Zeidler, Jürgen: „Onomastic Studies on Some Roman Amici in Hispania“, in: 
Altay Co$kun (Hg.): Roms auswärtige Freunde in der späten Republik und 
im frühen Prinzipat, Göttingen 2005, S. 175-200. 
Zeidler, Jürgen : „Celto-Roman Contact Names in Galicia“, in: Verba. Anua- 
rio galego de filoloxia, Anexo 58 (2007) S. 41-56. 
Summary 
Gallia Celto-Romanica. Onomastic, Linguistic and Cultural 
Contact Phenomena during the Roman Empire 
It is commonly held that the Gallic provinces adopted the Roman civilisation 
rather quickly. In recent years, .Romanization’ is no longer taken to imply a 
trend to emulate the culture of the capital, but instead, the mutual character of 
this rapprochement is emphasised. In Roman archaeology, the history of 
religion, in linguistics and onomastics alike, a synthesis of indigenous and 
immigrant traditions can be observed. The research on contact names has been 
initiated by J.B. Keune in 1897 and advanced by L. Wcisgerber in particular. 
During the past twenty years or so, substantial contributions to this field of 
study have been published. The most decisive problem is whether the inter- 
cultural character of names was really intended or whether the assonance or 
homonymy is pure chance. Some criteria have been proposed: (1) literary 
evidence, (2) biographical and prosopographical information, (3) language 
affiliation and etymology, (4) frequency and regional distribution. In a 
previous study it could be shown that up to 83% of all names borne by the 
family of Ausonius in the fourth century may have a regional background, a 
fact that is well in keeping with the intention uttered by the author himself 
{Prof. 4.11). A further example is studied in the main part of this paper, the 
onomastic evidence of the related families of Apollinaris Sidonius and the 
Roman Emperor, Eparchius Avitus (455/56). Most names turned out to be 
probable contact names, even in the fifth century. Some of them are noms 
d’apparence latine with a Gaulish connection (Roscia: *rud-sko- ,red (of 
rage)’), some are pseudo-Greek (Ecdicius ,avenger’, Gaulish Divico). They 
convey desired qualities of aristocrats such as strength (Alcimus/a), dominion 
{Eparchius), and generosity {Severiana, cf. *suvëro-?). Purely Celtic names 
can also be found among Sidonius’ friends {Sapaudus, Namatius). The careful 
selection of anthroponyms may be indicative of a certain knowledge of the 
Gaulish language in the leading Gallo-Roman families. Thus the famous 
passage in Sidonius referring to sermo Celticus {Epist. 3.3.2) probably points 
to the abandonment of Gaulish, not a ,Gallic Latin accent’ as is sometimes 
assumed. 
28