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Conventions of Naming in Cicero

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. N. Adams
J. N. Adams
Affiliation:
Univeristy of Manchester
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Extract

The degrees of formality into which speech can be graded are in no sphere more obvious than in expressions of address and third-person reference. Methods of naming vary according to many factors: the formality of the circumstances in which naming takes place, the nature of the subject under discussion, and the ages, sex, and relative status of the speaker and addressee. Conventions of naming sometimes reflect the rigidity or otherwise of social divisions. In some societies or circles address between superior and subordinate is non-reciprocal: the speaker with the greater prestige will adopt one form of address, the subordinate another. In other societies when unequals address each other both may use the same formal method of address: the difference of prestige is not explicitly acknowledged.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , May 1978 , pp. 145 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1978

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References

1 At the end of the Republic address by nomen + cognomen was coining into vogue, but examples in Cicero are few. See Schulze, W., Zur Gescbicbte lateinischer Eigennamen (Berlin,1904), pp.489 ff.Google Scholar; Axtell, H. L., ‘Men's names in the writings of Cicero’, CP 10 (1915), 392 ff.Google Scholar Axtell's article is useful particularly as a collection of evidence, but I am frequently in disagreement with his interpretation of the evidence.

2 It is worth emphasizing that even in formal speeches the target of an attack was often not honoured by double name reference. In Leg. Agr. 1, for example, P. Seruilius Rullus is referred to by two names at 21, but otherwise by one (14, 16, 22 twice, 23).

3 See Austin, R. G., M. Tulli Ciceronis, pro M. Caelio oratio3 (Oxford, 1960), p.154.Google Scholar

4 See Kajanto, I., The Latin Cognomina (Helsinki, 1965), p.19.Google Scholar

5 Kajanto, , loc. citGoogle Scholar

6 For some remarks on cognomina anc their use by the aristocracy in the late Republic, see Syme, R., ‘Imperator Caesar. A study in nomenclature’, Historia 7 (1958), 172 ff.Google Scholar

7 On this cognomen, see Balsdon, J. P. V. D., ‘Sulla Felix’, JRS 41 (1951), 1 ff.Google Scholar

8 See Syme, , p.173,Google Scholar on this praenomer.

9 Syme, , loc. cit.Google Scholar

10 See Wiseman, T. P., Cinna the Poet and other Roman Essays (Leicester, 1974), pp.107Google Scholar

11 Occasional real or apparent counter-examples could of course be cited; it is their comparative frequency which must be taken into account. It is worth stressing that if a non-nobitis is named in this way he may have been ascending, or may have ascended, the social scale.

11 See Austin, , p.156.Google Scholar

13 See Shackleton-Bailey, D. R., Cicero's Letters to Atticus ii (Cambridge, 1965), 156.Google Scholar

14 See Shackleton-Bailey, , op. cit. 158, 207.Google Scholar

15 See Axtell, , pp.398 ff.Google Scholar for some useful remarks on the use of praenomina.

16 Axtell, (p.398)Google Scholar was mistaken in asserting that Cicero used Tite only four times.

17 On the context see Axtell, , p.398Google Scholar

18 Cf. Axtell, , pp.399 f.Google Scholar

19 Cf. Syme, , p. 173.Google ScholarFaustus was an ancient praenomen which had been revived: see Balsdon, , JRS 41 (1951), 2 f.Google Scholar

20 Despite Seneca's claim (Epist. 15.1) that it was the custom up to his time to begin a letter with the words ‘si uales, bene est, ego ualeo’, this formula is rarely found in the letters of Cicero. It occurs (whethei in its basic form or slightly modified) mainly at the head of highly formal letters such as Fatn. 5.1 (Metellus Celer's letter to Cicero), 5.2 (Cicero's reply), 5.7 (a formal letter to Pompey), 10.35 (from Lepidustx the senate and people), 11.3 (from Brutus and Cassius to Antony), 12.15 (from Lentulus to the senate and people), 13.6 (a letter of commendation), 15.1 and 15.2 (letters to the senate), A tt. 8.11c (a formal note from Pompey to Cicero). Yet Cicero uses the formula in some ten letters to his wife from 49 B.C. onwards (Fam. 14.8, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24). In doing so he was clearly delivering a rebuff.

21 See Axtell, , pp.392 ff.Google Scholar, Syme, , pp.172, 174Google Scholar, Shackleton-Bailey, , Cicero's Letters to Atticus i (Cambridge, 1965), 402Google Scholar, Wiseman, T. P., ‘Pulcher Claudius’, HSCP 74 (1970), 207 ff., especially 211 f.Google Scholar

22 See especially Shackleton-Bailey, , loc. cit.Google Scholar;cf. Syme, , p.172.Google Scholar

23 See Axtell, , p.396,Google ScholarSyme, , p. 173 f.Google Scholar The close relationship between praenomen and cognomen is shown by Sulla's attribution to his son of a praenomen (Faustus) based on his own cognomen Felix (cf. Syme, , p. 173).Google Scholar I am very grateful to Dr. J. Briscoe and Professor H. D. Jocelyn for numerous detailed comments on a draft of this article.