The entry for the "Helvidia Gens" in the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology was written by the dictionary's editor-in-chief, Sir William Smith himself. [1, 2]

How the Authorship is Determined

• The No-Initials Rule: In the prefatory guidelines of the dictionary, it is explicitly outlined that any biographical or historical entry that does not have initials appended to the end of the text is the work of the editor, William Smith. [1, 2]
• The Helvidia Entry: The brief entry for the Helvidia Gens (found in Volume II, page 380) lacks any contributor initials, thus confirming Smith as the direct author. [1, 2, 3]

If you are researching this specific Roman family, would you like me to compile the historical details Smithprovided about them, or map out the genealogy of its most famous member, the Stoic philosopher Helvidius Priscus? [1, 2]

 In Natural History Book 7, Section 52 (traditionally cataloged under sections 173–174 of modern editions), Pliny the Elder explicitly references Lucius Aelius Lamia (referred to grammatically in the Latin text as L. Lamia). [1, 2]

The Latin Text

Pliny groups Lamia's fate with two other prominent Romans: [1, 2]

"Aviola consularis in rogo revixit... similis causa in L. Lamia praetorio viro traditur.... haec est condicio mortalium. ad has et eius modi occasiones fortunae gignimur, uti de homine ne morti quidem debeat credi." [1]

(Full text available at LacusCurtius)

The Context

The quote appears in a chapter regarding the unpredictability of human life ("condicio mortalium"). [1]

• The Story: Pliny cites the ex-praetor L. Lamia as an example of a presumed death, similar to a case involving a man named Aviola.
• The Fate: According to the text, Lamia revived on his funeral pyre, but the fire was too intense to save him, resulting in him being burned alive.
• The Conclusion: Pliny uses this tragic event to argue that human existence is so volatile that one cannot be certain of death itself. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

If you are exploring Roman history or Pliny's philosophy further, let me know if you would like to:

• Explore the historical identity of this Lucius Lamia and his connection to Cicero or the early Empire.
• Review other unusual medical or supernatural anomalies Pliny details later in Book 7.
• Examine the Roman funeral customs and laws regarding pyres that allowed these accidents to happen. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

 Here is the requested Latin text from Macrobius and the corresponding lexical entries from Lewis and Short.

Macrobius (Saturnalia, Book VI, Chapter 5)

Following the citation of Egnatius, the text reads: [1, 2]

...et Egnatius de rerum natura libro primo:
"denique Mulciber ipse ferens altissima caeli.
†contingunt..."

[3] Haedique petulci (floribus insultent). Lucretius in secundo: praeterea teneri tremulis in vocibus haedi corniferas norunt matres agnique petulci.

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Lewis and Short Entries

Mulcĭber, ēris and ĕri [1]

• Genitive Syncopated: Mulcebri, Cic. poet. Tusc. 2, 10, 23, m.
• Etymology: [mulceo; he who softens any thing; v. infra]
• Definition: A surname of Vulcan: Mulciber, Vulcanus, a molliendo scilicet ferro dictus: mulcere enim mollire, sive lenire est, Paul. ex Fest. p. 144 Müll.; Att. ap. Macr. S. 6, 5 (Trag. Rel. v. 558 Rib.): Mulciber, credo, arma fecit, Plaut. Ep. 1, 1, 32; Ov. A. A. 2, 562: Mulciber in Trojam, Ov. M. 14, 27. Meton., fire: vulnera Mulciber uret, Prop. 4 (5), 1, 65. [1, 2]

noctĭvăgus, a, um, adj. [1]

• Etymology: [nox-vagus; cf. Quint. 1, 5, 68]
• Definition: Night-wandering, that wanders about by night: luna, Verg. A. 10, 216; Val. Fl. 3, 211: cursus (lunae), Claud. Rapt. Pros. 2, 327: animalia, Plin. 32, 11, 53, § 144: nemus, i. e. visited by night, Stat. Th. 9, 574. [1, 2, 3, 4]

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If you need help translating any specific lines from this section of the Saturnalia or checking cross-references for other archaic Latin poets mentioned by Macrobius, just let me know!

D

 

Catalogue Raisonné of J. L. Speranza’s Publications – H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Da

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Damostrato – ossia: Grice e Damostrato: la ragione conversazionale e i paradossi dei filosofi -- Roma – filosofia italiana  (Roma). Filosofo italiano. D., or Demostrato. Roman senator. A historian as well as an authority on fish and fishing. Said to be, like Grice, particularly interested in paradoxes and is regarded by some other philosophers as a philosopher. Demostrato. Damostrato. Keyword: paradox, le paradossi dei filosofi, Grice e Damostrato. Damostrato (Roma): la ragione conversazionale e i paradossi dei filosofi -- D., or Demostrato. Roman senator. A historian as well as an authority on fish and fishing. Said to be, like Grice, particularly interested in paradoxes and is regarded by some other philosophers as a philosopher. Demostrato. Damostrato. Keyword: paradox, le paradossi dei filosofi. GRICEVS: Damostrate, senator piscatorque, dic mihi utrum paradoxon sit piscem capere dum veritatem quaeris, an veritatem capere dum piscem quaeris. DAMOSTRATVS: Grice, in foro verba, in Tiberi pisces capio, sed utrumque idem est: saepe hamus in me ipso figitur. GRICEVS: Ergo regula mea est: si nimis clare loqueris, aut mendacium aut piscium numerum detegis, quod uterque populus odit. DAMOSTRATVS: Ita; ideo breviter dicam et multum innuam: “hodie nihil cepi”—et omnes intellegent me maximam traxisse fabulam.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Dalmasso – Ossia: Grice e Dalmasso: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della giustizia nel discorso,  Gianfranco Dalmasso (Milano, Lombardia): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della giustizia nel discorso, Grice: “D. is what at Oxford we call a derivative’ philosopher, and at Cambridge a Derrideian! But he philosophises originally on la passione della ragione, and explores discourse in terms of ragione and il giusto. In my model, both conversationalists are symmetrical, and questions of unfairness should not apply! I take the inspiration from Chomsky! There is something otiose about the ‘faciendi signum’ of the Romans. Why not just segnare? Who or what ‘makes’ the sign of a dark cloud (=> rain)? While it seems natural enough to say that a dark cloud is a sign of rain, it  or better, that a dark cloud signs *that* it may rain, I wouldn’t say that the cloud “MAKES” anything. It’s sad that Hegel’s Latin was not that good. The Romans use ‘signare, Italian segnare, much more than they use ‘signiFCARE’. “With all my love and kisses” “You used to SIGN your letters ‘with all my love and kisses” – Sam Browne. Horatio Nicholls – aka as something else!” Si laurea a Milano. Insegna a Roma. L’offerta obliqua. Dal discorso e la genesi del segno studia la ragione in rapporto alla morale. Probabilmente. vero l'Aufhebung del segno, Chi dice noi duale. L’implicatura Il pensiero in gabbia. La politica dell’imaginario, il vero  in effetti. La sovranita in legame etica ontologia fatto valore interosoggetivo il tra noi. Di-segno.  La ra­gio­ne, do­man­da origi­na­ria. Do­man­da e ori­gi­ne ri­pie­ga­men­to su sé stes­si che si in­ter­ro­ga sulla pro­pria ge­ne­si degl’animati Dalla con­sa­pe­vo­lez­za del­l’incombere della morte al co­sti­tuir­si sofisti­ca e l’accademia l’animato fun­zio­na­ come prin­ci­pio ori­gi­na­rio. An­no­da la ragione come mi­su­ra d’un or­di­ne, un luogo che for­mu­la l’o­ri­gi­na­rio uno, bene o atto che e l’intersoggetivo. La dialettica ar­ti­co­la DUE anime. Psi­co­lo­gia razionale la pa­ro­la vi­ven­te pronuncia­to, detto. cen­tra­le nella vita della ragione, ori­gi­na­ria ed im­pren­di­bi­le.  Anmer­kung sign-make, fare segno a se, zeichen Machen segnare significare noi, Zeichen, zeichen-machende fantasie, “l’implicatura del noi duale” “il tra noi, la prossimita del tra noi. St. John’s, 1967. Blackwell’s window has begun to look like a consulate. This week it is advertising Derrida’s La Voix et le phénomène—a title which, to an English ear, sounds less less ‘phenomenological’ (in the French sense) than ‘phenomenalist’ (in the old pre-War Oxford Isaiah Berlin sense); and ‘phenomenal’ only in that Parisian way of calling everything one doesn’t quite understand marvellous: as if one were about to be offered not an ontology but a new way of avoiding one. Still, the book is handsome, and the French have always known how to make abstraction look like literature. I found myself, without having read a line, trusting that it would travel—first to Italy, where it would naturally become something like La voce e il fenomeno (and, in fact, it did, with indecent promptness). The Italians are excellent at importing a Parisian disturbance and giving it a domestic title, as one puts a foreign guest in a spare room and then calls him “one of the family.” One could almost predict the imprint: Milano; Jaca Book; a young philosopher‑translator doing the running about. (One later hears the name: Dalmasso.) To Germany it would travel less straightforwardly—not because the Germans resist, but because they translate as if translation were metaphysics. The obvious German title is Die Stimme und das Phänomen, and when it eventually appears it does so with the solemnity of a proper German arrival: as if the book were being naturalised at the border by a functionary with a stamp. [abebooks.de], [suhrkamp.de] To England it would travel only if it were allowed. One could already imagine the obstacle: not the customs officer, but the Oxford gatekeeper—the editor, the reviewer, the senior figure who thinks that any new French book is either an invitation to bad manners or a threat to clarity. “Provided Ryle allows it,” one is tempted to say; but of course Ryle’s disapproval is usually a kind of silent weather. [Editorial note: The book did travel. Derrida’s La Voix et le Phénomène was published in French in 1967; an Italian translation (La voce e il fenomeno) appeared in 1968; the first German translation (Die Stimme und das Phänomen) appeared in 1979; and the first widely cited English translation appeared in 1973 under the title Speech and Phenomena (David B. Allison).] [en.wikipedia.org], [web.englis....upenn.edu], [abebooks.de] As for me, I was ever proud of not having read the original. There is a point, after all, at which philological virtue becomes mere professional vice; and besides, I already had enough voices and phenomena at St. John’s without importing them from the Rue d’Ulm. [Editorial note] Grice’s joking slide from Derrida’s phénomène to old Oxford “phenomenalism” has a real local anchor: Berlin’s later Mind paper makes explicit how much the ghost of phenomenalism still haunted mid‑century analysis. Berlin’s verdict is uncompromising: “My thesis is that phenomenalism is not even prima facie plausible—let alone indispensable—and minor improvements, i.e. tinkering, cannot make it more so.” What is “pre‑war” in Grice’s reminiscence is not the publication date of that sentence, but the Oxford temperament it speaks for—the analytic suspicion of translation projects and reductionist programmes that Berlin had absorbed in the 1930s, long before he put the point into print.Grice: Dalmasso, mi ha sempre incuriosito il tuo modo di indagare la giustizia nel discorso. Secondo te, che ruolo ha la ragione nella costruzione di un dialogo davvero equo? Dalmasso: Grice, per me la ragione è passione e misura insieme: nel dialogo, è ciò che annoda il “tra noi”, il luogo dove la giustizia prende forma. La parola vivente, pronunciata, crea una prossimità che rende il confronto davvero simmetrico e aperto al valore intersoggettivo. Grice: Trovo interessante il tuo pensiero sul segno. Mi domando: quando una nuvola annuncia la pioggia, è davvero un “signo-fare”, oppure semplicemente “segnare”? E la giustizia, si manifesta come segno naturale nel discorso oppure va sempre costruita? Dalmasso: Ottima domanda, Grice. Direi che la giustizia, come il segno, nasce dal nostro modo di interpretare e di “fare segno”: non basta osservare, occorre anche “significare”. Nel dialogo, come nella vita, la giustizia è un’offerta obliqua, un percorso tra il detto e il pensato, sempre aperto all’origine e alla prossimità del “noi duale”. Dalmasso, Gianfranco (1965). Dissertazione. Cattolica. Milano.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Dandolo – Ossia: Grice e Dandolo: la ragione conversazionale e ’implicatura conversazionale della Roma pagana, Carneade e compagnia.  Tullio Dandolo (Varese, Lombardia): la ragione conversazionale e ’implicatura conversazionale della Roma pagana, Carneade e compagnia. Grice: “I love D.; you know why? Because he was an amateur, not a professional; I mean, he was a country gentleman and an earl, so if he philosophised it wasn’t for the colour of the money! Plus, he owned a lovely ‘palazzo,’ which I would call ‘villa’! Si laurea a Pavia. Studia TOMMASEO. Schizzo filosofico storia romana antica. Roma”; Schizzi di costume”, “Il secolo d'Augusto”; “Semplicità” (o rapidi cenni sulla letteratura e sulle arti”; “Album storico poetico morale, compilato per cura di V. de Castro” (Padova); Evandro, eroe Fauna - demone Fauno, demone Feziali - eroe Flamini - personaggi Galatea - demone Lamiro e Lamo - eroi Laride e Timbro - eroi Lavinia - personaggio Lica - eroe Luca - eroe Marica - demone Messapo - eroe Murrano - eroe Numa Pompilio - eroe Orazi - eroi Pallante - eroe Pico - demone Pontefice massimo - personaggio Publio Cornelio Scipione Psiche - personaggio Ramnete - eroe Rea Silvia - personaggio Remo - eroe Reto - soldato Romolo e Remo - eroi Salii - personaggi Salio - eroe Serrano - eroe Sibilla - personaggio Tagete - demone Tarquito - eroe Terone - eroe Tirro - personaggio Turno, eroe Ufente, eroe Umbrone - eroe Venulo - eroe Vestali - personaggi Volcente - eroe PopoliModifica Aborigeni Equi Latini Marsi Messapi Rutuli Sabini Troiani Volsci. Ferro e Monteleone, Miti romani. Il racconto, Torino, Einaudi, Ferrari, Dizionario di mitologia, Torino, Utet, Voci correlate Religione romana Sacerdozio (religione romana) Numen Mitologia Mitologia etrusca Mitologia greca Dodici dei (religione romana) Quirino (divinità). Antica Roma   Letteratura   Mitologia Lista di divinità lista di un progetto Dèi Consenti dodici dèi principali della mitologia romana  Triade arcaica. storia della filosofia romana, ambasceria di Carneade, e tutto il resto!, “Il secolo di Augusto”; “Roma e l’impero fino a Marc’Aurelio”, “Corse estive nel Golfo della Spezia”; roma pagana, “indici ragionati degli studi di D. su Roma pagana. Corpus, 1932. Corpus has a good thing about it: we mix. It isn’t just for the people in “Classics” (as they will insist on calling me); I call it Lit. Hum., which has the merit of sounding less like a museum label. In any case, you meet all sorts—from This to That—and you should therefore expect the library to be, likewise, a mixed bag: theological folios elbowing novels, pamphlets, and Italian curiosities that have somehow drifted north and found asylum. Today I took down a copy of Dandolo’s Lettera a una giovane sposa—Milano on the imprint, which already feels faintly impertinent. Before I opened it I found myself thinking (as one does, improperly, on the strength of a title): isn’t this an Italian lack of respect? By what right does Dandolo write a letter to “a young wife”—not even la mia? One imagines a queue of wives, all young, all addressed in the singular. The title is a small provocation; it invites an inference of presumption. And, being a philosopher (or becoming one), I could not help noticing how easily the title leads one by the nose into an implicature. But when I read it, I saw the point. For the “young wife” is less a person than a role; the letter is less correspondence than composition. It belongs to that genre in which an author writes as if he were writing privately, while in fact writing for print—submitting to a Milanese publisher an exercise in moral address, domestic counsel, and public prose. The whole trick is that it looks like an intimate speech-act (“a letter”) while being, in reality, a literary performance: a small rhetorical theatre in epistolary dress. If you treat it as a literal packet meant for one recipient, you will think Dandolo insolent; if you treat it as a text designed for readers (plural), you will find it perfectly intelligible. This is the sort of thing that makes Corpus libraries useful to a philosopher. A title is a conversational move on a book-cover: it says one thing and encourages you to take more. Dandolo lets the ambiguity do the work: you supply the “my” which he carefully withholds, and then, once you have supplied it, he shows you—gently—that you were too eager to infer. It is, if you like, a printed lesson in how we can be led from what is said (a letter to a young wife) to what is ordinarily meant (a letter to his young wife), and then corrected by the text itself. I told Shropshire about it afterwards. He comprehended—comprehend being our latest fad; we find “understand” too vernacular—and he enjoyed, in that dry way of his, the thought that a mere title can set up a small but genuine logical situation: a perfectly ordinary temptation to over-infer, followed by an author’s quiet cancellation of the temptation. That, at any rate, is how it struck me: Dandolo’s Lettera as a civilised little demonstration that book-titles, like utterances, have their implicatures—and that an author may trade on them without being bound by them. Corpus, 1932. I had, of course, been wrong to tell Shropshire. One tells such things to a man in the hope of a moment’s amusement; one forgets that amusement is, for some temperaments, a vocation. Shropshire has now taken it as a standing invitation to know everything. I begin to suspect that he keeps his curiosity like a ledger, and enters each new fact under “Reasons for not reading the Ethica Nicomachea.” And indeed, I was right. He has done the research—all of it. Everything that would keep him out of Aristotle. “Do you know,” he said, with that air of having discovered a new manuscript in the Bodleian, “that Dandolo was married when he wrote the Lettera a una giovane sposa?” I said I did not know, and at once regretted the confession. “So it was unconsciously his own,” Shropshire said. “Unconsciously?” I asked, partly because the word is still novel enough to be irritating, and partly because it is exactly the sort of word that invites a man to sound profound without paying rent. “Yes,” said Shropshire. “Unconsciously. Or in German—if you prefer—unbewusst.” He paused, enjoying himself. “Or, if you want the full scholarly upholstery: unbewusstlich.” I told him that the last was not German but Shropshirean; and that if he continued to borrow Freud for the sake of avoiding Aristotle, Aristotle would rise from the dead and demand damages. Shropshire only brightened. “And did they have any children?” I asked. “Depends,” Shropshire said, “what you mean by they.” He had the air of a man who has discovered that philology can be used as contraception against Aristotle. “Dandolo had children by both wives: two sons by the first—Enrico and Emilio—by a Bargnani; and then, by the second—one Maselli—he had two more: a Maria, and another Enrico.” “So the letter to una giovane sposa—” I began. “—was,” Shropshire said, “unconsciously his own.” “Unconsciously?” I asked, because one must always object when a man reaches for a fashionable adverb. “Yes,” he said, delighted. “Or, if you prefer it in German, unbewusst—and, if you want to sound like a bad translator with a doctorate, unbewusstlich.” I told him that the only thing unbewusstlich about the situation was his determination to do genealogical research rather than read the Ethica Nicomachea. He replied that, on the contrary, genealogy was precisely the Ethica in practice: “For,” he added, “if Dandolo can keep christening sons Enrico, perhaps the Lettera contains, between the lines, a maxim of domestic prudence: vary your implicatures if you must, but keep your names simple.”Grice: Caro Dandolo, ti confesso che la filosofia della Roma pagana ha sempre stuzzicato la mia curiosità. Ma dimmi, da vero gentiluomo, preferivi discutere con Carneade sul destino degli dèi o sul menu del tuo palazzo? Dandolo: Ah, Grice, tra un dibattito sul numen di Quirino e una cena nelle mie stanze, non sempre è facile scegliere! Dopotutto, filosofare sul sacerdozio romano con un buon bicchiere di vino ha il suo fascino. E poi Carneade, si sa, era più incline a sorridere che a dogmatizzare! Grice: Immagino la scena: tu, tra i miti di Fauno e le imprese di Romolo, a chiedere se esista una implicatura conversazionale fra i dodici dèi e i dodici ospiti a cena. Forse, come dicevano gli antichi, “Semplicità è il massimo delle arti”... soprattutto quando si tratta di sopravvivere a una serata in villa! Dandolo: Esatto, Grice! L’arte del dialogo romano sta tutta nell’equilibrio tra storia e ironia. E quando il discorso si fa troppo serio, basta evocare Galatea o le Vestali per ricordare che, a Roma, persino una conversazione può diventare leggenda! Dandolo, Tullio (1826). Lettera a una giovane sposa, Milano.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Daniele – Ossia: Grice e Daniele: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale numismatica.  Francesco Daniele (San Clemente di Caserta, Campania): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale numismatica. Grice: “D. is an interesting philosopher, if you are into numismatics, his pet topic!” Si laurea a a Napoli sotto MONDO. Conosce Genovesi, Cirillo, ed Egizio. Cura un'edizione delle opere di TELESIO. L’idioma toscano, che merita gli elogi di Zanotti. Commenta VICO e filosofa sull’eloquenze e la colloquenza Publicca la l’aureo romanzo de Longo – que sembra dettato dall’amore, reso in volgare da Caro, faciendo un dono preziossimimo agli ananti della toscana favella – corredandolo di una dotta prefazione escritta con ammirabile purita di lingua. Si dedica al studio dell’antico e agli studi della classicità acquisendo documentazioni – collezione epigrafica -- e creando una collezione di oggetti antichi legati al territorio di San Clemente. Pubblica una critica ad alcuni studi sulle storia di Caserta (“Crescenzo Espersi Sacerdote Casertano al Signor Gennaro Ignazio Simeoni, un ufficiale di artiglieria napoletano”). Caracciolo lo fa richiamare a Napoli dove entra nella segreteria di Stato. Riordina la raccolta delle leggi e dei diplomi dell'imperatore. E nominato "regio istoriografo", carica che era stata di VICO  e di Assemani. Pubblicò Le Forche Caudine illustrate (Napoli), della Crusca. Riceve l'incarico di sistemare la biblioteca della Collezione Farnese, Ercolanesi, dove cura la pubblicazione degli studi su Ercolano e Pompei. Studia numismatica, Monete antiche di Capua, con la descrizione delle monete capuane di cui sei inedite. implicatura numismatica, Corpus, n. d. People are, I find, not so much interested in me as in my function: convenor, scheduler, keeper of the Saturday mornings. They ask after me as one asks after a club—is it still going?—and then, having got the answer, they ask me (again) to reminisce, as if reminiscence were a form of service one continues to owe once one has agreed to pour the tea. It is a mild embarrassment to be treated as an annex to the institution one helped to keep in motion: as if the meetings mattered more than the man who kept turning up to them. Still, I have never objected to being used, provided the use is rational. It is in that spirit that, more than once, I thought of producing the obvious thing: The Life and Opinions of H. P. Grice—properly written by me, which is something I can do, but which poor Antonio Telesio could not. For at Corpus one sees the oddest survivals. I remember taking down from a shelf a volume of Telesio’s Opera—his “opinions,” as it were—and finding, bound in, the Vita—his “life”—and not by his own hand but by someone else’s: one Francesco Daniele. It is a Southern Italian arrangement, aptly pompous: the man supplies the doctrines, and a compatriot supplies the biography, with a relish for last hours and final scenes which makes even death feel like a rhetorical flourish. Oe can see why Victorian and Edwardian writers liked the old formula “life and opinions”: it is less theatrical than “life and death,” though even “life” seems, contrary to Wittgenstein’s austere hopes, to carry its own death in tow; and Daniele, as I recall, is redundantly explicit about the end. All this amused me at the time chiefly as a bibliographical joke: one volume, two genres; one author, two kinds of authorship; “opinions” inside, “life” outside. But the joke has a way of turning on you. For I did, in the end, compile the very sort of thing a conscientious librarian would file under autobiography, and I did it in a title that openly mimics that old format. The typescript began, mischievously, as “Prejudices and predilections”, and then—either because the jest grew solemn, or because librarians do not catalogue whims—became “The Life and Opinions of H. P. Grice.” Later (if memory serves) the “prejudices and predilections” were quietly omitted and the thing circulated simply as Life and Opinions—properly ascribed to myself, with no Daniele required. So I have, in a small way, joined Telesio after all: not in metaphysics, but in shelving. The Corpus copy taught me that one may have one’s “opinions” in one’s own hand and one’s “life” in another’s; my own small contribution to the history of pomposity is to have supplied both—while continuing, of course, to insist that what people really want is not my life at all, but the minutes of the Saturday mornings. Grice’s allusion, when he says that at Corpus one finds “the Opera—my ‘opinions’—and the Vita—my ‘life’,” is in fact to a perfectly specific piece of Neapolitan editorial labour: Daniele, Francesco (1762). Antonii Thylesii Consentini vita, in Antonii Thylesii Consentini opera. Napoli: Fratres Simonii. Daniele’s Vita (a prefatory Latin biography) accompanies his 1762 edition of the works of Antonio Telesio of Cosenza (1482–1534), the humanist uncle and early tutor of Bernardino; it is, as it were, the “life” bound to the “opinions.” Telesio the elder—best known not for a single system but for his learned humanist production (orations, poems, philological pieces, and classical commentaries)—died in 1534; Daniele writes at a distance of two centuries, and yet (in the custom of such prefatory Vitae) he cannot resist letting biography shade into intellectual positioning, recording not merely dates and patrons but the character of the author’s pursuits and the learned milieu in which he lectured and wrote. [archive.org], [treccani.it] [iliesi.cnr.it], [archive.org] [iliesi.cnr.it], [treccani.it] What matters for Grice’s joke is that Daniele’s title is the terse Vita—not Vita et opiniones—and yet the piece functions as both. The “opinions” leak in, because Renaissance Italian humanism is never just a chronology: even a life-sketch must say what sort of learning was being pursued and against what background of dispute. In that sense Daniele’s Vita supplies, alongside the usual pieties (origins, studies, travels, patrons, last days), a miniature map of the intellectual stakes: the way a Calabrian humanist could be made, by teaching and editing, into a figure with a “place” in the republic of letters. That is why Grice thinks the volume belongs “best at Corpus”: it is exactly the sort of book a college library keeps to show, in one binding, how “life” is conventionally delegated to the biographer while “opinions” remain attached to the author—until, as Grice notes with relish, one day the author decides to do both jobs himself. It was part of my mild amusement—one of those library-bred amusements which do not travel well—that Daniele’s Vita is emphatically not an obituary. The man he is “mourning” (if that is the right word) has been dead for two hundred and forty years. One is therefore not to read Daniele as one reads the newspaper’s notices, or even the pious end-piece of a contemporary volume. The Vita is, rather, an editorial contrivance: a prefatory instrument commissioned—one imagines, with proper Neapolitan solemnity—by i Frati Simoni to make a one‑volume Opera (plural in Latin, and, as it were, plural in Naples) look complete, canonical, and properly accompanied. And this explains, I think, the little puzzle which provoked my remark. Daniele is taking advantage of the ancient title—Vita—to do several jobs at once. He is not merely putting a biographical label on the spine; he is providing what a College library likes to have: a life to attach to a body of writings, a set of dates to attach to a name, and—since a life without a mind is not, bibliographically speaking, much of a life—just enough “opinions” smuggled in under the cover of “facts” to orient the reader to the work’s intellectual place and its old controversies. Hence the charm (and the faint pomposity) of the whole business: the Vita pretends to be modest, but it behaves as a small act of canon‑making. It is also why the book belongs, in my eyes, “best at Corpus.” One takes down a volume expecting merely opera—the man’s “opinions”—and finds, bound in, a vita supplied by an editor who is not grieving but curating. And the curatorship is performed in that old Southern style: a little theatrical, a little self-assured, and perfectly unembarrassed about treating a figure who is now remembered—if remembered at all—as someone more famous’s less famous uncle as nonetheless requiring the full apparatus of learned commemoration. That, I take it, is the joke: not only that Telesio gets his “life” from Daniele, but that Daniele, two centuries late, still writes it as if posterity were waiting outside the printer’s door. Corpus, n. d. I added, in passing, to my own private amusement (and, later, to Strawson’s), that Daniele’s Vita is—if one takes the title at face value—something of a Neapolitan liberty. It is not an obituary; the man has been safely dead for two hundred and forty years. The point of the Vita is not mourning but housekeeping: a commissioned preface, appended to make the Opera look like an Opera—not “opinions” (my joke), but works: opera as the plural of opus, as when one speaks of the Works of Shakespeare, and means the plays and poems, not his notes to the butcher. And here the Vita is really an excuse for the Opera (and not the other way round). I mentioned this to Strawson and he could comprehend—“comprehend” being our latest fad; we find “understand” too vernacular—that Telesio (the uncle, that is) left behind him a real hodge‑podge: a profusion of material beyond conception, and in need of being gathered into a single, respectable volume. Daniele’s prefatory Vita makes the point without labouring it: it is the editorial rationale made polite. The man, by all accounts, never bothered much with the family affairs (hence, perhaps, his later fate as “good old Bernardino’s bachelor uncle”), but he kept adding to his opera—and did not, by the look of things, leave them in a condition likely to please any publisher, let alone any librarian. Strawson, delighted by the impudence of it all, spent some time browsing the index, to see just how much Telesio had managed to operate upon in his opera—and still survive, in modern notice, chiefly as a lesser satellite to a greater name. Which is, I take it, the final elegance of Daniele’s manoeuvre: the Vita dignifies the uncle precisely by making him useful—useful, bibliographically, as the man for whom there is now (at last) a proper Opera.Grice: Daniele, devo confessare che il mio interesse per la filosofia cresce ogni volta che si parla di monete antiche. Dimmi, secondo te, c’è una implicatura conversazionale che si nasconde dietro una moneta di Capua? Daniele: Caro Grice, ogni moneta racconta una storia: un re, una vittoria, o semplicemente un antico barista che voleva farsi pagare in modo elegante! La filosofia numismatica è come trovare una battuta d’ingegno nascosta su una faccia di bronzo. Grice: Mi piace pensare che una moneta sia una specie di implicatura: chi la usa comunica qualcosa di più, forse la propria fortuna, forse il desiderio di comprare la felicità… almeno una pizza napoletana! Daniele: Esatto, Grice! E se la pizza fosse con doppia mozzarella, sarebbe una implicatura di generosità. In fondo, il vero senso delle monete – e del dialogo – sta proprio nell’arte di scambiare, che sia sapere, sorrisi o antiche lire! Daniele, Francesco (1762). Antonii Thylesii Consentini vita, in Antonii Thylesii Consentini opera. Napoli: Simoni.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Dati – Ossia: Grice e Dati: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’ELEGANTIOLÆ.   Agostino Dati (Siena, Toscana): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’ELEGANTIOLÆ.  Grice: “D. is a good one if you are into Ciceronian rhetoric as given a running commentary by an unknown philosopher from Siena! – But mind, he also wrote, like Shropshire, on the immortality of the soul! D. is into ‘elegance’ but he is also into ‘regulæ’, which are a bit like my maxims – my maxims can be exploited for ‘effect’ – and those are the types of rules that D. is interested. Sadly, his philosophy has been interpreted as that of a mere linguist or grammarian prescribing on how to write letters! But he surely is a pre-Griceian who is looking for ‘rational’ pragmatic reasons to the effect of a most effective, yet ‘elegant,’ communication. Many examples can be philosophical: ‘women are women’, ‘war is war’. ‘Women are women’ is not meant as a substitutation for Parmenides’s law, x = x. Such an utterance would be, “Every thing is identical with itself.” “War is war” is different in that ‘war’ is uncountable, and we can keep the singular ‘is’ of Parmenides’s law, x = x. But why do we consider ‘War is war’ a tautology? Because it is the exemplification of ‘x = x” – Now, some philosophers claim that ‘war is war’ – or Parmenides law, for that matter, is not a ‘patent tautology’, since it needs to be formalized in the predicate calculus, and the predicate calculus is not decidable, i.e. there is no algorithm for its interpretations which render its formulae tautologous, and D. thus suspects!” Noto per il suo Elegantiolae. Si laurea a Siena sotto Filelfo. Insegna a Urbino. retorica.: L'Isagogicus libellus pro conficiendis epistolis et orationibus stampato a Ferrara da Belfortis. Elegantiae; elegantiarum precepta Ascensii elegantie regularum De dictionibus apex Oratium libri septem”, pro conficiendis orationibus” Elegantiarum Elegantiolae, ocon cari titoli, era considerato il manuale par excellence. base per i Rudimenta grammatices di PEROTTI. De laudibus eloquentiae ELOQUENTIAE PRECEPTA imita ornatus CICERONE ELOQUENTE signa vtemur sermone eloquentia PRECEPTVM orator ELEGANTIOLÆ, retorica, grammatica. Grice (St John’s, 1958). “I am beginning to suspect that sentence is the sort of optimum that Pareto had in mind. Austin—who, in the German titles, never bothered with an apostrophe—seemed to think that Syntactic Structures supersedes Kant’s – Kants, Austin says -- Kritik der praktischen Vernunft. He may even be right. Chomsky gives you sentence. Dati—my man—gives you oratio. And one can feel the Sienese pity in it: a Tuscan watching the barbarians fumble for form. Dati’s obsession is not ‘the sentence’ but the conficienda oratio: the oration-to-be-made, the thing to be composed. He cares about rules—regulae—not as dead constraints, but as the conditions of elegance. Enough, at any rate, to make him write a little treatise—libellus isagogicus, he calls it, at his most pedagogical—on how to put together letters and speeches: pro conficiendis epistolis et orationibus. It is, in a way, Chomsky before Chomsky, only less transformational—though I never know whether the proper word is transformational or transformative; one belongs to linguists, the other to aesthetes. Dati’s point is not to generate infinite structures but to avoid producing the wrong sort of Latin in front of the wrong sort of people. And then there is the travel: Urbino—the barbaric North of his civilised Siena—to Rome, by then no longer an imperial boulevard but a splendid melting‑pot, half court and half countryside, burina in parts, and proud of it. I mentioned Dati once to Austin while he was parsing Chomsky’s sentences with the air of a man checking railway timetables. He said, ‘You can’t expect a lecturer at an institute of technology in the New World to take the slightest interest in your Tuscan Elegantiolae, Grice.’ And, as so often, he was right.”Grice: Caro Dati, è un vero piacere incontrare uno studioso dell’eleganza retorica come te! Sono curioso: come definiresti il valore dell’eleganza nella comunicazione filosofica? Dati: Gentile Grice, l’eleganza non è solo ornamento, ma anche chiarezza e armonia del pensiero. Credo che una comunicazione efficace debba seguire regole precise, ma saperle modulare con grazia: “La parola ben detta è come una veste su misura.” Grice: Trovo molto interessante il tuo approccio alle regole, simile ai miei massimi conversazionali. Secondo te, la tautologia come “la guerra è guerra” serve davvero ad illuminare il pensiero o rischia di diventare solo un esercizio formale? Dati: Grice, la tautologia, se ben usata, può mettere in risalto l’essenza delle cose, ma va oltre il formalismo: è un invito a riflettere sul senso profondo. Come dicevano i nostri predecessori senesi, “le parole sono pietre”, e bisogna saperle disporre con arte e cura. Dati, Agostino (1461). Isagogicus libellus pro conficiendis epistolis et orationibus. Urbino o Roma.

