08-06-2014, 07:21 AM
Hi Jass,
I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's improbable. Especially the way it ended up with a low-born makes me raise my eyebrows.
As to names, if you read publications like the prosopography of the later Roman empire (PLRE), you realise how few names are actually known to us - it covers AD 260-641 in 3 volumes in 4157 pages with c. 20 names to a page. That's c. 80.000 names out of the hundreds of millions who must have lived during that period. How many names of the time of Pericles do we know? More than ten thousand? Epigraphy indeed also gives us more names of commoners, but still not many. Also, no more than modern graffiti tells us about how often names occur in our society (and this we can check against birth records), can ancient records (written on paper or in stone or clay) tell us which records reflect the occurrance of names in ancient society.
Don't be fooled by the apparent meaning of names, either. I can give you the example of Vortigern, one of the first rulers in post-Roman Britain. The name means 'most royal' or something (and may be taken upon accession). But he was something like a king. However, we also know of eleven (!) other Vortigerns, who are all commoners with no noble connection wahatsoever. Meaning of names don't mean we know the status of the person behind it.
My sister btw is named after three queens (Wilhelmina Johanna Elizabeth). I wonder if she wrote her birthnames on a cup, buried it in the back garden, maybe in 2000 years an archaeologist would publish about a rare chance find of a 'royal cup from the Kingdom of Holland'.
I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's improbable. Especially the way it ended up with a low-born makes me raise my eyebrows.
As to names, if you read publications like the prosopography of the later Roman empire (PLRE), you realise how few names are actually known to us - it covers AD 260-641 in 3 volumes in 4157 pages with c. 20 names to a page. That's c. 80.000 names out of the hundreds of millions who must have lived during that period. How many names of the time of Pericles do we know? More than ten thousand? Epigraphy indeed also gives us more names of commoners, but still not many. Also, no more than modern graffiti tells us about how often names occur in our society (and this we can check against birth records), can ancient records (written on paper or in stone or clay) tell us which records reflect the occurrance of names in ancient society.
Don't be fooled by the apparent meaning of names, either. I can give you the example of Vortigern, one of the first rulers in post-Roman Britain. The name means 'most royal' or something (and may be taken upon accession). But he was something like a king. However, we also know of eleven (!) other Vortigerns, who are all commoners with no noble connection wahatsoever. Meaning of names don't mean we know the status of the person behind it.
My sister btw is named after three queens (Wilhelmina Johanna Elizabeth). I wonder if she wrote her birthnames on a cup, buried it in the back garden, maybe in 2000 years an archaeologist would publish about a rare chance find of a 'royal cup from the Kingdom of Holland'.
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
