Page 224 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

so too had the accompanying desire for worldly fame throughout the
secula. 72
The epitaph is a minor example of the belles-lettres which characterise
holders of public office, and more generally the aristocracy, of the later
empire. This literary context is an indication of Senarius’ social position.
The rarity of Senarius’ name has led to the supposition that it is a
Latin rendering of a Gothic name, and that Senarius himself was there-
fore a Goth. 73 One other comes patrimonii under the Ostrogoths appears
to have been Gothic. 74 But this reconstruction is false. Senarius’ name,
though rare, is not quite unique. 75 It is perhaps related to the once-
common plebeian nomina Sextius and Sextilius, or the praenomen Sextus.
The form and derivation of the name are typical of the single-name
signa or supernomina which came to supersede both the ancient Roman
system of tria nomina, and traditional individual names themselves, from
76
the early fourth century onwards. Senarius himself alludes to the Latin

72
Circulation: PLRE ii, ‘Symmachus 9’, 1046 (Symmachus and Macrobius Plotinus Eudoxius par-
ticipate in improving the text of the elder Macrobius’ Commentary on the Somnium Scipionis).
Boethius, Philosophiae consolatio, esp. ii,Pr. 7; Pierre Courcelle, La Consolation de Philosophie dans
la tradition litt´ eraire (Paris, 1967), 116–24. Neoplatonism: Franz Cumont, Lux perpetua (Paris, 1949;
repr. New York, 1985), 142–88, 343–86. Christian imagery of elevation ad astra: e.g. Lattimore,
Themes, 312; J. de Rossi, Inscriptiones Christianae urbis Romae septimo saeculo antiquiores ii pars i
(Rome, 1888), 20 no. 6 (in St Peter’s, possibly fourth century); 113–14 no. 79 (probably fifth
century); Prudentius, Liber Cathemerinon,in Carmina, ed. Ioannes Bergman (CSEL 61; Vienne,
1926), x, 89–92. Worldly fame: Iiro Kajanto, Classical and Christian: Studies in the Latin Epitaphs of
Medieval and Renaissance Rome (Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae ser. b no. 203 (Helsinki,
1980), 83–4.
73 For ‘Senarius’ < Gothic Sini-harjis (‘ancient-army’): F. Wrede, ¨ Uber die Sprache der Ostgoten in
∗
Italien (Strasburg, 1891), 117; Eduard Schroeder, apud Mommsen, ‘Index personarum’ to Cass.,
Variae, 499 (though Mommsen, ‘Ostgothische Studien’, 402 n. 2 denies that Senarius was a Goth);
M. Sch¨ onfeld, W¨ orterbuch der altergermanischen Personen- und V¨ olkernamen (Heidelberg, 1911), 202;
Gerhard K¨ obler, Gotisches W¨ orterbuch (Leiden, 1989), 699; PLRE ii, ‘Senarius’, 988; Henry Chad-
wick, Boethius: The Consolations of Music,Logic,Theology,and Philosophy (Oxford, 1981), 27;
Hermann Reichert, Lexicon der altgermanischen Namen i: Namen (Vienna, 1987), 596 (Senarius a
Goth, but with a Roman name); Moorhead, Theoderic, 72–3 n. 32 (Senarius a Roman, butwith
a Germanic name); Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 273 n. 163 (‘probably’), 413.
(‘Siniharjis’ is also seen by ErnstGamillscheg, Romania Germanica: Sprach- und Siedlungsgeschichte
der Germanen auf dem Bolden des alten R¨ omerreichs, 1stedn, i (Berlin, 1934), 323, as the Gothic
rootof several medieval French names, e.g. Signarius (more likely = ‘signatory’, cf. Du Cange,
Gloss. vii, s.v. ‘signarius’, 480), Senarens.)
74
PLRE ii, ‘Wilia 2’, 1167; cf. below, n. 105.
75
There are no Senarii in Aegidius Forcellini, Lexicon totius latinitatis vi: Onomasticon, ed. Joseph
Perin (Padua, 1940); in CIL;in PIR; in A. Silvagni et al., Inscriptiones Christianae urbis Romae
septimo saeculo antiquiores (Rome, 1922–92); or elsewhere in PLRE. The feminine version of the
name, however, appears in an inscription on a pin found in Sardinia, datable only to Christian
times; CIL x, 2 8072.18. A Senario appears on an inscription in Saragossa; CIL ii, Suppl. 5856.
76 1
For Sextius, Sextilius, Sextus: Forcellini, Onomasticon vi, 621–2; RE ii A.2, 2033–66; PIR 3,
235–41; two Sextilii and one Sextius appear in PLRE i, butnone in PLRE ii or iii. For names
with ‘ordinal’ etymologies in the early Christian period: Iiro Kajanto, Onomastic Studies in the
Early Christian Inscriptions of Rome and Carthage (Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae 2.1; Helsinki,
198