Talk:Vagitanus

Should this article really be called "Vaticanus" ?

Although the actual text of the article is neutral in this regard, and mentions both "Vaticanus" and "Vagitanus" as possible versions of the name, it's important to note that "Vagitanus" is not well attested in Roman sources. According to the article cited at footnote 9 [which should be entitled "Dell origine di Roma" and attributed to its author, Nicola Corcia] Vagitanus appears as a variant in some manuscripts of Augustine Civ. Dei so Koch in Paulys Realenzyklopädie s.v. Vaticanus is perhaps overstating the case against this form when he calls Vagitanus a "modern conjecture". At the same time, it is perhaps worth noting that while the Pauly has an entry for Vagitanus, that merely redirects the reader to Vaticanus.

I'm fond of the form Vagitanus myself, but I really doubt whether it is accurate to talk of this as if it is a well-established Roman name.Zloop (talk) 02:25, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

I probably titled it Vagitanus to avoid dealing with the hassles of possible disambiguation in the "Vatican" group. The etymologizing here is of the ancient variety (by freely interpretive association), so I doubt that modern linguistics would buy a connection between vaticanus and vagitus. Since the geographical designation Vaticanum probably wasn't related to vates either, it's hard to know what to make of all this. I sometimes think Augustine made jokes in the manner of Adcock's Punctura, and we just don't have enough context to get them. Please feel encouraged to contribute to it, but I'll go ahead and fill in the missing bits of the citation. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:38, 11 April 2013 (UTC)