LA DESIGNAZIONE DEI LIBERTI NELLA DOCUMENTAZIONE VENETICA: STRATEGIE LINGUISTICHE E RIFLESSI ISTITUZIONALI

Abstract

This paper deals with the freedmen in the Venetic world, focusing on the ways of expressing such a status
in the inscriptions. Taking also into account some Venetic inscriptions recently found in Montebelluna,
it seems possible to distinguish two systems for naming freedmen. Specifically, freedmen appear to
be named either by using a second name derived from the patron’s second name with the suffixes -iaio-/
-iako- < *-ia-io-/*-ia-ko- or by adding the Latin loanword libertos “freedman” – sometimes variously abbreviated
– to the onomastic formula. Despite the fragmentary nature of the evidence, the use of a second
name in -iaio/-iako can be considered as the original Venetic system for naming individuals previously not
included in society, such as freedmen. Following cultural and linguistic contact with Rome, such a system
of naming freedmen seems to have been replaced or accompanied by the Roman system, that is to say by
the use of the patron’s second name (gentilicium) and possibly individual name (praenomen), which makes
it necessary to add the term libertos for disambiguation.