Greek names and freed status in Roman Italy: why ancient historians can’t ignore statistics

Myles Patrick Lavan

doi:10.1515/9783110796841-001

Greek names and freed status in Roman Italy: why ancient historians can’t ignore statistics

Myles Patrick Lavan^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The rule of thumb that an individual with a Greek name can be assumed to be of freed status is widely used in the social history of Roman Italy. This paper shows that it is based on a logical fallacy and must be abandoned. There is no valid way to use names to impute the status of individuals without knowing the mix of statuses in the population. The paper goes on to show that it possible to make inferences based on onomastics but that it requires a formal statistical model of the relationship between names and status. The method is illustrated by application to the lists of members of collegia from Roman Ostia.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1-30
Number of pages	30
Journal	Chiron: Mitteilungen der Kommission für Alte Geschichte und Epigraphik des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts
Volume	52
Early online date	5 Dec 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110796841-001
Publication status	Published - 1 Jan 2023

Keywords

Statistics
Liberti
Manumission
Legal status
Names

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10.1515/9783110796841-001

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Copyright © 2022 Publisher / the Author. This work has been made available online in accordance with publisher policies or with permission. Permission for further reuse of this content should be sought from the publisher or the rights holder. This is the author created accepted manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110796841-001
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Cite this

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Greek names and freed status in Roman Italy: why ancient historians can’t ignore statistics

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Keywords

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