Character/Personna development

[Wes]

With regards to authenticity, how would one go about choosing a name and developing a believable "background" or life story?? Clothing is uniform, but what about personal items? Trinkets? Personal Totems etc?? I REALLY need to start researching the ancients, any book recomendations?? Thank you!

Respectfully,

Wes Olson

[Felix Canus]

Wow. Umm...

Start by picking a time frame to look deeper into. About a 100-year set that grabs you attention is a good place to start. That will give you a good idea about what parts of the Republic/Empire were particularly active, either in wars of trade booms. That in turn will give you a better idea about what artistic styles were in circulation for jewelry, clothing, and so on. A trooper who serves in the Gallic Wars will be encountering far different syles than one who serves in the First Punic War.

And if you don't really like what you see, grab another block of time and try again.

Keep in mind that much of life just goes on regardless of what the mover/shaker types are doing in the capitol. Crops still grow, sheep are still wooly, and babies are still loud and smelly. For the small folk, life doesn't change much from century to century. Start with a simple background and gradually make little additions. Before you know it, you've got a developed personal history that will be the envy of everyone.

As for a name, it's really very simple. Look into the grammar of naming, the structure and habits and such. Once you're comfortable with that, just put together something that you like the sound of and feel that you'd be comfortable with for several years. Remember, it will be other's saying it, not you. How it sounds will be remembered far more than how it looks on paper.

(BTW, make sure it's something you can spell. It's really funny when somebody forgets how to spell his own name, but not to the person doing the spelling.)

[Publius Nonius Severus]

A good source on the history behind a name can be found in William Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.

Just type in a nomen or cognomen and it will give you bios of all the people referenced in the ancient sources that share that name or a derivative thereof. It will also give you other variations or portions of the names for additional reference as well as citations to the ancient sources for further research. Here's a (small) sample:

NONIUS. 1. A. Nonius, a candidate for the tribuneship of the plebs/for b. c. 100, was mur­dered by Glaucia and Appuleius Saturninus, because he was opposed to their party. (Appian, B. C. i. 28 ; Plut. Mar. 29 ; Liv. Epit. 69.)

2. Nonius, a friend of Fimbria, in whose army he was in b. c. 84, when Sulla was preparing to attack him ; but when Fimbria wished his soldiers to renew their military oath to him, and .called upon Nonius to do so first, he refused. (Appian, Mithr. 59.)

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[Wes]

Thanks!! Sorry if I asked a question that has been asked 4,000 times before. I guess I will be the Department of Redundancy Department......

[FAVENTIANVS]

You can try picking a real Roman identity, studying (as long as possible) his life and pathway, then apart from getting a name, you'd honor him as an ancestor, as a Roman tradition, they adopted old names to both glorify ancestors and get glorified by their famous names.

[Felix Canus]

Wes, what type of reenatment or group are you considering? Some have different standards, so it may help to know which one your interested in. No doubt there'll be someone around here that's either a member or familiar with their standards.

[Wes]

My friend that got me into this is with the AD 43 guys that do the Lafe AR. event. I am not really sure how many people are around here doing Roman. Still looking into it. Thanks for the tips!