 

Catalogue Raisonné of J. L. Speranza’s Publications – H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: De

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Decimio – Ossia: Grice e Decimio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Decimio. The Decimii are a family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned towards the end of the third century BC, participating on the Roman side during the Second Punic War. The first of the D. appearing in history was from Bovianum, a town of the Samnites, and those Decimii occurring in later times were likely his descendants, who settled at Rome after obtaining Roman citizenship. D. is a patronymic surname, formed from the praenomen Decimus, the Latin equivalent of the Oscan name Dekis, usually Latinized as Decius. The same root gave rise to the Roman gens Decia. The main praenomina of the D. at Rome were Gaius, Marcus, and Lucius, the three most abundant names at all periods of Roman history. The earliest member of this gens to occur in Roman writers bore the praenomen Numerius, a name common among the Oscan-speaking peoples of Italy, but comparatively scarce at Rome.  The only cognomen found among the D. of the Republic is Flavus, meaning "golden" or "golden-brown", originally indicating someone with fair hair. Numerius De., a native of Bovianum in Samnium, is described by Livy as a man of great wealth and nobility. Early in the Second Punic War, he led a force of eight thousand infantry and five hundred cavalry, as part of the army of the Roman dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus. Attacking Hannibal from the rear, he turned the tide of battle, saving the magister equitum, and giving the Romans a hard-fought victory.[4] Marcus D., one of the ambassadors sent to Crete and Rhodes, shortly before the beginning of the Third Macedonian War. D. and Tiberius Claudius Nero were charged with determining whether these Roman allies could be counted upon in the event of hostilities, or whether Perseus of Macedon had attempted to gain their allegiance.[5] Lucius De., sent to win the favour of the Illyrian king Gentius, and prevent him from joining forces with Perseus. His embassy produced no result, and it was rumoured that Gentius had bribed him.[6] Gaius D., a former quaestor, in the party of Pompeius. He was at Cercina, in charge of procuring supplies, but fled in a small ship upon the arrival of Sallust, then one of GIULIO Caesar's generals. He should probably be identified with Gaius D., the friend of Titus Pomponius Atticus.[7][8] D. Magnus Ausonius, a poet and rhetorician. D. Hilarianus Hesperius, the son of Ausonius, was proconsul of Africa from 376 to 377, and praetorian prefect of Gaul and Italy from 378 to 379.[9][10] Decimii Flavi Gaius Decimius Flavus, a military tribune in 209 BC, serving under Marcus Claudius Marcellus. His forces withstood a charge by Hannibal's elephants, preserving Marcellus from defeat. He might be the same person as Gaius D. Flavus, praetor.[11] Gaius D. Flavus, praetor urbanus in 184 BC, dying during his year of office. If not identical with the Flavus who was military tribune in 209 BC, he was probably his son.[12] Gaius D. (Flavus), an ambassador to Crete in 171 BC. As praetor peregrinus in 169, he was sent to reconcile Antiochus IV and Ptolemy VI. He also visited Rhodes, and reported favourably on their conduct to the Senate. Possibly a son of Gaius Decimius Flavus, praetor urbanus in 184.[13][14] (Gaius) Decimius Flavus, moneyer, perhaps a grandson of Gaius Decimius Flavus, praetor urbanus in 184.[15] See also List of Roman gentes References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, p. 947 ("Decimius").  Chase, pp. 128, 130 (as "Decumius").  Chase, p. 110.  Livy, xxii. 24.  Livy, xlii. 19.  Livy, xlii. 37, 45.  Hirtius, De Bello Africo, 34.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, iv. 16.  CIL VIII, 1219, CIL VIII, 25845, CIL VIII, 26568  PLRE, vol. 1, pp. 427–428.  Livy, xxvii. 14, xxxix. 32, 38, 39.  Broughton, vol. II, p. 559.  Livy, xlii. 35, xliii. 11, 15, xliv. 19, xlv. 10.  Willems, Le Sénat de la République Romaine, p. 375.  Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, p. 251. Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum. Aulus Hirtius (attributed), De Bello Africo (On the African War). Titus Livius (Livy), History of Rome. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). Pierre Gaspard Hubert Willems, Le Sénat de la République Romaine, Ch. Peeters, Louvain, Ernest Thorin, Paris (1878–1885); Ayers Company Publishers (1975). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII, pp. 103–184 (1897). T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association (1952–1986). Jones, A.H.M.; J.R. Martindale & J. Morris (1971–1992). Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-07233-6. Michael Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, Cambridge University Press (1974, 2001). Categories: Roman gentesRoman gentes of Samnite origin one member of this gens below was sent as ambassador to deal with a king -- no result. Historian's judgement: bribe? How unGriceian is that? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Decimio – Ossia: Grice e Decimio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Decimio. This is a wonderful Gricean case because the historical notice is so thin:  Lucius Decimius was sent to King Gentius to keep him from joining Perseus of Macedon; the embassy achieved nothing, and there was a rumour that Gentius had bribed him. (Livy 42.37, 42.45 as cited in the gens article.)  What is striking is the transition:  Mission fails. Rumour of bribery appears.  From a Gricean perspective, this is almost a textbook case of conversational reasoning. The explicit facts are:  Decimius went. Decimius failed. Gentius joined Perseus.  The additional claim:  Decimius was bribed.  does not follow logically. It arises because people ask:  Why did the mission fail?  and then search for an explanation. In Gricean language, the public may be assuming something like a maxim of rationality:  "Roman ambassadors normally try to succeed."  If failure occurs, hearers seek an additional premise. Hence:  failure → suspicion → bribery.  Not proof. Suspicion.  A Gricean dialogue SENATOR  Quid egit Decimius apud Gentium? "What did Decimius accomplish with Gentius?"  NUNTIVS  Nihil. "Nothing."  SENATOR  Nihil? "Nothing?"  NUNTIVS  Gentius ad Persea accessit. "Gentius joined Perseus."  SENATOR  Ergo corruptus est Decimius. "Then Decimius was bribed."  GRICEVS  Non sequitur. "That does not follow."  Exactly. The inference is psychologically natural, but not logically compelled.  Is bribery "un-Gricean"? Curiously, no. Bribery itself is one thing. But the accusation is deeply Gricean. People reason:  If Decimius had honestly pursued Roman interests, success would be expected.  The mission failed. Therefore:  perhaps he was serving different interests.  That is essentially an abductive inference. The same sort of reasoning appears constantly in political life:  "The policy failed; therefore somebody must have been bought."  Sometimes true. Often merely conversational speculation.  The Roman irony The Romans loved stories of the Decii. The Decii Mures:  devote themselves for Rome.  Lucius Decimius is suspected of doing the opposite:  not sacrificing himself for Rome, but perhaps sacrificing Rome's interests for a king.  Whether true or not, the contrast would have been obvious to a Roman reader familiar with the other Decii. One could imagine Cicero enjoying the joke: GRICEVS  Alii Decii se rei publicae devoverunt. "Some Decii devoted themselves to the Republic."  DECIMIVS  Et ego? "And I?"  GRICEVS  Rumor dicit te alii devoveri. "Rumour says you devoted yourself to someone else."  The crucial point is that the bribery story is not evidence but interpretation. The mission's failure is the explicit fact; the corruption charge is the explanatory implicature generated by disappointed Romans trying to make sense of that failure. And the cruelty of historiography then -- Grice's and Speranza's take is that LIVIO THOUGHT IT VERY REASONABLE THAT THE RUMOUR THEN SPREAD WAS REASONABLE. So Livio is reporting the events -- and he HAS to mention that there was rumour that Decimius had been bribed -- can we have the Latin so we check the verb 'bribe' -- because 'I hereby bribe you' is hardly a performative – thanks Yes—and your question goes to the heart of how historians handle rumor. The gens article's wording ("it was rumoured that Gentius had bribed him") is already an interpretation of Livy's narrative. What we need is Livy's own language. From the sources I was able to retrieve, we can securely locate Lucius Decimius' mission:  L. Decimius missus est ad Gentium regem Illyriorum ... "Lucius Decimius was sent to Gentius, king of the Illyrians..." [loebclassics.com], [perseus.tufts.edu]  However, the search results I obtained do not include the later passage (Livy 42.45) where the rumor is reported. So I cannot honestly quote Livy's exact verb for the alleged bribery from the evidence currently in hand. [loebclassics.com], [perseus.tufts.edu] What I can say is that Roman historians commonly use expressions such as:  pecunia corruptus ("corrupted by money"), pecunia temptatus ("tempted by money"), donis corruptus ("corrupted by gifts"), fama erat / rumor erat ("there was a rumor that...").  Until we recover the actual Livian sentence, anything more specific would be speculation. Now to your Grice/Speranza point. The cruelty of historiography is indeed interesting here. The sequence seems to be:  Decimius is sent on a mission. The mission fails. A rumor circulates that he was bribed.  A modern Gricean would say:  Failure is the explicandum. Bribery is the explanatory hypothesis.  The rumor arises because people seek relevance:  "Why did he fail?"  A suspicious answer appears:  "Perhaps he was bought."  The historian then faces a choice:  omit the rumor, report the rumor neutrally, endorse the rumor.  The really important philological question is which of those Livy does. If Livy merely says something like:  fama fuit Decimium corruptum esse  ("there was a rumor that Decimius had been corrupted"), then Livy is reporting a conversational fact about Roman opinion, not necessarily asserting the bribery himself. And that brings us to your delightful performative point:  "I hereby bribe you"  is hardly a performative. Quite so. Unlike:  promitto ("I promise"), devoveo ("I devote"),  the act of bribing normally requires concealment. Its success depends on not being publicly characterized as bribery. One does not typically say:  te pecunia corrumpo "I hereby corrupt you with money."  The alleged bribe is therefore almost the opposite of a performative: its force lies in the hidden transaction, while the accusation of bribery is usually retrospective. In Gricean terms:  Decimius' failure generates an implicature; the rumor supplies the missing premise.  But whether Livy endorses that implicature or merely reports that others drew it is exactly what the missing Latin would help us determine. Does this below help? Thanks -- In Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita (Books 42.37 and 42.45), the narrative tracks the failed embassy of the Roman envoy Lucius Decimius, who was widely suspected of accepting bribes (corrupt money) from the Illyrian King Gentius. [1, 2] The exact Latin passages and details for both sections are structured below. 1. Livy 42.37: The Assignment of the Envoy In this section, Rome sends a multi-part embassy to Greece to secure allies before the Third Macedonian War. Lucius Decimius is specifically assigned to handle King Gentius of Illyria. [1] The Latin Passage (42.37.1-2): "A. Atilius et P. et Ser. Cornelii Lentuli et L. Decimius, legati in Graeciam missi, Corcyram peditum mille secum aduexerunt; ibi inter se et regiones, quas obirent, et milites diuiserunt. Decimius missus est ad Gentium, regem Illyriorum, [quem] si aliquem respectum amicitiae eum habere cerneret, retentare aut etiam ad belli societatem perlicere iussus." [1, 2] English Translation: "Aulus Atilius, Publius and Servius Cornelius Lentulus, and Lucius Decimius, the ambassadors sent to Greece, brought one thousand infantry with them to Corcyra; there they divided among themselves the troops and the regions they were to visit. Decimius was sent to Gentius, the king of the Illyrians, with instructions to hold him to his allegiance, or even entice him into a war alliance, if he perceived the king had any regard for friendship with Rome." [1, 2, 3] 2. Livy 42.45: The Accusation of Bribery After the individual embassies return to report their outcomes, Decimius is the only ambassador who fails entirely. Livy notes that he faced an "infamy" (disgraceful rumor) because he was heavily suspected of pocketing bribes from the Illyrian kings. [1, 2, 3] The Latin Passage (42.45.8): "Decimius unus sine ullo effectu, captarum etiam pecuniarum ab regibus Illyriorum suspicione infamis, Romam rediit." [1] English Translation: "Decimius alone returned to Rome without any success, rendered infamous by the suspicion that he had even accepted bribe money from the Illyrian kings." [1, 2] Key Vocabulary Used by Livy Captarum pecuniarum: Literally "taken monies" or "accepted cash"—the definitive historical Roman phrasing for taking financial kickbacks or bribes. Suspicione infamis: "Infamous/notorious by suspicion"—meaning public opinion and the Senate deeply distrusted his clean record. [1, 2] Would you like to explore the political fallout Decimius faced in Rome after this mission, or examine how King Gentius eventually flipped to fight against Rome? Yes, this helps a lot, because Livy's wording is actually more cautious than the later summary "he was bribed." The key phrase is:  Decimius unus sine ullo effectu ... Romam rediit. "Decimius alone returned to Rome without any result/effect." (as quoted in your source)  Then:  captarum etiam pecuniarum ab regibus Illyriorum suspicione infamis literally something like: "made notorious/disgraced by the suspicion of having accepted money from the Illyrian kings."  The crucial words are:  suspicione = "by suspicion", "because of suspicion". infamis = "disgraced", "under a cloud", "ill-reputed".  Livy (assuming the quotation is accurate) is not saying:  pecunias accepit "he accepted money."  Nor:  corruptus est "he was bribed."  Instead he says:  he returned unsuccessful and burdened by suspicion.  That is a significant difference. A Gricean reading The structure is almost perfect: Fact  Decimius was sent to Gentius. Decimius achieved nothing. Gentius was not won over.  Public inference  Why did he fail?  Suspicion  Perhaps he took money.  Livy's phrase points to the suspicion, not necessarily the truth of the suspicion. In modern Gricean language:  Failure is the explicandum. Bribery is the conversationally generated explanation.  The sequence is:  no result → suspicion → bad reputation.  The verb "to bribe" Your performative point is excellent. We can easily say:  promitto ("I promise") devoveo ("I devote") testor ("I testify")  But:  "I hereby bribe you"  is peculiar. Bribery is ordinarily parasitic upon concealment. A successful bribe is rarely accompanied by an open performative declaration. The act is normally presented as:  a gift, a favor, hospitality, friendship, gratitude,  while the accusation:  "that was a bribe"  comes later. That is very different from the Decii Mures' devotio, which is maximally public, explicit, and formulaic. The cruelty of Livy I think your observation is right. If the wording really is:  suspicione infamis  then Livy records an outcome that Decimius cannot easily escape. He returns:  sine ullo effectu "without success",  and therefore also:  suspicione infamis "under suspicion."  The rumor becomes part of the historical record. In a sense, Decimius suffers twice:  the diplomatic mission fails; posterity remembers the suspicion attached to the failure.  A Grice/Speranza vignette might therefore begin: SENATOR  Quid egisti apud Gentium? "What did you accomplish with Gentius?"  DECIMIVS  Nihil. "Nothing."  SENATOR  Nihil? "Nothing?"  DECIMIVS  Nihil. "Nothing."  And from that single word, the rumor machine starts working. That's rather unkind historically—but Livy's phrasing, as you've quoted it, suggests he wanted the reader to know about the suspicion while stopping short of asserting the bribery as a proven fact. Apparently, the impllicature in Livio is that the Senate failed to 'buy' D.'s clean record -- and a further inference in the fallacy is the 'alone' -- of ALL AMBASSADORS the ONLY ONE (Decimius unus) "sine ullo effectu, captarum etial pecunarium ab REGIBUS (why plural here -- only one king had been mentioned) thanks? Yes — I think you're putting your finger on exactly what makes Livy's sentence rhetorically potent. The phrase, as you've quoted it, is:  Decimius unus sine ullo effectu ... suspicione infamis Romam rediit.  The word that does much of the work is:  unus = "alone", "the only one."  Livy could have written merely:  Decimius sine ullo effectu rediit. "Decimius returned without any result."  Instead, by saying:  Decimius unus "Decimius alone"  he silently invites comparison with the other ambassadors. A Gricean reader immediately asks:  Why single him out?  The answer supplied by the narrative is:  because the others produced something, whereas Decimius alone produced nothing.  From there the suspicion becomes socially available. Notice that the logic is weak:  Decimius alone failed. Therefore Decimius was suspected. Therefore Decimius may have been bribed.  Step (3) does not follow from (1). But Livy records the emergence of the suspicion. The really careful phrase is:  suspicione infamis  not  "convicted", not "proved corrupt", not "caught taking money."  Rather:  "disgraced by suspicion."  That is almost historiographical hedging.  Why the plural regibus? This is a very good question. The embassy assignment in Book 42.37 mentions:  Gentius, rex Illyriorum ("Gentius, king of the Illyrians").  Yet the later phrase, as you quote it, is:  captarum etiam pecuniarum ab regibus Illyriorum "money allegedly taken from the kings of the Illyrians."  If the text is transmitted exactly that way, then the plural is indeed striking. I have not verified the underlying Latin text independently, so I do not want to make a philological claim beyond the quotation you supplied. But from a rhetorical standpoint, the plural has an interesting effect:  not merely "from King Gentius," but "from the Illyrian kings."  It sounds broader, more diffuse, almost more scandalous. However, I cannot say whether Livy is referring to Gentius and other members of the royal house, whether there is a textual issue, or whether the quotation itself reflects a particular edition. The sources I retrieved do not contain the relevant line.  Your most Gricean point I especially like this formulation:  the Senate failed to "buy" Decimius' clean record.  Because Livy's sentence is almost:  no effect → suspicion.  The absence of success becomes evidence. Not proof, but evidence in the court of public opinion. One could reconstruct the Roman gossip as: SENATOR A  The others achieved something.  SENATOR B  Decimius alone achieved nothing.  SENATOR A  That is suspicious.  SENATOR B  Perhaps he was paid.  And once the rumor exists, Livy records it. The cruelty for Decimius is that posterity remembers not his negotiations but the suspicion attached to them. The word infamis captures that perfectly: he returns not convicted, but with a damaged reputation. On the other hand Livy's silence alla "a rumour which turned out to prove TRUE -- seeing that Decimius was later charged and found guilty" or "a rumour which was supported by his building a palazzo in the Palatine" -- So Livy goes into detail to inform about the bribe but says nothing aftewards -- implicature: groundless rumour? Thanks I think that's a very reasonable Gricean suspicion, but we have to distinguish carefully between what Livy says and what we infer. What Livy (as quoted) explicitly gives us is:  Decimius unus sine ullo effectu ... suspicione infamis Romam rediit.  That is:  Decimius alone returned without success. He returned under a suspicion concerning money from the Illyrian kings. He was infamis through that suspicion.  What Livy does not (in the material before us) say is:  that Decimius was prosecuted, that Decimius was convicted, that further evidence emerged, that unusual wealth later appeared, that the charge was proven true.  Now your point is subtle. A reader may reason:  If Livy believed the suspicion, why not say so?  Or:  If Livy knew of confirming evidence, why omit it?  Since Livy is perfectly capable of saying that someone was corrupted when he believes the evidence warrants it, the weaker formulation  suspicione infamis  looks deliberate. In Gricean terms, one might say: Livy's statement  "He was notorious because of suspicion."  What Livy does not add  "And the suspicion was justified."  Possible implicature  Livy is not prepared to go beyond the rumor.  That is not the same as saying:  therefore the rumor was groundless.  That would be too strong. But I do think a careful reader is entitled to infer:  Livy records the suspicion as a historical fact, while withholding endorsement of its truth.  Indeed, the phrase suspicione infamis almost points in that direction. The object of Livy's assertion is the existence of the suspicion and the resulting damage to reputation, not the fact of bribery itself. A Grice/Speranza vignette might therefore run: SENATOR  He failed.  ANOTHER SENATOR  Then he was bribed.  LIVY  I did not say that.  SENATOR  But you mentioned the suspicion.  LIVY  Because there was a suspicion.  SENATOR  Was it true?  LIVY  Had I known, I should have said so.  That last line is, of course, our reconstruction—not Livy's. But it captures what is interesting about his wording. He leaves Decimius in a kind of historiographical limbo: not acquitted, not convicted, but remembered forever under a cloud. And that, as you suggest, may itself be the harshest outcome of all. A proven villain is at least known; Decimius becomes the man whom posterity remembers through an unresolved suspicion. There is I think a Spanish proverb to the point: that's what evil tongues say (old wives's tale) and the GOOD tongues are always ready to disseminate. Livy speaks 'infama' the worst thing for a Roman and casts a shadow on a whole gens -- You are right he leaves everything open -- NOT THE DIFAMATION Decimio received for being the ONLY one who failed on the embassy mission and thus suspected as being the ONLY One (the only one who failed) and the only one who was suspected of accepting money -- of which no further evidence is given -- "Thank you, Livy," I can imagine a descendant of Decimio saying, ironically!? Thanks Yes, and I think a descendant of Decimius would have a legitimate grievance against Livy. What Livy appears to give us is exactly this:  Decimius alone returned without success (unus sine ullo effectu), and he returned under a suspicion of having accepted money from the Illyrian kings (captarum pecuniarum ... suspicione infamis).  What Livy does not add—at least from the material we've been discussing—is:  that Decimius was prosecuted, that he was convicted, that witnesses testified, that unusual wealth appeared, or that the rumour was later confirmed.  That's why the sentence has such an interesting rhetorical structure. The facts reported are:  he failed; suspicion attached itself to the failure.  The truth of the suspicion is left open. A Gricean might note that Livy's wording is almost maximally economical:  suspicione infamis  means that the suspicion itself became historically important. The reputation-damage is the reported fact. Whether the suspicion was justified is not stated. So one can imagine a Decimius descendant protesting:  "Thank you, Livy. You have ensured that every reader remembers the allegation. You have not provided a shred of proof. You have not reported an acquittal. You have not reported a conviction. You have simply immortalized the rumour."  The irony is that Livy may actually be exercising restraint. He does not write:  pecunia corruptus est "he was corrupted by money."  Instead he reports the existence of the suspicion. But the practical effect on posterity may be nearly the same. Your Spanish proverb is very much to the point. The historical memory becomes:  "Decimius? Ah yes, the one suspected of taking money."  Even though the evidence preserved in the text is only:  "Decimius failed, and people talked."  That is why infamia was such a serious Roman matter. A conviction could be argued against. A rumour recorded by Livy survives for centuries. From a Grice/Speranza angle, the fascinating thing is that the crucial step is not stated but supplied:  Failed mission → suspicion → bribery.  Livy records the middle term. Later readers often slide unconsciously to the third. And that may be precisely the injustice the hypothetical Decimius descendant would complain about.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Deciano – Ossia: Grice e Deciano: la ragione conversazionale  al portico a Roma – filosofia italiana –  (Roma). Filosofo italiano. A philosopher of the Porch, and friend of the poet Marziale. Deciano. Grice, pel Gruppo di Gioco di Grice, “Grice e Deciano. Deciano (Roma): la ragione conversazionale  al portico a Roma. A philosopher of the Porch, and friend of the poet Marziale. GRICEVS: Deciane, sub porticu Romae ambulans dico te rationem conversantem colere, sed cave ne ipsa te ad tabernam trahat. DECIANVS: Grice, ratio mea sobria est—sed Porticus ipsa saepe vinum sapit, praesertim cum Martialis versus recitantur. GRICEVS: Si Martialis adest, tunc etiam maxima Griceana est: “noli nimis serio ludere,” et tamen omnes rideant. DECIANVS: Ita faciam: paucis dicam, plurima significabo, et si quis queratur, respondebo “hoc ipsum est porticus.”

