Plutarch's Romane Questions · Plutarch
103.
_What is the reason, that those children who have no certeine father, they were woont to tearme_ Spurios? FOR we may not thinke as the Greeks holde, and as oratours give out in their pleas, that this word _Spurius_, is derived of _Spora_, that is to say, naturall seed, for that such children are begotten by the seed of many men mingled and confounded together. But surely this _Spurius_, is one of the ordinary fore-names that the Romans take, such as _Sextus_, _Decimus_, and _Caius_. Now these fore-names they never use to write out at full with all their letters, but marke them sometime with one letter alone, as for example, _Titus_, _Lucius_, and _Marcius_, with _T_, _L_, _M_; or with twaine, as _Spurius_ and _Cneus_, with _Sp._ and _Cn._ or at most with three as _Sextus_ & _Servius_, with _Sex._ and _Ser._ _Spurius_ then is one of their fore-names which is noted with two letters _S._ and _P._ which signifieth asmuch, as _Sine Patre_, that is to say, without a father; for _S._ standeth for _Sine_, that is to say, without; and _P._ for _patre_, that is to say a father. And heereupon grew the error, for that _Sine patre_, and _Spurius_ be written both with the same letters short, _Sp._ And yet I will not sticke to give you another reason, though it be somewhat fabulous, and carieth a greater absurdity with it: forsooth they say that the Sabines in olde time named in their language the nature or privities of a woman, _Sporios_, and thereupon afterwards as it were by way of reproch, they called him _Spurius_, who had to his mother a woman unmaried and not lawfully espoused.
_Why is_ Bacchus _called with them_, Liber Pater? IS it for that he is the authour and father of all liberty unto them who have taken their wine well; for most men become audacious and are full of bolde and franke broad speech, when they be drunke or cup-shotten? Or because he it is that ministred libations first, that is to say, those effusions and offrings of wine that are given to the gods? Or rather (as _Alexander_ said) because the Greeks called _Bacchus, Dionysos Eleuthereus_, that is to say, _Bacchus_ the Deliverer: and they might call him so, of a city in _Bœotia_, named _Eleutheræ_.
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