--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
> When we were taught Latin in my student days, we used
> a text which contained multiple stories from early
> Roman history. And we learned about Metius "Suffetius"
> rather than Fufetius. Was that a misunderstanding? I
> seem to remember, vaguely (it's been a long long
> time!) that our esteemed Jesuit professor told us that
> "suffetius" was a title similar to that of
> Carthaginian notables...
Yes, I've seen that a variant form of the name Metius (~
Mettius/Mettus) Fufetius (~ Fuffetius) is Metius *Suffetius*
(attested in some Roman writers of the imperial period, f.i. in
Lucius Ampelius).
Yet, it seems very unlikely to me that the original form was
Suffetius and that the latter name was related to Lat. suf(f)es, -
etis 'the chief magistrate of the Carthaginians, a sufet'.
The Lat. term suf(f)es was directly derived from Phoenician <s^pt.>
(probably pronounced as /s^ofet./ or /s^ufet./) 'judge', which is
also attested in Akkadian and Hebrew, and in Ugaritic in the variant
form <spt.>.
Why should late Roman writers have equated the title of the office
held by a general/dictator/king of archaic Alba Longa to that of a
Phoenician sufet?
Regards,
Francesco