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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
In a recent number of the CLASSICAL QUARTERLY (viii., p. 121), under the title ‘Neaera as a Common Name,’ Mr. Postgate writes: ‘There are two undoubted instances of this use of Neaera in Prudentius which are cited by Mr. Ullman.’ This is indeed a very welcome admission, for, unless I am greatly mistaken, Mr. Postgate was formerly of the opinion that such a usage or anything approaching it was unthinkable in Latin.1 But Mr. Postgate still feels uneasy about it, for he says: ‘I imagine however that to an unprejudiced sense of Latin usage these instances will themselves seem to be strange and in need of explanation…. Now is there anything in Neaera or its history which will account for this ? Let us examine the possibilities. And first those offered by etymology…. But it may be thought that it acquired its objectionable colour through the reputed conduct of some particular Neaera of legend or history.’ We are now on common ground, for of course there can be no type-names or common names without some reason.
1 A.J.P. xxxiii., p. 451, n. i (in answering my article Horace and Tibullus, ib. pp. 149–167): ‘His modern parallels do not help him, as he has left Proout of sight the obvious consideration that Latin has no means of distinguishing between “Jehu” and “a jehu” or “the jehu.”’ Beside my former answer to this objection (ib. p. 456), let me quote Mr. Postgate against himself. In his note on Prop. v. 11. 19 (Select Elegies of Pro-pertius) Mr. Postgate says of quis Aeacus ‘really= an Aeacus.’ For the definite article, Latin can, if necessary, use ille, etc.
1 Pape, , Wörterbuch d. griech. Eigennamen, 3rd ed. 1884, p. xxii.Google Scholar
2 Pape's list is supplemented by Lambertz, Die griech. Shlavennamen, 1907, p. 49.
3 The thirteenth book of Athenaeus is the locus classicus on the subject of hetaerae.
4 But Mr. Postgate seems to hold the in-credible and obsolete view that the same person is meant (A.J.P. xxxiii., p. 451).
5 In addition to the one mentioned in Pape, two different ones are found in Herondas i. 89 and ii. 65.
1 Reference may be made to Appendix I. in Wickham's edition of the Odes.
2 Bechtel, pp. 62–63.I. in Rome most persons with Greek names would naturally be slaves, and, as in Athens, the hetaerae were usually recruited from the slaves.
3 Horace's method of using type-names in the Odes is anticipated by him in Serm. i. 2. 125–6: ‘Haec (meretrix)… Ilia et Egeria est: do nomen quodlibet illi.’
1 I called attention to the use of Charybdis in A.J.P. xxxiii., p. 457.
2 It is perhaps not out of place to note here a rather curious situation. The use of Helen as a type-name is well known (to the Greek examples one may now add Men. Samia 122; for Latin cf. especially Mart. i. 62. 6). Eupolis called Aspasia 'Helen' (schol. Plat. 391). But Aspasia herself became so famous that her name was used as a type-name. Hence we find Milto, the mistress of Cyrus the Younger, changing her name to Aspasia (cf. e.g. Ath. 576d).
