Names for Colonia Nova streets and gates

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Fernando Book
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Names for Colonia Nova streets and gates

Post by Fernando Book »

This is a cosmetic question, but these are some suggestions to give names to the Colonia Nova streets, gates and roads, using real (or realistic) Roman names.

And a [i:2n9ijrqm]caveat[/i:2n9ijrqm]: my Latin is a bit (a lot) rusty, so I'm sure there are a lot of mistakes to correct, and I call to do it.
[b:2n9ijrqm]
[u:2n9ijrqm]Gates:[/u:2n9ijrqm][/b:2n9ijrqm]

We have four gates (latin [i:2n9ijrqm]Porta[/i:2n9ijrqm], pl. [i:2n9ijrqm]Portae[/i:2n9ijrqm]) on the city, and we have several options to name them.

[b:2n9ijrqm]One.[/b:2n9ijrqm]
A mere geographical description. [i:2n9ijrqm]Porta Septemtrionis [/i:2n9ijrqm](North), [i:2n9ijrqm]Meridiani [/i:2n9ijrqm](South), [i:2n9ijrqm]Occidentis [/i:2n9ijrqm](West), [i:2n9ijrqm]Orientis [/i:2n9ijrqm](East).
[b:2n9ijrqm]Two.[/b:2n9ijrqm]
Following the names of the gates of ancient roman fortifications (the cities followed this model). [i:2n9ijrqm]Porta Praetoria[/i:2n9ijrqm] (South), [i:2n9ijrqm]Decumana [/i:2n9ijrqm](North), [i:2n9ijrqm]Principalis Sinistra[/i:2n9ijrqm] (East) and [i:2n9ijrqm]Principalis Dextra[/i:2n9ijrqm] (West).
[b:2n9ijrqm]Three.[/b:2n9ijrqm]
Names related to use. Given that we have only two real gates, we can name them using their direction. [i:2n9ijrqm]Porta Theatri [/i:2n9ijrqm][Theater Gate] (East), and [i:2n9ijrqm]Porta Flumentana[/i:2n9ijrqm] [River Gate] (South).
[b:2n9ijrqm]Four.[/b:2n9ijrqm]
Names related to gods and goddesses or emperors. As Colonia Nova is under the protection of Minerva and Diana, we could have a [i:2n9ijrqm]Porta Minervae[/i:2n9ijrqm] (South, since Minerva's statue is there) and [i:2n9ijrqm]Porta Dianae[/i:2n9ijrqm] (West). We could also have some gates named after Roman emperors, like a [i:2n9ijrqm]Porta Claudia [/i:2n9ijrqm]or a [i:2n9ijrqm]Porta Iulia.[/i:2n9ijrqm]
[b:2n9ijrqm]Five.[/b:2n9ijrqm]
Names from real roman gates in Roman cities. I'd suggest [i:2n9ijrqm]Porta Nigra[/i:2n9ijrqm] (in Trier, Germany, World Heritage), [i:2n9ijrqm]Porta Praetoria[/i:2n9ijrqm] (this is a common name, but in real life Cologne they keep the remains of this gate), [i:2n9ijrqm]Porta Marina[/i:2n9ijrqm] (in Pompeii), and P[i:2n9ijrqm]orta Venere[/i:2n9ijrqm] (in Rome).

[b:2n9ijrqm][u:2n9ijrqm]Streets ([i:2n9ijrqm]vici[/i:2n9ijrqm]) and roads ([i:2n9ijrqm]viae[/i:2n9ijrqm])[/u:2n9ijrqm][/b:2n9ijrqm]

In ancient Rome, and for our purposes, there was two main streets and road types. Roads ([i:2n9ijrqm]via[/i:2n9ijrqm], pl. [i:2n9ijrqm]viae[/i:2n9ijrqm]) were, inside or outside the city, the roads with space for two carts (around 5 meters wide), and streets ([i:2n9ijrqm]vicus[/i:2n9ijrqm], pl. [i:2n9ijrqm]vici[/i:2n9ijrqm]).

