Prosopographical Reconstruction of the Reduced and Fragmented Names of Historical Persons (on the Example of Olbia) (in Russian)

Abstract

When reconstructing fragmented names in epigraphy, the onomastic principle is traditionally used: the fragment is supplemented with suitable names, taking into account the approximate number of missing letters. For example, in the collection «Inscriptions in Olbia. 1968» (hereinafter – IOlb) the remains of letters [...]ιον inscriptions IOlb 21 were restored by possible names Διονύσιος, Δημήτριος, Ἀθήναιος, Εὑρησίβιος, etc. Onomastic reconstructions were widely used by V.V. Latyshev in his work IPE I2) and other researchers (for example,SEG)); at the same time, the recovered names were used neither in Olbia nor in the Northern Black Sea region. Onomastic reconstruction of names, assuming the diversity of possible theoretical variants, remains essentially provisional, since it is not associated with a certain historical figure. Accordingly, the goal of the paper is to substantiate and protect a fundamentally different, prosopographical approach to the reconstruction of the fragmented (reduced) names of historical persons, as well as overcoming the opponent’s criticisms. The restoration of the chronology of Olbia of the 4th – 1st centuries BC (synchronization of the eponym catalogue IPE I2 201) made by the author, opened the prospect of replacing traditional onomastic reconstruction with a fundamentally different, however, completely obvious approach to reconstruction of fragments and reduced names in monuments of a lapidary, ceramic, magical epigraphy and numismatics with the names of real historical persons – prosopographical reconstruction.

Note: Downloadable document is in Russian.

Keywords: Olbia, epigraphy, reconstruction, onomastics, prosopography