Appendices

This list of some common epigraphic abbreviations used in Latin inscriptions lays no claim to completeness. A work of a different magnitude would be required for such an ambition. In J.-M. Lassère’s Manuel d’épigraphie romaine (2nd ed., Paris 2007) the list comprises thirty-nine pages; in R. Cagnat’s Cours d’épigraphie latine (4th ed., Paris 1914) it runs to sixty-four pages. Yet, a reader of epigraphic texts will discover that the ingenuity of the Roman stonecutter and/or his clients surpassed what modern compilers of wordlists have accomplished. Even with the help of an extensive list some puzzles will remain. As illustrated below, a single initial letter can occasionally be used as an abbreviation for a great variety of words. For abbreviations of Roman voting tribes, see Appendix V.

Almost every Roman inscription contains one or more personal names. These names are crucial for the historical understanding of the text, and they can also play a useful role in dating the inscription. The importance of onomastics, i.e., the study of names, in Roman epigraphy is emphasized by the fact that the Romans developed a much more sophisticated system of personal naming than did the Greeks or most other civilizations of the classical period.

The use by free individuals of a family name, the gentilicium or nomen gentile, is a feature which the Romans apparently borrowed from the Etruscans and which other peoples of the classical world lacked. The gentilicium allows scholars to study many central issues, such as family formations and structures, inheritance of property, or the freeing of slaves and the social advancement of freed slaves. For this reason specific onomastic matters are discussed in several chapters above (Chs. 9, 11, 18, 26, 28); the purpose of this Appendix is to present a general survey.

The term tria nomina is a common concept in Roman onomastics. It denotes the three fundamental parts of the full Roman name as used by free males during the late Republic and the first centuries of the Principate: the praenomen, the gentilicium, and the cognomen.

While in earlier times there was more variation, from the late Republic onwards the range of praenomina became relatively narrow. This fact, as well as the need to save space in official records (and, perhaps, in inscriptions), prompted the introduction and ongoing use of a set of standard abbreviations (Table III.1). As a result, praenomina are practically never written out in full in inscriptions.

The fact that the names Gaius and Gnaeus were abbreviated using the hard consonant “C” instead of the soft “G” shows that these abbreviations appeared in an early period of Roman history, before the letter G had been introduced into the Roman alphabet. Overall, the names Gaius, Lucius, and Marcus were the most common ones. Women carried praenomina only very rarely. Some regional differences developed, so that, for instance, Sextus was more than usually popular in the Gallic provinces. During the Principate, praenomina in practice became increasingly hereditary: the praenomen of a son rarely differed from that of his father by the late second century CE.

In a free individual’s name, the praenomen was followed by the gentilicium, the family name that was inherited from their father by sons and daughters alike. In contrast to many modern societies, it was not taken over by a man’s wife, who after marriage kept the gentilicium she had acquired at birth. Children acquired their father’s family name, so that M. Tullius Cicero’s son became a Tullius, his daughter a Tullia (the feminine form of the name).

Roman gentilicia originated in a manner similar to what is found in most cultures. Etymologically, these names are normally derived from Latin words relating to various natural and other phenomena, or to other names. So, for instance, the name Octavius derives from octo (eight), Claudius from the archaic Sabine name Clausus, while Flavius points to the colour flavus (yellow). From the first century CE onwards, in the provinces many non-Latin gentilicia, derived from Germanic, Gallic, Hispanic, Libyco-Punic, and several other languages, started to appear. When attempting to reconstruct a partially preserved name in an inscription, the onomastic Repertorium of Solin and Salomies is of great help.

A third name, the cognomen, eventually entered the Roman onomastic system. The range of cognomina is vast, since numerous features in the natural world and in human society inspired the creation of these names, which originally had the function of distinguishing individuals who carried the same praenomen and gentilicium. Such homonymous groups could include fathers and sons, brothers, and even cousins or more distant relatives, which must have been potentially very confusing. Thus the cognomen initially was the truly individual part of a person’s tria nomina. Yet the system was soon watered down because of the Romans’ inherent reverence for tradition and the social prestige derived from a renowned ancestry, so that cognomina also began to be inherited. As a case in point, Cicero’s brother was likewise called Tullius Cicero, and in the following generation, each man had a son called Tullius Cicero (although on the orator’s side the praenomen was Marcus instead of Quintus, the praenomen of the orator’s brother). Yet the number of possible cognomina was almost limitless, since among Roman cognomina one finds a very large number of names of Greek etymology, as well as a number of other names, for instance, of Semitic, Gallic, Germanic, Hispanic, African, Illyrian, or Thracian origin.

Cognomina appear throughout Greek and Latin literature of the Roman period, but only in relatively small numbers compared with the tens of thousands of instances to be found in inscriptions. In order to analyze what possible significance Roman authors may have attributed to the names they chose, it is necessary to evaluate everyday practices as they appear in the epigraphic record.

