Kajava, Mika

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ACTA PHILOLOGICA FENNICA VOL. XXI HELSINKI 1987 HELSINGFORS Christer Bruun Siegfried Jakel Mika Kajava Kla us Karttunen Saara Lilja Bengt Lofstedt Olivier Masson Teivas Oksala H.K. Riikonen Olli Salomies Timo Sironen Heikki Solin E.M. Stein by Leena Talvio Rolf Westman INDEX Water for the Castra Praetoria. What were the Severan opera . ? mzn ... ......... . Kritische Beobachtungen zum Programm einer Literatur-Padagogik in Plutarchs Schrift De audiendis poetis Varus and V aria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Country of Fabulous Beasts and Naked Philosophers. India in Classical and Medieval Literature Sunbathing in Antiquity . . . . . . . Zu Bedas Evangelienkommentaren . Quelques noms grecs recents en -)lU''ClO<; T. S. Eliot's Conception of Virgil and Virgilian Scholarship Petronius and Modern Fiction. Some Comparative Notes Weitere republikanische Inschriften. . . . . . . . . . . . . Osservazioni sulle grafie per le occlusive aspirate d'origine greca nell'osco ..................... . Analecta epigraphica CXIII-CXX. lllato orientale del Foro Romano. Proposte di lettura . Sulla figura della Fortuna nel Sogno del Faraone .... Unbeachteter epikureischer Bericht bei Plutarch (Qu. conviv. 5, 1) ........................... . De no vis libris iudicia. . . . . . . . . . . . . Index librorum in hoc volumine recensorum Libri nobis missi ............... . 7 19 37 43 53 61 73 79 87 105 109 119 139 185 195 203 243 245 Varus and Varia* MIKAKAJAVA In what follows I will present a few arguments in order to show that the feminine counterpart of the cognomen Varus was in fact V aria rather than Vara. As we shall see, this may have various consequences for prosopography. 1. Varus was an old pejorative cognomen referring to the physical defects of the feet. For this reason Vara would be most unsuitable for women, and was therefore avoided. A look at Kajanto's LC 235ff. shows that this is the general trend with many similar cognomina. There was, however, a remedy to remove the negative connotations of these unfeminine names, viz. the use of suffixes. To cite some examples, such names as Balba, Flacca, Paeta etc. are either never attested or they are extremely rare. Similarly, there are no Taurae, but we know a handful of Taurinae and Taurillae (LC 329).1 2. Varus was also an ancient hereditary cognomen in a few Republican gentes, notably among the Quinctilii. Old hereditary names of this kind were used almost exclusively by male members of the family. And even after women had adopted individual names in the beginning of the Imperial period, they did not use these names in their basic form, but * For comments and discussion I would like to thankS. Panciera (Rome), D.B. Saddington (Johannesburg), 0. Salomies (Helsinki) and H. Solin (Helsinki). Special thanks go to M. Steinby (Rome) for her illuminating remarks on the relevant brick stamp material. For the contents of this paper I am naturally solely responsible. 1 For these names, see H. Solin, in Epigrafia e ordine senatorio I (Tituli 4), Roma 1982, 429ff. 38 Mika Kajava rather as suffixed derivations. So e.g. the daughter ofL. Munatius Plancus cos. 42 B.C. was called 'Munatia Plancina' (PIR2 M 737), while her aunt was still only 'Munatia'. This is a very clear and conspicuous phenomenon since the late Republican and early Imperial times. Accordingly, Vara was also avoided and instead suffixed forms were used. This is clearly revealed by Kajanto, LC 242, who records only one 'Vara' from the Republican period (CIL I2 2694,4; Minturnae) and two further cases from the Imperial time (I will tackle them a little later). In addition to the Republican aristocratic Vari Kajanto has registered as many as 95 instances of Varus. The suffixed form Varilla is documented 11 times among the lower orders (in CIL, LC ibid.) and twice in the senatorial class. The daughter of Sex. Appuleius cos. 29 B.C. was called 'Appuleia Sex.f. Varilla' (PIR2 A 968), the cognomen deriving from the maternal side. An inscription found in Cyme (Inschr. v. Kyme, 18) shows her to be the daughter of 'Quinctilia', who is to be identified with the sister ofP. Quinctilius Varus cos. 13 B.C.2 The other case is found in an inscription from Reate, which records a Varilla as the patrona of a freedman. 