ABSTRACT
We have seen that the praenomen lost ground from the time of the early Empire. In Lyon, for example, all names on inscriptions had the praenomen until AD 70; between 70 and 140 15 per cent had no praenomen; between 140 and 250 over 50 per cent; and by the start of the fourth century over two-thirds. In Africa similarly, the praenomen declined significantly. By the fourth century, it was very rare anywhere, even among those exercising power. Less than a fifth of the prefects of Rome after Constantine had a praenomen. Of the consuls, Eastern and Western, between 260 and 400 only 11 per cent had a traditional abbreviated praenomen, and a further 16 per cent the first name Fl. for Flavius, which was really a gentilicium. Between 400 and 527 only one consul had a traditional praenomen, though over half were called Fl. The praenomen did survive among the old Western nobility, but even among them it had become “exceptionally rare” by the fifth century.1
