person
Connus
also: Connus, Connon
Athenian lyre-player (kitharist), the music teacher of the aged Socrates; proverbially distinguished. Cited in Fam. 9.22 as an example of a perfectly innocent name that sounds indecent.
Reading notes
- Ad Familiares 9.22 §3 Socrates was taught the lyre by the most distinguished lyre-player; his name was Connus
Connus was the Athenian kithara-player who famously gave music lessons to the elderly Socrates. Cicero offers his name as a reductio: it sounds vaguely indecent in Latin yet plainly is not, showing that the supposed obscenity is mere accident of sound.