I don't know how to pronounce those names and terms!

Don't worry about it.

I'll tell you a story.

In 1986 I attended the International Numismatic Congress in London. I knew most of the big names in numismatics would be attending, and I was, at that time, living in remote Montana and never hearing lots of Roman names and Latin terms pronounced. I had not studied them in college; I developed my interest on my own. So, over time, I made a list of about 100 names (Is "Severus" SEV er us? Se VERE us?) and words (is "cuirass" cure ASS?, QUIER ass?) I wanted to know how to pronounce and then took a tiny tape-recorder with me.

At the Congress I asked big names from Britain and the continent if they would be willing to pronounce the words on my list into my tape recorder. Everyone agreed. They could not have been nicer.

The result was, in summary, that I got so many different pronunciations of almost everything that I gave up. You might be surprised how many different ways there are to say
"Antoninus Pius" including
an TOE KNEE nus, an TOE NINE us
PEE us, PIE us

Domitian
DOE mih TEE un
DOE mih TEE on
DOE mish un
and others

Try saying "Pupienus" with one syllable per vowel. (With some exceptions, there is supposed to be one syllable per vowel. So, for example, "Constantius" ends "TEE us" not "chus".) 

I figure if the professionals who wrote the ancient-coin books on my shelf can't come even close to agreement, then it can't matter too much how those names and words are pronounced. Don't worry about it.

 



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