enfranchising large numbers of non-citizens living throughout the empire. It extended citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire, all of whom thus received the name Marcus Aurelius, after the emperor's praenomen and nomen. The result was that vast numbers of individuals who had never possessed praenomina or nomina formally shared the same names. In turn, many of the "new Romans" promptly discarded their praenomina, and ignored their nomina except when required by formality. As a result, the cognomina adopted by these citizens, often including their original non-Latin names, became the most important part of their nomenclature. Imperial names During the Republic, a person's names were usually static and predictable, unless he were adopted into a new family or obtained a new surname. In imperial times, however, names became highly variable and subject to change. Perhaps no names were more variable than those of the emperors. For example, the first emperor, known conventionally as Augustus, began life as , or Gaius Octavius, the son of Gaius Octavius. His ancestors had borne the same name for at least four generations. Although the Octavii were an old and distinguished plebeian family, the gens was not divided into stirpes and had no hereditary cognomina; Octavius' father had put down a slave revolt at Thurii and was sometimes given the surname Thurinus (a cognomen ex virtute), but this name was not passed down to the son. At the age of eighteen in 44 BC, Octavius was nominated magister equitum by his granduncle, Gaius Julius Caesar, who held the office of dictator. On the Ides of March, Caesar was assassinated, without legitimate children; but in his will he adopted his nephew, who then became , "Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, son of Gaius". Thus far, his name follows the Republican model, becoming that of his adoptive father, followed by his original nomen in the form of an agnomen. Two years later, Caesar was deified by the Roman Senate, and Octavian, as he was then known, was styled , "son of the divine (Caesar)", instead of . Still later, after having been acclaimed Imperator by the troops under his command, Octavian assumed this title as an additional praenomen, becoming ; in some inscriptions his original praenomen is discarded altogether. In 27 BC, the Senate granted him the title of Augustus, which would ever after be affixed as a cognomen to the names of the Roman emperors. A