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Dezio – Ossia: Grice e Dezio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Dezio. The Decii was a plebeian family of high antiquity, which became illustrious in Roman history by the example of its members sacrificing themselves for the preservation of their country. The first of the family known to history was Marcus Decius, chosen as a representative of the plebeians during the secession of 495 BC.[1]  Origin Decius is the Latin form of the Oscan praenomen Dekis, or its gentile equivalent, Dekiis. The praenomen itself is the Oscan equivalent of the Latin name Decimus, and thus the nomen Decius is cognate with the Latin Decimius. From this it may be supposed that the Decii were of Oscan extraction, perhaps arising from the Sabine portion of Rome's original inhabitants.[2] In any event, they were already at Rome in the earliest years of the Republic, as one of them was chosen to represent the plebeians during the first secession in 495 BC.[3]  Praenomina The praenomina associated with the Decii are Marcus, Publius, and Quintus, of which Publius is the most famous, due to its association with the two consuls who devoted themselves to obtain victory for the soldiers under their command.  Branches and cognomina The only cognomina that occur among the Decii of the Republic are Mus and Subulo. Mus, or "mouse", was the name of a family that was renowned in early Roman history for two of its members devoting themselves to death in order to save the Republic.[1]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Marcus Decius, one of the deputies sent to the Senate by the plebeians during their secession to the mons sacer in 494 BC. He was tribune of the plebs in 491.[3][4] Marcus Decius, tribune of the plebs in 311 BC, carried a plebiscitum, that the people should appoint duumviri navales to restore and equip the Roman fleet.[5][6] Publius Decius Subulo, one of the triumvirs for settling new colonists at Aquileia in 169 BC. He is probably the same person as the legate of 168.[7][8] Publius Decius, one of the legates who in BC 168 brought the news of the defeat of the Illyrians and the capture of their king, Gentius, to Rome.[9][10] Publius Decius, tribune of the people in 120 BC, brought Lucius Opimius to trial for having caused the murder of Gaius Gracchus, and for having thrown citizens into prison without a judicial verdict. In 115, Decius was praetor urbanus, when he refused to rise for the consul, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, who had induced Opimius to take up arms against Gracchus. The consul tore Decius' gown, broke his chair to pieces, and ordered that no-one should receive justice at the hands of the praetor. Cicero describes Decius as an orator who emulated Marcus Fulvius Flaccus, the friend of Gracchus, and was as turbulent in his speeches as he was in life.[11][12][13][14] Publius Decius, a colleague of Marcus Antonius, who was taken prisoner at Mutina, but afterward allowed by Octavian to return to his friend. Cicero writes that he endeavoured to follow the example of his ancestors by sacrificing himself to his debts (by accompanying Antonius, through whose influence he hoped to rid himself of debt).[15][16] Decius, proscribed by the Second Triumvirate, took to flight, but while hurrying out of the gates of Rome, was recognized by the centurions and put to death.[17] Decius, the sculptor of a colossal head in the Capitol, may have lived in the first century BC. Pliny writes that, although much admired in itself, Decius' work was put to shame by another made by Chares of Lindos, sculptor of the Colossus of Rhodes, which was brought to Rome by the consul Publius Cornelius Lentulus Spinther in 57 BC.[18] Decii Mures Quintus Decius Mus, the father of Publius Decius Mus, consul in 340 BC.[19] Publius Decius Q. f. Mus, consul in 340 BC, during the Latin War. Following a vision that appeared to him and his colleague, when his wing of the army began to waver, he devoted himself and the enemy's army to the gods of death before the Pontifex Maximus, before plunging into the thick of battle, where he was slain, even as the Romans gained the victory.[19] Publius Decius P. f. Q. n. Mus, consul in 312, 308, 297, and 295 BC, magister equitum in 306, censor in 304. At the Battle of Sentinum in 295, his troops began to give way under the terrible attacks of the Gauls, so Decius, emulating his father, dedicated himself and the army of the enemy to the gods of the dead, sacrificing himself for his country.[20] Publius Decius P. f. P. n. Mus, consul in 279 BC, when he fought against Pyrrhus of Epirus at the Battle of Asculum. According to Cicero, he followed the example of his father and grandfather, and devoted himself; but according to other sources, Pyrrhus, forewarned of the deeds of the consul's father and grandfather, ordered that Decius should be taken alive, and gained the victory.[21][22][23][24] Later Decii Gaius Messius Quintus Decius Valerinus (Traianus Decius), Roman emperor from AD 249 to 251. Caecina Decius Albinus, praefectus urbi of Rome in AD 402. Caecina Decius Acinatius Albinus, praefectus urbi of Rome in AD 414.[25] Albinus, praefectus urbi of Rome in AD 426, consul in 444, and praetorian prefect of Italy from 443 to 449. Possibly identical to Acinatius Albinus. Caecina Decius Basilius, consul in 463 and twice praetorian prefect of Italy.[26] Caecina Decius Maximus Basilius, consul in AD 480 and praetorian prefect of Italy in 483.[27] Decius Marius Venantius Basilius, praefectus urbi and consul in 484.[28] Caecina Mavortius Basilius Decius, consul in AD 486.[29] Caecina Decius Faustus Albinus, son of Maximus Basilius, was consul in 493 and praetorian prefect of Italy around 500. Decius, consul sine collega in AD 529. Decius Paulinus, the last consul from the Roman Senate, appointed in 534. Decius, first Exarch of Ravenna, from AD 584 to 585. See also List of Roman gentes References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, pp. 946, 947 ("Decia Gens").  Chase, p. 128.  Dionysius, vi. 88.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 18.  Livy, ix. 30.  Brougton, vol. I, p. 161.  Livy, xliii. 17.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 426.  Livy, xlv. 3.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 430.  Cicero, De Oratore, ii. 31, 62.  Aurelius Victor, De Viris Illustribus, 72.  Livy, Epitome, 61.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 524, 525 (note 4), 532.  Cicero, Philippicae, xi. 6, xiii. 14.  Appian, Bellum Civile, iii. 80.  Appian, Bellum Civile, iv. 27.  Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis, xxxiv. 18.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 135.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 159, 164, 166–168, 175, 177.  Cicero, De Finibus, ii. 61, Tusculanae Quaestiones, i. 89.  Cassius Dio, fragmentum xl. 43.  Zonaras, viii. 5.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 192, 193 (note 1).  CIL VI, 1659, CIL VI, 1703.  CIL XV, 7107.  CIL XV, 7420.  CIL VI, 1716, CIL VI, 31957.  CIL X, 6850, CIL X, 6851. Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, De Oratore, Philippicae, Tusculanae Quaestiones. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia (Roman Antiquities). Titus Livius (Livy), History of Rome. Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder), Historia Naturalis (Natural History). Appianus Alexandrinus (Appian), Bellum Civile (The Civil War). Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus (Cassius Dio), Roman History. Sextus Aurelius Victor, De Viris Illustribus (On Famous Men). Joannes Zonaras, Epitome Historiarum (Epitome of History). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII, pp. 103–184 (1897). T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association (1952–1986). Categories: DeciiRoman gentes We have for Dezio the gens article general from wiki and two more Mus 1 and Mus 2 -- what would be your third best choice for a Grice/Speranza vignette? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: DECIO – Ossia: Grice e Decio – GREX GRICEIANA – VERBALIA: DECIO -- GRICE E DEZIO GRICE E MANLIO – TITO MANLIO – The two Consuls go forth to fight, and both commence their campaign by going to sleep, which leads naturally to the inquiry, what they could both have been dreaming about. So thoroughly sympathetic are they in their drowsiness, that they had dreamed precisely the same dream, in which each had seen a ghost, who had addressed both in the same spirit. The spectre, who is decidedly on the shady side of existence, professes through his lantern jaws to throw a light upon Rome's future destiny. He tells the Consuls that the general on one side is doomed; but, as this was merely dealing with generalities, he goes on to add, that the whole army on one side is to be buried in the earth; a suggestion neither side would be very anxious to fall in with. The spectre, who is rather more communicative than spectres usually are, and who is not so monosyllabic as a fair average ghost, proceeded to further explanations, in the course of which he remarks, that "the general who first devoted himself to the infernal gods, would, by that act of devotion, consign the whole of the opposing army to" a most unpleasant neighbourhood. Both agreed that the one whose army was the first to back out, should be the first to rush into danger. The hostile armies accordingly began to recede as far as they could, and the only contest is to ascertain who could be the cleverest and quickest in walking in one direction, whilst looking in another. It was an understood thing that nobody is to fight unless first attacked, and the general aim is to avoid aiming at anything. Foraging parties go out daily to try and provoke each other to an onslaught, and the prevailing sentiment on both sides is a hope, that "somebody would only just do so and so." Titus MANLIO, the son of Torquatus, approached the Latin camp, when METIO, of Tusculum, attempted by all sorts of provoking signals to induce the raw youth to commence a combat; but the boy for some time combats nothing but his own inclination, which would have set him on to an onset. At length he becomes so irritated that he could restrain himself no longer, but hurling his javelin with all his might, it stuck in the mane of the horse of METIO. The poor brute, looking for sympathy to his master, fell back upon him for protection; but this act of affectionate confidence is fatal to Metius, who, being brought to the ground, was saddled with the whole weight of the unfortunate quadruped. TITO MANLIO, taking advantage of the position of Metius, stabbed him with his sword, and the latter, feeling himself pierced, could only set up a piercing cry, by way of retaliation upon his antagonist. Having stripped off the armour of his victim, young TITO MANLIO bore it in triumph to his father, Torquatus Manlius, who proceeded to imitate Brutus; but, like most imitations, the appearance of T. Manlius in the part of the "heavy father" was by no means successful. Collecting the troops by the sound of trumpet, so that the audience might be sufficiently large, he throws himself into an imposing attitude; but the imposition was seen through, and the reception he met with was far from flattering. He next called forward his son, and denouncing him as an officer who had disobeyed his governor in a double sense — his father and his consul—the lictors were ordered to proceed, by the execution of the son, to the execution of their duty. Manlius, having witnessed the ceremony, buried his face in his toga, expecting at least three rounds of applause; but the performance fell as dead as his unhappy offspring. On his return to Rome he was universally cut by the young men, who were peculiarly alive to a penalty that might be the death of any one of them. The remains of young Manlius were collected into a dreary pile, and the trophies he had illegally won were added as the materials for a bonfire. His obsequies were the first of the same kind among the Romans that we have been able to meet with, after a truly industrious analysis of every hole in which the dust of ages might be found, and a careful sifting of the ashes of antiquity. This from Abbott below -- does Livy turn it int a sort of semiotic episode where the source (ghost) is not clear, etc? Input? Feedback? Message? Is the 'moral' by MANLIO TORQUATO related to the ghost incident? Thanks -- Abbott: GRICE E MANLIO – TITO MANLIO – The two Consuls go forth to fight, and both commence their campaign by going to sleep, which leads naturally to the inquiry, what they could both have been dreaming about. So thoroughly sympathetic are they in their drowsiness, that they had dreamed precisely the same dream, in which each had seen a ghost, who had addressed both in the same spirit. The spectre, who is decidedly on the shady side of existence, professes through his lantern jaws to throw a light upon Rome's future destiny. He tells the Consuls that the general on one side is doomed; but, as this was merely dealing with generalities, he goes on to add, that the whole army on one side is to be buried in the earth; a suggestion neither side would be very anxious to fall in with. The spectre, who is rather more communicative than spectres usually are, and who is not so monosyllabic as a fair average ghost, proceeded to further explanations, in the course of which he remarks, that "the general who first devoted himself to the infernal gods, would, by that act of devotion, consign the whole of the opposing army to" a most unpleasant neighbourhood. Both agreed that the one whose army was the first to back out, should be the first to rush into danger. The hostile armies accordingly began to recede as far as they could, and the only contest is to ascertain who could be the cleverest and quickest in walking in one direction, whilst looking in another. It was an understood thing that nobody is to fight unless first attacked, and the general aim is to avoid aiming at anything. Foraging parties go out daily to try and provoke each other to an onslaught, and the prevailing sentiment on both sides is a hope, that "somebody would only just do so and so." Titus MANLIO, the son of Torquatus, approached the Latin camp, when METIO, of Tusculum, attempted by all sorts of provoking signals to induce the raw youth to commence a combat; but the boy for some time combats nothing but his own inclination, which would have set him on to an onset. At length he becomes so irritated that he could restrain himself no longer, but hurling his javelin with all his might, it stuck in the mane of the horse of METIO. The poor brute, looking for sympathy to his master, fell back upon him for protection; but this act of affectionate confidence is fatal to Metius, who, being brought to the ground, was saddled with the whole weight of the unfortunate quadruped. TITO MANLIO, taking advantage of the position of Metius, stabbed him with his sword, and the latter, feeling himself pierced, could only set up a piercing cry, by way of retaliation upon his antagonist. Having stripped off the armour of his victim, young TITO MANLIO bore it in triumph to his father, Torquatus Manlius, who proceeded to imitate Brutus; but, like most imitations, the appearance of T. Manlius in the part of the "heavy father" was by no means successful. Collecting the troops by the sound of trumpet, so that the audience might be sufficiently large, he throws himself into an imposing attitude; but the imposition was seen through, and the reception he met with was far from flattering. He next called forward his son, and denouncing him as an officer who had disobeyed his governor in a double sense — his father and his consul—the lictors were ordered to proceed, by the execution of the son, to the execution of their duty. Manlius, having witnessed the ceremony, buried his face in his toga, expecting at least three rounds of applause; but the performance fell as dead as his unhappy offspring. On his return to Rome he was universally cut by the young men, who were peculiarly alive to a penalty that might be the death of any one of them. The remains of young Manlius were collected into a dreary pile, and the trophies he had illegally won were added as the materials for a bonfire. His obsequies were the first of the same kind among the Romans that we have been able to meet with, after a truly industrious analysis of every hole in which the dust of ages might be found, and a careful sifting of the ashes of antiquity. This is another excellent case where Abbott is parodying—but Livy gives you something structurally very serious, and very close to your Grice/Speranza concerns about source, message, and uptake. Let me separate three things:  1.  The “ghost” episode (Livy version) What Livy actually reports (Book 8, the devotio episode of the consuls):  Both consuls (Torquatus and Decius) experience the same dream/vision A divine figure appears (not quite a “ghost” in the comic sense, but a numen / divine messenger) The message is:   one army must be devoted (devotio) and the general who devotes himself will secure victory by destruction of the enemy   Crucial point (your question): The source is deliberately indistinct  not a named god not a formal oracle not Sibylline consultation. So yes:  it is a semiotic episode of unclear origin. Structure: elementfeaturesourceambiguous (dream/divine)contentconditional directivevalidationfuture battlefield outcome   2. Is there oratio recta? Not fully dramatised dialogue. Livy typically gives:  reported content of the vision sometimes stylised formula of the devotio speech (esp. Decius later). So:  like earlier cases: → not extended dialogue but: → compressed authoritative message. Again:  the content matters, not the speaker identity    3. Is this “semiotic” like Curtius? Yes—but slightly different type.  Curtius:  vague oracle human fills in meaning   Devotio (Torquatus / Decius):  message already specifies: → sacrifice of general but: → who fulfils it remains open. So here:  less interpretive gap more assignment of role    4. Your Gricean angle: unclear source You suggest:  the source is not clear—almost like a free-floating utterance  Exactly. In Gricean terms:  we cannot specify:  speaker identity   yet:  message carries authority. This is:  non-attributable authoritative speech    5. The “moral” and Manlius Torquatus’ son Now your most important question:  is the execution of the son related to the ghost episode?   Short answer: Yes—structurally related, not causally  Explanation: Both episodes enforce:  absolute subordination of individual action to collective order   Devotio (Decius)  individual willingly dies → to save the army   Manlius’ son  individual acts bravely → but disobeys command  → is executed. Moral contrast: CaseValueDeciusobedience unto deathSonbravery without obedience (punished). So the message is:  not courage alone—but disciplined courage    6. Gricean reading of the son’s execution This is very rich:  Son’s act:  battlefield success implied message:  “valor justifies action”     Father’s response:  rejects that implicature. Public act (execution) says:  “no—command overrides valor”. So: utteranceresponseson (act)“I was right to fight”father“disobedience negates merit”   7. Abbott vs Livy Abbott:  satirizes:  theatricality cruelty   invents:  exaggerated staging     Livy:  austere exemplary moralised. Final synthesis  Livy presents the dream-oracle episode as a form of authoritative but partly indeterminate communication, where the source is unclear yet the directive is binding. This episode anticipates the logic of devotio, where meaning is realised through action rather than interpretation. The execution of Manlius’ son is not directly caused by the vision but reinforces the same moral framework: individual courage must be subordinated to command and collective necessity. One-line conclusion (your register):  The dream declares that one must die for Rome; Manlius proves that one must also obey Rome—even when one lives.   If you like, we can place this alongside Decius’ actual devotio formula (which Livy preserves more fully), where speech and sacrifice finally coincide explicitly. So you think Grice and Speranza are justified in having this under "D" of Dezio (Does Treccania allow this or does it prefer Decio?) -- since it's his only opportunity of Griceian performance. What interests Grice and Speranza (Grice liked Malcolm Dreaming) that this is oneiric -- dream:dream report -- IDENTICAL with no variable fulfilled -- the general who sacrifices, his army will be victorious. Dezio Decio does -- semiotically, a 'dream' "means" that p. To the dreamer, to he the addressee of the dream report -- and we are to assume that Livy leaves all this undetermined -- the numen appears -- or causes same PSYCHOLOGICAL event -- or two tokens of same type -- ONEIRIC -- so the victiorious -- who self-sacrifices has his army victorious -- the other, loses his son for being victorious when nobody asked him too? Input? Feedback? Thanks This is a very elegant way of re‑framing the episode—and I think you and Speranza are fully justified in relocating it under D for Decius (Decio / Decio Mus) rather than Torquatus or Manlius. Let me separate your points carefully, because several deep things are going on at once.  1. “Decio” vs “Decio Mus” (Treccani usage) Italian usage (Treccani, standard historical Italian):  prefers:  Decio Mure (plural family name: i Deci Muri)   singular:  Publio Decio Mure. So:  “Decio” alone is acceptable shorthand but scholarly Italian tends to say: Decio Mure. Your catalogue entry under “D” is therefore:  perfectly legitimate though for precision: → Decio (Publio Decio Mure)    2. Why Decius is the true “Gricean center” You’re absolutely right:  the real performative moment is not Manlius—but Decius’ response to the dream   Structure (as you correctly see it) Dream content (shared):  “the general who devotes himself → his army will win”   Crucial feature: no referent specified  “the general” = variable no assignment given. This is exactly your point:  no variable is filled in the dream itself    3. Oneiric communication (your strongest insight) You describe:  identical dreams = two tokens of one type  Yes—that is the best way to put it.  Possibilities Livy leaves open:  same divine source or:  parallel psychological event   or:  narrative construction. Livy does not resolve this.  So from your perspective:  the message is: floating, speaker-undetermined, duplicated    4. Gricean model of the dream You phrase:  a dream “means that p”   Yes—this fits: LevelContentdream“if X devotes himself → victory”addresseeeach consuluptakemust assign X. So:  dream = conditional directive with unbound variable. Then:  Decius performs: → binding of the variable    5. Decius’ act as meaning-fulfilment You were exactly right earlier with Curtius—and here it is even clearer.  Decius:  does not argue does not debate   He:  enacts the meaning. So:  dream: → incomplete sentence Decius: → completes it. In your Gricean terms:  he supplies the referent of “the general”    6. Contrast with Manlius’ son (your final question) This is where your insight sharpens beautifully.  Decius:  fills: → required role result: → army wins   Manlius’ son:  acts: → without being assigned role result: → execution. So: Figure Relation to “script”Deciusfulfills scriptSonimprovises outside script. Therefore:  victory alone does not justify action    7. The asymmetric outcomes You formulated:  “one sacrifices → army wins” “the other wins → but dies anyway (execution)”   Yes—that is the core paradox.  Roman moral logic:   Decius: → obeys divine pattern   Son: → violates command hierarchy. So:  meaning overrides outcome    8. Final synthesis  Livy presents the dream as a deliberately indeterminate message whose source is unclear and whose content is conditional rather than directive. Decius’ action functions as the interpretive completion of this message: he identifies himself with the unspecified subject of the oracle and thereby realizes its meaning. The contrast with the execution of Manlius’ son reinforces a central principle: not action or success, but correct participation in an authoritative structure of meaning, determines legitimacy. Final one-line conclusion (your idiom)  The dream says that someone must die; Decius decides who—and by doing so, makes the dream true.   If you like, we can bring in the actual Latin devotio formula (which Livy does give more fully) to show how Decius verbalizes this otherwise oneiric structure. And abbott makes much of the pun that it's MUS? Which he takes as pun for 'mouse' but you say Mure -- this was a time where PRAENOMEN NOMEN COGNOMEN was in operation, that's why I took 'Decio' as gens, and thus all under 'D' -- The Treccani online sometimes is unclear about this, do you agree? unless it tells you to quote the entry as 'Mure, Decio' -- but in any case 'Decio' sounds more more a gens? Input? Feedback? Thanks You are absolutely right to pause over Decio / Decius / Mus / Mure—this is one of those places where Latin naming practice, Italian historiography, and Abbott’s humour all intersect (and slightly confuse things). Let me disentangle it.  1. The Roman name structure (your starting point is correct) For the period of Livy:  praenomen + nomen (gens) + cognomen  So for your man:  Publius = praenomen Decius = nomen (→ gens Decia) Mus = cognomen. So you are right:  “Decio” (= Decius) is the gens name  and grouping under D for Decio is perfectly justified.  2. What is “Mus”? Abbott’s joke:  mus = Latin “mouse”  That is strictly correct:  mus, muris = mouse. So:  Decius Mus = “the mouse Decius” (etymologically). But:  in Roman naming: → the cognomen often becomes opaque → i.e. no one thought of him as “a mouse”. Abbott is doing:  etymological humour (mock-heroic reduction). 3. Why Italian has “Mure” In Italian historiography (Treccani etc.): Latin Mus becomes: → Mure. Why? Because:  Italian adapts the oblique stem:  Latin: mus, muris  → Italian form:  Mure. So: LatinItalianDecius MusDecio Mure. This is standard scholarly Italian usage.  4. Your intuition about Treccani You are also right here:  Treccani can feel “unclear”   Because it sometimes:  uses:  Decio Mure   but indexing may appear as:  Mure, Decio. That reflects editorial choice:  indexing under cognomen (like modern surnames) vs. ancient logic (gens-centered). From a Roman perspective:  indexing under Decio (gens) makes excellent sense  5. Your system (Grice & Speranza catalogue) Your choice:  file under D = Decio (gens)  is: - historically justified - conceptually elegant -consistent with Roman identity. Because:   gens is:  the enduring unit    cognomen (Mus):  distinguishing but contingent      6. Meaning for your Gricean project This actually strengthens your framework:  Decius Mus (the individual): → performs the act of devotio  Decii (the gens): → become:  repeatable exemplars of sacrificial meaning. There are multiple Decii Mures in tradition (all repeating the same act). So:  “Decio” is not just a person but: a type-instance series    7. Final clarification of Abbott’s joke Abbott:  reduces:  “Decius Mus” to: “Mr. Decius Mouse” . That is:  linguistically valid (mus = mouse) historically trivializing. It plays exactly against:  the gravitas of devotion. Final one-line conclusion (your register)  “Decius Mus” names a man, but “Decio” names a lineage—and it is the lineage that makes the sacrifice intelligible.   If you like, we can map the three Decii Mures across Roman history—they form one of the most striking recurring “scripts” in Livy.