Solin, Heikki

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Heikki Solin

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HEIKKI SOLIN CICERONIAN ONOMASTICS AND AMERICAN SCHOLARSHIP My paper will be more concerned with philological scholarship than with the influence of Ciceronian name-giving in American society or related matters. What follows is a brief summary of some interesting and important contributions to the field, and does not pretend to be a thor-ough listing of every American contribution to Ciceronian onomastics. I have considered not only American-born scholars, but also other, above all British-born or British-educated scholars who have done their work in American universities. I am referring in particular here to D. R. Shackleton Bailey and Ernst Badian. But for their work there ~ould be much less, in both quantity and quality, to report on in this paper. At the end of the last century and the beginning of this century a large number of American doctoral dissertations on ancient onomastic topics were presented and many were eventually published, but as far as I know none of these is dedicated to Ciceronian name-giving. The first contribution worth of mentioning is, in fact, E. M. Pease's The greeting in the letters of Cicero from 1902 (1). In this article Pease ably discussed different forms of the names of Romans as they appear in the greetings of Cicero's letters. His work was continued by Harold L. Axtell, who in an article, published in 1915 (2), gave a general survey of the principal func-tions of the various forms of personal names in Cicero's literary produc-tion. Among the various name combinations, he distinguished the fol-lowing usages: 1) official mention, complete identification and recom-mendation: M. Terentius Varro, to use the name ofVarro as a model; 2) less formal introduction of one already known by name to the addressee: M Varro; still less politely, but more cordially: M. Terentius; 3) an em:.. phatic mention either in honour or in disparagement: M. Varro; more rarely and emotionally: M. Terentius Varro; 4) merely sufficient designa-tion (sic) to enable the reader to recognize the person intended, the choice of the nomen or cognomen being determined by the prevailing custom of (1) Studies in Honor of Basil L. Gildersleeve, Baltimore 1902, 395.-404 . . (2) Men's Names in the Writings of Cicero, "ClPh" 10, 1915, 386-404. A brief summary: "TAPhA" 45, 1914, XXXIII. 80 HEIKKI SOLIN his family: M. Varro, but C. Cassius (not Longinus), M. Caelius (not Ru-fus); 5) a much less polite, often slurring, allusion; a casual mention, the second name added as an afterthought: Til/ius Cimber, or Cimber Tillius; 6) subsequent reference to one previously more fully named: Manlius, Rufus; 7) casual or cursory reference to a well-known man: Pompeius; Caesar; 8) allusion to an unimportant person: Matrinius; Hispo; 9) affec-tion or intimacy, sincere or ironical: Marcus, Marcus noster, or Marcus meus; 10) covert allusion: Marcus; 11) reference to another's son: tuus Varro; rarely tuus Marcus; 12) reference to one's own son, at least to one's only or first son: Varro; Varro noster. Very rarely: Marcus noster. Axtell's conclusions are useful and no doubt partly sound. Thus, to mention one of his interesting points, in discussing Cicero's habit of posi-tioning the cognomen before the gentile name, which in normal circum-stances and in official name-form came before the cognomen, Axtell dis-covered that in some cases the writer or speaker started by referring to a man either by his nomen or his cognomen, "whichever was in more com-mon use, or else was, formal or informal according to the speaker's wishes at the moment; then, bethinking himself of possible confusion with another man of the same name, Cicero hastened to add the other name to avoid ambiguity. This custom gave support to the increasingly fashiona-ble use of either name-order in cases of easy-going reference and where the praenomen was not known at the time." ·This hypothesis is con-firmed by the fact that it accounts for a large part of the double names in Cicero's letters. In this way Egnatius Maximus is kept distinct from Egnatius Rufus and other Egnatii, Fabius Luscus from numerous other Fabii, Domitius Calvinus from the Ahenobarbi and other Domitii, Cae-cilius Bassus from the other Caecilii and the other Bassi, Gallus Fadius from Gallus Caninius and Gallus Cornelius, Flaccus Volumnius from the V alerii Flacci, and so on. Although a little schematic, Axtell's study is a good piece of work, but has been later superseded by other studies by non American scho-lars (3). On the whole, the contributions mentioned so far are somewhat modest. I shall omit other studies from the twenties, thirties and forties and briefly mention an article by L. F. Smith on the character of the name Verres (the question is