I think we have four [i:2n9ijrqm]viae [/i:2n9ijrqm]from the forum to the wall, two [i:2n9ijrqm]viae [/i:2n9ijrqm]from the wall (one going to the theatre, another one across the river), and another two ones, from the theatre area southward and from the bridge area, west and eastward. In total, we have eight [i:2n9ijrqm]viae[/i:2n9ijrqm].

In ancient Rome [i:2n9ijrqm]viae [/i:2n9ijrqm]had the name of the builder ([i:2n9ijrqm]via Appia[/i:2n9ijrqm], [i:2n9ijrqm]via Aurelia[/i:2n9ijrqm]), or the name of the place where the road went (via [i:2n9ijrqm]Praenestrina [/i:2n9ijrqm][to Praenestre], via [i:2n9ijrqm]Portuensis [/i:2n9ijrqm][to the port]).

Aliasi has suggested to me to keep the tradition that began in Neufreistadt, and honor the builders of Colonia Nova in the street names. I think this is a bit difficult, as most of them have names that are not easy to insert in a Latin [i:2n9ijrqm]via [/i:2n9ijrqm]name, and there are around 15 persons in the group and only 8 [i:2n9ijrqm]viae[/i:2n9ijrqm].

I suggest another option: to honor our RL countries (at this moment), and have [i:2n9ijrqm]Via Galliae [/i:2n9ijrqm](France), [i:2n9ijrqm]Via Lusitaniae [/i:2n9ijrqm](Portugal), [i:2n9ijrqm]Via Germaniae [/i:2n9ijrqm](Germany), [i:2n9ijrqm]Via Britanniae [/i:2n9ijrqm](Great Britain) or [i:2n9ijrqm]Regni Uniti [/i:2n9ijrqm](United Kingdom), Via [i:2n9ijrqm]Americae [/i:2n9ijrqm](America) or [i:2n9ijrqm]Civitates Foederatae Americae[/i:2n9ijrqm] (United States of America), Via [i:2n9ijrqm]Canadense [/i:2n9ijrqm](Canada), [i:2n9ijrqm]via Iaponiae[/i:2n9ijrqm] (Japan)... This has also a major problem: we have only eight [i:2n9ijrqm]viae[/i:2n9ijrqm], and as I've checked the list of RL countries in the forum, not every person in the Planning Group has disclosed its country (and don't have to do), so, it's likely we have more than eight countries. In fact, the above list of countries comes from the forum identities, and don't match with the SPC list.

And concerning [i:2n9ijrqm]vici[/i:2n9ijrqm], we have only three. In ancient Rome, the vici have the names of the temples near them (so will have again [i:2n9ijrqm]vicus Dianae[/i:2n9ijrqm] or [i:2n9ijrqm]vicus Minervae[/i:2n9ijrqm], or the names of some offices. We can honor builders ([i:2n9ijrqm]vicus edificatorii[/i:2n9ijrqm]), scripters ([i:2n9ijrqm]vicus scriptorii[/i:2n9ijrqm]) and designer ([i:2n9ijrqm]vicus adumbratorii[/i:2n9ijrqm]).

[b:2n9ijrqm][u:2n9ijrqm]Forum, [i:2n9ijrqm]thermae[/i:2n9ijrqm], theatre...[/u:2n9ijrqm][/b:2n9ijrqm]
As we have only one of each, we don need to add a second name to the forum, the thermae or the theatre (by the way, in the ancient sense, we have a theatre, not an amphiteatre), but we can, if we want.

