Document Type : Original Research
Authors
Institute of Religious Studies, Complutense University of Madrid
Abstract
During the last years of the Republic, the image that the Romans had, regarding the Parthian population, was that of threat and hostility (Cicero’s Letters). However, the relationship between the two peoples changed over time, and in Tacitus and Suetonius’ texts, we find that the Parthian characters are treated individually. This is due to the fact that, from 30 BC to AD 180, some members of the Arsacid Royal Family lived in Rome as hostages, while members of other royal families from the East were hosted in the capital of the Empire. The reason for this “people exchange” was to build friendship treaties and to forge links between the Roman Republic and Empire and the royal families of the Eastern kingdoms. However, it is clear that this was used by the Roman Empire to highlight its political superiority over the Parthian Kingdom, because no member of the Roman Imperial Family was hosted elsewhere.
But which language was spoken in these encounters? Did the hostages leave any trace of their mother tongue in Rome? What do we know about the many emissaries sent by the Romans to negotiate with the Parthian Kingdom? In this paper, we will try to analyze the contexts of the linguistic exchanges we can find in the authors of that period, combining them with other information available to us, such as inscriptions and archeological data, in order to reconstruct the linguistic contacts in a multilingual community.
Keywords
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