25

This article aims to enlighten on the situation of people who bore the nicknames Threptus and Trophimus under the Principate. Imported from the Greek nouns θρεπτος and τρόφιμος, the two cognomina arise from a Latin transliteration that results in a double conversion both formally and semantically. They were valued for about three hundred years by Western Mediterranean cities as antonomasia to name a specific range of fosterage that the word alumnus could not properly convey.