembered – chiefly by operalovers devoted to Aida – for his sumptuous public baths. ‘Caracalla’ denotes a style of heavy winter cloak that he always wore and popularised. So, Rome was ruled by one military boot and one military cloak – historical fashion note. He was also nicknamed ‘Tarautas’, after an especially fierce, bloodthirsty gladiator whom he was thought to resemble. Other attributes recalling Caligula were his sporting a blond wig (in Rome usually worn by prostitutes) and pulling of frightening faces. Otherwise, I telescope his reign between inaugural fratricide and being murdered as he stood pissing by a roadside.
Claudius’s manifold physical and mental disabilities made him a natural target for nicknames. No particular label sticks out in the sources, but obvious clues are provided by an anonymous pamphlet ‘The Apotheosis of Fools’ and his ‘Pumpkinification’ in a satire commonly (but wrongly, I think) ascribed to Seneca. (Pumpkin or Gourd is/was used to mean Idiot in both Albanian and 1980s ‘Valley Girl’ slang).
As for Nero, apart from specific insults (‘Incendiary’, ‘Matricide’, ‘Uxoricide’), he was commonly called ‘Ahenobarbus’ (Bronze or Red Beard – hence Peter Ustinov’s appearance in Quo Vadis?), taken from his father’s cognomen. The wits of
Rome fastened on this when accusing him (still unsolved mystery) of setting fire to the city in AD 64.
Vitellius, last of the ephemeral successors to Nero (AD 68-69, ‘Year of the Four Emperors’) was also called ‘Incendiary’, but (Suetonius, ch17) more fittingly ‘Glutton’, as befitted Rome’s fattest ruler – Mr Creosote in a toga.
“Let me have men around me that are fat” – Shakespeare’s Julius Cæsar.
Hadrian’s love of all things Hellenic earned him the derisive tag Græculus (‘Greekling’), possibly inspired by the satiric poet Juvenal’s rants against that race.
Moving into Byzantine territory, we have Leo I (457-74) ‘The Butcher’ (shades of Mehmet Shehu, ‘The Butcher of Tirana’ until his still-mysterious death (suicide or murder?) in 1981. Then Zeno (474-91) ‘The Coward’, allegedly frightened even by pictures of battles, suitably equipped for running away by his peculiar ‘flapping kneecaps’, which oddity improved his speed, and must surely have inspired some nick-naming.
Last, and most exotic, Constantine V (741-75) Copronymos (‘The Shit-Named’), explained as coming from his infant defecation in the baptismal font, or alternatively – inspired by his secondary sobriquet Kaballinos (‘Groom’) – from his liking for sniffing equine fæces or urine, which must rank high in the register of acquired tastes.
For finale, the unmissoutable ‘John Le Fucker’. mentioned in a 1278 court report, often seen as the first appearance of the F-word, just as often countered by suggestions of a different etymology making the epithet mean ‘John The Fidgeter’. If the sexual sense be correct, might be a fair bet that he was an habitué of the various thoroughfares in mediæval English towns called Gropecuntlane.