Chapter 14 - Greek Names

Summary

Greek personal names are attested in the legal tablets from the city of Uruk, in the Astronomical Diaries, the Babylonian Chronicles, in royal inscriptions, and in documents from the cities of Babylon and Borsippa. After introducing the Greek language and its background, the chapter considers the types of Greek names attested in the cuneiform texts, the lexical items and theophoric elements used to form compounds, and the naming practices. Special attention is devoted to the rendering of Greek names with Babylonian script, especially because of the difficulties and constraints due to the use of a mixed logo-syllabic writing system to express onomastic items originally rendered in an alphabetic script and due to the differences between the Babylonian and Greek phonetic systems. The diffusion of Greek names in Babylonian is linked to the more general matter of the contacts between the Greek world and Mesopotamia, and to the debate on the significance of the Greek presence in Babylonia in the first millennium BCE; the chapter thus concludes – taking into consideration Greek royal names, Greek female names, and double (Greek and Babylonian) names in the sources – with a discussion of the social dimension of the use of Greek names in Babylonian society.

Introduction to the Language and Its Background

The Greek language belongs to the Indo-European linguistic family. It is attested from the second half of the second millennium BCE to the present day. Conventionally, it is divided into three main phases: the ancient period, from the first attestations to the end of the Roman Empire; the Byzantine period, from the end of the Roman Empire to the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 CE; and the modern period, from 1453 CE to date. For our purposes only the ancient phase will be taken into consideration.

The earliest attested dialect is Mycenean Greek, written on clay tablets using a syllabary known as ‘Linear B’, adapted from the syllabary (Linear A) used to express the language of Minoan Crete, which is still undeciphered. With the collapse of the Mycenean civilisation (c. 1200 BCE), the Linear B script disappeared during the so-called Greek ‘Dark Age’, from which writing was not preserved. Writing was re-introduced between the end of the ninth and the beginning of the eighth centuries BCE, now using an alphabetic system derived from the Phoenician alphabet.

The new alphabetic writing was used until the Hellenistic period on a number of different writing materials (wood, marble, bronze, and lead, as well as clay, ostraca, wooden boards, parchment, and papyrus scrolls) to express different dialects of the Greek language (Ionic and Attic, Arcado–Cypriot, Pamphylian, Macedonian, the Doric group of dialects, the Aeolic group, and literary dialects; e.g., that of Homeric poetry). Following the conquests of Alexander the Great, a new supra-regional dialect – the koiné – evolved from Attic as the lingua franca of the empire. The ancient phase of the Greek language is conventionally said to end in the year 394 CE, at the time of the division of the Roman Empire.

All along its mature phase, the Greek alphabet includes twenty-four discrete letters. The Greek language is inflectional, like Akkadian, and includes five cases: the nominative (for the subject), the genitive (for the possessive relationship), the dative (for the indirect object, plus other syntactic functions; e.g., instrument and cause), the accusative (for the direct object), and the vocative (for addressing people). Greek personal names are usually transliterated into Babylonian in the nominative. Although Greek names are in general rendered into Babylonian with their own Greek nominative endings, Babylonian nominative case endings may sometimes replace the equivalent (masculine or feminine) Greek ones.

The Name Material in the Babylonian Sources

The Corpus

The appearance of Greek names in the onomastic corpus from Babylonia is directly connected to the more general matter of Greek presence in Mesopotamia, which is treated in more detail in ‘Socio-Onomastics’. Suffice it to note here that with the Hellenistic period the number of Greek names attested in Babylonian sources noticeably increases, reaching a total of about 130 distinct entries. The largest portion of Greek names occurs in the legal tablets from the southern Mesopotamian city of Uruk dated to the Hellenistic period,¹ but Greek names are also recorded in the Astronomical Diaries, the Babylonian chronicles, and some royal inscriptions, as well as in legal and administrative documents from the cities of Babylon and Borsippa.²

The corpus includes both male and female names, the second group consisting of about ten names only. This comes as no surprise as male individuals are in general much more frequently represented in the Babylonian sources than women (see ‘Female Names’).