The form of most gentilicia differs from that of cognomina, in that the former normally, but not always, end in -ius.¹ Distinguishing between what is the gentilicum and what is the cognomen in a name is sometimes complicated by the fact that individuals could use a gentiliciumin the place usually reserved for a cognomen. For instance, Volusia Cornelia (PIR¹ V 667) of senatorial rank used two gentilicia but no cognomen.

As the Principate progressed and the potential of an inherited cognomen to distinguish individuals decreased, some Romans acquired a fourth name which in its type is identical to a cognomen but is known as an agnomen. This truly personal name is sometimes identified by the phrase qui et or sive (or, in Greek, ὁ καὶ), corresponding to the common English phrase “a.k.a.” (“also known as”). Agnomina were not inherited. So-called signa functioned as additional marks of identity in Late Antiquity (Ch. 18).

Thus it came about that Romans could bear more than three names, and even four was by no means the limit. This process is known as “polyonymy” (a term meaning “with many names”), and we shall return to it in more detail below.

Throughout history, personal names have served not only to distinguish individuals but also to establish social hierarchies; the Romans were no different in this. First of all, full Roman onomastic formulae clearly identified freeborn Romans, slaves, and ex-slaves:

Considering the important function that names had in establishing Roman social hierarchies, it is somewhat surprising that inscriptions often do not make clear what the precise social status of a person was. Some individuals have only one name, as if they were slaves, although at least some of these were certainly not; scholars often use the German term “Einnamig” (“having one name”) for them. A more common practice was to use the simple tria nomina, without filiation or indication of freedman status. It is thus uncertain whether such a person was freeborn or an ex-slave (or a Roman or Latin citizen); scholars refer to them with the term “incertus.” The lively debate about what social status to attribute to such individuals, a debate which also relies heavily on the notion that a Greek cognomen in the West is proof of “servile origin” (a vague concept), cannot concern us here (cf. Ch. 28).

The history of Roman naming practices reveals the social dimensions of this phenomenon, while the many changes in the use of names over time make Roman onomastics a useful tool for dating purposes.

Originally, Romans used a one-name system, of which practically no epigraphic traces remain. Already by the early fifth century BCE the gentilicium appears, as in the Lapis Satricanus (Fig. 34.4). Cognomina begin to occur in inscriptions concerning senators around 300 BCE (Cover image: L. Cornelius Scipio Barbatus; cf. Fig. 35.2: L. Cornelius Scipio Barbati filius). Freeborn individuals of lower rank are not found using cognomina in inscriptions for a long time, while cognomina are consistently found in the onomastic formulae of freedmen from the last decades of the second century BCE onwards. Some freeborn persons avoided using cognomina for quite some time after this, although to an ever lesser extent as the Principate began. T. Vinius, the last consul not bearing a cognomen, held office in 69 CE.

In the provinces non-citizens (peregrini) continued to use native names, usually in the form of a single name plus patronymic: for example, Dolanus Esbeni f(ilius) (CIL XIII 7585) or Reburrus Tangini (AE 1977, 379), the latter case showing that sometimes the Latin f(ilius, -a) was omitted. With grants of Roman citizenship, bicultural names such as Fabia Bira Izeltae f. (IAM II 448 = ILAfr 634) started to make their appearance.

As the tria nomina became standard, during the second century CE the elite developed the new feature now known as polyonymy. The praenomen tended to be omitted to an ever higher degree, since it had by now lost most of its role as an individual identifier. The last praenomina are found in North African inscriptions dating to the first decades of the fifth century; by then their use had become a rarity. Some gentilicia became particularly common through the influence of the emperor and his family. New citizens usually took the gentilicium of the ruler during whose reign they acquired the Roman franchise, and the numerous manumitted imperial slaves contributed to the spread of the imperial names. The most common names could be abbreviated in inscriptions without risk of confusion (Table III.2).

Such abbreviated gentilicia provide a convenient terminus post quem, as they are not found until after a particular dynasty had come to power. Sometimes, as in the case of the name Flavius, abbreviations may occur quite soon after.

Agnomina, characterized by the qui et-formula, and signa, which characterized a collective to which an individual belonged, are onomastic phenomena which began in the second century and became progressively more common thereafter.

Roman onomastics in Late Antiquity underwent other changes as well. On the one hand, Christianity made popular a new set of names (cf. Ch. 21), although by no means all older cognomina disappeared. Of greater consequence in some ways was the disintegration of the old tria nomina system. The praenomen had already practically disappeared, but now the gentilicium also began to fall out of use among the vast majority of individuals outside a restricted circle of aristocrats. The proliferation of a few imperial names, especially Aurelius, following the grant of Roman citizenship to all free inhabitants of the Empire in 212 CE (the constitutio Antoniniana) may have contributed to this, as probably did changes in society. By the fifth century, Roman society had largely reverted to a one-name system, which was to remain the European practice until the aristocracy around the year 1000 again began to use family names. For the convenience of readers, the most salient features of Roman naming practices are summarized in Table III.3.

Latin terms, with some Greek equivalents, all attested epigraphically.