His nicknaming mania was the inheritance of a family failing, always fostered by the mocking-bird at his side.
Nor has it been only bynicknaming each other by derisory or opprobrious terms that parties have been marked, but they have also worn a livery, and practised distinctive manners.
He is always nicknaming Pompey, who during his Eastern campaign had taken Jerusalem, and who now parodies the Africanus, the Asiaticus, and the Macedonicus of the Scipios and Metelluses.
As nicknaming after animals, plants, and other objects, still goes on among ourselves, so among ourselves does there go on the descent of nicknames.
When a nickname has become a tribal name, it thereby ceases to be individually distinctive; and, as already said, the process of nicknaming inevitably continues.
