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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Valentinian, post: 4401099, member: 44316&quot;]I&#039;ll tell you a story.</p><p><br /></p><p>In 1986 I attended the International Numismatic Congress in London. I knew most of the big names would be attending, and I was, at that time, living in remote Montana and never hearing lots of Roman names and Latin terms pronounced. I had not studied them in college; I developed my interest on my own. So, over time, I made a list of about 100 names (Is &quot;Severus&quot; SEV er us? Se VERE us?) and words (is &quot;cuirass&quot; cure ASS?, QUIER ass?) I wanted to know how to pronounce and then took a tiny tape-recorder with me. </p><p><br /></p><p>At the Congress I asked big names from Britain and the continent if they would be willing to pronounce the words on my list into my tape recorder. Everyone agreed. They could not have been nicer. </p><p><br /></p><p>The result was, in summary, that I got so many different pronunciations of almost everything that I gave up. You might be surprised how many different ways there are to say</p><p>&quot;Antoninus Pius&quot; including</p><p>an TOE KNEE nus, an TOE NINE us </p><p>PEE us, PI us</p><p><br /></p><p>Domitian(us)</p><p>DOE mih TEE on us</p><p>DOE mih TEE un</p><p>DOE mish un</p><p>and others</p><p><br /></p><p>Try saying &quot;Pupienus&quot; with one syllable per vowel. </p><p><br /></p><p>I figure if the pros whose names are on the books on my shelf can&#039;t come even close to agreement, then it can&#039;t matter too much how those names and words are pronounced.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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