Types

Following Ina J. Hartmann’s classification, Greek names may be divided into monothematic and dithematic names.³ Monothematic names are non-compound names, consisting of one grammatical element such as an adjective, a verb, a substantive, or a proper noun (with or without the addition of a suffix): this is the case with personal names such as Κεϕάλων (Kephalōn, with suffix; from κεφαλή ‘head’). Dithematic names are compounds, usually made up of two complete and recognisable lexical elements, such as adjectives, verbs, substantives, and proper nouns: a typical example is the name Τιμοκράτης (Timokratēs; from τιμάω ‘to honour’ + κράτος ‘strength’).

The corpus of Greek names in cuneiform likewise consists of both non-compound/simplex and compound names. Theophoric elements are frequently used in the formation of names, both non-compound/simplex, for example, the name of the god Apollo in Ἀπολλωνίδης (Apōllonidēs) or Ἀπολλώνιος (Apollōnios), and compound, as in the case of the divine name Artemis in Ἀρτεμίδωρος (Artemidōros). Theophoric elements used in the representation of Greek names in the cuneiform corpus include the names of the gods Athena (e.g., Ἀθηνόδωρος, Athēnodōros), Zeus (e.g., Διοφάνης, Diophanēs; Διόφαντος, Diophantos), Herakles (e.g., Ἡρακλείδης, Herakleidēs), and Poseidon (e.g., Ποσειδώνιος, Poseidōnios). A full list is presented in Table 14.1.⁴

Table 14.1 Greek theophoric names

God name	Non-compound names	Compound names
Apollo	Apōllonidēs (2); Apollōnios (5)	Apollodōros (1)
Artemis	–	Artemidōros (3)
Athena	–	Athēnodōros (1); Athēnophilos (1)
Demetra	Demetrios (3)5
Dionysus	Dionysia (1)
Helios	–	Heliodōros (1)
Hephaestus	Hephaistiōn (1)
Herakles	Herakleidēs (4)	–
Heros		Herotheos (1)
Isis		Isidōros (2); Isitheos (1)
Poseidon	Poseidōnios (2)
Zeus	–	Diophanēs (2); Diophantos (7)

Lexical items such as ‘strength’ (κράτος, kratos), ‘gift’ (δῶρον, dōron), ‘to rule’ (ἄρχω, archō), ‘renown’ (κλέος, kleos), ‘horse’ (ἵππος, hippos), ‘head’ (κεφαλή, kephalē), ‘man’ (ἀνήρ, anēr), ‘victory’ (νίκη, nikē), ‘army’ (στρατός, stratos),⁶ ‘god’ (θεός, theos), and ‘to honour’ (τιμάω, timaō), ‘friend’ (φίλος, philos), ‘lineage’ (γένος, genos), ‘father’ (πατήρ, patēr), and ‘better’ (ἄριστος, aristos) are productive in the corpus in the formation of names, especially (but not exclusively) compound ones, as can be seen in Table 14.2.⁷

Table 14.2 Greek names according to lexical items

anēr	Alexandros (5); Menandros (1); Sōsandros (1)
archō	Archelaos (1); Archias (1)
aristos	Aristeus (1); Aristoklēs (1); Aristokratēs (2); Aristōn (3)
dōron	Artemidōros (3); Athenodōros (1); Diodōros (2); Heliodōros (1); Isidōros (2); Menodōros; Theodōros (2)
genos	Antigenēs; Diogenēs (2)
hippos	Alexippos (1); Hipponikos; Philippos (1)
kephalē	Kephalōn (9)
kleos	Agathoklēs (1); Dioklēs (1); Patroklēs (1)
kratos	Aristokratēs (2); Dēmokratēs (5); Timokratēs (5)
nikē	Andronikos (2); Nikanōr (12); Nikarchos (1); Nikēratos (1); Nikolaos (3)
patēr	Antipatros (3)
philos	Athenophilos (1); Menophilos (1); Philinos (1); Philippos (1); Philos (1); Zenophilos (1)
stratos	Stratōn (5)
theos	Herotheos (2); Isitheos (1); Theoboulos (1); Theodōros (2); Theodosios (1); Theogenēs (1); Theomelēs (2); Timotheos (2)
timaō	Timokratēs (5); Timotheos (2)

Also common in the corpus are royal names, of both Argead and Seleucid rulers (as, e.g., Seleucos, Antiochos, Demetrios etc.):⁸ there is one case where a royal name is used in the feminine, in the female name Antiochis. No restrictions apply to the use of royal names in the onomastics of ordinary people, a situation which differs from what we know from Mesopotamia in other periods (see Chapter 1, and section ‘Royal Names’ in this chapter).

