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Cognomina Ingenva: A Note

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

P. R. C. Weaver
P. R. C. Weaver
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia
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Extract

One of the gains to be reckoned from the study of nomenclature in the sepulchral inscriptions of the early empire is the gradual abandonment of attempts to distinguish between slave and freeborn on the basis of personal name or cognomen alone, especially when this is of Latin derivation. Nevertheless, one still finds personal cognomina in undated inscriptions adduced as sole evidence for the origin or status of individuals below senatorial rank. Thus in a standard work on freedmen in the early empire, recently reprinted, names such as Agilis, Amandus, Auctus, Communis, Donatus, Faustus, Felix, etc., are said to be commonly servile, but others such as Aquila, Bassus, Capito, Cams, Celer, Crescens, etc., are taken as ingenuous. The criteria used in making such a distinction are subjective and arbitrary and the statistics based on them are largely valueless. It is the purpose of this note to consider briefly on this question the evidence of the personal nomenclature of the Imperial slaves and freedmen. In this group, the Familia Caesaris, no problem of status arises, and the fact that the majority of their inscriptions can be dated, at least approximately, makes it possible to trace the chronological development of the use of cognomina ingenua by one important group of servile origin from the first to the early third century A.D. Moreover, such a development is useful evidence for change in the social structure of the early empire.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , December 1964 , pp. 311 - 315
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1964

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References

page 311 note 1 Duff, A. M., Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire (reprinted with addenda, 1958), pp. 110f.Google Scholar; cf. pp. 55 f., ‘the most tell-tale evidence of a man's servile extraction was the cognomen, which in most cases was identical with his servile appellation’.

page 311 note 2 Staatsrecht, iii. 426.

page 311 note 3 Ibid. n. 2; cf. p. 209, p. 425 n. 2.

page 311 note 4 So in the plural in almost all the sources later than Cicero, e.g. vi. 1847 = I.L.S. 1899; v. 4392 = I.L.S. 5631 (references to inscriptions throughout are to C.I.L. unless otherwise stated); cf. Stein, A., Der römische Ritterstand, pp. 30 ff.Google Scholar, Mommsen, , Staatsr. ii. 893 f.Google Scholar, Duff, , op. cit., pp. 214 ff.Google Scholar and the passages quoted ad locc.

page 312 note 1 Condition privée des affranchis, p. 179.

page 312 note 2 On the question of sources see Syme, Tacitus, pp. 180 f.Google Scholar, and especially pp. 674 f. (Appendix 29) for the relevant literature.

page 312 note 3 On the name Marcianus see furthe below.

page 312 note 4 On the second names in -ianus and the vicariani see a forthcoming article in J.R.S. (1964).

page 312 note 5 P.I.R.2 C. 1558; Suetonius, , De Gramm. 18.Google Scholar

page 312 note 6 Suetonius, , De Gramm. 17;Google Scholar cf. Mommsen, , Staatsr. iii. 426 n. 3.Google Scholar

page 312 note 7 P.I.R.2 A 1641.

page 313 note 1 Étude sur l'épigraphie latine (1952), pp. 99 ff., esp. p. 122Google Scholar with n. 29.

page 313 note 2 Aquileia Romana, p. 413.

page 313 note 3 Epigraphica ii (1940), 315.Google Scholar

page 313 note 4 x. 1743, add. p. 971: ‘d.m./T. Fl(avio) Vero Aug./Hb. tab(ulario) rat(ionis)/ aquarior(um) co/iugi bene me/renti Octa/via Thetis f(ecit)’ (= I.L.S. 1608), which is the same inscription as vi. 33731: ‘T. Sivero Aug. lib. …’, is the dedication on a cylindrical funerary urn with cannelated decoration of a kind not found earlier than the third century A.D. I am grateful to Mr. R. Nicholls of the Fitzwilliam Museum, where the urn is to be found, for drawing my attention to it. If that date is to be regarded as certain, then it is unlikely that the reading of the first three letters of line 2 is ‘T. Fl(avio)’. Flavia Titiana, wife of Pertinax, perhaps made an Augusta in 193, cannot be regarded as the likely patron. Apart from other reasons, freedmen of an Augusta are not found holding a post such as tabularius in the administration in the late second century, and freedmen of an Augusta are rare after Hadrian. Perhaps the letters ‘TFLVERO’ contain a personal name (cf. the fact that the points, which occur after all the other abbreviated words in the inscription except ‘d.m.’, do not appear in this line).

page 313 note 5 Cf. Thylander, , op. cit., pp. 121f.Google Scholar

page 313 note 6 Op. cit., p. 56.

page 314 note 1 x. 6318; cf. x. 769, iii, p. 844 (A.D. 52).

page 315 note 1 See Pflaum, H. G., Carrières procuratoriennes équestres, nos. 125ff.Google Scholar