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corpus-paul - Re: slave names in Rom 16

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  • From: David Noy <sj014 AT lamp.ac.uk>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: slave names in Rom 16
  • Date: Sun, 07 Nov 1999 21:02:58 +0000


A lot of even fairly new work on Roman social history makes rather
misleading claims about "slave" names, although the most recent work on
Roman onomastics by Finnish scholars like H. Solin and O. Salomies should
eventually make this a thing of the past. There are many names which are
mainly or entirely attested as slave names at Rome, but *most* names at
Rome appear mainly as slave names, simply because the vast majority of
epigraphic evidence from Rome concerns slaves and ex-slaves. The erroneous
conclusions which this can lead to are exemplified by the fact that
Alexander is sometimes characterised as a "slave" name even though it was
also part of an emperor's name!

It's clear that nearly all recorded slaves had Latin or Greek names, which
may have been additional to their original names. But there are extremely
few names which can be safely categorized as exclusive to slaves - really
only those which designate a quality which is explicitly connected with
slavery, such as Philodespotos. My own research suggests that slaves are
rarely recorded at Rome with names which are NOT Latin or Greek. People
who are recorded with such names, including those with Semitic names, are
more likely to be free immigrants or soldiers. The people who are recorded
in Latin (or Greek) epitaphs are by definition those who were most fully
acculturated, and therefore most likely to have abandoned original
"barbarian" names and used Latin or Greek ones instead.

Hope this helps!

David Noy,
Department of Classics,
University of Wales Lampeter,
U.K.





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