Naming Practices

In Greek sources, individuals are identified by a personal name and the patronym (i.e., the father’s name), which can either be expressed in the genitive or as an adjective (usually ending in -ιδης). The use of the patronym is crucial for identification. The demotic (i.e., the name of the dēmos the individual belongs to) and/or the ethnicon are commonly added to the patronym when the individual is referred to in documents stemming from a place other than the one from which he originates.⁹

In the Hellenistic sources from Uruk, which make up the bulk of the material under consideration here, Greek names transliterated into Babylonian may occur as single names or as part of a full onomastic chain. Kings are usually identified by their first name only (see ‘Royal Names’ section of this chapter). Conversely, ordinary individuals are seldomly identified by their first name only. This may happen in exceptional circumstances, such as the identification of the neighbours in a property description or in the captions of seal impressions (but in this last case, full names are commonly preserved in the witness list of the same document).

Commonly, a complete onomastic chain is recorded. The following options are possible:

1. a. Greek name/Greek patronym/(Greek grandfather’s name)

2. b. Greek name/Greek patronym/(Babylonian grandfather’s name)/Babylonian family name

3. c. Greek name/Babylonian patronym/(Babylonian grandfather’s name)/Babylonian family name

4. d. Greek name/Babylonian patronym/Babylonian grandfather’s name/(Babylonian great-grandfather’s name).

It is generally believed that type a. identifies individuals who are ‘ethnically’ Greek. It is, however, difficult to ascertain the ethnic identity of the individuals with Greek names, as the sources only specify it in two cases: Poseidōnios, son of Metrodōros (or Myrtolos?), is labelled ‘the Greek’ (in YOS 20 70:8´), while Diophanēs, son of Stratōn, grandson of Kidin-Anu, is called ‘the Urukean’ (in BRM 2 55:15–16).¹⁰

Acculturation is frequently invoked as the reason for the choice of a Greek name within traditional Babylonian families. Stephanie M. Langin-Hooper and Laurie E. Pearce (2014) recently demonstrated that, at least in some cases, the attribution of a Greek name to the offspring of Babylonian families may result from maternal-line papponymy naming practices; that is, a mother would preserve her own family’s cultural heritage by naming one of her sons after his maternal grandfather (who, in this case, bore a Greek name).

Spelling and Normalisation

Rendering Greek names with the Babylonian script was not an easy task. Babylonian scribes were confronted with two interconnected challenges: first, rendering a name whose spelling was designed for an alphabetic script by means of a mixed logo-syllabic system; second, adapting phonemes specific to the Greek language to the Babylonian phonetic system – for example, the vowel o, which does not exist in Babylonian, was usually replaced by u. Moreover, in the koiné, some of the phonemes of the Greek language (e.g., the diphthongs) were no longer pronounced as they were written.¹¹

According to Julien Monerie,¹² when writing Greek names with the Babylonian script, the scribes, who always rendered them syllabically, more frequently resorted to the names’ pronunciation rather than faithfully transcribing their standard written form. Furthermore, the more a name came into use, the more the scribes became familiar with it and tended to harmonise its spelling, also adapting it to Babylonian. These processes and the constraints, inherent to the differences between the two systems, explain why various spellings often occur for one and the same name.

It is thus difficult, if not impossible, to establish a full and mechanical set of conversion rules for Greek names into the Babylonian writing system. The most comprehensive and recent attempt in this regard is that by Julien Monerie (2014), to which the reader is referred for details. Suffice it here to lay out the most important correspondences generally applied to the reconstruction (see Table 14.3).

Table 14.3 Conversion rules for Greek names into the Babylonian writing system¹³

Babylonian	Greek	Babylonian	Greek
a/–/(e in Neo- Assyrian)/ia	α	–/intervocalic m=w	Ϝ (digamma)
b	β	u but also a/i	ο
g	γ	p	π
d	δ	r/(l)	ρ
e/i	ε	s/(š in Neo- Assyrian)	σ, ς (in final position)
z	ζ	ṭ	τ
a-e/e-e/i-e/e-ˀe/e-ˀa-a	η	i/–	υ
t	θ	p	φ
i/ˀi-i	ι	k	χ
q	κ	pV-sV(?)	ψ
l	λ	u but also a/i	ω
m	μ	v1C1C2/C1vC2-	C1C2-
n/–(before dentals)/assimilated to following	ν	v1C1C3/v1C1v2C2/v1C1C2v2C3	C1C2C3
v1 k-v1s	ξ	ḫ/–	̔ (rough breathing)

In order to identify Greek names in Babylonian writing, it also proves useful to list their most typical endings or second elements (see Table 14.4).

