We have also a bit of positive evidence of the feeling of this house towards its most notable woman. The senate, in a burst of adulation towards the formidable empress- dowager Livia, proposed among other things to add Iuliae filius to the official name of Tiberius. He promptly replied that "honours to women must be kept within bounds," and would have none of it.[1] In this he showed himself, as he usually did, a thorough-going conservative and a defender of old Roman ways against foreign, in this case perhaps Etruscan, ideas.[2]
(V.) Let us see, finally, whether we cannot here and there find traces among Italians of matrilinear nomenclature, if nothing else. That their official names were patrilinear we know: "Marcus Tullius, son of Marcus, grandson of Marcus, Cicero," is the stock type; and this holds good outside of Rome; the first two names which meet us in Conway's Italic Dialects are Stenis Kalinis (son) of Statteis and Maras Pompties (son) of Numisdius. But in unofficial inscriptions and here and there in literature we have a different fashion of naming. Thus we have, CIL III. 4733, one Cupitianus, who calls himself the son of Cupitine, though he goes on to mention his father, Asellio. This is most naturally explained by another inscription,[3] erected by the will of a Cn. Numidius Berullus to his son, whom he calls not Numidius, but Allius. He explains this by mentioning the boy's mother, his concubine, Allia Nysa. Seeing that concubinage was recognised by law and public opinion alike, what really needs explanation is the comparative rarity of such names on epitaphs and elsewhere; and this is partly to be accounted for by the habit of children of irregular unions taking the name of
- ↑ Tac. Ann. i. 14. 2, 3.
- ↑ He went so far on one occasion as to forbid a witness to give evidence in Greek,—a language which was the second mother-tongue of all educated Romans,—in the senate-house, where Latin was the only official speech. See Dio, lvii. 15-3.
- ↑ See Cagnat, Cours d' épigraphie latine, pp. 59, 70.
