La antropotoponimia predial romana. Implicaciones interdisciplinares en el origen de un fenómeno europeo

Abstract

The present article aims to show an overview of the first approaches by the European scientific community by scholars from very different disciplines, to a linguistic phenomenon very characteristic of Roman culture that entails important consequences at a historical and archaeological level: the one related to the designation of the Roman agricultural lands that took their name from that of their owners or possessors. Although it will be referred to its foundation in the second half of the 18th century, as a consequence of the discovery of the Tabula de Veleia, attention will be focused on the analysis of the phenomenon by Italian, French and German researchers, in the period between the last third of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th century. With this perspective, the origins of studies on the toponymic type in the Iberian Peninsula will be contrasted, distinguishing certain works of local scope and national authors from those other efforts carried out by what could be considered a «Germanic school». In view of such studies, the chronological frame will be slightly opened to take it to the Civil War, punctually alluding to its repercussion in certain later publications. Finally, a series of assessments and general conclusions will be offered to the question, in which special emphasis will be placed on the nature of the phenomenon in its first years of scientific development and the unique role of the Hispanic panorama.