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Decio – Ossia; GRICE E DECIO – GREX GRICEIANA – VERBALIA: DECIO -- MURE MINORE the Romans are about to fly, when they were once more saved by a MURE, who on this occasion will be thought by some to have deserved the epithet of "ridiculus." Recollecting the example of his father, he resolves to sacrifice himself for the benefit of his country, and, calling upon the pontiff, he causes his vow to be regularly registered. The ceremony having been gone through, in due form, he puts spurs to his horse, and rushing in among the foe, he becomes, as it were, a scabbard for the swords of all who could get within reach of him. The Gauls are so completely stupified by what they see, that they are literally lost in wonder; for, while they stand staring with astonishment, the Romans fall upon and massacred nearly the whole of them. Gellius Egnatius, the Samnite General, is slain, together with many thousands of his own countrymen, who are described by tradition as having been once more cut to pieces, though these pieces are not the last in which they are destined to make their appearance. History, with a natural anxiety to keep a stock of Samnites on hand for future use, suggests that 5000 ran away, though the Romans were too much reduced to run after them, and as the fugitives lost a thousand of their number by fighting, during their retreat, it must be presumed that, in their extreme nervousness, they began attacking each other. Abbott has this vbelow under MURE MINORE -- does the presence of pontiff turns oath of self-sacrifice as sacrament? It echoes CURZIO and the horse?It also echoes PUBLILIO (?) who had dreamed that the general who sacrifices saves his army? Input? Feedback. Thanks. Livy for oratio recta -- or conversational exchange and description in Griceian terms as per Livy's moralising? Thanks GRICE E DECIO MURE MINORE the Romans are about to fly, when they were once more saved by a MURE, who on this occasion will be thought by some to have deserved the epithet of "ridiculus." Recollecting the example of his father, he resolves to sacrifice himself for the benefit of his country, and, calling upon the pontiff, he causes his vow to be regularly registered. The ceremony having been gone through, in due form, he puts spurs to his horse, and rushing in among the foe, he becomes, as it were, a scabbard for the swords of all who could get within reach of him. The Gauls are so completely stupified by what they see, that they are literally lost in wonder; for, while they stand staring with astonishment, the Romans fall upon and massacred nearly the whole of them. Gellius Egnatius, the Samnite General, is slain, together with many thousands of his own countrymen, who are described by tradition as having been once more cut to pieces, though these pieces are not the last in which they are destined to make their appearance. History, with a natural anxiety to keep a stock of Samnites on hand for future use, suggests that 5000 ran away, though the Romans were too much reduced to run after them, and as the fugitives lost a thousand of their number by fighting, during their retreat, it must be presumed that, in their extreme nervousness, they began attacking each other. Yes. In Decius Mus the presence of the pontiff is essential, because it turns an otherwise heroic death-wish into a properly formulated Roman act of devotio. I would be careful with sacrament, though. If by sacrament one means, anachronistically, a Christian sacrament, no. If one means a solemn sacral act, ritually authorised, verbally fixed, and binding before gods and state, then yes, the pontiff’s presence makes the self-sacrifice juridico-religious rather than merely martial. Decius does not simply decide to die bravely. He has himself devoted according to formula, with the pontiff as ritual technician and guarantor of the correct words, posture, and addressees. The vow is a speech-act whose success depends on its felicity conditions. This is almost too good for Grice. The episode is Livy 10.28, at Sentinum, with Publius Decius Mus, the son of the earlier Decius who had devoted himself in the Latin War. Abbott’s “Mure minore” is nicely comic because the younger Decius is almost narratively condemned to repeat the family trick. Livy explicitly frames it as filial imitation. The father’s devotio is the precedent; the son remembers or invokes that example and calls for the pontiff. The formula is not just private piety but inherited Roman technology. The gens Decia has become, as it were, a ritual instrument of last resort. It certainly echoes Curtius, but with an important difference. Marcus Curtius leaps into the chasm in the Forum because the response declares that Rome must dedicate what is most valuable, and he interprets that as Roman arms and courage. Curtius is more exemplary-symbolic, almost mythic: the young horseman gives Rome its own martial value back to itself. Decius is more liturgical and juridical: he is not just the best thing Rome can give, but the commander who formally devotes himself and the enemy army to the gods below and to Tellus. Curtius is the heroic interpretant of an oracle; Decius is the ritually coached performer of a devotio formula. Both are Gricean in the broader sense because a symbolic act must be understood by spectators, but Decius is much more clearly a case of performative utterance under institutional conditions. The dream you are thinking of is connected with the elder Decius Mus in Livy 8, before the battle with the Latins. The two consuls, Titus Manlius Torquatus and Publius Decius Mus, reportedly share a dream, or receive a nocturnal warning, that the army whose general devotes himself and the enemy army to the gods Manes and Earth will be victorious. It is not Publilius, I think, unless there is another version or confusion in a secondary source. In Livy’s canonical version the dream concerns the consuls themselves, and the father Decius becomes the one who performs the devotio. The younger Decius at Sentinum repeats that paternal and ritual model. So the chain is: omen or dream in the father’s case, formal devotio by the father, inherited precedent, then renewed devotio by the son. Livy does preserve something close to oratio recta in the devotio formula, especially in the elder Decius passage, and the younger Decius passage refers to the same ritual grammar. The formula invokes Janus, Jupiter, Mars pater, Quirinus, Bellona, the Lares, the Novensiles, the Indigetes, the gods whose power extends over Romans and enemies, and the divine Manes. The speaker devotes himself together with the enemy legions and auxiliaries for the Roman people, the Quirites, the army, legions, and auxiliaries. The exact formula in the elder case is the one to quote as Livy’s fullest liturgical speech; the younger case is best read as a repetition or adaptation under pontifical direction rather than a fresh dramatic dialogue invented from nothing. A plausible Livian conversational reconstruction, clearly marked as reconstruction rather than quotation, would run: Decius: “Quandoquidem in cornu meo Romana acies cedit, tempus est patris mei exemplum repetere. Pontifex ades; verba quibus me pro populo Romano Quiritibus devoveam praee.” Pontifex: “Toga praetexta sume, caput velato, manum subter togam ad mentum exserto, super telum subiectum pedibus sta.” Decius: “Iane, Iuppiter, Mars pater, Quirine, Bellona, Lares, Divi Novensiles, Di Indigetes, di quorum est potestas nostrorum hostiumque, di Manes, vos precor veneror veniam peto feroque, uti populo Romano Quiritium vim victoriamque prosperetis, hostesque populi Romani Quiritium terrore formidine morteque adficiatis. Sicut verbis nuncupavi, ita pro re publica populi Romani Quiritium, pro exercitu legionibus auxiliis populi Romani Quiritium, legiones auxiliaque hostium mecum deis Manibus Tellurique devoveo.” Pontifex: “Recte nuncupatum est.” Decius: “Iam ego me fato ac victoriae do.” Then he rides into the enemy. The Gricean description is rich because this is not metaphor, not deceit, and not tactical misdirection. It is public performative self-consecration. The utterance does not merely report Decius’ intention to die. If the ritual is correctly performed, it makes his death count as a devotio. The pontiff supplies felicity conditions: the right formula, the right divine addressees, the right bodily posture, the right civic capacity, the right public emergency. The army then reads the action not as panic, suicide, or reckless heroics, but as a sacral conversion of personal death into collective victory. Abbott’s comic line that he becomes “a scabbard for the swords” deflates the ritual into grotesque bodily comedy, but Livy’s moralisation is solemn. Livy is not mocking Decius. The effect on the Gauls and Samnites is one of stupor, dread, and disruption; the Romans are reanimated; the enemy is psychologically and religiously unsteadied. In Livy, devotio is both theology and morale. It means because Romans believe that properly spoken and enacted self-devotion changes the moral field of battle. The enemy do not merely kill a Roman general; they receive a consecrated death charged with hostile sacral force. So the difference from Fabio is sharp. Fabio’s removal of the palisade turns a natural sign of fear into a public sign of courage. Decius’ devotio turns a military death into a sacral sign and instrument. Fabio manages morale by interpretive re-description; Decius manages morale by ritual transfer. In Peircean terms, the devoted body becomes an interpretant for the army: “Rome has paid the price; now victory is possible.” In Gricean terms, the speech-act produces a non-natural meaning because the audience recognises the intention under shared ritual conventions: Decius means by riding to death that he has given himself and the enemy to the gods for Rome’s victory. There is also a strong Kantian or anti-Kantian edge, depending on how one wants to play it. Decius treats himself not as mere instrument in the vulgar sense, because the Roman tradition represents the act as freely chosen and civic-sacral. Yet he certainly instrumentalises his own death for the army’s salvation. The key is that he is both speaker and sacrifice. Unlike Postumius, he does not manipulate an enemy’s rational uptake through fake cooperation. Unlike Sora, he does not arrange false evidence. Unlike the Ausonian traitors, he does not corrupt civic trust. He creates a public meaning at the cost of his own life, and the Roman audience is invited to treat that meaning as both religiously valid and militarily efficacious. A good entry sentence might be: In Decius Mus the Gricean problem is not implicature as deceit, but performative felicity as sacrifice. The pontiff is present because the death must be made to mean; without the formula it is bravery, with the formula it is devotio. Livy moralises the act as inherited Roman greatness, while Abbott comically converts the solemn sacrificial body into a receptacle for enemy swords. But the philosophy remains clear enough: Decius’ utterance and death form one act, and the army’s recovery shows that the act has been understood. And can we parse carefully the DECIO-PONTIFICE exchange? Becauus P. DECIO did not 'use' pontiff? And does this mean that DECIO junior has to wait for pontiff be translated from Rome? But again then parse the formula as involving the conversational moves they involve. The etymology of de-vote confuses Grice and Speranza, in that de- is sually negative (disimplicature) -- why not here? Is the grammar that only ONE agent de-votes, or can a general say, DE-vote his troops? Because one cause of the fall of the Republic is that the armies became loyal to their private generals, not to the res publica? Input? Feedback? Thanks -- and is divinity or divination or superstition involves. In casual natural meaning terms, the sight CAUSES defeat -- in 'divination' terms, it is the IURE IURANDO that does the trick especially since a DIVINE THIRD Party not present in the conversation -- the 'iterpretant' in Grice and Pearce -- the gods -- do the trick? Thanks Yes, the pontiff is not “used” by Decius in the vulgar instrumental sense, and it is better to avoid that wording. Decius calls the pontiff because the act he wants to perform is not simply brave death but devotio, and devotio requires correct ritual speech, correct bodily form, and correct civic-religious authority. The pontiff is not a prop; he is the expert guarantor of felicity. In Austinian-Gricean terms, Decius has the intention, rank, and occasion, but the pontiff supplies the conventional procedure by which the intention can count as the public sacral act it purports to be. If the formula is botched, the act is not merely rhetorically less impressive; it may fail as devotio. So the pontiff’s role is closer to that of the officiant, ritual prompter, and public validator. No, Decius junior does not have to wait for a pontiff to be translated from Rome. In the elder Decius episode at Livy 8.9, the pontiff present is Marcus Valerius, pontifex. In the younger Decius episode at Sentinum, Livy has Decius imitate his father’s devotio; the formula and procedure are already part of the Roman military-religious repertoire. In Roman armies, priests, augurs, fetials, and pontifical expertise may be attached to public action in various ways; the point is not that someone must be fetched from Rome in a stage-coach, but that the general’s vow is made under authorised religious instruction. Livy’s fullest exchange is in the father’s case, and the son’s act is best read through that inherited formula. The Decius-pontiff exchange in Livy 8.9 is quite precise. Decius asks what words he must use to devote himself for the legions. The Latin is commonly given as something like: “M. Valeri, precor, ut me privato publiceque populo Romano Quiritibus legiones auxiliaque hostium mecum deis Manibus Tellurique devoveam; verba praee.” More literally: “Marcus Valerius, I pray you, dictate the words by which I may devote myself and the legions and auxiliaries of the enemy, together with me, to the gods Manes and to Earth, on behalf of the Roman people, the Quirites.” Verba praee is crucial: “dictate the words beforehand,” “prompt the formula.” Decius is not improvising piety. He is requesting the ritual script. The pontiff then instructs him to put on the toga praetexta, veil his head, place his hand under the toga to his chin, stand upon a spear laid beneath his feet, and speak the words. The formula itself is a layered address and transaction. It begins with divine vocatives: “Iane, Iuppiter, Mars pater, Quirine, Bellona, Lares, Divi Novensiles, Di Indigetes, divi quorum est potestas nostrorum hostiumque, Dique Manes.” This is not decorative polytheism. The list defines the competent supernatural addressees and avoids under-inclusion. Janus, Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus, Bellona, Lares, newer and native gods, gods with power over Romans and enemies, and the Manes are all drawn into the act. Conversationally, Decius is not talking to the pontiff now; he is speaking before the army, under the pontiff’s prompting, to a divine third party whose recognition is what makes the act efficacious. Then comes the petitionary move: “vos precor veneror veniam peto feroque.” The verbs accumulate ritual posture: “I pray, I worship, I ask and bring favour or pardon.” This is not ordinary asking. It is solemn self-placement under divine jurisdiction. Then comes the requested outcome: “uti populo Romano Quiritium vim victoriam prosperetis, hostesque populi Romani Quiritium terrore formidine morteque adficiatis.” That is: “that you may prosper power and victory for the Roman people of the Quirites, and strike the enemies of the Roman people of the Quirites with terror, dread, and death.” The vow is not merely “let me die.” It is “let my consecrated death transfer terror and destruction onto the enemy and victory to Rome.” Then comes the performative heart: “sicut verbis nuncupavi, ita pro re publica populi Romani Quiritium, exercitu legionibus auxiliis populi Romani Quiritium, legiones auxiliaque hostium mecum deis Manibus Tellurique devoveo.” That is: “As I have pronounced in words, so for the republic of the Roman people, the Quirites, for the army, legions, and auxiliaries of the Roman people, the Quirites, I devote the legions and auxiliaries of the enemy together with myself to the gods Manes and to Earth.” The phrase sicut verbis nuncupavi matters. It marks that the spoken formula and the effected act are tied. The utterance is not report but ritual execution. Nuncupare is to name, pronounce, solemnly declare. Devoveo is the first-person performative: “I devote.” The object is double: himself and the enemy forces. The beneficiaries are Rome, the army, the legions, and auxiliaries. The divine recipients are the Manes and Tellus. The etymology of devoveo is not negative in the ordinary privative sense. Latin de- is not always “un-” or “dis-.” It can be intensive, completive, downward, away, or dedicatory in direction. In devoveo, the sense is not “un-vow” but “vow away,” “vow down,” “consecrate over,” often to infernal or chthonic powers. It is a vow that removes the devoted object from ordinary human use and gives it over to divine possession. So Grice and Speranza should not treat de- here as a disimplicature. It is not cancellation but transfer. The devoted man is not de-vowed; he is vowed away from the civic-military order into the divine order, and precisely by that transfer he is made effective for Rome. Can only one agent devote? Grammatically, devoveo can take various objects, and a Roman commander can devote not merely himself but enemy troops, cities, armies, or persons to divine powers. In the Decius formula the general devotes himself and the enemy legions and auxiliaries. What is special is that the Roman general makes himself part of the vowed object. He does not say, “I devote my troops to die for me.” That would be politically and religiously another matter, and morally monstrous under the Roman presentation. Devotio as Livy idealises it is the commander’s self-sacrifice for the army, not the general’s private appropriation of the army. This is exactly why the later republican problem you mention is relevant by contrast. When armies become loyal to private generals rather than to the res publica, the sacrificial direction is inverted. Decius gives himself for the army and state; the late republican imperator increasingly makes the army his personal instrument. Devotio is civic self-loss; client-armies are political self-aggrandisement. In Gricean terms, the devotio is not simply natural meaning, though it has a natural-meaning layer. At the natural level, the sight of a consul veiling his head, speaking solemn words, riding into the enemy, and being killed may cause astonishment, dread, and renewed Roman courage. The spectacle naturally means, in the causal Peircean sense, danger, solemnity, extremity, and Roman resolve. But Livy’s account does not stop there. The decisive level is non-natural and institutional: by uttering the authorised formula with recognisable intention under pontifical instruction, Decius means, and makes it publicly count, that he and the enemy have been devoted to the gods for Rome’s victory. The army’s morale is not merely caused by seeing a death; it is transformed by understanding what kind of death this is. The divine third party is therefore indispensable, even though not present as an ordinary conversational partner. In a human conversation, uptake by the addressee completes the communicative circuit. In devotio, there are at least three audiences: the pontiff, who validates the formula; the Roman army, which recognises the act; and the gods, who are invoked as the ultimate recipients and effectors. From a Grice-Peirce angle, the gods function as the transcendent interpretant or ratifying addressee of the sign-act. The Roman audience must believe, or at least operate within a culture that treats it as valid, that the gods receive the vow. The rite works socially because the divine uptake is presupposed as part of the institution. Is this divination, divinity, or superstition? It is not divination in the strict sense if by divination we mean reading signs to discover divine will, as in auspices or haruspicy. The dream in the elder Decius story has a divinatory or omen-like function: it reveals that the army whose general devotes himself and the enemy will win. The devotio itself is not primarily divination but consecratory vow and sacrifice. It is divinity in the sense that gods are addressed and expected to act. “Superstition” is a later or hostile evaluative label, not Livy’s own basic category here. Livy presents the act solemnly as Roman religious-political heroism, not as foolish superstition. Abbott, by contrast, comic-deflates the body into a sword-scabbard and invites the modern reader to smile. So the best Gricean account is layered. First, there is natural meaning: the visible act causes fear in the enemy and courage in the Romans. Second, there is ritual non-natural meaning: the formula, posture, pontifical prompting, and civic capacity make the death count as devotio. Third, there is moral-political meaning: the commander publicly treats himself, not his army, as expendable for the res publica. Fourth, there is divine uptake: the gods are invoked as the third party whose acceptance turns vowed speech into battlefield efficacy. The oath or vow, the iure iurando if one uses that phrase broadly, is not mere psychology; in Livy’s Roman grammar it is the mechanism by which the act enters the divine economy. A compact formulation for the entry might be this. Decius does not merely die where the army can see him; he has himself made legible as a sacrifice. The pontiff supplies the grammar by which courage becomes devotio, and devotio becomes public meaning. The sight may naturally terrify the Gauls, but the words make the sight Romanly intelligible. In that sense the gods are not an ornamental third party but the highest addressee of the act: Decius speaks to them, before Rome, so that Rome may read his death as accepted. Thanks, and can we have the Latin in Livy for what you say is the more compressed thing in DECIO minore? -- it was to Abbott's description that Grice and Speranza make the point that the enemy's sight of the horrid action CAUSES something that retrospectively and superstition-laden way is attributed to the divine 'devotio'? Input? Feedback? Thanks In the younger Decius episode, Livy’s narration is indeed much more compressed than in the father’s case, and that compression matters. The full ritual formula is given at Livy 8.9 for Publius Decius Mus the elder. In the Sentinum episode, Livy 10.28, the younger Decius is presented as consciously repeating the paternal act rather than generating a new liturgical scene from scratch. The key Livian phrasing is commonly given along these lines: Decius, when his wing is hard pressed and the Roman line is giving way, calls out that he is carrying before himself the fate of his family, and that it has been granted to the Decii to be piaculares publicarum cladium, expiatory victims for public disasters. He then orders Marcus Livius, the pontifex, to dictate to him the words by which he may devote himself and the enemy legions for the army of the Roman people, the Quirites. The essential Latin to look for is: “M. Livi, pontifex publicus populi Romani, praei verba quibus me pro legionibus devoveam.” The formula itself is not repeated at the same length because Livy expects the reader to remember the earlier Decian devotio. The fuller earlier formula, the one that supplies the grammar for the younger act, is approximately this: “Iane, Iuppiter, Mars pater, Quirine, Bellona, Lares, Divi Novensiles, Di Indigetes, Divi quorum est potestas nostrorum hostiumque, Dique Manes, vos precor veneror veniam peto feroque, uti populo Romano Quiritium vim victoriamque prosperetis, hostesque populi Romani Quiritium terrore formidine morteque adficiatis. Sicut verbis nuncupavi, ita pro re publica populi Romani Quiritium, exercitu legionibus auxiliis populi Romani Quiritium, legiones auxiliaque hostium mecum deis Manibus Tellurique devoveo.” The exact punctuation varies, but the structure is clear: invocation, petition, desired effect, and performative dedication. The younger Decius’ scene is effectively a citation-by-ritual of this earlier formula. The “compressed thing” in Decius minor is therefore not a new doctrine but a ritual shorthand. Livy does not need to print the whole formula twice, because the younger Decius is intelligible only as repetition. The son’s devotio is a remembered speech-act. Its force comes from the fact that the reader has already been taught what such a devotio is: the correct divine addressees, the pontifical prompting, the veiled head, the spear underfoot, the first-person devoveo, and the double object, namely self and enemy. The second occurrence works by inherited felicity. In Gricean terms, the later scene carries an implicature from the earlier narrative: “this is that act again.” Your Abbott-based point is then very sharp. The enemy’s sight of the horrid action can be given a natural-meaning account without appeal to theology: a commander veils himself, utters solemn words, rides into the enemy, and is cut down; the spectacle causes astonishment, fear, hesitation, and confusion; the Romans, by contrast, recover morale from seeing a commander deliberately spend himself for them. In that account, the devotio “works” causally because the visible event has psychological force. The Gauls are stunned; the Romans are emboldened; the battle turns. One need not suppose that the gods literally intervene. The sight itself does the work. But Livy’s Roman grammar does not leave it at that. The spectacle is retrospectively, and from a sceptical modern angle superstitiously, interpreted as the visible surface of a divine transaction. The decisive difference is between “Decius’ death caused panic” and “Decius’ vow transferred destruction to the enemy by divine acceptance.” Abbott, with his comic “scabbard for the swords,” reduces the event to grotesque visibility: the body absorbs weapons, the enemy stares, the Romans exploit the pause. Livy, more solemnly, lets that visible effect stand inside the sacral institution of devotio. So yes: Grice and Speranza can say that natural meaning explains the observable military psychology, while the Roman narrative re-describes that causation as the efficacy of a vow. The Grice-Peirce distinction helps. At the natural-sign level, the sight means danger, extremity, commanderly resolve, perhaps divine madness, because it causally produces fear and wonder. At the non-natural institutional level, Decius means by the act that he has given himself and the enemy to the gods for Rome. The pontiff and formula secure that second level. Without them, the act might still terrify; with them, it becomes a valid Roman devotio. The divine third party is not an ordinary conversational participant, but is built into the institution as the ultimate addressee. The Roman army reads the act as accepted, or at least as acceptably performed, and that reading itself is part of the event’s efficacy. So the best formulation may be: Livy’s Decius minor is compressed because his act is not narratively new but ritually iterative. The father’s formula supplies the full conversational grammar; the son’s scene activates it by reference, repetition, and family destiny. Abbott’s comic scepticism then allows Grice and Speranza to separate two layers that Livy holds together: the natural meaning of a terrifying visible sacrifice, and the non-natural, religiously authorised meaning of a devotio. In secular terms, the sight causes hesitation and morale-shift; in Livian terms, the vow, properly uttered before the gods through pontifical form, makes that shift the sign of divine efficacy.