whether it is a nomen or a cognomen) (4), to come to livirig scholars. It is only after the Second World War, both in Europe (3) I refer above all to J. N. Adams, Conventions of Naming in Cicero, "ClQu" 1978, 145-166 which is, in spite of some lack of criticism, an important survey on Ciceronian onomastics. (4) L. F. Smith, Verres: nomen or cognomen?, "CJ" 49, 1953-1954, 231-233. His obvious conclusion is that Verres was a nomen, as has long been acknowl-edged. CICERONIAN ONOMASTICS AND AMERICAN SCHOLARSHIP 81 and in America, that great progress in the study of Ciceronian onomastics has taken place. In the USA, two outstanding scholars above all ·have contributed to the advancement of the study of Ciceronian onomastics, both non-American by birth, one a philologist and the other a historian: D. R. Shackleton Bailey and Ernst Badian. Since they are both alive, I shall characterize their work only summarily. To begin with the former, Shackleton Bailey, present here among us, has been engaged with Ciceron-ian onomastics at least since the preparation of the great commentaries on the Arpinate's correspondence. While the work on these commentaries was begun in England, his main work in this field, even though built up on the results of his earlier work, is entirely American. I refer here to his volume Two Studies in Roman Nomenclature, published by the American Philological Association in 1976 (5), where he summarizes results ob-tained during his writing of the commentaries on Cicero's correspondence and other studies. I shall here discuss only this volume. Two Studies is the fruit of decennial work on Ciceronian text. Shackleton Bailey is one of the leading experts on Ciceronian usage, the manuscript tradition of his works and the prosopography of1 the late republican period. Philologically-minded editors ·are not always fully versed in the skills necessary for prosopographical research. But in Shackleton Bailey both virtues, philological skill and prosopographical knowledge, are combined as in hardly any other living scholar, and his book will stand the test as a landmark in Ciceronian philology of the sev-enties. The volume is divided into two parts. In the first part, titled a little misleadingly "Onomasticon Pseudotullianum ", Shackleton Bailey deploys his unparalleled combination of expertise in Ciceronian manu-script tradition and prosopography and provides approximately 180 of examples of names wrongly accepted, or wrongly identified in standard works. Sex. Clodius (in reality Cloelius; though the rex sacrorum in 57 B.C. is now admitted to be a L. Claudius, not a Cloelius!) is perhaps the most famous example. Moreover, we lose names such as Cn. Fannius (probably a Faenius), Burrienus (Burrenus), and many others, in a collec-tion even more revealing. than Syme's 1949 article on personal names in Tacitus (6) ... Many "ghost-names" disappear, too. The treatment of the name of Cicero's son-in-law Dolabella is a particular masterpiece of exe-getical observation. (5) New York 1976. VIII, 135 pp. A second edition with unchanged text, but provided with an Appendix, appeared in 1991, published by the Scholars Press, Atlanta. In the Appendix, Shackleton Bailey primarily discusses his various crit-ics, though he is not always fair. I hope to be able to return to this Appendix on a later occasion. (6) R. Syme, Personal Names in Annals /~VI, "JRS" 39, 1949, 6-18. 82 HEIKKI SOLIN The study of Ciceronian onomastics is full of problems. This vol-ume and other contributions by Shackleton Bailey have shown how much work in this field there is to be done. It is possible to develop further some of Shackleton Bailey's considerations, or, again, to suggest different interpretations. I have myself made some objections in my review in "Gnomon" in 1987 and in a short article in "Classical Quarterly" from the same year (7). The most obvious case is Att. 15, 26, 5, where Mundus istum M. En(n)ius given in the manuscripts is surely corrupt, the modem Vulgate Mundus iste cum M. Ennio a mere improbable guess, and Mun-dus iste Maenius (or Men(n)ius) by Shackleton Bailey ari equally improba-ble proposal. I have succeeded in establishing the correct text as Mundus Istumennius. It may seem strange that nobody before had suggested this solution which now. seems so evident. Perhaps the reason lies in the fact that the ·gentile name (H)istum(m)en(n)ius (forms in Histim- are also known) is not attested in literature. This invites us to pay more careful attention to epigraphic documentation. In addition to the cases discussed in my "Gnomon" review and in the "Classical Quarterly" article, and to stress the importance of socio-historical aspects and epigraphic documentation, I would like to cite· one case on which a recent epigraphic ~scovery sheds new light. In an unpublished Roman inscription (I am grateful to G. Camodeca for draw-ing my attention to the existence of this inscription) freedmen of a Cn. Heins are mentioned. The same combination of praenomen and nomen occurs in the Laurentianus and in all the modem editions of Cluent. 