New Identities in the Greco-Roman East: Cultural and Legal Implications of the Use of Roman Names

Abstract

The familiarisation of the Greeks with Roman onomastics went through many phases and variations in space and time. Initially they used the Roman naming system correctly in official documents, but in many private documents Romans are named ‘� la grecque’, either solely by their praenomen or in combination with their father’s name, frequently a praenomen, both transcribed in Greek. Such interchange between conventions also occurs with novi cives, who are named either according to the Roman or the Greek formula or with a combination of the two denominations. The reductive form of naming Roman citizens decreased after Sulla and particularly during the Empire. In contrast, the use of fashionable Roman names by the Greeks, either as individual names or patronymics or both -in different combinations and variations- became common, reaching its peak in the second and particularly the third centuries AD.