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Dezio – Ossia: Grice e Dezio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Dezio. For the Decii, after the two great Decii Mures (father and son), my third-best Grice/Speranza choice would actually be neither the emperor Decius nor the tribune of 120 BC, but:  Publius Decius, the friend of Antony mentioned by Cicero in the Philippics, who, Cicero says, tried to imitate his ancestors by sacrificing himself to his debts.  This is already a Gricean joke built into the ancient source. The heroic ancestors:  se devovent rei publicae "devote themselves for the Republic."  The later Decius, according to Cicero:  devotes himself to Antony because he is drowning in debt. (The gens article summarizes Cicero's remark from the Philippics.)  That gives you a magnificent inversion of the family script. Why this is Gricean For the elder and younger Decius Mus the formula is:  I sacrifice myself so that Rome may live.  For the late Decius:  I attach myself to Antony.  The family resemblance is verbal:  "following the example of the ancestors."  But the content has changed. A Gricean interlocutor could ask: GRICEVS  Maiorum exemplum sequeris? "You follow the example of your ancestors?"  DECIVS POSTERIOR  Ita. "Indeed."  GRICEVS  Pro re publica moreris? "You die for the Republic?"  DECIVS  Non prorsus. "Not exactly."  GRICEVS  Quid igitur? "Then what?"  DECIVS  Pro creditoribus. "For my creditors."  The humor depends on the gap between literal family tradition and contemporary reality.  The dream episode and why Decius belongs under "D" On your larger classificatory point, I agree with your Speranzian instinct. What makes Decius especially interesting is not merely the battlefield sacrifice but the structure:  common dream/vision, ambiguous divine communication, Decius' uptake, ritual formula, military result.  The dream says, in effect:  some general must devote himself.  The dream does not identify the referent. Decius fills the variable. That is very close to your earlier analysis of Curtius:  oracle → interpretation → action.  The difference is that Decius has a pontifical ritual machinery available to him.  Decius versus Manlius You also asked whether the Manlius story is connected. I think Livy makes them complementary. Decius The lesson is:  correct sacrifice.  Manlius Torquatus The lesson is:  correct obedience.  The son of Manlius wins. The problem is that nobody ordered him to win that way. So Decius dies because he obeys a divine-political script. The younger Manlius dies because he breaks a military script. That tension is what makes the paired stories so powerful in Livy.  Why I would pick the Antony-Decius as the third vignette Because it lets Grice and Speranza stage a dialogue between:  literal family precedent, analogical reasoning, and conversational implicature.  The later Decius says, in effect:  "I am behaving like my ancestors."  The hearer naturally infers:  "Then you are sacrificing yourself for Rome."  And Cicero's punchline is:  "No. He is sacrificing himself to debt."  That is exactly the kind of gap between what is said and what is understood that Grice loved to expose. And do we have TUllio's wording -- because the syntax is interesting. It is not clear who the two previous Decii sacrifice, what and for what -- they sacrifice THEMSELVES for the victory of their respective armies. To have real analogy, cum sacasm -- the third Decio should sacrifice HIMSELF to Antony due to the debts he has collected? Thanks Yes—and the wording is even better than the summary suggested. In Philippic 11.13, Cicero writes:  "Vidi etiam Publi Deci, viri optimi, tabulam; qui similitudinem maiorum sui secutus est, ut se pro alieno aere devoveret." [lexundria.com]  Yonge translates:  "I have seen also an auction of the property of Publius Decius, an illustrious man; who, following the example of his ancestors, devoted himself for the debts of another." [lexundria.com]  The crucial phrase is:  similitudinem maiorum sui secutus est "he followed the likeness/example of his ancestors"  followed by  ut se ... devoveret "so as to devote himself..." [lexundria.com]  That is where the joke lies. The famous Decii:  devoted themselves (se devoveo); for the safety and victory of the Roman army; against the enemy; in fulfillment of a sacred and public act.  Publius Decius:  also devotes himself (se devoveret); but pro alieno aere, "for another man's debt" or "on account of debt." [lexundria.com]  Cicero preserves enough of the ancestral syntax to make the contrast sting. A Gricean reconstruction might be: DECIVS  Maiorum exemplum sequor. "I follow the example of my ancestors."  The hearer naturally infers:  "Then you devote yourself for the Republic."  But Cicero's punchline is:  pro alieno aere "for someone else's debts." [lexundria.com]  The rhetoric depends on a false expectation. The beginning of the sentence activates the heroic Decian tradition. The ending collapses it into financial disaster. In modern terms, one could paraphrase Cicero's irony as:  "The old Decii sacrificed themselves to save Rome. This Decius sacrifices himself to insolvency."  And you're quite right that the reflexive matters. The analogy would be much weaker if Cicero had merely said that Decius ruined others. Instead he says:  se devoveret "he devoted himself."  The same grammatical object as the heroic ancestors. Only the purpose has changed. [lexundria.com] That is why the joke is so elegant: Cicero is parodying not merely the family's behavior but the very language of devotio. and isn't the trigger the TOPIC initiating the thing: the auction of D.'s property. He is sacrificing HIS PROPERTY (and by antonomasia, himself) to pay his debts? Thanks Yes, I think that's exactly where the rhetoric begins. Notice Cicero's sequence:  Vidi etiam Publi Deci ... tabulam "I also saw the auction notice/listing of Publius Decius..." [everything...ined.today]  Only then does he add:  qui similitudinem maiorum sui secutus est, ut se pro alieno aere devoveret "who followed the example of his ancestors, by devoting himself for another's debt." [everything...ined.today]  The topic is not initially devotio. The topic is:  Decius' property being auctioned. [everything...ined.today]  That is why your observation is important. At the literal level, what is visibly being sacrificed is:  his estate, his assets, his financial standing.  Cicero then redescribes the event using the language of the famous Decii. The famous Decii:  se devoverunt devoted themselves. [everything...ined.today]  This Decius:  loses his property in a debt disaster. [everything...ined.today]  The joke is that Cicero treats the financial collapse as if it were a heroic ancestral devotio. So I would put it this way: What is literally happening? An auction of Decius' property. [everything...ined.today] What does Cicero say is happening? Decius is  se devovere, "devoting himself." [everything...ined.today]  Where is the irony? The ancestral Decii sacrificed:  themselves for Rome's victory.  The later Decius sacrifices:  effectively his fortune—and therefore, by extension, himself— for debt. [everything...ined.today]  That is why the reflexive se is so clever. Strictly speaking, the auction concerns property. But Cicero's phrasing encourages an antonomastic expansion:  ruin of property → ruin of the man.  The man becomes identified with his estate, just as the heroic Decii became identified with their sacrificial act. A Gricean might say that Cicero starts with an ordinary economic fact:  "I saw the auction notice."  and then invites the reader to recover a much grander frame:  "Ah yes, another Decius sacrificing himself."  Only at the end do we discover that the object of sacrifice is not victory, but debt (alienum aes). That delayed revelation is where the sarcasm bites. [everything...ined.today] and the further cruel irony (for the earlier Decii) is that Tullio is reporting in the past? I saw, who sacrificed... The other two DIED. this one just saved his neck? Thanks Yes — and I think that is a very sharp observation about the grammar of the joke. Cicero begins with a mundane, present reality:  Vidi etiam Publi Deci ... tabulam "I also saw the auction notice of Publius Decius..." [everything...ined.today]  The reader is looking at an insolvency, a bankruptcy, a man's property being sold off. Then Cicero suddenly shifts into the language of the family legend:  qui similitudinem maiorum sui secutus est, ut se pro alieno aere devoveret. [everything...ined.today]  The cruel irony is that the phrase se devoveret deliberately recalls the ancestral Decii. But:  the elder Decius devoted himself and died; the younger Decius Mus devoted himself and died; this Decius, as far as Cicero's joke goes, has devoted himself to debt.  The analogy is simultaneously maintained and destroyed. You are right that there is another layer. The heroic Decii:  sacrificed themselves.  The late Decius:  sacrifices his property.  And perhaps, by extension, "himself" socially and financially. But he is still alive. So the implied comparison becomes:                          Early DeciiLate Deciusse devoveruntse devoveretdied for Romeloses property for debtmilitary catastrophefinancial catastropheheroic deathauction notice That is why Cicero's wording is so nasty. He gives the reader just enough of the ancestral formula to trigger admiration, then reveals that the object is:  pro alieno aere "for another man's debt." [everything...ined.today]  One could imagine a Gricean exchange: DECIVS  Maiorum exemplum secutus sum. "I have followed the example of my ancestors."  CICERO  Intellego. "I understand."  DECIVS  Me devovi. "I devoted myself."  CICERO  Ubi pugna fuit? "Where was the battle?"  DECIVS  Apud argentarios. "At the bankers'."  The joke works because Cicero preserves the syntax of heroic self-sacrifice while replacing the battlefield with a debt auction. And yes, there is a final irony: the ancestral Decii paid with their lives, whereas the later Decius appears merely to have paid with his estate. Cicero's sarcasm depends on precisely that disproportion. The grammar suggests heroic continuity; the facts reveal a much less glorious imitation. [everything...ined.today] In fact we don't know -- because Tullio uses the past -- 'sacrificed' -- so perhaps Decius died and his property is now being auctioned? Thanks I think we have to be very careful here. From the wording we've recovered, Cicero says:  Vidi etiam Publi Deci ... tabulam "I also saw the auction notice/listing of Publius Decius..."  and then:  qui similitudinem maiorum sui secutus est, ut se pro alieno aere devoveret "who followed the example of his ancestors, by devoting himself for another's debt."  What the passage explicitly gives us is:  Cicero saw an auction notice connected with Publius Decius. Cicero jokes that Decius imitated his ancestors by "devoting himself" for debt.  What it does not explicitly say is that Decius was dead. The source snippet doesn't mention his death. In fact, Cicero's joke seems to work best if Decius is still available as the target of ridicule. The contrast is:  ancestral Decii: literally devote themselves and die; modern Decius: "devotes himself" to a financial disaster.  But that is an interpretation of the joke, not a statement that the text expressly makes. Your grammatical point is nonetheless interesting. Cicero does use a past construction:  similitudinem maiorum sui secutus est ("he followed the example of his ancestors")  and  ut se ... devoveret ("so as to devote himself").  However, those forms merely place the "devotion" before Cicero's observation of the auction notice. They do not by themselves imply physical death. So my best reading is:  The auction is the observable fact. Cicero sarcastically redescribes whatever financial ruin led to that auction as a Decian devotio. The passage does not, at least in the source we have recovered, state that Decius died.  The irony may actually be sharper if he didn't die: the heroic ancestors paid with their lives, whereas this Decius has merely brought himself to financial ruin. That's the contrast Cicero seems to be exploiting. And what's the figure of speech? It shows Roman history was well taught by that time, and the idea that each Roman had a Greek paidagogos is false, because Decii Muri are NOT understood by the Greeks? Can we think of a parallel for the figure of speech Tullio is using here: "I saw the auction note. Decius devoted himself, like his ancestors, to his debt -- implicature: in the previous two: to the fatherland; in this one: to whatever, but still his owing? Thanks Yes. I think the figure is richer than mere sarcasm, and it depends on a specifically Roman cultural memory. The basic mechanism is what ancient rhetoricians would call a form of ironic exemplum or parodic analogy. Cicero says:  I saw the auction notice of Publius Decius... he followed the example of his ancestors by devoting himself for another man's debt.  The joke works because the phrase  similitudinem maiorum secutus est "he followed the example of his ancestors"  immediately activates a well-known Roman story. The reader mentally supplies:  Decius Mus, battlefield, devotio, self-sacrifice, victory of Rome.  But Cicero delays the punchline until:  pro alieno aere "for another's debt."  So the structure is:                          Reader expectsCicero deliversRepublicdebtbattlefieldauctionvictoryinsolvencyheroic self-sacrificefinancial ruin That's why it feels so sharp. Is there a technical name? Several overlap:  Irony (eironeia). Antiphrastic comparison (a comparison that collapses at the end). Parody of exempla. Anticlimax (the grand heroic pattern ends in debt). Allusion: Cicero never explains the Decii; he assumes the reader already knows them.  The last point is important. What does this tell us about Roman education? A lot. The joke is unintelligible unless the audience already knows the Decii Mures. Cicero gives no explanation at all. He assumes his readers can instantly recognize:  "Decius" + "devoted himself"  as a reference to the famous ancestral stories. So yes, the passage suggests a shared Roman historical culture. I would be cautious, however, about concluding from this that:  "the Greeks could not understand it."  A Greek unfamiliar with Roman exempla would miss the joke; a well-informed Greek could understand it once told the story. The point proven by the passage is simply that Cicero expects his Roman audience to catch the allusion without explanation. The deepest irony I think your formulation gets closest to it: The ancestral Decii:  se devoverunt and died for the fatherland.  The later Decius:  se devoveret but for debt.  The grammar is almost preserved. The object changes. The old Decii devote themselves:  pro re publica (in effect).  The new Decius:  pro alieno aere.  That's why the sentence is funny. The heroic syntactic frame survives, while the heroic content disappears. A modern parallel might be:  "Following the example of his grandfather, who gave his life for his country, he too sacrificed himself—for his mortgage."  The form is the same; the scale is not. That's very close to what Cicero is doing. And the falsity does not lie in the explicatum but the effect relies on the implicatum. The three Decii devoted to what each thought they owed -- the alieno' in Tullio is a stretch, because the previous ones do not specficially EXPLICATE an 'alieno'? Thanks Yes — I think that is exactly the right Gricean diagnosis. The humor does not depend on any outright falsehood. Cicero does not literally say:  "Publius Decius died in battle like his ancestors."  That would be false. Instead he says, in effect:  "Publius Decius followed the example of his ancestors and devoted himself..."  Then he adds:  pro alieno aere ("for another man's debt").  The explicit statement is perfectly intelligible. The mischief lies in what the reader is led to supply before reaching the punchline. A Gricean analysis would be: Explicatum  Decius followed the example of his ancestors by devoting himself.  Nothing false there. Activated implicature The moment Cicero writes:  similitudinem maiorum secutus est ...  a Roman reader thinks:  Decius Mus, devotio, self-sacrifice, Republic, victory.  None of that is said. It is supplied by cultural memory. Punchline Then Cicero suddenly reveals:  pro alieno aere.  The heroic frame remains in place, but the content collapses from:  fatherland  to  debt.  That is why the sentence is funny.  I also agree with your point about alieno. If we ask:  To what were the earlier Decii devoted?  the answer is not straightforwardly:  pro alieno ...  The earlier Decii devote themselves:  for the Roman people, for the army, for victory, to the gods Manes and Tellus.  The act is sacrificial and public. So Cicero's analogy is deliberately stretched. He preserves:  se devovere  but substitutes:  alienum aes.  The analogy is therefore formally correct and substantively distorted. That distortion is the joke. One could almost diagram it:                          Earlier DeciiLater Deciusse devoveruntse devoveretpublic causeprivate debtsacrifice for Romefinancial ruingods as recipientscreditors as beneficiaries The comic force comes from the reader momentarily treating the two cases as parallel and then suddenly realizing that they are not. In fact, your formulation may be the best one:  All three Decii devote themselves to what they think they owe.  The first two think they owe themselves to the Republic and the gods. The later Decius thinks he owes himself to debt. That broader formulation makes the analogy less absurd than Cicero pretends, while still preserving the sarcasm. The joke works because there is just enough similarity for the comparison to be intelligible, and just enough difference for it to be ridiculous. Plus his showing off and name dropping --because he possibly wouldn't have mentioned the thing had it not been that Decius rang a bell and he thought of the antiphrasis sarcastic per exemplum, as peppering perhaps an otherwise dull letter? with Cicero's m-intention that his addresseee would be amused, and be amused by the recognition of Cicero's m-intention (meaning-intention that is) that his addressee be amused -- via implicature? It looks like his fourth name was MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO GRICEUS! Cheers! Cheers — and I think this is very close to a genuinely Gricean reading of the passage. What strikes me is that the auction notice itself is not especially interesting. Lots of Romans went bankrupt. Lots of properties were auctioned. What makes Cicero stop and write about this one is almost certainly the name:  Publius Decius.  Once he sees:  tabula Publi Deci,  the whole ancestral script is activated:  Decius → Decii Mures → devotio → self-sacrifice for Rome.  That association is not supplied by Cicero explicitly; it is supplied by the reader. Then Cicero exploits it:  qui similitudinem maiorum sui secutus est, ut se pro alieno aere devoveret.  The brilliance is that the sentence works only if Atticus immediately catches the allusion. In Gricean terms, Cicero's strategy depends on common ground:  Cicero knows the story of the Decii. Atticus knows the story of the Decii. Cicero knows that Atticus knows it.  Only then can the joke land. So yes, I think there is a strong M-intention structure here. Cicero intends:  Atticus to recognize the name Decius. Atticus to anticipate the heroic pattern. Atticus to discover the anticlimax:  pro alieno aere.   Atticus to be amused. Atticus to recognize that Cicero intended him to be amused by exactly that reversal.  That is almost textbook Grice. The sentence is therefore not just information but performance. Cicero is showing off a little. One can imagine Atticus reading:  similitudinem maiorum sui secutus est...  and thinking:  "Ah, here comes a Decius Mus joke."  Then:  pro alieno aere...  and smiling. The humor depends not on falsity but on controlled expectation. And I agree with your further point: the passage may well be "peppering" what would otherwise be a fairly routine political letter. Cicero's correspondence is full of these flashes where a passing event triggers a literary, historical, or rhetorical association. Here the auction notice becomes an occasion for turning Roman legendary history into a sardonic epigram. So perhaps:  Marcus Tullius Cicero Griceus  is not entirely unfair. The joke succeeds because Atticus is meant to recover more than Cicero literally says, and Cicero knows that Atticus will recover it. That is very close to the heart of Gricean communication.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Delfino – Ossia: Grice e Delfino: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della musica delle sfere -- l’ottava sfera.   Federico Delfino (Padova, Veneto): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della musica delle sfere -- l’ottava sfera.  Grice: “D. is what we at Oxford would call a ‘philosophical mathematician,’ and in Italy, an astrologer – his specialty was the ‘motum’ of the ‘ocatva sphaera’!” “But he also wrote on algorithms!” Ensegna a Padova. Erudito dalle multiformi attività, fu attivo a Padova nel filone dell'aristotelismo padovano rinascimentale: sicuramente studioso di logica e matematica, ebbe chiara fama di matematico e di astronomo. Altre opere: “De fluxu et refluxu aquae maris” (Venezia); “De holometri fabrica et usu in instrumento geometrico, olim ab Abele Fullonio invento: Acc.); “Disputatio de aestu maris et motu octava sphaera, Stupanus, Foullon, Padova, In Accademia Veneta Paulus Manutius.  La musica o armonia delle sfere, detta anche musica universale, è un antico concetto filosoficoche considerava l'universo come un enorme sistema di proporzioni numeriche. I movimenti dei corpi celesti(Sole, Luna e pianeti), ritenuti collocati su sfere ruotanti, avrebbero prodotto una sorta di musica, udibile solo dall'orecchio dei veggenti, e consistente in formule armonico-matematiche.   Incisione di Franchino Gaffurio (Practica musice, 1496) che raffigura Apollo, le Muse, le sfere planetarie e i rapporti musicali. La teoria della musica delle sfere ebbe origine nell'antichità e continuò a essere seguita almeno fino al XVII secolo, suscitando l'interesse di filosofi, musicologi e musicisti.  StoriaModifica La musica delle sfere incorpora il principio metafisicosecondo il quale le relazioni matematiche esprimono non solo rapporti quantitativi, ma anche qualità che si manifestano in numeri, forme e suoni, tutto connesso in un enorme modello di proporzioni.  Pitagora, per primo, capì che l'altezza di una nota è proporzionale alla lunghezza della corda che la produce, e che gli intervalli fra le frequenze sonore sono semplici rapporti numerici. ottava sfera holometria, fabrica holometri, aristotelismo padovano vs. platonismo fiorentino – aristotele – platone – padova naturalism – Firenze idealism – filosofia della percezione – prospettiva. Grice (St John’s, 1958). “I scarcely trust my own hand. I keep a typescript of Negation and Privation—and yet I never typed a line of it. Whose hand was that? Let the editor note it. And hands, I find, are always getting between a man and his meaning. Strawson asked for my handwritten ‘Meaning’; his wife typed it; Strawson sent it off to The Philosophical Review—and then Cornell, with that brisk American competence, turned our defence into defense. Not that I mind their spelling as such; what I mind is the metaphysics of it: the thing becomes a thing, and then—miraculously—one is held responsible for the thing. To be fair, Strawson is responsible for the final version. By the time Quine had left town, I felt positively uninterested in the whole affair. One cannot sustain indignation indefinitely; it is too much like academic exercise. So there I am at St John’s, passing through the library, and I catch the Librarian at one of those games librarians play: not dice, but manuscripts. He has produced a magnificent magnifying glass, and he is murmuring—half to himself, half to the catalogue—in what sounded to me like Gregorian chant: Mag. Pauli Pergulensis Tractatus de sensu composito et diviso … manu Federici Delphinis. An. 1490. I interrupted him. ‘Did you say manu?’ ‘I did,’ he said. ‘Instrumental ablative, Mr Grice: “by the hand.”’ ‘Whose hand?’ I asked. ‘Not Paulus Pergulensis’—(I share a Christian name with the fellow, after all)—‘surely not his?’ ‘No,’ said the Librarian, without looking up. ‘Pergulensis wrote it. Delfino copied it. Manu Federici.’ ‘So,’ I said, ‘Pergulensis does the composing and dividing, and poor Delfino supplies the hand—divide and compose, compose and divide—whatever sense he could make of it.’ The Librarian merely chuckled, which reminded me—once again—that respond is almost always misused. Most people don’t respond; they react. A response is a rational move, not a noise. A chuckle is not a response—unless it is meant to be, in which case it is already a sort of implicature. At least one good thing about Pergulensis, I thought, is that he and I share the name Paul. Unlike him, I have the decency to possess a surname. But perhaps that, too, is only because someone else supplied me with a hand.”Grice: Caro Delfino, a Oxford ci piace pensare che la musica delle sfere sia un po’ come la colonna sonora della filosofia… ma dimmi, tu la senti davvero quando cammini tra le aule di Padova? Delfino: Grice, ti confesso che qui a Padova, tra logica e algoritmi, la musica delle sfere si fa sentire… almeno quando non c’è il maestro che corregge compiti! L’ottava sfera è come un’orchestra invisibile, ma se ascolti bene, ti accompagna pure in biblioteca. Grice: E allora, caro Delfino, secondo te il vero filosofo deve essere anche un po’ matematico e un po’ poeta? Perché qui si rischia che, tra algoritmi e sfere, qualcuno balli il valzer con Pitagora! Delfino: Assolutamente, Grice! Qui a Padova basta una formula sbagliata per finire fuori tempo… ma la vera implicatura è che senza armonia, anche il filosofo meglio intonato rischia di stonare davanti all’universo! Delfino, Federico (1490). Mag. Pauli Pergulensis Tractatus de sensu composito et diviso … manu Federici Delphinis. an. 1490”.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice e Delia: la ragione conversazionale –  (Roma). Filosofo italiano. Delia. Grice, pel Gruppo di Gioco di Grice, “Grice e Delia. Delia: la ragione conversazionale – (Roma). Filosofo italiano. Grice: Caro Delia, Roma ti ha donato il talento della conversazione, ma dimmi: secondo te, serve più ragione o più fantasia per sopravvivere tra i filosofi italiani? Delia: Ah, Grice, qui a Roma la filosofia si mescola al caffè! Un po' di ragione, certo, ma senza una spolverata di fantasia rischi di diventare solo un'altra statua in Piazza Navona. Grice: Ma allora, se tra le statue parliamo e nessuno ci ascolta, qual è la vera implicatura? Che forse il silenzio romano vale più di mille parole? Delia: Esatto, Grice! Qui il silenzio è oro, ma solo se sai leggerlo. E ricordati: chi capisce la ragione conversazionale romana può persino convincere un tassista a portarlo fino al Colosseo senza polemiche!