107 (including the recent one by Silvia Rizzo distributed to the members of this Colloquium) as the name of a Roman senator. But the Cluniac tradi-tion has heiutus or hevitus, and for that reason Shackleton Bailey was inclined to restore Heiulius, a rare name inviting corruption. But as the patron of the freedmen in the unpublished inscription is obviously this same Roman senator (a member ·Of a rich Oscan family from Cumae whose history we now know to some extent (8)), we have to retain the modem Vulgate with the Laurentianus and reject Shackleton Bailey's unnecessary proposal. The second part of Shackleton Bailey's book contains a study of adoptive nomenclature, followed by a register of adoptions covering the period from circa 130 to 43. In this field there is still much work to be done, and Shackleton Bailey's illuminating observations can be developed (7) "Gnomon" 59, 1987, 595-601; Three Ciceroniana, "ClQu" 37, 1987, 521-523. (8) Cfr. G. Camodeca, L'eta romana, in: Storia del Mezzogiorno I, Napoli 1991, 46. CICERONIAN ONOMASTICS AND AMERICAN SCHOLARSHIP 83 and improved upon. Let us take an example. In the name-type Metellus Pius Scipio one would explain the retention of Scipio instead of Corne-lianus, the normal form of adoptive name, as Scipio is a name which inspires respect, and at the same time distinguishes the name-bearer both from other nobiles and from non-senators bearing the same gentile name. Likewise, one understands why the consul of 61 was called M. Pupius Piso and not Calpurnianus: the latter name would not have singled him out in any way(9). In a later phase Shackleton Bailey concentrated on Cicero's speeches, producing a series of exegetical remarks (10), which led him to publish in 1988 an Onomasticon to Cicero's Speeches(ll). It is a useful preliminary work to an urgently needed up-to-date Onomasticon Tullianum. As I shall review the volume elsewhere (12), I shall not go into further detail here (13). Before turning to more historical research, I would ·like to mention briefly W. L. Watson's 1970 article The Surname as a Brickbat in Cicero's Speeches(14), in which the author maintains that Cicero occasionally uses a man's name as a means of insulting him, merely because the 1~0unds in that name evoke scurrilous Roman .speech. However, the examples pro-duced by the author seem to me rather dubious; names like Catilina or Verres, e.g., are said to contain in their sound, Watson argues, some evo-cation of gutter talk, unlike other names of Cicero's enemies like Piso or Antonius or Clodius. Watson arrived at this result owing to the observa-tion that while Catiline and Verres are normally addressed byname (in the vocative) and more rarely (or never, as in the case of Catiline) by insult words, Piso is addressed only five times· by name (in the material used by the author) and yet twenty-three times by vituperative expres-sions, and Clodius is always insulted (and thus never addressed by (9) For further criticism I refer to my review in "Gnomon". (10) On Cicero's Speeches, "HSCPh" 83, 1979, 237-285; More on Cicero's Speeches, "HSCPh" 89, 1985, 141-151; Albanius or Albinius? A Palinode resung, "HSCPh" 92, 1989, 213-214; Brothers or cousins?," AJAH" 8, 1983 (publ. 1987), 191. (11) Norman, University of Oklahoma Press & B. G. Teubner, Stuttgart 1988, XI, 140 pp. (12) To appear in "Gnomon" 1992. (13) Since the book is a reference work, one would expect last precision and carefulness, but unfortunately.there are a great number of minor errors (in addition to some misinterpretations) in the name listes, e.g. in filiations. It is also some-what disappointing that the work covers only the speeches and not the whole Cice-ro. (14) "CJ" 66, 1970-1971, 55-58. 84 HEIKKI SOLIN name) (15). But the fact that Piso or Clodius were not so often addressed by name is more likely· to be explained by purely onomastic factors: the names Piso or Clodius could suggest many other persons and connections, while Catilina or Verres, to Cicero's audience, could mean only his adver-saries. Moreover, Cicere may from time to time have felt a certain anti-pathy to pronouncing the names of his archenemies like Clodius. Ancient onomastics and prosopography are related subjects bound by innumerable ties to each other. This is especially true for the late Repub-lican period. A large number of prosopographical and socio-historical contributions with an emphasis on the late Republic are also Important for onomastic studies. But since the central focus of my paper lies on philological research, I shall only rapidly survey the historical and proso-pographical research work. Omitting all earlier work, I