[b:2n9ijrqm][u:2n9ijrqm]Sources[/u:2n9ijrqm][/b:2n9ijrqm]
This ideas owe a lot to Bill Thayer's [i:2n9ijrqm]Lacus Curtius [/i:2n9ijrqm]pages on ancient Rome, and, specially, to [i:2n9ijrqm]A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome[/i:2n9ijrqm], a 1929 book by Samuel Ball Platner, reproduced on [i:2n9ijrqm]Lacus Curtius[/i:2n9ijrqm]. The internet address is http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/G ... home*.html.
It doesn't work as a link, I suspect that due to the asterisk signs.
The Vatican has a foundation on Latin, and has a page with the [i:2n9ijrqm][url=http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/insti ... 1:2n9ijrqm]Lexicon recentis latinitatis[/url:2n9ijrqm][/i:2n9ijrqm], a small Italian-Latin dictionary, with words as firefighter ([i:2n9ijrqm]siphonarius[/i:2n9ijrqm]), bar ([i:2n9ijrqm]thermopolium[/i:2n9ijrqm]) or jeep ( [i:2n9ijrqm]autocinētum locis iniquis aptum[/i:2n9ijrqm]).
[i:2n9ijrqm][url=http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagina_prima:2n9ijrqm]Vicipaedia·Latina[/url:2n9ijrqm][/i:2n9ijrqm]. Yes, Wikipedia has a Latin version, very short, but useful to find the Latin name of a country or a city.
[i:2n9ijrqm][url=http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0300101864/:2n9ijrqm]Daily life in ancient Rome[/url:2n9ijrqm][/i:2n9ijrqm], by Jerôme Carcopino. A great book (but a bit old, first published in 1939) about life in Rome.

Last edited by Fernando Book on Wed Nov 08, 2006 1:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Beathan »

There are fairly are fairly standard conventions for Latinizing non-Latin names. (See Confucius for Con Fu Tzu.) Why can't we do this and keep our apparent tradition of naming roads after active citizens?

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Post by Diderot Mirabeau »

I do not mean to berate the impressive efforts of our very talented builders collective but it seems to me necessary to shed some further light on our alleged tradition of honouring builders using street names:

Looking at the names in use in Neufreistadt I can spot quite a few names that I suspect have not been involved in building per se but who may well have contributed in other fashions. So if it is possible to talk about there being a tradition for honouring individual citizens in this fashion I would think that the tradition must have been to honour particularly active citizens and not 'just' those with talents for building.

Furthermore, I am not sure I agree that it is appropriate any longer to name streets after prominent individuals of our community. In the previous sim that may have been more appropriate as it was a smaller community and there were maybe streets enough to honour all the citizens instrumental in bringing about the sim and furthermore these citizens may to some extent truly be said to have been the founding fathers/mothers of the community conceiving both in values and in design the community that was to be.

However this same community has grown a bit since then and I believe the number of active citizens has grown with it. Since it is likely that by applying the principles used at the time for selecting citizens who should have a street named after them we would end up with a pool of names larger than the number of available streets there is a danger that this exercise will end up in some people - by being passed over for a streetname - feeling that their contribution has been appreciated less than those lucky few, who ended up on the shortlist. I would consider such a result to be an unfortunate beginning for the life of our new sim, which I would prefer should emphasise the cohesion and collective efforts of our shared community and not to have a divisive impact.

Furthermore, looking back at the names chosen for streets in Neufreistadt I feel that it is clear by now that the principle was unfortunate in other ways as well: Some of those people who participated in the founding have since had their names tainted by history (not entirely unlike the string of streets named after Stalin and Lenin in the former Soviet Union, sans comparison otherwise) and others have simply faded into oblivion. How many here still know the origins of a name such as "Haney-Linden Strasse" for example?

I would propose instead to name the streets following two principles: One would be to choose a number of professions to honour and to find the latinised names for those to emphasise the aspiration of our community to act as a cradle for the nurture of creative endeavours in Second Life (i.e. scripters, designers, texturisers et cetera) and the other to choose a portfolio of values, which we as a society strive to promote (i.e. freedom, enlightenment, equality, justice and so on). Collectively these names would embody to present and future citizens a very powerful daily reminder of what the community ought to be about - i.e. not a personality cult but a community based around creative endeavours and shared values!

To honour the untiring efforts of our magnificent builders collective I would propose laying down one or more memorial stones or even stars in the pavement of our forum square carrying the names of all those who contributed to the building effort and possibly also those who were in other ways instrumental in bringing about the sim. We might also choose to erect a basilisk or engrave them inside a triumphal arch (arco) possibly qualified with a short piece of prose stating the aspirations and hopes of what the community would evolve into.

As regards the naming of our ports I think the most natural would be to name them in accordance with the geographical sites to which they lead - i.e. the theatre and the river.