Table 14.4 Typical endings and second elements of Greek names in Babylonian writing

Babylonian rendering of name ending	Equivalent in transcription	Equivalent in Greek
Cu-su	-C-οs	-C-ος
V-su	-Vs	-V-ς
Cu-ú-ru	-C-or	C-ωρ
Cu-ú-nu/Cu-nu/Ci-nu	-Con	C-ων
an-dar/an-da-ri/an-dar-ri-is/and-dar-su/an-der/a-dar	-andros	-ανδρος
ar-ku-su/ar-qu-ra-su/ar-qu-su/ar-qu-ú-su/(C)ar-su	-archos	-αρχος
e-du-su	-ades	-αδης
du-ru-us/du-ur-su/du-ur/du-ru/ˀu-du-ru(?)	-doros	-δωρος
ig-nu-us/ig-nu-su/ig-nu-us-su/ig-is-su	-V-gonos	-V-γονος
gi-ra-te/gu-ra-te/uq-ra-te	-krates	-κρατης
uq-la-e/uq-ra-la-e	-V-kles	-V-κλης
ni-qé-e/ni-qé	-nikes	-νικης
pa-lu-su/pa-lu-ú-[su?]	-philos	-φιλος
Ci-de-e/Ci-di-e	-Cides/-Ceides	-ιδης/ειδης
pa-tu-su	-phantos	-φαντος
i-si/ip-su/lìp-su/pi-is-su/pi-li-su/pi-su/pi-is/lìp-i-si/lip-pu-us/lip-is/lìp-us/lip-su/li-pi-su	-(l)ippos	-ιππος
Ci-ia/Ci-su/Ci-e-su/Ci-si	-Cios	-C-ιος

Socio-Onomastics

As we have observed, the diffusion of Greek names in Babylonian is linked to the more general matter of the contacts between the Greek world and Mesopotamia, and the debate on the significance of the Greek presence in Babylonia in the first millennium BCE. While early contacts are already attested in the sources at the time of the Assyrian expansion to the west in the eighth century BCE, it is with the annexation of Babylonia by Cyrus in 539 BCE, and especially following Alexander III’s conquest, that the Greek presence in the region becomes more than intermittent.¹⁴

Greek individuals (kings, officials, and ordinary men) as well as Babylonians bearing a Greek name begin to appear in the sources. The corpus consists primarily of masculine names; among them are royal names, used to identify the ruling kings and as part of the common onomastic repertoire. A very small percentage of the Greek onomasticon is represented by feminine names. It is in the Hellenistic period that an official of the city of Uruk is known to have received another, Greek name next to his Babylonian one, directly from the king. More and more Greek names are incorporated in the corpus of personal names in Uruk alongside traditional Babylonian ones, identifying both individuals of likely Greek origin and Babylonians.¹⁵

Royal Names

Kings are usually referred to by their first name, with no onomastic chain following. Their names typically (though not exclusively) occur in the date formulas of the documents and in the payment sections of the contracts to specify the currency used to pay the price of the commodity that is the object of a transaction. Thus, for example, according to STUBM 45-RE Lâbâši, son of Anu-zēru-iddin, from the Ekur-zakir family, buys a house and an unbuilt plot located in the Šamaš Gate district in Uruk. The document is dated to the early regnal years of Seleucos II and the formula reads ‘Uruk. Ṭebēt, (day broken), year 69, Seleucos (^Ise-lu-ku), the king’. Lâbâši pays a total price of 8 shekels of silver in good-quality staters of Antiochos (is-ta-tir-ri.MEŠ šá ^Ian-ti-’i-ku-su bab-ba-nu-ú-tú) for the property. Although the document is issued in the reign of Seleucos II, the currency used is still that of his predecessor, Antiochos II.