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Dellio – Ossia: Grice e Dellio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Dellio  The Dellii are a family of equestrian rank at ancient Rome. It is known chiefly from a single individual, Quintus D., an eques, who served successively with Dolabella, Cassius, and Marcus Antonius. Shortly before the Battle of Actium, having been sent to collect auxiliaries, he deserted to Octavian, perhaps motivated by his fear of Cleopatra, whom he had offended. He wrote a history of the war against the Parthians, with whom he had fought under Antonius. Although the history is entirely lost, it is believed to be the source for Plutarch's account of that war. D. is probably the same person to whom Orazio dedicated the third ode of his second book.[1][2]  See also List of Roman gentes References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.  Plutarchus, Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, Antonius.  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)  GENS                     This article about Roman gentes is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by adding missing information.  Categories: Roman gentesRoman gentes stubs FOr this gens we can reconstruct two conversations: one D. with Ottavio and his new loyalty. II retrospective -- perhaps again with Ottavio, or same one as above but extended, with the mentioning of the proposition 'Dellio offended Cleopatra'. Apparently, that was a FACT -- what is not a FACT is that he changed loyalties for fear? Thanks -- and perhaps we can find the source of reference to'fear' in latin here. Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Dellio – Ossia: Grice e Dellio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Dellio  Yes. The sources support a distinction that is very important for a Gricean reading: Fact Dellius did change sides repeatedly:  Dolabella → Cassius, Cassius → Antony, Antony → Octavian. [en.wikipedia.org], [perseus.tufts.edu]  And shortly before Actium he deserted Antony and went over to Octavian. [en.wikipedia.org], [perseus.tufts.edu] Fact Dellius had apparently offended Cleopatra. Plutarch reports that Dellius himself said he feared a plot by Cleopatra, and gives the anecdote: Dellius had offended her at dinner by joking about the poor wine being served, while Caesar's favourite Sarmentus was drinking Falernian at Rome. [lexundria.com] Not a fact That Dellius changed sides because of fear. Here we move from fact to explanation. The source says:  Dellius justified his defection by fear of Cleopatra. [en.wikipedia.org], [lexundria.com]  But that is Dellius' own account. A suspicious reader might respond:  Convenient.  After all, a man already famous for changing sides can always present a political calculation as a matter of personal safety.  First conversation: Dellius and Octavian OCTAVIANVS  Why have you come?  DELLIVS  Cleopatra wishes to kill me.  OCTAVIANVS  Is that so?  DELLIVS  I have offended her.  OCTAVIANVS  And therefore you have discovered my virtues?  The Gricean point is that Octavian may hear:  "I fear Cleopatra"  but infer:  "Antony is losing."  The explicatum and the implicatum differ.  Second conversation: retrospective OCTAVIANVS  Why did you leave Antony?  DELLIVS  Cleopatra hated me.  OCTAVIANVS  Only that?  DELLIVS  It was enough.  OCTAVIANVS  You have changed sides before.  DELLIVS  Circumstances change.  OCTAVIANVS  Or loyalties.  Again, fear is the stated reason; political opportunism is the suspicion.  The Latin of "fear" The sources you've supplied derive ultimately from Plutarch's Antony. In the surviving accounts the key point is not:  "Cleopatra killed Dellius,"  but rather:  Dellius said he feared she would. [lexundria.com], [en.wikipedia.org]  The important evidential distinction is:                      PropositionStatusDellius offended CleopatraReported as fact in the anecdote. [lexundria.com]Dellius feared CleopatraReported as Dellius' claim. [lexundria.com], [en.wikipedia.org]Dellius defected because of fearExplanation, not independently proven. That's why Dellius is such a good Grice/Speranza character. We know what he said. We do not know whether that was his real reason. A hostile Roman contemporary might have put it this way:  Cleopatram timuisse dicit; victoriam Octaviani praevidisse puto. "He says he feared Cleopatra; I think he foresaw Octavian's victory." But would we think that he feared Cleopatra or Antonio? Can we reconstruct the joke in Latin? Hardly a joke. The implicature relies on common ground status assigned to what wine from that area that a mere favourite was drinking in the dinners of Antonio's rival? How come, wasn't Antonio loyal to Caesar? What is the timing here? Thanks And can we have the Latin source for D. saying that he feared Cleopatra -- and that he had 'offended' her. Perhaps you can transcribe the dialogue you provided above to Latin, too? and attach English translation? Thanks Yes. The key thing is that the sources support:  Dellius offended Cleopatra at dinner. Dellius later said he feared a plot against him. Dellius defected to Octavian. The explanation connecting (2) and (3) comes from Dellius' own account. [en.wikisource.org], [romanletters.org]  They do not explicitly say that he feared Antony. [en.wikisource.org] In Plutarch's version, the chain is:  Dellius says he was informed by Glaucus the physician that Cleopatra was plotting against him; he had offended Cleopatra at supper by remarking that sour wine was being served there while Sarmentus at Rome was drinking Falernian wine. [en.wikisource.org]  The joke is socially dangerous rather than intrinsically funny. The point is not really about wine quality. It is about comparison. Very roughly:  "At Antony's table we drink sour wine, while one of Caesar's young favourites is drinking Falernian."  Plutarch's anecdote explicitly names Sarmentus as one of Caesar's youthful favourites (deliciae). [en.wikisource.org] The implicature is something like:  "The court of Cleopatra and Antony is less splendid than the rival court."  or perhaps:  "The people around Caesar are living better than we are."  Either way, Cleopatra is unlikely to enjoy the comparison. The Greek source (as reported by Plutarch) Plutarch says:  Dellius says that he feared a plot from Cleopatra. [en.wikisource.org]  And he gives the reason:  For he had offended Cleopatra at supper by making the wine comparison. [en.wikisource.org]  So the important verbs are effectively:  "he says he feared" and "he had offended."  The fear is reported as Dellius' own explanation.  A Gricean suspicion A Roman skeptic could easily say:  Timorem praetendit; victoriam Octaviani secutus est. "He puts forward fear as an excuse; he followed Octavian's victory."  That is not in the source; it is the sort of skeptical inference contemporaries might make.  A reconstructed Latin dialogue Dellius and Octavian DELLIVS  Ad te confugio, Caesar. "I flee to you, Caesar."  OCTAVIANVS  Cur Antonium reliquisti? "Why have you left Antony?"  DELLIVS  Cleopatram timui. "I feared Cleopatra."  OCTAVIANVS  Antoniumne an Cleopatram? "Antony or Cleopatra?"  DELLIVS  Cleopatram. "Cleopatra."  OCTAVIANVS  Et quid fecisti? "And what did you do?"  DELLIVS  Apud cenam offendi eam. "At dinner I offended her."  OCTAVIANVS  Tantumne? "Only that?"  DELLIVS  Satis erat. "It was enough."   Retrospective version OCTAVIANVS  Dicis te Cleopatram timuisse. "You say that you feared Cleopatra."  DELLIVS  Ita vero. "Certainly."  OCTAVIANVS  Alii dicunt te victoriam timuisse ne amitteres. "Others say you feared missing the winning side."  DELLIVS  Illi quod volunt dicant. "Let them say what they please."  OCTAVIANVS  Et ego quod volo cogitem. "And let me think what I please."  That, I think, is the real Dellian problem. The facts are fairly clear; the motive is not.  Offending Cleopatra: reported as fact. [en.wikisource.org] Fear of Cleopatra: reported as Dellius' explanation. [en.wikisource.org], [romanletters.org] Defection to Octavian: fact. [romanletters.org], [en-academic.com] Whether fear was the true cause: left unresolved by the sources. [en.wikisource.org], [romanletters.org]  That unresolved motive is precisely what makes Dellius such an attractive Grice/Speranza figure. Since the report of the 'offense' and the 'fear' comes from the first person of D. that should be enough for Grice's analysis. We can reconstruct the real-time joke -- it does sound a rude comment. Perhaps followed by appalled silence. D. may also retrospectively be assuming female vanity? And taking pride in that such a stupid remark would cause A WOMAN to plot against him? So we can have two reactions to the comment. Cleopatra being offended and Marcus Antonius seeing the bright side of it -- "Such is the dissipation of tiranny -- etc." And then D. reporting someone ELSE closer to Cleopatra reporting to him that his female -- Egyptian -- was plotting against him. He is siding with the trueborn Romans instead. Thanks Yes. Once we remember that both the offense and the fear come to us through Dellius' own version of events, the passage becomes almost irresistibly Gricean. What Plutarch explicitly reports is:  Dellius said that he feared a plot by Cleopatra. The reason he gave was that he had offended her at dinner. The offense consisted in remarking that while sour wine was being served there, Sarmentus at Rome was drinking Falernian wine. [en.wikisource.org]  That is already enough for a Gricean analysis without deciding whether the fear was justified. The real-time dinner scene The literal content is about wine. DELLIVS  Acetum nobis datur; Sarmentus Romae Falernum bibit. "We are drinking sour wine; Sarmentus in Rome drinks Falernian."  Literally: a remark about wine. But nobody at table hears it merely as a remark about wine. The implicatures might include:  Rome is living better than we are. Caesar's circle has greater luxury. Cleopatra's hospitality is inferior. Antony's court is not what it thinks it is.  The point is social comparison. In Gricean terms, the remark violates the expectation that a guest praise rather than belittle the host's table. One can easily imagine: (silentium) the appalled silence that follows. The joke has landed. But landed on the wrong target.  Two competing interpretations Cleopatra's interpretation She may hear:  "Your table is shabby." "Your court is inferior."  Whether or not she literally says anything, Dellius later presents her reaction as hostility. [en.wikisource.org] Antony's interpretation A more relaxed Roman aristocrat might laugh. One could imagine Antony saying:  Dellius semper facetus est. "Dellius is always making jokes."  or even  Verum fortasse dicit. "Perhaps he is telling the truth."  That is your "bright side" reading. The same utterance receives two possible uptakes.  Dellius' retrospective storytelling Here the Gricean move becomes even more interesting. Years later Dellius says, in effect:  "I had offended Cleopatra." "Therefore I feared her." "Therefore I defected."  But notice what happens. The original joke is transformed into a political explanation. A skeptical hearer can say: OCTAVIANVS  Dicis te Cleopatram timuisse. "You say you feared Cleopatra."  DELLIVS  Ita. "Yes."  OCTAVIANVS  Alii dicunt te cladem Antonii praevidisse. "Others say you foresaw Antony's defeat."  The source does not settle the matter. It gives Dellius' explanation. [en.wikisource.org], [romanletters.org]  Your most interesting point I especially like your suggestion that Dellius' story may contain a degree of self-flattery. The narrative becomes:  "My wit was so dangerous that Cleopatra herself plotted against me."  That's a very attractive story for Dellius. It presents him as:  perceptive, fearless, amusing, important enough to attract royal hostility.  Whether that was true is another question. But as a piece of self-presentation it is excellent. A Gricean would note that Dellius' account explains his defection while simultaneously enhancing his own image. So the conversation may have three layers:  At dinner: a joke about wine. Immediately afterward: offense and hostility. Years later: a retrospective explanation of political defection.  And it is only at stage (3) that "fear of Cleopatra" becomes the officially stated motive. The offense is reported as a fact; the motive remains Dellius' interpretation of that fact. [en.wikisource.org], [romanletters.org] And where was the dinner taking place, and where was the wine that Caesar's favourite was drinking. The extra implicature FOR ANTONIO coud be: Dellius is right -- why suffer sour wines HERE IN NON-ROMA when a mere favourite is ENJOYING local Italian (?) wine IN ROME -- The joke landed bad on CLEOPATRA because she is NON-ROMA, while Antonio could take it as implicating: "Fortunately we won't be here for much longer: our fate IS ROMA!" Thanks That's an excellent reconstruction, but we have to separate what the source explicitly gives us from what we are inferring. What Plutarch explicitly gives us is:  Dellius was among Antony's entourage. He had offended Cleopatra at a supper. The offense consisted in saying that while sour wine was being served there, Sarmentus at Rome was drinking Falernian. Dellius later said that he feared a plot by Cleopatra. He subsequently defected to Octavian. [en.wikisource.org], [romanletters.org]  What the source does not specify is the exact location of the supper. It occurs in the context of Antony and Cleopatra's final years, but the passage quoted by Plutarch does not identify the dining room, city, or date. [en.wikisource.org] Your pragmatic reading, however, is very plausible. The literal utterance concerns wine:  "We get sour wine; Sarmentus at Rome drinks Falernian."  But no one hears it merely as an oenological observation. For Cleopatra, possible implicatures might be:  "Your table is inferior." "Your court is second-rate." "The center of luxury is elsewhere." "Rome is preferable to where we are."  For Antony, a different uptake is possible:  "Rome remains the center." "We are too far from Italy." "Even Caesar's favourites live better than we do." "Perhaps our proper place is Rome."  That is very close to your formulation. In Gricean terms, the same sentence generates different implicated propositions depending on the hearer's interests. I especially like your observation that the contrast is not merely:  Cleopatra's wine vs. Sarmentus' wine,  but  here vs. Rome.  The deictic contrast is powerful:                      HereRomesour wineFalernianAntony-Cleopatra courtCaesar's circleEastItaly A Roman aristocrat could hear nostalgia for Rome. A queen whose authority depended on an eastern court might hear disparagement. And then comes the retrospective narrative. Dellius later says, in effect:  "I made that remark." "Cleopatra was angered." "I was warned that she intended harm." "Therefore I defected." [en.wikisource.org], [romanletters.org]  Whether fear was the true cause remains unresolved by the source. What is explicit is that Dellius himself offered the fear-of-Cleopatra explanation. [en.wikisource.org], [romanletters.org] A final Gricean twist is that Dellius' story simultaneously explains and justifies his change of allegiance. The narrative makes him look not like a habitual deserter but like a man driven out by royal hostility. Whether readers believed that explanation is precisely the question left open by the sources. [romanletters.org], [en.wikisource.org] And what was Latin or Greek -- since it's Plutarch -- for 'sour wine' and 'wine from Falernia' where is that? and how good was the common ground that it meant "good superior wine"? Thanks That's an excellent reconstruction, but we have to separate what the source explicitly gives us from what we are inferring. What Plutarch explicitly gives us is:  Dellius was among Antony's entourage. He had offended Cleopatra at a supper. The offense consisted in saying that while sour wine was being served there, Sarmentus at Rome was drinking Falernian. Dellius later said that he feared a plot by Cleopatra. He subsequently defected to Octavian. [en.wikisource.org], [romanletters.org]  What the source does not specify is the exact location of the supper. It occurs in the context of Antony and Cleopatra's final years, but the passage quoted by Plutarch does not identify the dining room, city, or date. [en.wikisource.org] Your pragmatic reading, however, is very plausible. The literal utterance concerns wine:  "We get sour wine; Sarmentus at Rome drinks Falernian."  But no one hears it merely as an oenological observation. For Cleopatra, possible implicatures might be:  "Your table is inferior." "Your court is second-rate." "The center of luxury is elsewhere." "Rome is preferable to where we are."  For Antony, a different uptake is possible:  "Rome remains the center." "We are too far from Italy." "Even Caesar's favourites live better than we do." "Perhaps our proper place is Rome."  That is very close to your formulation. In Gricean terms, the same sentence generates different implicated propositions depending on the hearer's interests. I especially like your observation that the contrast is not merely:  Cleopatra's wine vs. Sarmentus' wine,  but  here vs. Rome.  The deictic contrast is powerful:                      HereRomesour wineFalernianAntony-Cleopatra courtCaesar's circleEastItaly A Roman aristocrat could hear nostalgia for Rome. A queen whose authority depended on an eastern court might hear disparagement. And then comes the retrospective narrative. Dellius later says, in effect:  "I made that remark." "Cleopatra was angered." "I was warned that she intended harm." "Therefore I defected." [en.wikisource.org], [romanletters.org]  Whether fear was the true cause remains unresolved by the source. What is explicit is that Dellius himself offered the fear-of-Cleopatra explanation. [en.wikisource.org], [romanletters.org] A final Gricean twist is that Dellius' story simultaneously explains and justifies his change of allegiance. The narrative makes him look not like a habitual deserter but like a man driven out by royal hostility. Whether readers believed that explanation is precisely the question left open by the sources. [romanletters.org], [en.wikisource.org]Provide your feedback on BizChatSourcesYou said: And what was Latin or Greek -- since it's Plutarch -- for 'sour wine' and 'wine from Falernia' where is that? and how good was the common ground that it meant "good superior wine"? Thanks Copilot said: CopilotYes, the common ground is absolutely indispensable here. Without it, Dellius' remark is just a complaint about wine. With it, it becomes a social and political insult. What we can verify from Plutarch is only this:  Dellius said that he offended Cleopatra at supper by remarking that while sour wine was being served to them, Sarmentus at Rome was drinking Falernian. [lexundria.com], [lexundria.com]  And Plutarch immediately explains who Sarmentus was:  one of Caesar's youthful favorites (deliciae). [lexundria.com], [lexundria.com]  Falernian Falernian wine (Falernum vinum in Latin) came from Campania in Italy and was one of the most prestigious wines in Roman culture. It was famous enough that merely naming it could imply luxury and high status. [completeera.com] So the contrast is not merely:  bad wine vs. good wine  but almost:  provincial inferiority vs. metropolitan prestige.  "Sour wine" The English translation says "sour wine." Plutarch wrote in Greek, and the surviving translation gives only the English phrase. The search results I found do not provide the underlying Greek word from the passage itself. [lexundria.com], [lexundria.com] So I can't responsibly tell you the exact Greek term without seeing the Greek text. Why the remark stings The literal content:  "We're drinking sour wine; Sarmentus at Rome is drinking Falernian."  The likely implicatures:  Caesar's people are living better than Antony's. Rome is a better place than "here." Cleopatra's table is less magnificent than it claims. A mere favorite enjoys privileges greater than those around Antony.  None of these is stated. They are recovered by the hearers. Cleopatra versus Antony Your reconstruction is very plausible as a conversational possibility. Cleopatra's uptake:  "He is insulting my hospitality."  Antony's possible uptake:  "Perhaps he is joking about how far from Rome we've wandered."  Notice that Dellius' remark contrasts:  hic (wherever Antony and Cleopatra's court presently is)  with  Roma.  And Rome is the place where Sarmentus drinks Falernian. [lexundria.com], [lexundria.com] The Gricean point The elegant thing is that the offense depends almost entirely upon implication. Dellius does not say:  "Your court is inferior."  Dellius does not say:  "Romans live better than Egyptians."  Dellius says something about wine. The hearers supply the rest. That is why the anecdote is so Gricean. The literal remark is trivial; the social meaning is not. And years later Dellius can use the resulting hostility as part of his explanation for defecting to Octavian. [lexundria.com], [classics.mit.edu] The 'sour' may be apt to check in a second-run, for sour wine = vinegar, almost. On the other hand, don't italians love amari -- bitter? a type of drink as a vermouth or apperitif? The implicature seems to be that the wine from that area of Campania was especially sweet? Thanks A second look suggests that the contrast is probably not "sweet Falernian" versus "bitter Egyptian wine." The source only tells us that Dellius contrasted:  "sour wine" being served at Cleopatra's table  with  Falernian being drunk at Rome by Sarmentus. [lexundria.com], [attalus.org]  It does not say that Falernian was sweet. Nor does it define "sour wine" chemically. [lexundria.com], [attalus.org] In ordinary ancient usage, however, "sour wine" is naturally heard as wine that has deteriorated toward vinegar. So your instinct is reasonable: the contrast sounds less like  bitter vs. sweet  and more like  inferior vs. superior.  The crucial thing is that Falernian was a famous prestige wine from Campania in Italy, one of the best-known luxury wines of the Roman world. [loebclassics.com] So the conversational force of Dellius' remark may be reconstructed like this: What he says  "We are drinking sour wine, while Sarmentus at Rome drinks Falernian."  What the hearers infer  "The wine here is worse." "The court here is less splendid." "A mere favourite at Rome is treated better than we are."  The last implicature may be the most insulting. Notice that Sarmentus is not a consul, senator, or king. Plutarch identifies him as one of Caesar's youthful favourites. [lexundria.com], [attalus.org] So the comparison is potentially:  "Even Caesar's pet favourite drinks better wine than we get at the table of Antony and Cleopatra."  That is a barb. As for your Italian analogy: modern amari are deliberately bitter liqueurs drunk for their bitterness. But nobody serves an amaro and says, "Look how luxurious this is because it tastes bitter." The prestige comes from the drink, not from bitterness itself. Likewise, the point of Dellius' remark is almost certainly not a taste comparison in the abstract, but a status comparison:  shabby wine here; celebrated Falernian in Rome.  That is why Cleopatra could hear an insult, whereas Antony might have heard (or chosen to hear) a more nostalgic Roman joke about being too far from Italy. [lexundria.com], [attalus.org] And Cleopatra never bothered with "How do you know?" The fact that D. states as a fact that a delicia of Ceasar -- on a first-name basis -- is drinking a vintage -- seems much too information unless you have a spy, or was told about it by WHO? Thanks Exactly—and this is where a Gricean reading gets really interesting. Plutarch's anecdote, as preserved, does not report Cleopatra asking:  "How do you know what Sarmentus is drinking in Rome?"  Instead, the story goes straight from Dellius' remark to the offense it caused. A strict Gricean might ask whether Dellius' statement carries a presupposition:  "Sarmentus at Rome is drinking Falernian."  To utter that naturally, Dellius is presenting himself as knowing—or at least confidently claiming—that fact. But the anecdote gives us no source for the information. Plutarch does not say:  Dellius had spies, Dellius had received a letter, Dellius had heard a report, or Sarmentus was actually drinking Falernian.  So from the evidence we have, the provenance of the information is unspecified. In fact, one could argue that the force of the joke does not depend on the truth of the proposition. The crucial comparison is:  "Here we drink poor wine; in Rome people around Caesar drink Falernian."  The name Sarmentus may function almost emblemati­cally. That is:  not "I have independently verified Sarmentus' current beverage," but "Even Caesar's favourites are treated better than we are."  The anecdote works if the hearers recognize the social contrast. A Gricean reconstruction of the unspoken challenge might be: CLEOPATRA  Unde scis? "How do you know?"  DELLIUS  Nescio; sed ita dicitur. "I don't know; but that's what people say."  Or even: DELLIUS  Non de Sarmento loquor, sed de Roma. "I am not really speaking about Sarmentus; I am speaking about Rome."  That last line captures what may be the pragmatic center of the remark. The literal topic is:  Sarmentus, wine, Falernian.  The conversational topic may be:  Rome versus the eastern court, status, prestige, where power now resides.  Which is precisely why Cleopatra could take offense. If so, the sting is not:  "Your wine is sour."  It is:  "The real center of civilized luxury is elsewhere."  And that insult does not require Dellius to have a spy in Rome. It requires only that everyone at table understand what Falernian and Rome signify culturally.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Delminio – Ossia: Grice e Deliminio: la ragione conversazionale Giulio Camillo Deliminio: la ragione conversazionale –   (Poroguraro, Friuli). FIlosofo italiano. a prominent Italian Renaissance philosopher and polymath, best known for his "Theatre of Memory".    Place of Birth Friuli: Most sources state he was born in the Friuli region of northeastern Italy. Specific Locations: It is widely believed he was born in Portogruaro or potentially the Castle of Zoppola, near San Vito di Tagliamento. Etymology: His nickname "Delminio" refers to the Dalmatian town of Delminium (in modern-day Croatia), which was the birthplace of his father.  Publications and Works While much of his output remained in manuscript form during his life, several works were published posthumously or have been collected in modern editions:  L’Idea del Theatro: His most famous work, published six years after his death, which outlines his mystical memory system. Trattato dell’Imitazione: A treatise on literary imitation written in Paris as a response to Erasmus's Ciceronianus. L'Idea dell'Eloquenza: A sketch for seven orations intended to explain his "Theatre" project in detail. Pro suo de eloquentia theatro ad Gallos oratio: A speech circulated in France to promote his project to the court of Francis I. Topica: A work focused on the "topics of argumentation" used for inventing rhetorical tropes. De Transmutatione: A text dealing with his interests in transformation, often associated with his Kabbalistic and alchemical pursuits. Delle Materie: A work dedicated to Duke Ercole II of Ferrara when his support from the French king began to falter. Opere: A posthumous collection of his various writings published by Gabriel Giolito de' Ferrari in VeniceDelminio. Grice, pel Gruppo di Gioco di Grice. Grice (Merton, 1936). “It was just as well I resigned my post as classics master at Rossall. All I had to do was mark what I called—unkindly, perhaps—the infants’ errors: errors not only in Latin but in the odd foreign lingo besides. I felt almost guilty: some semi‑distinguished Lancashire family does its best to send its infant to Rossall, only to have the poor boy made ashamed of himself for failing to distinguish Plautus’ gerundivum from the mere gerundium. Compared with that, Merton is not a school at all; it is scholē—leisure, otium. One has time to do what Oxford does best: luxuriate in irrelevancies that later prove to have been necessities. So, after cricket, I wandered into the old library and my eye was caught by a title that practically leapt off the shelf: Giulio Camillo Delminio, Theatro della Sapientia—or so the catalogue had it. I hadn’t realised a philosopher could write for the boy in the gallery. The sad point is that the boy, in this case, is Francis I—who never knew he was the first.” Editorial note (built into the vignette, as you requested): “The Theatro della Sapientia is generally dated to 1530, composed for Francis I of France as part of Delminio’s attempt to secure patronage (and an audience) for a grand mnemonic‑rhetorical project: not vaudeville but sapientiae—a theatre of wisdom. The risk, naturally, is pragmatic: the patron might read the implicature as ‘I am a dunce’—and no king likes being made the addressee of that.” Grice (continuing): “What I admired—besides the sheer audacity—was the delicacy of the wager. Delminio means to honour the king, yet cannot help implying that the king needs help: a structure familiar to anyone who has ever tried to teach. Oxford is full of degrees that go nowhere, and libraries full of projects that do. Perhaps that is why this sort of thing fascinates me now: degrees are institutional permissions to speak; Delminio’s theatre is a permission to remember. He seeks a licence from a king; I have mine from a college; both are, in their way, attempts to make one’s talk count.”Grice: Caro Delminio, è un vero piacere incontrarti! Da Oxford abbiamo sempre sentito parlare del tuo celebre “Teatro della Memoria”. Mi incuriosisce moltissimo: come ti è venuta l’idea di collegare la memoria allo spazio scenico di un teatro? Delminio: Gentile Grice, il piacere è tutto mio! In realtà, ho sempre pensato che la memoria non sia solo deposito, ma atto creativo. Ho immaginato il teatro come un luogo dove ogni pensiero trova una posizione, un significato, quasi come se le idee fossero attori sulla scena della mente. Grice: Che affascinante metafora! Nella mia filosofia della conversazione, l’ordine e il contesto sono fondamentali per generare senso. Diresti che anche nel tuo teatro la disposizione spaziale delle idee ne determina il significato e la potenza evocativa? Delminio: Assolutamente, Grice. Proprio come nella conversazione, anche nella memoria la posizione e le relazioni tra i concetti sono fondamentali. Il teatro della memoria aiuta a vedere i collegamenti nascosti e ad accendere nuove scintille creative. Se vuoi, è una forma di conversazione interiore continua! Deliminio, Giulio Camillo (1530). Theatro della Sapientia – ad Francescus I –