3 The text implies that she was closely related to the Lurii and Nonii Vari of the early Imperial period.4 3. There is prosopographical evidence to show that certain persons called 'Varus' and 'V aria' were linked to each other by family connections. The consul of the year 160 A. D., T.Clodius Vibius Varus from Brixia, was most obviously the grandfather or the uncle ofVibia L.f. Salvia Varia.5 It seems to be quite certain that the elements 'Vibius Varus' and 'Vibia -Varia' correspond to each other. Varia's second husband was M. 2 For these persons, cf. recently R. Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy, Oxford 1986, 316--317. 3 M.C. Spadoni Cerroni, Athenaeum 57 (1979) 308ff. The libertus is L. Nonius Varillae lib. Athenio, procurator M. Luri Vari. 4 M. Torelli, in Epigr. ord. sen. 11 (Tituli 5), Roma 1982, 195 thought that she could be the sister of M. Lurius Varus (PIR2 L 428) or of his father P. Lurius Agrippa from the Augustan period. Lurius Varus was consul under Caligula or in the early years of the Claudian period, cf. R. Syme, HSCPh. 88 (1984) 165ff. It is, however, much more plausible that she was a (Nonia), see now Raepsaet-Charlier, FOS 576. 5 Cf. especially G. Alfoldy, Epigr. ord. sen. 11 (Tituli 5), Roma 1982, 348, nr. 16 and 349, nr. 28. The pair 'Vibius Varus' appears by many other persons, too, cf. PIR V s.v. Varus and RE, passim. Varus and V aria 39 Nummius Umbrius Primus Senecio Albinus cos. 206 A.D. from Beneven-tum, and their daughter was called 'Nummia V aria'. Further evidence may be produced in the names of 'Postumia V aria' cf (CIL XI 6076; Urbinum; from the latter half of the 3rd century A.D.) and '[Fla]via Postu[mia] V aria', who is attested as participating in the Ludi saeculares of the year 204 A.D.6 Both women must be somehow related toT. Flavius Postumius Varus, praefectus urbi in 271 A.D. (PLRE I 946; styled 'Postumius Varus' in Chron. 354, otherwise with his full name). Such evidence points to the unavoidable result that besides Varilla, Varia could also be used as the feminine form of Varus, yet at the same time being identical with the gentilicium V aria. Good parallels are at hand in. such opposites as Marcus:Marcia and Titus:Titia, the feminine praenomen never appearing as 'Marca' or 'Tita'.7 It is to be concluded that Vara would be a most odd and. exceptional name, in particular among the nobility. Under such circumstances how is it possible that two upper-class women bearing the cognomen Vara are documented from the Imperial period? A closer look may solve the difficulties. Firstly, both cases are known from brick stamps. The earlier one is the Ostian LSO 1195 ( = Bloch S. 440 = XIV 5308,39): Varae Quirin(i or -a/is), dating from the late Claudian or early Neronian time.8 She is the wife of a Quirin( - - - ), who may be the same as the dominus M. Quir(- - -)attested from LSO 1194 ( =Bloch S. 439). Their identity, however, cannot be firmly established. What i~ important here, is the cognomen itself. From the ph~o~aph (in LSO II, PI. 204) one reads clearly that it was written V ARAE with two ligatures, but in theory it might be equally possible that ~ the first ligature could be solved as ARI. The problem is, however, that no sign of the letter I is visible, and that letter was usually clearly portrayed in """' """"' ligatures. Accordingly, we should perhaps suppose that VARAE was an ~ ,..,.,. ~ ,_... error for either V ARIAE or V ARIAE. The other example is CIL XV 1310 6 G.B. Pighi, De ludis saecularibus, Amsterdam 19652,253, nr. 70 (he proposes Postu[ma]). 7 Cf. also the pair Longinus:Longinia (like avus:avia) cited by Schulze, ZGLE 61. 8 See M. Steinby, Lacronologia delle figlinae doliari urbane dalla fine dell'eta repubblicana fino all'inizio del Ill secolo, Roma 1976 (BullCom 84 [1974-76]), 96, n. 7. Cf. also her comments in LSO 1194. 