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from Part I - The Boni in the Late Republic
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 December 2022
The Latin dictionaries all identify a distinct socio-economic aspect to the term ‘bonus’. According to Lewis & Short, one usage was ‘the better (i.e. higher) classes of society’, although the editors also implied that this meaning was uncommon. Similarly, in TLL at the very end of section I we find under paragraph 12, ‘i. q. fere q. locuples, dives’, again with an indication of rarity, and the Oxford Latin Dictionary s.v. bonus 6 offers this definition: ‘men of substance and social standing’, with ancient references ranging from Plautus to Tacitus.1 The editors of the OLD suggest this was a secondary derivation and provide only six examples. However, a comprehensive survey of all attestations of ‘bonus/boni’ shows that the usage was considerably more common and in fact may have been integral to its use in public and private discourse; arguably, it was implicit in all references to ‘boni’ outside texts of a strictly philosophical or moralising nature.
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