The Venetic Names of Roman Siscia

Abstract

This work deals with the proper names attested in the lead tags of Siscia in Pannonia, the territory which, in the author’s view, reveals an intersection of at least four different branches of Indo-European: Latin, Venetic, Celtic, and Illyrian, and thus holds clues to multiple linguistic discoveries. Documents from Siscia contain names of different filiations. While most names are unmistakably Roman, and others are Greek and even Semitic, they also feature some Celtic instances, occasionally never attested before. The author has selected a number of proper names that can be labeled as Italic or, probably unduly, as Venetic, and that have been paid no attention thus far. The linguistic evidence, however limited, shows that these names may tie up well with an Italic series of names and adjectives whose ultimate morphological origins are sometimes disputed. An in-depth analysis of the etymology of these proprial forms that draws a wide range of Indo-European and other related data presents a most convincing testimony of the degree to which the ancient Pannonia was a linguistic patchwork resulting from language contacts between Celtic and Italic peoples with Illyrians. Such an analysis, although far from being exhaustive as to the areal distribution and linguistic attribution of the onomastic data, however, enables the author not only to suggest plausible interpretations for the names under study but also to clarify some specific problems of Indo-European morphology and morphophonemics, as well as to trace some unmanifested ties both within and beyond the Italic language family.

Keywords

• Italic languages
• Celtic languages
• Venetic
• Gaulish
• Illyrian
• Italic onomastics
• Pannonia
• language contacts
• Indo-European morphology
• morphophonemics