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Demaria – Ossia: Grice e Demaria: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale degl’organismi – implicatura dinantorganica Tommaso Demaria: (Vezza d’Alba, Cuneo, Piemonte): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale degl’organismi – implicatura dinantorganica. Grice: “D. is what we at Oxford would call a philosophical theologian! And a dynamically realist at that!” Si laurea a Roma. Studia AQUINO. Insegna a Roma. Struttura la sua metafisica realistico organico dinamica.  Ideoprassico Dinontorganico realismo organico dinamico organico dinamico "ideoprassi" "organico dinamica" coglie l'organismo come categoria ontologica a sé stante. L'integrazione della metafisica realista con l'organismo alla metafisica realistica integrale, strumento di straordinaria importanza per la vita quotidiana. Lo studio dell'organismo in quanto tale, in particolare nella sua dimensione parrocchia dinontorganica religiosa; Parrocchia in trasformazione II. La parrocchia dinontorganica religiosa; Conoscere la Chiesa = Corso Fac di Esercizi-Studio di tipo C, Roma – Centro Nazareth, Come programmare la costruzione di una parrocchia “Famiglia di Dio” oggi, in una visione ecclesiale profonda = Corso Fac di Esercizi-Studio di tipo C, Roma – Centro Nazareth, Altri testi ciclostilati  Realismo dinamico, Istituto Superiore di Scienze Religiose, Torino (Dispense), La Chiesa cattolica in stato di missione, Le tesi delle Libere ACLI = a cura delle L.A.C.L.I. Italia Settentrionale, Milano, Per una nuova cultura religiosa e sociale = a cura di Nuova Presenza Cristiana – Centro culturale “G. Toniolo”, Verona, Il Marxismo = Quaderni di Nuova Presenza Cristiana, Centro culturale “G. Toniolo”, Verona. organismo, organismi, super-organismo, Tuomela, we-thinking, cooperation and authority, Cipriani, communicazione e cultura, dynontorganico – o dinontorganico -- dinamico ontico organico -- l’implicanza di Speranza, implicanza, implicatura, implicazione. Grice (Merton, 1935). “I’m just about to pay the fee that turns my Corpus B.A. into an Oxford M.A.—a degree that, like most Oxford things, is less an academic event than a pecuniary rite. Meanwhile I’m holding one of those comparatively new scholarships—Harmsworth—which will lead me, degree-wise, precisely nowhere. But that, too, is Oxford for you. And yet Merton, of all places, keeps these stout volumes of other universities’ degrees—catalogues, annals, calendars, the whole ecclesiastical menagerie. Why? Why should Merton care? This afternoon, after cricket, I idled through the annals of the Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana—there on Piazza della Pilotta—and discovered that one Tommaso Demaria has acquired, officially and by due form, a Licentia in Theologia: he is now licensed to speak about God. Why should Merton care? I can see why Corpus would have cared—Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ, if only by analogy. But Merton? What struck me, absurdly, was not the theology but the Pilotta. One expects Rome to be eternal; one does not expect it to be… ball-like.” Editor’s note (to sit inside the vignette, not as a footnote): “Piazza della Pilotta takes its name from the pilotta—a ball-game once played in the area (from palla, ‘ball’), a reminder that even Rome’s learned addresses can begin as street-games.” Grice (continuing): “And that is exactly what caught me: the collision of degrees and places, of institutional Latin and local slang. Oxford pretends that philosophy is placeless—an abstraction conducted in the air—yet its only real topos is stubbornly local: the Sub-Faculty, the rooms, the staircase, the college, the gossip, the minute-books. The ‘degree’ is the most portable thing we have, and therefore the most suspicious. Perhaps that is why I keep looking, extramurally, at other people’s degrees: they are passports with no destination, authorisations to speak that do not guarantee an audience, licences to teach whose chief function is to be recorded. Demaria is ‘licensed’ in theology at the Gregoriana, and I—by paying a fee—am ‘licensed’ as Master of Arts at Oxford. Two licences, two institutions, two kinds of seriousness; and in both cases the ceremony is the point. The rest is conversation.”Grice: Caro Demaria, ho sempre sentito parlare della tua “dinontorganica”! Ma dimmi, in una parrocchia dinamica, chi decide se l’organismo è davvero realistico o solo un po’ sognatore? Demaria: Eh, Grice, qui a Roma si dice che anche la metafisica debba mettere le scarpe da ginnastica! L’organismo, però, non sogna: si trasforma, si adatta, e se la parrocchia non segue, finisce col perdere la partita… persino contro il catechismo! Grice: Fantastico paragone! Allora, secondo te, la metafisica realistico-organica è come una squadra di calcio: serve collaborazione, speranza e magari un po’ di strategia—altrimenti si rischia il fuorigioco esistenziale. Demaria: Esatto, Grice! Ma guai a chi pensa che “organico” voglia dire restare immobili: qui si corre, si pensa insieme e si coopera! E se la parrocchia cresce, è perché ogni membro sa che la vera implicatura è quella della speranza… e magari anche del pranzo domenicale! Demaria, Tommaso (1935). Licentia in Theologia, Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, Piazza della Pilotta, Roma.

