Talk:Titus Aebutius Helva

He is the father
There seems to be some confusion about this issue. Referring to who is the father and who is the son as "was" is incorrect because they remain father and son. Nothing will ever change that. One and in this case, both are dead but they remain father and son so when you say "so and so" was the father of "so and so", that is an incorrect statement of fact. They remain father and son, even in death. If you want to refer to a relationship between two people as being a "was" then that is your own misapplication of tense on the situation. The relationship of father to son or son to father can never change therefore it can never be a was. Even with modern technology the relationship between two people can be established even if they both contest it since DNA and gnomes etc. can be tested.66.74.176.59 (talk) 03:49, 21 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid that the confusion is entirely on your part. When we refer to someone who is no longer living, we nearly always use the past tense.  This includes relationships between people.  Stating that one person was another's father does not imply that he relinquished fatherhood to someone else; that interpretation is nonsensical.  When people die, they stop being referred to in the present tense, even if the condition being referred to doesn't change.  George Washington was a former President; nobody took his former presidency away.  He was American; he didn't stop being American when he died, but he stopped being, so we say that he was.  Babe Ruth was the most famous ballplayer who ever lived; nobody else has since become the most famous ballplayer who ever lived; Babe Ruth is still the most famous.  But he's not alive, so we say that he was, not that he is.  So while Titus Aebutius wasn't replaced as Lucius' father when he died, it's not idiomatic to say that he is the father.  He was the father, and Lucius was his son, not is, any more than he is a former consul.  When he was alive, you could have said that he is.  But not anymore.  P Aculeius (talk) 07:18, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

His name
Just how likely is the form "Helva"? I've only seen that form as one of the corrupt names in the Chronography of 354. A more likely form that I've seen might be "Alba"; & maybe "Elva" is the Old Latin form of Alba. (Just guessing here; I really don't have any evidence either way.) -- llywrch (talk) 00:43, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, he's found as "Helva" in a number of secondary sources, although I seem to recall that the one I found discussing both forms said that "Elva" was more correct. I don't know what the basis for this conclusion was, but it could well be that "Helva" crept in by accident from less reliable but more readily available manuscripts.  And after all, it does seem like the kind of metathesis that's likely to occur in Latin just as it would in English; unfamiliar words beginning with a vowel gain an "h", while others beginning with an "h" lose it.  However, I don't recall if the name was discussed in DGRBM or OCD2 or some other source.  P Aculeius (talk) 02:15, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Elva is an outdated form of the name. Broughton, the PW, the Fasti Capitolini, etc. use Helva, as well as most wikis in other languages.  T8612  (talk) 12:59, 16 November 2019 (UTC)