begin by men-tioning briefly Lily Ross Taylor; her classic work on Roman voting dis-tricts of the Republican period provides a lot of Cicero's characters with tribes (16). Coming to living scholars, I first mention Ernst Badian, who in numerous articles has provided fresh light on many onomastic ques-tions (17). His many observations on upper-class onomastic habits in the late Republic as reflected in Cicero's writings are particularly noteworthy. Another historian who has contributed in a decisive way to solving ono-mastic problems connected with Cicero's literary work is Jerzy Linders-(15) However, the results at which the author arri~es suffer from the substan-tial fault that he has not considered the whole production of Cicero's oratory. ·So he comes to the bizarre conclusion that Clodius is never addressed by name. Wat-son, however, has neglected to include Pro Milone, where Clodius appears several times with his name! · (16) The Voting Districts of the Republican Rome, Papers and Monographs of the American Academy in Rome XX, 1960. She also worked on the Plautii Silvani (Trebula Suffenas and the Plautii Silvani, Mem. Amer. Acad. Rome 24, 1956, 9-30), and tried to explain the above-mentioned rex sacrorum of 57 (Voting Districts 203). And, of course, we should not forget T. R. S. Broughton's fundamental reference work The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, Philological Monographs pub/. by the American Philo/. Ass. XV, vol. I-ll, 1951-1952, Suppl. 1986. (17) By way of example I list here some contributions from Badian's Ameri-can period: The Sempronii Aselliones, "Proc. Afr. Class. Assoc." 11, 1968, 1-6 (on the nomenclature ofthe Aselliones); A Fundus at Fundi, "AJPh" 101, 1980,470-482 (on the senatorialnomen Sestullius and the family of the Sestullii and its con-nections with Fundi; on P. Curtilius; on Att. 14, 10, where Badian restores Te(ba-nos), Bassos); The House of the Servilii Gemini, "PBSR" 52, 1984; 49-71; Three Non-Trials in Cicero. Notes on the Text, Prosopography and Chronology of Diui-natio in Caecilium 63, "Klio" 66, 1984, 291-309 (restores L: Pithioni instead of the modem Vulgate L. Philoni; in my mind, a cognomen Pit(h)io is easily explicable as derived from the gentilicium Pitius or Pithius, the latter also being attested: see my and Salomies' Repertorium 144); The Clever and the Wise. Two Roman Cognomi-na in Context, "BICS" Suppl. 51= Festschrift 0. Skutsch, London 1988, 6-12 (on Catus and Sapien8); The Consuls, 179-49 BC, "Chiron" 20, 1990, 371~413 (a most important study also for onomastic questions). CICERONIAN ONOMASTICS AND AMERICAN SCHOLARSlllP 85 ki (18). More recently contributions by Paul Harvey (19) and Everett Wheeler have proved useful (20). I could extend the list, but since contri-butions of this kind are more concerned with prosopographical comments than with the interpretation of Ciceronian onomastics, I shall stop here (21). On the whole, systematic studies of problems of Ciceronian onomas-tics have never been very popular in American classical scholarship. But there is nowadays a certain interest in the problems of Cicero's text, often connected with onomastic questions on the one hand, and on the other with increasing attention paid - in America as elsewhere - to upper-class prosopography of the late Republic the . study of which is indeed impracticable without continuous consideration of Ciceronian name-usage. (18) Amianus, "ZPE" 30, 1978, 158 (Amianus in Att. 6, 1, 13 is not corrupt); The Surname of M. Antonius Creticus and the Cognomina ex victis gentibus, "ZPE" 80, 1990, 157-164 (shows that Creticus was not meant to be derogatory, as is normally claimed, but was meant to be honorific). (19) Socer Valgus, Valgii, and C. Quinctius Valgus, in: Classics and the Clas-sical Tradition: Essays presented toR. E. Dengler, Pennsylvania 1973, 79-94 (re-stores in leg. agr. 3, 14 the name of the well-known landowner C. Quinctius Valgus from Aeclanum); Cicero, Consius, and Capua: /, The nomen Consius and Cic. leg. agr. 2.92-93, "Athenaeum" 59, 1981, 299-316 (on the origin and distribution of the nomen Consius); Cicero Epistulae ad Quintumfratrem et ad Brutum: content and comment, "Athenaeum" 78, 1990, 319-350 (also on names; H. has misunderstood my arguments). (20) Sapiens and Stratagems: The Neglected Meaning of a Cognomen, "His-toria" 37, 1988, 166-195 (diffuse considerations on the cognomen Sapiens; but e.g. Cato never bore this cognomen, not even according to Cicero, as I will show in another connection). . . · (21) 'I should further add that l have· considered only research work in the USA. · This explains the omission of G: V. Sumner: 

Ciceronian onomastics and American scholarship

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Ciceronian onomastics and American scholarship

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