Book 4
20
Now Statius was a slave-name. In old times there were many slaves of that name. Caecilius too, the famous comic poet, was a slave and as such called Statius. But afterwards this was made into a kind of surname and he was called Caecilius Statius. This was regular in the case of freedmen, who took the forename and gentile name of their patron, or former master, and added their slave-name as a cognomen; e.g. M. Tullius Tiro. The forename of the Caecilius to whom Statius belonged is not known.
