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CYNNANE ‘THE ILLYRIAN’? THE PERILS OF ONOMASTICS*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2015

Jens Bartels*
Affiliation:
Historisches Seminar der Universität Zürich

Extract

Stating that Olympias and Eurydice fought the first war ever between women, Duris of Samos explained the behaviour of Eurydice by reporting that she learned the art of war from Cynnane ‘the Illyrian’ (ἀσκηθεῖσαν τὰ πολεμικὰ παρὰ Κυννάνῃ τῇ Ἰλλυρίδι).

Type
Shorter Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2015 

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Jörg Fündling and the anonymous reader of CQ for their helpful suggestions.

References

1 Ath. 13.10 (560 f = Duris FGrHist 76 F 52), unnecessarily corrected to Κύννῃ by Kaibel. The reading of the codex Marcianus Venetus has already been defended by W. Heckel, ‘Kynnane the Illyrian’, RSA 13/14 (1983–4), 193–200, at 197.

2 On the life of Cynnane, cf. inter alia Berve, H., Das Alexanderreich auf prosopographischer Grundlage, 2 vols. (Munich, 1926)Google Scholar, 2.229 n. 456; Fluss, M., RE Supplement 6 (Stuttgart, 1935)Google Scholar s.v. ‘Kynna’, 209–11; Heckel (n. 1); Carney, E.D., Women and Monarchy in Macedonia (Norman, OK, 2000)Google Scholar, esp. 58, 69–70 and 128–32.

3 Eurydice, Philip's mother, an ‘Illyrian’: Plut. Mor. 14B–C; Lib. Arg.D. pr. 18; Suda s.v. Κάρανος. On Eurydice, cf. also Carney (n. 2), 38–50.

4 Droysen, J.G., Geschichte des Hellenismus, vol. 2 (Basel, 1952 3), 60Google Scholar; Macurdy, G.H., Hellenistic Queens (Baltimore, 1932), 48–9Google Scholar.

5 Pomeroy, S., Women in Hellenistic Egypt (New York, 1984), 67 and 122Google Scholar.

6 Carney (n. 2), 275 n. 27.

7 Carney (n. 2), 275 n. 27, referring to Wilkes, J., The Illyrians (Oxford and Cambridge, MA, 1992), 86Google Scholar; cautiously Heckel (n. 1), 196.

8 Cf. the exhaustive analysis by Heckel (n. 1).

9 Ar. Eq. 765 (adduced by Krahe, H., Lexikon altillyrischer Personen [Heidelberg, 1929]Google Scholar, 33 s.v. Cynna), Ar. Vesp. 1032 and Pax 755 with the respective scholia.

10 Hoffmann, O., Die Makedonen, ihre Sprache und ihr Volkstum (Göttingen, 1906)Google Scholar, 220 claims the name to be Greek.

11 Krahe (n. 9), 33 s.v. Cynna; 151; in later works Krahe never mentioned the name again. Had his doubts, already mentioned in 1929, got too strong?

12 Wilkes (n. 7), 85–6.

13 Papazoglu, F., Central Balkan Tribes (Amsterdam, 1978)Google Scholar, 228, 238, 241.

14 A. und Šašel, J., Inscriptiones Latinae quae in Iugoslavia inter annos MCMII et MCMXL repertae et editae sunt (Ljubljana, 1986)Google Scholar, 62 no. 1445.

15 Last search 23.5.2013.

16 Gounaropoulou, L. and Hatzopoulos, M. (edd.), Επιγραφές Κάτω Μακεδονίας Α. Επιγραφές Βεροίας (Athens, 1998)Google Scholar, no. 23 (Macedonia, third century b.c.): [Κ]υννάνα; ibid. no. 391 (Macedonia, early third century b.c.): Κυννάνα; SEG 32.583 (Atrax, Thessalia, fourth century b.c.): [Κ]υνάνα; IG 9.2.334 (Mylai, Perrhaibia, unknown date): Κυννάνα; IG 9.2.568 (Larisa, unknown date): [Κ]ύ[ν]νη; Tolstoi, I. I., Греческие граффити древних городов северного причерноморья (Moscow, 1953)Google Scholar, 81 no. 125 (Nymphaeum, fourth century b.c.): [Κύ]ννα. Cf. also LGPN 4.204 and 3B.251.

17 SEG 40.514 from the polis and island of Issa (second or first century b.c.) mentions one Κυννὶς Καλλισθένεος. The name Κυννίς occurs already in a Greek inscription within a Greek context from Ephesus (fifth or fourth century b.c.): Ch. Börker and Merkelbach, R., Die Inschriften von Ephesos, vol. 2 (Bonn, 1979)Google Scholar, no. 131. Cf. LGPN 5.260; another record comes from Kos (first century b.c. or a.d.): Paton, W.R. and Hicks, E.L., The Inscriptions of Cos (Hildesheim, 1990)Google Scholar, no. 124. Cf. also LGPN 1.279. Krahe (n. 9), 33 s.v. Cynnis: ‘Der Name kann griechisch sein; doch darf auch an illyr. Κύννα erinnert werden.’ Again there is no record from the Latin inscriptions of Illyria.

18 Mirdita, Z., Antroponimia e Dardanisë në kohën romake (Pristina, 1981)Google Scholar, 94 and 146 qualifies Cinna as Latin cognomen. Cf. 151, where the name is missing among the Illyrian cognomina.

19 On the Latin or Etruscan cognomen Cinna, cf. Kajanto, I., The Latin Cognomina (Helsinki, 1965), 42 and 106–7Google Scholar.