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One of our users recently became a father and of course congratulations are in order. How did the Romans do that?

More specifically, are there any attested congratulations to a new father in the classical literature? It could be from a play or from Cicero's vast correspondence or anything else.

Joonas Ilmavirta
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Here's Cicero, congratulating his friend Atticus on the birth of the latter's daughter (Ad Atticum 5.19):

Filiolam tuam tibi iam Romae iucundam esse gaudeo, eamque quam numquam vidi tamen et amo et amabilem esse certo scio. Etiam atque etiam vale.

I am glad that you now delight in your little daughter in Rome, and though I have never seen her, I still love her and know for certain she is lovely too. Farewell over and over.

For having become father of a boy, I like the phrase filiolo auctus (for a girl, it would of course be filiola auctus), used by Cicero when he announced the birth of his son Marcus (as discussed previously on this site; Ad Atticum 1.2), somewhat curtly:

Filiolo me auctum scito salva Terentia.

This is to let you know I was blessed with a baby boy, Terentia [Cicero's wife] is well.

Not a Roman, but I also stumbled across this letter from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to Johann Bernoulli from 5 March 1697, writing (with a nice dominant participle):

Oblitus nuper de nata filiola Tibi gratulari, id nunc facio ex animo congaudens. Filium ni fallor jam habes, precor inde multa Tibi gaudia et diuturna.

Having lately forgotten to congratulate you on the birth of your daughter, I do so now, happy for you from my heart. If I am not mistaken, you already have a son, I wish you that they may bring you great and long-lasting joy.

Sebastian Koppehel
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  • Do you think the ablative salva Terentia could be read in a way that integrates it better to the sentence? It could in principle be an agent (without a if her own agency is negleced) or a causal ablative or something in that direction. I find myself preferring "Terentia blessed me with a baby" over "and Terentia is healthy, too". – Joonas Ilmavirta May 11 '21 at 11:55
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    @JoonasIlmavirta I'm pretty sure Sebastian has the right sense: salvus in the ablative absolute is pretty formulaic, though I'm more used to it in impersonal contexts, e.g. salva lege. Here, I'm pretty sure it just means, "with Terentia doing well." – brianpck May 11 '21 at 13:56
  • @brianpck Thanks! It makes sense. A different reading of the nature of the ablative wouldn't change much semantically, but of course we shouldn't add too much color that wasn't there in Latin. – Joonas Ilmavirta May 11 '21 at 14:53
  • @JoonasIlmavirta A personal agent needs to be expressed using the preposition ā; in the absense of one the default reading being instrumental, and then as an absolute, which is made sure both semantically (Terentia isn't an object) and by the idiomatic nature of the phrase. – Unbrutal_Russian May 13 '21 at 19:12
  • @Unbrutal_Russian I specifically linked to a question where the preposition in connection with the agent is discussed. The feature that necessitates the preposition does not seem to be humanity but agency. But either way, I agree that it's an unlikely reading. – Joonas Ilmavirta May 13 '21 at 19:36
  • @JoonasIlmavirta Isn't that what my "a personal agent needs to" says as well? The fact that humans can be tools as opposed to agents is a non-linguistic issue and is separate from the grammar. I'm only saying that a non-prepositional ablative NP cannot as a rule express a personal agent (or experiencer) in Latin. – Unbrutal_Russian May 13 '21 at 19:39
  • @Unbrutal_Russian In an answer to the question I linked to in the first comment Joel provides an example of a human agent without a preposition. But it is very rare if it exists, and in the rare cases one might prefer to argue that something else is going on. But this discussion on agents is tangential; my curiosity here is fully satisfied. – Joonas Ilmavirta May 13 '21 at 20:01
  • @JoonasIlmavirta I think you're failing to grasp my point. This is an example of humans being treated as instruments, which is a non-linguistic phenomenon, and there's nothing surprising about it. patriciī juvenēs is not an agent in that sentence, but specifically an instrument. The troops are being used to guard the flanks. The young particians are being used as a living shield to ward off direct contact with the... electorate. You might want to look into the concept of theta-roles. Latin syntactically distinguishes this role from that of the instrument - no preposition means not agent – Unbrutal_Russian May 13 '21 at 20:09