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Post by Patroklus Murakami »

I'd like to support Diderot's comments.

I don't wish to disparage anyone by these remarks but it always seemed fairly odd to me that we have street names in NFS named after individuals. I think we must be able to find some other way to value citizen input into the founding and development of our community. Naming streets after people reminds me too of the personality cults of so-called 'communist' countries.

At a slight tangent, the thing I would prefer to see, for example, would be group pictures of each session of the Representative Assembly at its first meeting after the election. These could displayed in the Rathaus. It would be kind of similar to the portraits of previous Prime Ministers (dating back centuries) which are displayed on one one of the staircases in No. 10 Downing Street.

The other suggestions for names etc for public buildings and street names etc in CN seem fine to me. Thank you to Fernando for researching this.

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Post by Claude Desmoulins »

I'm not sure how I feel about this one. While I see Diderot's point about city founders later falling out of favor, I'm not thrilled with the presented alternatives.

The use of values seems to me a bit utopian, and only slightly removed from things like "the street of proletarian fortitude" that I associate with totalitarian , stalinist states.

Professions are a safe choice, but do nothing to evoke the depth (such as it is) of our history. The advantage of having a Haney-Linden Strasse is that people will ask "Who's Haney Linden?" (BTW - He was the Linden, now no longer with Linden Labs, who oversaw the contest for the preservation of the snow sims which led to the creation of the original community in Anzere)

I very much like Pat's idea of photos in the Rathaus or some such thing.

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Post by Chicago Kipling »

Sadly, I think the pure mathematics dictate that the builders cannot be honored equally if we start naming roads after them. Were the number issue resolved, we could find some creative way of capturing the history of the name for our citizens. (As we should some day for otherwise interesting names such as Catfahrt.)

I agree that we should try to choose names that have history and concrete connections. The other choices I've heard don't seem to carry the same gravity or value.

What if we did this for our gates and roads?
- Give all roads and gates generic names right now (option 3 on steroids where roads were teated in similar fashion)
- We made express plans to name the roads and locations as occasion arose. So for example:

Builder's Road or Founding Road(in appropriate theme terms) would be dedicated at the city openning with memorials that listed all the builders and scripters

The ________ Theater after someone actually made use of it and stagged a serious number of events.

Emperor's Gate if we ever wanted to offer a kindness to Roma and do some joint RP event

This would give the RA some more light-hearted work and honor not just those who built objects but also those who really made effective use of them.

I guess the real question is how it would fit with land management system. Perhaps we would need to have an official name and a memorial name as is often common on today's highways?

A good photograph is like a good hound dog, dumb, but eloquent. ~ Eugene Atget
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Post by Diderot Mirabeau »

[quote="Chicago Kipling":3j8vijri]What if we did this for our gates and roads?
- Give all roads and gates generic names right now (option 3 on steroids where roads were teated in similar fashion)
- We made express plans to name the roads and locations as occasion arose. So for example:

Builder's Road or Founding Road(in appropriate theme terms) would be dedicated at the city openning with memorials that listed all the builders and scripters

The ________ Theater after someone actually made use of it and stagged a serious number of events.

Emperor's Gate if we ever wanted to offer a kindness to Roma and do some joint RP event

This would give the RA some more light-hearted work and honor not just those who built objects but also those who really made effective use of them.

I guess the real question is how it would fit with land management system. Perhaps we would need to have an official name and a memorial name as is often common on today's highways?[/quote:3j8vijri]

I think this is a great idea. Maybe Sudane can shed some light on how the land management system would be able to deal with it?

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Post by Clarence Calliope »

My $.02:

Name the gates after the cardinal directions. This sounds to me like the most logical choice. Gods and demigods would seem better suited to important buildings or locations.

As far as streets and roads (it seems to me as though we have more of the latter) are concerned - people want things that are recognizable. This was a problem for me as an outsider in Neualtenburg/Neufreistadt - it made the city feel somewhat alienating and foreign. Organizing the sim in terms that can be understood by tourists might make it more accessible to them. My suggestion is that we name streets and roads after Emperors and famous politicians, generals, or other recognizable historical figures.

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