40 Mika Kajava from Rome, of which two copies are documented. The stamp dates from the Severan period, and the domina is called 'Mummia Vara' cf (Raepsaet-Charlier, FOS 559 == PIR2 M 715),9 her name appearing as MUMMIAE V ARAjE. One of the copies was seen by Gatti and the other by Dre~el. Despite this fact,~hold it possible that V ARAjE could in fact be V ARIAjE (the ligature RI was relatively common in brick stamps, although it is true that ligatures were not particularly frequent in stamps of the Severan period).l0 It seems that neither Dressel nor Gatti has considered this possibility. Of Mummia V aria(?) we do .not know anything else; her ancestry remains totally unknown. 11 Concerning her identity, I would like to put forward a very cautious and tentative hypothesis. From the same Severan period we know the above-mentioned clarissima.femina Nummia Varia. 12 Could she be identical with Mummia V aria? Because Nummia is a well-known person from inscriptions, we should be prepared to accept one of the following alternatives: either 'Mummia' is an error on the part of the stamp maker or, what seems less probable, 'Nummia' on the brick stamp was carelessly read as 'Mummia'. Unfortunately, no photo is available, but a possible confusion could be explained in two ways. Firstly, there was an abrasion between N and V, which led the editors to think that the righthand stroke of the letter M had vanished (in CIL there are, however, no comments on any uncertainties in this respect). The other but not very plausible possibility is an inverted N ( == \1\ ), which has in fact sometimes been interpreted as the letter M. 13 As for Nummia V aria, we know that she was a native of Beneventum, and we also know about her interests and 9 For her, cf. P. S~tala, Private Domini in Roman Brick Stamps of the Empire, Helsinki 1977, 152-3. 10 As M. Steinby kindly informs me, the letter I sometimes "disappears" in ligatures when connected with verticals such as L or N. Perhaps the same is true with the letter R, too. 11 A possible link with M. Pontius Varanus Sabinus (AE 1903, 284; Ulpiana and AE 1982, 956; Lambaesis) on the basis of his cognomen Varanus is naturally erroneous. Varanus was an ethnic (LC 205), not to be confused with Varus. For Sabinus, cf. in particular J. Marcillet-Jaubert, ZPE 43 (1981) 237ff. 12 Cf. PIR2 N 240----241 = Qroag, RE XVII, 1414--15, nr. 19. 13 Cf. e.g. LSO 985, where K{Evi was printed as ]MAEVI by Vaglieri in NSc. 1913, 236. Varus and V aria 41 freedmen in Peltuinum (CIL IX 3429,3436) and in Canusium (IX 395). 14 She might well have been an owner of praedia and a brick producer. In conclusion, the following facts may be summarized: 1) From the semantic point of view Vara would be very unsuitable for women; 2) a basic feminine form of Varus, would be exceptional in the nomenclature of upper-class women and, as we have seen, among the lower orders, too. 3) Prosopographical evidence reveals that V aria was used as the form of Varus. From these arguments it seems to follow that the two examples of 'Vara' on brick stamps should be interpreted as 'Varia' instead. Consequently, the real name of the Severan 'Vara' emerges as 'M ummia V aria'. If the tentative hypothesis proposed here is accepted, she could be the same lady as 'Nummia V aria', daughter of the consul in 206 A.D. Addendum The three main arguments presented above (cf. especially note 7) could also be supported by the results of a recent article ofY. Malkiel, A la recherche des designations latines des femmes et de femelles en -ia, BullSocLingParis 80 (1985) 145ff. Using the evidence of the Romance languages the author reconstructs such Latin words as *cania, *cervia, *convortia, *novia, * servia etc., and regards them as deriving from the avia-jneptia-types. For this piece of information I wish to thank Dr. Martti Nyman. 14 For her and the landed property of the whole family, cf. G. Camodeca, in Epigr. ord. sen. II (Tituli 5), Roma 1982, 143f. 

Varus and Varia

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Varus and Varia

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