A01.031.0.pdf

I. ROMAN NAMES IN THE GREEK-SPEAKING PROVINCES
A name is not a neutral label. It is instead a
marker of social identity, one's place within a
social system. "On ne nomme (...) jamais, on
classe l'autre ou on se classe soi-même", wrote
Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1 suggesting that name-giving,
an activity often linked with power, is a
means of organizing and controlling social life,
since the world that is named is one that is identified.
That named world is indeed a kosmos, an
ordered and clearly defined entity, in contrast
with its opposite, chaos. 2 In an organized society,
a name marks the individual's first and last
appearance in history, and in some instances
survives symbolically after the bearer's death
thanks to the name's inscription upon a funerary
monument, an object defined by Ulpian as
"something which exists to preserve memory". 3
The recording and classifying of names can
contribute valuable material for our understanding
of social realities and of developments
within evolving social systems. This is especially
true for periods of major political and social
change, such as that which witnessed the spread
of Roman rule across the Mediterranean
basin. 4 The study of onomastics progressed
with great speed after the Second World War,
especially with regard to the western part of the
Roman empire, and drew the attention not
only of specialists in onomastics, but also of
political and social historians. In the western
provinces, especially in Italy, Greek personal
names - a significant and distinct manifestation
of Hellenism in Italy - have been collected and
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studied in the major work by H. Solin. 5 But the
study of the presence, distribution and significance
of Roman names in the East has not -
with perhaps the sole exception of L. Robert 6 -
attracted the same level of interest, and the
problem has been approached "in a rather slapdash
way", to borrow Solin's expression. 7 This
is the case despite the subject's great potential
importance and the light it could shed on our
understanding of problems concerning the integration
of peregrini into Roman society, but
also more generally to the study of cultural currents
and contexts, and to the phenomenon of
Romanisation in the hellenophone eastern
Mediterranean. The lack of significant interest
in the Roman names of the Greek-speaking
Roman East is due in part to the traditionally
negative reaction of Hellenists, but most of all
to the classic impediments and difficulties that
go along with the pursuit, collection, study, and
interpretation of epigraphic discoveries. The
situation in the Péloponnèse, for example, is
further complicated by the fact that, except for
a few instances, the older systematic catalogues
of inscriptions belong to the beginning of the
twentieth century and the new material is frequently
scattered among a variety of publications,
some of them rather obscure. 8 The dearth
of groundwork concerned with Roman onomastics
is not filled by the fine prosopographical
work of M. Mitsos on .Argos and that of
A.S. Bradford on Laconia 9 , studies which, anyhow,
are now outdated thanks primarily to new