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A Note on the use of the Praenomen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. G. F. Powell
J. G. F. Powell
Affiliation:
Merton College, Oxford
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Extract

It is recognized that Romans of the late Republic did not normally address or refer to one another by praenomen alone (for the conventions, see J. N. Adams, ‘Conventions of naming in Cicero’, CQ n.s. 28 [1978], 145 ff.; J. P. V. D. Balsdon, Romans and Aliens, ch. 11; Fordyce on Catullus 68 init.). Most instances in which the praenomen is used alone are easily explicable (see Adams, p. 161); either the persons concerned are members of the same family, with names otherwise identical (‘Marce fili’, ‘Quinte frater’; ‘Luci’ in de Fin. 5. 71, cf. 15, etc.), or the praenomen itself is particularly distinctive and aristocratic (Appius Claudius or Servius Sulpicius).

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , May 1984 , pp. 238 - 239
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1984

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