Talk:Didia gens

About the Emperor Didius Julianus

According to this article, his praenomen was Quintus, & his father had the same praenomen. However, according to the restoration of an inscription mentioning him (CIL VI, 1401), it was Marcus, & so was his father's. No help from Dio Cassius, Herodian or the Historia Augusta. This is all edging into a morass of less than reliable sources -- writing history from between the brackets is a known problem with ancient history, & deserves its own article -- so is there any reliable source about his praenomen? (I suspect this is another problem left to us by that banned editor.) - llywrch (talk) 16:59, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

The article says that the emperor was "Marcus", but has his father's name as "Quintus", and that does indeed date back to Anriz' work, when this article was created in 2007. I'm not sure where that comes from—one of the articles cited as a source for the father in his article is the DGRBM's article on the jurist Julianus, which does give details on the emperor's ancestry—but only calls him "Marcus", and doesn't seem to assign any praenomina to his ancestors. I did a few quick searches for inscriptions that might be useful, but besides the one you cited above, I found AE 1952, 154, which concerns a freedwoman from Mediolanum named "Didia Salvia", Marci liberta, who seems to have been the mother of Quintus Didius Tertullinus, Quinti filius, an eques. This is hardly proof of the emperor's father's name, since it's not readily apparent from the inscription how the people relate to the emperor—the date range spans 150 years—but the name "Didia Salvia" and location of Mediolanum do suggest to me that she's likely to be a recent ancestress of the emperor, perhaps a grandmother or great-grandmother. This inscription also suggests where "Quintus" might have come from—although Didia's patron was "Marcus", the fact that she (probably) married someone also named "Didius" suggests that we're dealing with multiple freedmen belonging to at least two members of the same family, perhaps two brothers named "Marcus" and "Quintus". It's possible that Quintus Didius Tertullinus was an uncle or granduncle of the emperor. Of course all of this is speculation—and really does need some kind of scholarly analysis that we're not qualified to render. At most we can say that the inscription seems likely to relate to some of the emperor's ancestors, but not how. But I really doubt that Anriz pulled this inscription out of a hat. It's probably in a source we haven't seen, perhaps Settipani or some other scholar on the emperor's family. Perhaps the inscription will turn up in someone's book in a Google search. P Aculeius (talk) 18:01, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I've found an answer to part of my question: the praenomen of the man who bought the imperial throne was Marcus, based on the coins minted during his brief reign. This picture of one of his coins in excellent condition bears the inscription "IMP CAES M DID IVLIAN AVG" or "Imp(erator) Caes(ar) M(arcus) Did(ius) Iulian(us) Aug(ustus)". As for the praenomen of his father, that is still unasnwered. If one could be certain that praenomina had become fossilized, that is sons routinely inherited their father's praenomen, we could say with confidence it was Marcus; but I am not that confident without approval from a reliable source. (And I would keep such speculation to the article on the elder Didius.) Looking at the older edition of PIR available online, I find attested praenomina for the Didii are 2 Auli, 2 Luci, 1 Quintus, 1 Titus, & one Marcus (the emperor). (BTW, PIR was where I found the hint to look at coins for Julianus' praenomen.) So the father's praenomen requires more research. -- llywrch (talk) 16:41, 19 April 2020 (UTC)