Epaphroditus, Josephus, and Epictetus

Abstract

‘Epaphroditus’ (= ‘lovely’, ‘charming’) is perhaps the commonest of Roman slave names apart from ‘Felix’, which it sometimes renders as a Greek equivalent. It is also used very extensively under the early empire by those with tria nomina , whether freedmen or freeborn, whether descendants of freedmen or not, whether citizens or Junian Latins. It is also found among decurions and even equestrians, but not senators. It thus has a non-elite resonance in the western half of the empire, but, like almost all personal cognomina , not exclusively so.