From: tgpedersen
Message: 48156
Date: 2007-04-01
>In the same vein:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Francesco Brighenti" <frabrig@>
> wrote:
> >
> > 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'.
>
> > 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?
> ********
> An answer to the last question occurred to me, but it seemed too
> unlikely to mention.
> But since in his later post, Francesco quoted Noonan in a
> scholarly journal postulating equally obscure puns, here it is for
> Cybalist:
> "Suffetius" implied that Fufetius, an archetype of personal
> perfidy, adumbrated Punica fides, the archetype of national perfidy
> to the Romans.