(no subject)

[ricardienne]

1840 play about the reign of Caracalla featuring Thrasea Priscus, the wild-eyed Republican senator.

"But, ricardienne," someone says, "I have been dutifully following your many allusions and linkages to those illustrious names, and I am pretty sure that they are different people, neither of whom lived in Antonine climes!" There actually is a Thrasea Priscus on record getting himself executed in the reign of Caracalla. Sir Ronald includes him at the end of his monograph on the subject,* and he's probably in Gibbon. Nevertheless, there are probably better ways to introduce such a character than:

Thrasea Priscus—
Last of the line of that Thrasea Poetus, [sic]
And that Helvidius Priscus, who, in the days
Of Nero, (bad enough, but better yet
Than these,) were patriots, that outlived
Rome's liberty, and perished for their folly,
Yet are by Tacitus immortalized.

The best thing to read, however, is the introductory essay, which is basically a rant about how this play is so awesome that no one would put it on, because the modern theatre world is degenerate and doesn't understand TRUE ART and all of that.

*[Syme, Ronald. “A political group.” Reprinted in Roman Papers VII. Oxford: 1991. 568-587.]


EDIT: Full name: Lucius Valerius Messalla Thrasea Poplicola Helvidius Priscus.

Comments

[goldjadeocean.livejournal.com]

Poplicola

Only the date of the play prevents me from seeing this as a soft drink reference.

[ricardienne.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's the historical name! A Valerius Poplicola helped overthrow the kings of Rome way back in the day! (Which maybe adds some support to the idea that this guy was from a family with inherited fringe anti-imperial tendencies...)

But I admit that I might start drinking soda if some company put out a classics-themed drink called "Poplicola."

[achyvi.livejournal.com]

Why the butt is his name so long?? Poplicola indeed.

[ricardienne.livejournal.com]

Basically, his family started adding all of their famous names together with each generation. (Verifying this has led me to the realization that the wikipedia pages about this clan are HOPELESSLY corrupt, by the way, so be warned!) There's one really famous and ridiculously long one, which I can't remember. I mean, people talk today about how ridiculous hyphenation would get after a few generations: Late Roman aristocrats really weren't bothered by it!

A related issue is that by this period we don't have so much narrative history to find out what name(s) people actually were commonly known by. It's quite possible, for example, that Tacitus' full name was something like Publius Cornelius Tacitus Caecina Paetus,* where the last couple of names (which are conjectural from a bit of tombstone that might have been Tacitus's...), where the last couple of names probably come from his mother's side of the family/getting an inheritance that stipulated adding the deceased's name to yours in order to receive it.* But if all we have is one mention in a very official source that includes all the names (e.g. a tomb), then there is no tradition of shortening it.

*Very interesting, these names, because they would connect Tacitus somehow to the group descending from Thrasea Paetus, whose father-in-law was a Caecina Paetus,