Partial exception to the use of the first name for kings is represented by date formulas indicating co-regencies, where the parental relationship between the reigning kings may be mentioned. An example is provided by STUBM 74-RE which, according to its date formula, was issued in year 109 ‘of Antiochos and Antiochos, his son, the kings’ (^Ian-ti-’i-ku-su u ^Ian-ti-’i-ku-su DUMU-šu LUGAL.MEŠ).

Abbreviations for the king names are sometimes used, especially in the Astronomical Diaries. A list of abbreviated royal names is presented in Table 14.5.

Table 14.5 Abbreviations of Greek royal names

Akkadian rendering	Reading	Full name
Ia-lek-sa16	Alexa	Alexandros
Ian; Ian-ti	An; Anti	Antiochos
Ide	De	Demetrios
Ipi	Pi	Philippos
Ise	Se	Seleucos

No restriction apparently applied to the use of Greek royal names for ordinary people in the Hellenistic period. A large number of individuals in the corpus exhibit names such as Alexandros (^Ia-lek, ^Ia-lek-si-an-dar, and ^Ia-lek-sa-an-dar), Antiochos (^Ian-ti-ˀi-i-ku-su, ^Ian-ti-i-ku-su, ^Ian-ti-ˀu-ku-su, and ^Ian-ti-ˀu-uk-su), Demetrios (^Ide-e-meṭ-ri-su, ^Ide-meṭ-ri, and maybe also ^Idi-i-meṭ-ri:ti-ia), Philippos (^Ipi-il-pi-li-su and ^Ipi-il-pi-su), and Seleucos (^Ise-lu, ^Ise-lu-ku, and ^Ise-lu-uk-ku).¹⁷

Female Names

Only a few Greek female names occur in the corpus, three of which identify queens and four of which identify ordinary women.¹⁸ Queen names include Laodice ‘People’s justice’ (Λαοδίκη, spelled ^Ilam-ú-di-qé-ˀa-a, ^Ilu-da-qé, ^Ilu-di-qé-e, and ^fla-ú-di-qé-e),¹⁹ identifying the two Seleucid queens married to Antiochos II and Antiochos III, respectively; Stratonice ‘Army’s victory’, the wife of Seleucos I and Antiochos I (Στρατονίκη, spelled ^Ias-ta-ar-ta-ni-iq-qú, ^Ias-ta-rat-ni-qé, and ^Ias-ta-rat-ni-qé-e); and Thalassia ‘From the sea’ (Θαλασσία spelled ^Ita-la-si-ˀa-a-ṣu-u), the wife of Hyspaosines of Charax.

Among ordinary women mentioned in the corpus from Hellenistic Uruk, both Antiochis ‘Against support’ (Ἀντιοχίς spelled ^fan-ti-ˀi-i-ki-su), the daughter of Diophantos, and Dionysia (mng. unknown) (Διονύσια spelled ^fdi-ni-ˀi-i-si-ˀa), the daughter of Herakleidēs, are likely of Greek origins and married into Babylonian families. The name Antiochis confirms the diffusion of royal names among common people, including women, and Dionysia preserves a clear theophoric name. Phanaia ‘One who brings light’ (Φάναια spelled ^fpa-na-a) is a slave who probably got her Greek name from her mistress, a certain ^fŠamê-ramât, also known with the Greek name Kratō ‘Strength’ (Κρατώ spelled ^fka-ra-ṭu-ú), the daughter of a certain Artemidōros. It is uncertain whether ^fŠamê-ramât alias Kratō stemmed from a Greek family;²⁰ however, she probably married a Greek man whose name is tentatively reconstructed as Tatedidos (mng. uncertain).

Double Names

Greek names may also occur in combination with a Babylonian name to identify an individual bearing two names. The typical Babylonian formula is ‘PN₁ whose other name is PN₂’. Only about twenty double Greek/Babylonian names occur in the corpus. The use of polyonomy is not limited to Greek/Babylonian names; it also appears in names that pair Babylonian/Babylonian and Babylonian/other languages. The order of the two names is apparently irrelevant, and in many instances only one of the two was used in the documents.²¹ In the well-known case of the high official Anu-uballiṭ alias Nikarchos, his Greek name was apparently entrusted to him by the king, but one cannot generalise from it and the rationale behind this practice still escapes our full understanding.²²