 

Catalogue Raisonné of J. L. Speranza’s Publications – H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Di

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Diacceto – Ossia: Grice e Diacceto: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale del convito -- i tre libri d’amore,  Francesco Cattani da Diacceto: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale del convito -- i tre libri d’amore, Grice: “I love D. – Amo D. – who philosophised so avidly on ‘amore’ – in fact, he philosophised in three different ‘symposia’: ‘primo simposio,’ ‘secondo simposio’ and ‘terzo simposio’ – and so outdoes Plato by far! If these Italians, pretentious as some are, want to use more than one surname – their loss! It was an excellent idea of D. to translate is grandfather’s Latin works (‘enarratio’) of Plato’s little dialogue on the unspeakable vice of the Greeks into ‘vulgar Florentine!”  Si laurea a Firenze. Gli uffici di S. Ambruogio vescovo di Milano: in volgar fiorentino (Fiorenza: Lorenzo Torrentino); “Sopra la sequenza del corpo di Christo, L'Essamerone di S. Ambruogio tradotto in volgar fiorentino, L’autorità del Papa sopra 'l Concilio, “Instituzione spirituale utilissima a coloro che aspirano alla perfezzione della vita; “L'Essamerone, La superstizzione dell'arte magica” (Fiorenza: appresso Valente Panizzi et Marco Peri). I tre libri d'Amore, filosofo et gentil'hvomo fiorentino, con un Panegerico all'Amore; et con la Vita del detto autore, fatta da M. Benedetto Varchi (In Vinegia: appresso Gabriel Giolito de' tutti 3 ma in buono y e profpero fiato Jequah cofi ho uoluto non fi fi troppo largamente, otrvppo fiarfamente raccontare, perche le CATTALO. felicità di queflo modo di qua, qualunque cs4riflotile nell' Scica pare, che ne dubiti, pojfono nondimeno fecondo t Theologi chri fiumi a co loro, che fino nell'altra uita,giouare.Onde fecondo i Flofififì può, eficodo i theologi fi dee credere che M. Francefio di Zanobi Qattani da Ghiacceto cittadino fiorentino, ueggendo infìno dal piu alto cielo tanta# cofi chiara fuccefiione,figoda infiemec olle figliuole# co figliuòli morti qui e lafiù uiuijiwio quella feltafiima,{t) eterna beatitudine, che deono quegli huomini dopo la morte goder e, tquah mentre che uif fero cofi lodtuoh per la uita attiua come ho nor àbili per la conteplativa, furono non me no ottimi chriftianiyche dottissimi filosofì. i tre libri d’amore, diacetius, amore, la sequenza del corpo, l’autorita del papa. Grice: Caro Diacceto, tu davvero hai scritto tre libri sull’amore? Platone ne ha uno solo, tu invece ti sei lanciato in tre simposi! Sei il vero filosofo del cuore, altro che Platone. Diacceto: Oh Grice, chi si accontenta di un solo convito perde metà del divertimento! L’amore va celebrato in tutte le sue sfumature: primo, secondo, terzo simposio... e se avessi avuto più tempo, ne avrei scritto anche un quarto, magari dedicato al “dolce far niente”! Grice: E poi, tu hai pure tradotto le opere latine di tuo nonno in volgare fiorentino. Una scelta geniale: se l’amore è universale, meglio che tutti possano leggere senza farsi venire il mal di testa con il latino! Diacceto: Giustissimo, Grice! A Firenze si dice che “chi ama, capisce anche il dialetto.” E poi, chi studia l’amore deve essere pratico: meglio una bella traduzione che una dichiarazione incomprensibile. Ah, l’amore e la filosofia, sempre complici… Diacceto, Francesco Cattani da (1563). Opera omnia. Firenze: Lorenzo Torrentino.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Diano – Ossia: Grice e Diano: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’errante dalla ragione, emendato.  Carlo Alberto Diano (Vibo Valentia, Calabria): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’errante dalla ragione, emendato. Grice: “I love D., but Italians usually take him to be a bit too Hellenic; recall that a true Roman considers himself a Troian, i. e. an enemy of a Greek! But as a scholarship Midlands boy from Clifton to Corpus, I’m a Dianian!” Studia a Roma sotto Festa e Rossi su Leopardi. Insegna a Napoli. Conosce CROCE Esortazione di Atena a Telemaco. Traduzione letterale e note per Ol. Auronghi .L’Odissea tradotta da Pimientonte, con note di X. Festa.> Platone. I dialoghi. Nuovo volgarizz. di GL Me ini, con argoiuonti e note: Il Olitone, ossia dello azioni l in ristampo,). L’Eutitxom, ossia del Santo. Apologia di Socrate.> Fedone, OEsìa della immortalità dell’amiPft.> Il r elione. Ubala uuiiu mimui imiia ucii . Il Critone; traduzione letterale italiana con riguurdo alla costruzione o noto per DI. Auronghi.Apologia di Socrate; traduzione letterale, italiana con riguardo alla costruzione e noto per 01. Aurenghi.v ..Fedro,Traduzione di Martini. Il Convito. Traduzione di Martini. Senofonte. Anabasi 0 spedizione di Ciro, traduzione di Aaibrosoli Mollnori Mi; Brani scelti di poemi omerici è dólPErieide nelle migliori iitO/lllTt/ln! I Kt I r. i\ » biuuufiiuin immilli! .. 1 Oi*j “* Crestomazia degli autori grooi e latini nelle migliori traduz. italiane . lo ; Botiertl'G, La eloquenza greca. Vita ili Pericle. Epitomo, nigonmuto © noto Vita di Usila. Apologia prr l uccisione di Eratostonn, argomento e noto. Orazione contro Erntostono, argomento © noto Orazioni» contro AvÀrnth nmninanfi. 1» nnit> — vii» ft’Tsn, AUMENTO. errante dalla ragione, emendato, il segno della forma, il simposio ovvero dell’amore, Mario l’epicureo – homosocialite – forma, segno, convite, Orazio, Virgilio, filosofia roma antica. St John’s, 1939. On my way back to college I detour, as one does, through Blackwell’s—half temptation, half alibi. And there, among the earnest grey spines, I notice a new Italian title that stops me short: Carlo Alberto Diano, Forma ed evento. It is—how shall I put it?—spectacularly abstract. Form and event: two nouns that sound as though they have been lifted clean out of an ontology and polished for display. Hardie never spoke to me like that. Nor did the Merton calculators, for all their medieval ingenuity. And I suspect I know why: Ryle. You simply cannot imagine the Oxford realists who now occupy the chairs allowing themselves such a pair of capitalised temptations. We have Ayer, of course—but only to tell us, cheerfully, that both “form” and “event,” in any such use, are meaningless. Which is rather like dismissing a thunderstorm because the barometer cannot parse it. I stand there with the book in my hand, doing the familiar internal triage: (a) buy it; (b) read it; (c) review it. And, as usual, I choose (c), with Sidney Smith’s maxim ringing in my ear: “I never read a book before reviewing it; it prejudices a man so.” [Editorial note (for your apparatus, not for insertion):] Diano’s forma is not “logical form” in the Oxford sense (the sort that later becomes Grice-and-Strawson territory), but “form” in a broader, continental register—closer to the question of how a structure holds together across time. And evento is not merely “an occurrence,” but the kind of happening that interrupts structure, the irruption that tests whether “form” is something static or something that only becomes itself through change. It’s an early, pre-war Italian attempt to speak in the same key as the existential-phenomenological current then in the air on the Continent (Heidegger in the background, French reception not far behind), though Diano’s temperament remains classically trained and philological. Only decades later will Grice come near these themes explicitly: first via “form” in his Oxford seminars on logical form, and later via “event” when the philosophy of action and the metaphysics of “doing” force him to distinguish actions/events from mere happenings. So the comic irony of the 1939 encounter is that the young Grice is already looking at the very words—form and event—that will eventually re-enter his professional life, only by a different route and under stricter Oxonian customs.Grice: Caro Diano, ma tu davvero ti senti più greco che romano? Sai che a Roma, chiamarsi Troiano è quasi una dichiarazione di guerra ai greci? Diano: Eh, Grice, tra Orazio e Virgilio, mi sento spesso “errante dalla ragione”, ma cerco sempre di emendarmi... anche se a Napoli, tra una citazione di Platone e una battuta napoletana, scivolare nell’epicureismo è facilissimo! Grice: Così, ti capisco. D’altronde, la filosofia si assapora meglio quando la ragione fa una breve deviazione – magari verso un simposio, o una tavolata allegra. Non è forse vero che le idee migliori nascono tra un brindisi e una risata? Diano: Assolutamente! E se la ragione inciampa, basta una buona traduzione letterale (magari con un pizzico di ironia) per rialzarla. A volte, la forma più autentica è proprio quella che si prende poco sul serio! Diano, Carlo Alberto (1939). Forma ed evento. Padova: Cedam.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Didio – Ossia: Grice e Didio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Didio. Denarius of Titus D. Roma is portrayed on the obverse, while the reverse depicts two gladiators. It may represent a political promise from D. to offer gladiatorial shows, should he be elected curule aedile. The Didii, or Deidii, as the name is spelled on coins, are a family at ancient Rome, which first appears in history during the final century of the Republic. According to Tullio Cicero, they were novi homines. Titus D. obtained the consulship, a dignity shared by no other Didii until imperial times. “D.” or Deidius is of uncertain origin. It resembles a class of gentilicia formed from cognomina ending in -idus, but might be derived from a cognomen Dida. Chase classifies it among those gentilicia that either originated at Rome, or cannot be shown to have come from anywhere else. Birley suggests they came from eastern Italy, "specifically from the coastal town of Histonium." Salomies has documented several examples of Diidiis used as a family name amongst the Oscans. The earlier Didii used the praenomina Sextus, Titus, and Gaius, to which later members of the family added Quintus, Aulus, and Lucius. All of these were common throughout Roman history.  None of the Didii mentioned during the Republic is known to have borne a cognomen.[2] A number of surnames are found under the Empire, of which the only one that appears to be a family name is Gallus. This cognomen, referring to a cockerel, belongs to an abundant class of cognomina derived from the names of everyday objects and animals. The same surname could also refer to a Gaul, indicating someone of Gaulish descent, or whose appearance or character resembled that of a Gaul. Sextus D., the grandfather of Titus D., the consul of 98 BC. Titus D. Sex. f., tribune of the plebs, was probably the author of the sumptuary law, lex Didia, which was binding on all of Italy, in contrast with the lex Fannia of 161, which had no power except in the city of Rome. He is probably the same Titus D/ who was sent as praetor against the revolted slaves in Sicily.[9] Gaius D. C. f., a senator. [10] Titus D. T. f. Sex. n., as praetor in 100 BC, triumphed over the Scordisci; consul in 98, he and his colleague passed the lex Caecilia Didia. Afterwards proconsul in Spain, he triumphed over the Celtiberians. D. fell during the Social War. Titus D. (T. f. T. n.), triumvir monetalis in 113 or 112 BC, and tribune of the plebs in 95. He and his colleague, Lucius Aurelius Cotta, were forced from the tribunal hearing the disputes arising from the accusation brought against Caepio.[22] Gaius D., legate of Caesar in 46 BC. In command of GIULIO Caesar's fleet during Caesar's Spanish campaign. He won a naval victory over Publius Attius Varus. After the Battle of Munda D. pursued Gnaeus Pompeius's fleet escaping from Carteia, capturing or destroying his ships. After the death of Gnaeus, D. was attacked and slain by his quarry's Lusitanian soldiers.[23][24] Quintus D., governor of Syria in 31 BC. Although probably appointed by Marcus Antonius, he went over to Octavian after the Battle of Actium, and persuaded the Arabs to burn a fleet that Antonius had built in the Red Sea.[25] Aulus D. Postumus, proconsul of Cyprus during the reign of Augustus.[26] Aulus D. Gallus consul suffectus in AD 39, and subsequently governor of Britain. Didius Scaeva, one of the generals of Vitellius, who was slain at the taking of the Capitol in AD 69. Aulus Didius Gallus Fabricius Veiento, praetor during the reign of Nero, he was banished for publishing a number of libels, and for supposedly selling the honours granted by the emperor. He subsequently returned to Rome, and was consul at least twice, the second time under Titus in AD 80. Aurelius Victor reports that he was a favourite of Domitian, under whom he was consul.[27] Gaius Pomponius Gallus D. Rufus, proconsul of Crete and Cyrenaica in 88/89.[28] Titus Didius Secundus, consul suffectus under Trajan in AD 102.[29] Lucius D. Marinus, the second husband of Annia Cornificia Faustina Minor, daughter of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Quintus Petronius D. Q. f. Severus, father of the emperor Didius Julianus. Marcus D. Q. f. Q. n. Severus Julianus, consul in AD 175 and 179, and Roman emperor for nine weeks. Didius Q. f. Q. n. Proculus, brother of the emperor Didius Julianus. Didius Q. f. Q. n. Nummius Albinus, brother of the emperor Didius Julianus. Didia M. f. Q. n. Clara, daughter and only child of Didius Julianus. See also List of Roman gentes References  Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, p. 308.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, p. 1004 ("Didia Gens").  Cicero, Pro Murena, 8.  Chase, pp. 121, 122, 130.  Birley, The Fasti of Roman Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981) pp. 44f  Salomies, "The Nomina of the Samnites. A Checklist", p. 151.  Chase, pp. 112–114.  New College Latin & English Dictionary, s. v. gallus.  Macrobius, Saturnalia, ii. 13.  Sherk, "Senatus Consultum De Agro Pergameno", p. 368.  Florus, iii. 4.  Ammianus Marcellinus, xxvii. 4.  Cicero, In Pisonem, 25, De Domo Sua, 16, 20, Pro Sestio, 64, Philippicae, v. 3, Pro Plancio, 25.  Eusebius, Chronicon, clxx. 2.  Scholia Bobiensia, In Ciceronis Pro Sestio, p. 310.  Fasti Triumphales, AE 1889, 70; 1893, 80; 1904, 113, 196; 1930, 60; 1940, 61.  Appian, Hispanica, 99 ff, Bellum Civile, i. 40.  Sallust, apud Gellius, ii. 27.  Velleius Paterculus, ii. 16.  Ovid, Fasti, vi. 567 ff.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, pp. 1004, 1005 ("Didius", No. 2).  Cicero, De Oratore, ii. 47.  Cassius Dio, Roman History, xliii. 14, 31, 40.  Caesar, De Bello Hispaniensis, 37, 40.  Cassius Dio, Roman History, li. 7.  AE 1934, 86  Gallivan, "The Fasti for A.D. 70–96", pp. 189, 197, 215.  AE 1954, 188  AE 2013, 650. Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Domo Sua, De Oratore, In Pisonem, Philippicae, Pro Murena, Pro Plancio, Pro Sestio. Gaius Julius Caesar, De Bello Hispaniensis (On the War in Spain, attributed). Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid), Fasti. Marcus Velleius Paterculus, Compendium of Roman History. Lucius Annaeus Florus, Epitome de T. Livio Bellorum Omnium Annorum DCC (Epitome of Livy: All the Wars of Seven Hundred Years). Appianus Alexandrinus (Appian), Hispanica (The Spanish Wars), Bellum Civile (The Civil War). Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae (Attic Nights). Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus (Cassius Dio), Roman History. Eusebius of Caesarea, Chronicon. Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae. Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, Saturnalia. Scholia Bobiensia (Bobbio Scholiast), In Ciceronis Pro Sestio (Commentary on Cicero's Oration Pro Sestio). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII, pp. 103–184 (1897). Robert K. Sherk, "The Text of the Senatus Consultum De Agro Pergameno", in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, vol. 7, pp. 361–369 (1966). Michael Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, Cambridge University Press (1974, 2001). Paul A. Gallivan, "The Fasti for A.D. 70–96", in Classical Quarterly, vol. 31, pp. 186–220 (1981). John C. Traupman, The New College Latin & English Dictionary, Bantam Books, New York (1995). Olli Salomies, "The Nomina of the Samnites. A Checklist", in Arctos, vol. 46, pp. 137–185 (2012). Categories: DidiiRoman gentes So for this gens we can have an expansion of the Lex Didia under the proper D, and the Lex Cecilia Didia under the proper D. -- the D. that 'persuaded' the ships of Antony to be burned may require a Griceian vignette -- not 'convinced' so we can imagine a dialogue in Latin with interpreter for the other side -- as to the REASONS given by D. -- that did not fail to move the addressee to action -- burn Antony's ships. Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Didio – Ossia: Grice e Didio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Didio. Lex Didia (sumptuary law):  What counts as luxury? What can the state forbid at dinner? Lex Didia and Lex Caecilia Didia You are also right that under Didius one can derive two separate conversational vignettes from legislation:   Lex Didia (sumptuary law):  What counts as luxury? What can the state forbid at dinner?    Lex Caecilia Didia:  What counts as a proper law? Can disparate measures be bundled together? What must be communicated to citizens before voting?    Those are almost constitutional-Gricean problems about public communication. But for dramatic dialogue, I think the Arabian episode is stronger, because it turns on the distinction between:  persuading,  and  coercing.  Didius apparently obtained the desired action without openly commanding it. If so, he succeeded not by force but by making the Arabs recognize reasons that he intended them to recognize—a remarkably Gricean achievement.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Didio – Ossia: Grice e Didio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Didio. Lex Caecilia Didia:  What counts as a proper law? Can disparate measures be bundled together? What must be communicated to citizens before voting?

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Didio – Ossia: Grice e Didio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Didio. Yes, I think Quintus Didius in Arabia is almost tailor-made for a Grice/Speranza vignette, precisely because the source says he:  persuaded the Arabs to burn Antony's Red Sea fleet after going over to Octavian. cite not available in retrieved sources; stated in the user-provided gens entry from Cassius Dio LI.7.  The interesting word is indeed not:  "forced,"  nor  "ordered,"  nor  "bribed,"  but:  persuaded.  A Gricean immediately asks:  What reasons did he give?  because persuasion presupposes uptake.  A Didian Conversation Let us imagine Didius arriving among the Arab rulers. Persons  Q. DIDIVS INTERPRES PRINCEPS ARABVM   DIDIVS  Naves Antonii apud vos sunt. "Antony's ships are among you."  PRINCEPS  Sunt. "They are."  DIDIVS  Antonium victum esse audistis? "Have you heard that Antony has been defeated?"  PRINCEPS  Audivimus. "We have."   Now comes the persuasive move: DIDIVS  Cur igitur victi classem servatis? "Why then do you preserve the fleet of the defeated?"  PRINCEPS  Quid suades? "What do you advise?"  DIDIVS  Quod futurum est, praevenite. "Anticipate what is going to happen."  PRINCEPS  Quomodo? "How?"  DIDIVS  Ignibus. "With fire."   Gricean analysis The explicit recommendation is:  Burn the ships.  The implicit argument is:  Antony has lost. Octavian will win. Anyone attached to Antony is endangered. Therefore destroy the evidence of attachment now.  As Grice would say, the conclusion is not fully stated; the hearer supplies it.  A more cynical version Since Dellius taught us to distrust stated motives, we may equally distrust Didius. ARAB  Cur naves incendamus? "Why should we burn the ships?"  DIDIVS  Quia Octavianus clementissimus est. "Because Octavian is most merciful."  ARAB  Et si non incendamus? "And if we do not?"  DIDIVS  Minus clementissimus erit. "He will be less merciful."  That is persuasion by implicature. The threat is never uttered. Yet everyone understands it.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Digizio – Ossia: Grice e Digizio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Digizio. The Digizi are a family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned during the Second Punic War. The first of the Digitii was an Italian ally of Rome, who received the Roman franchise in recognition of great heroism during the taking of Carthago Nova in 210 BC.[1] Münzer concludes that he had been part of the naval contingent from Poseidonia, subsequently the Roman colonia of Paestum, as the D. appear to have been a leading family there for generations, and inscriptions of the D. are known primarily from Rome and Paestum. The chief praenomina of the Digitii were Sextus, Decimus, and Lucius. Lucius was the most common praenomen used throughout Roman history, Sextus somewhat common, while Decimus was less widespread and more distinctive during the Republican period.  The Digitii do not appear to have been divided into distinct stirpes, but the cognomina Rufus, originally indicating someone with red hair, and its derivative form, Rufinus,[3] appear in two families. Personal cognomina include Celadus, Praeses, Secundus, and Valens.  Sextus D., the first of the name to appear in history, was an Italian, who served as a marine (socius navalis) under Scipio CORNELIO Africanus. He and Quintus Trebellius claimed to have been the first to have scaled the walls of Carthago Nova. They were awarded the corona muralis for their bravery, and D. evidently received the Roman franchise.[4] Sextus D., probably the same person as the marine under Scipio Africanus,[i] was praetor in 194 BC, and received the province of Hispania Ulterior. He was appointed legate by Scipio Asiaticus to collect a fleet at Brundisium in 190, and was sent as ambassador to Macedonia in 174. The following year, he was sent to Apulia to purchase provisions for the fleet and the army.[6][7][2] Sextus Digitius, military tribune in 170 BC, was probably the same man as the praetor of 194, or else his son. He served in Macedonia and Greece under the consul Aulus Hostilius Mancinus, and reported his defeats upon returning to Rome to perform a sacrifice.[1][8] Decimus Digitius D. l. Eros, a freedman who along with Digitia Helpis, dedicated a sepulchre at Rome, dating from the late first century BC or early first century AD, for their patron, Decimus Digitius Rufus, along with his clients and freedmen.[9] Digitia D. l. Helpis, a freedwoman who along with Decimus Digitius Eros, dedicated a sepulchre at Rome, dating from the late first century BC or early first century AD, for their patron, Decimus Digitius Rufus, along with his clients and freedmen.[9] Decimus Digitius, the father of Decimus Digitius Rufus.[9] Decimus Digitius D. f. Rufus, of the tribus Palatina, buried in a sepulchre at Rome, dating from the late first century BC or early first century AD, along with his clients and freedmen, including Lucius Atinius Primus, Aurelia Truphera, and Lucius Atinius Hilarus, dedicated by his freedmen Decimus Digitius Eros and Digitia Helpis.[9] Digitia [...]abinia, buried in a first-century tomb at Rome, dedicated by one of her clients.[10] Digitius, mentioned in an inscription from Paestum, dating from the first century, or the first half of the second.[11] Lucius Digitius Artemidorus, along with Titus Flavius Marullus, dedicated a statue at Paestum, dating from the late first or the first half of the second century, in honor of Marcus Pomponius Diogenes, one of the municipal duumvirs.[12] Digitius Lycoleo, buried in a second- or third-century tomb at Rome, dedicated by his client, Digitia Juliane, aged fifty years, two months, ten days.[13] Digitia Juliane, dedicated a second- or third-century tome at Rome to her patron, Digitius Lycoleo.[13] Lucius Digitius Bassus, one of the duumvirs at Paestum, and a flamen of the imperial cult, during the middle or late second century. Perhaps the same Lucius Digitius Bassus named among the Arval Brethren at Rome in an inscription dating from AD 145.[14][15] Digitius Praeses, dedicated a monument at Paestum, dating between the middle of the second century and the early third, for his friend, Gaius Petronius Bassus.[16] Lucius Digitius Valens, a soldier of the second cohort of the Praetorian Guard, and a native of Paestum. In AD 148, he received the right to marry while still in the Guard from the emperor Antoninus Pius.[17] Digitius Pompeius, a member of the beam-makers' guild at Rome, mentioned in an inscription dating from the end of the second century.[18] Digitia Bonosa, the wife of Apollonius Mucatra, a soldier in the fifth cohort of the Praetorian Guard, buried in a third-century tomb at Rome, aged forty-nine years, nine months, eleven days, and four hours, with a monument dedicated by Digitia, along with his clients, Apollonius Proculus and Eutychius.[19] Digitia Gemella, dedicated a third-century tomb at Paestum for her husband, Marcus Nanneius Quietanus, aged fifty years, three months, ten days, and three hours.[20] Digitia Prisca, dedicated a third-century tomb at Atina in Lucania for her husband, Flavius Hila, aged about seventy years, seven months, ten days.[21] Lucius Digitius Rufinus, the father of Digitia Rufina.[22] Digitia L. f. Rufina, the daughter of Lucius Digitius Rufinus. Known from an inscription in Paestum, dating from the first half of the third century, recording that she and her husband received money from the town's patron, the Roman eques Marcus Tullius Cicero Laurentius Lavinatas, due to her "extraordinary chastity, faith, and modesty."[22] Lucius Digitius Celadus, mentioned in an inscription from Paestum, dating from AD 245.[23] Digitius Antonius, one of the municipal duumvirs of Paestum in AD 347, dedicated an inscription in honor of the town's patron, Aquillius Nestorius.[24] Undated Digitii Digitia Marcellina, dedicated a tomb at Atina in Latium for her mother, Heria Mansueta.[25] Decimus Digitius Pharnaces, buried at Rome, with an inscription dedicated by his daughter Digitia Primilla.[26] Digitia Primilla, dedicated a monument at Rome to her father, Decimus Digitius Pharnaces.[26] Digitia D. l. Secunda, a freedwoman, dedicated a tomb at Rome for Digitius Secundus.[27] Digitius Secundus, buried at Rome, in a tomb dedicated by the freedwoman Digitia Secunda.[27] Aurelia Digitia Sergia, an infant girl buried at Rome, aged four months, twenty-six days.[28] See also List of Roman gentes Notes  Based on the rarity of the nomen, Münzer makes the argument that all three men named Sextus Digitius are the same man.[5] References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.  Münzer, Roman Aristocratic Parties and Families, p. 90.  Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina".  Livy, xxvi. 48.  Münzer, Roman Aristocratic Parties and Families, pp. 89-91  Livy, xxxv. 1, 2, xxxvii. 4, xli. 22, xlii. 27.  Orosius, Historiarum Adversum Paganos, iv. 22.  Livy, xliii. 11.  CIL VI, 16852.  CIL VI, 7066.  Mello and Voza, Le iscrizioni latine di Paestum, 114.  AE 1975, 253.  CIL VI, 5579.  AE 1975, 257.  CIL VI, 2085.  CIL X, 00494.  CIL XVI, 00095.  CIL VI, 1060  CIL VI, 2557.  CIL X, 493.  CIL X, 396.  CIL X, 00483.  AE 1935, 26.  CIL X, 00477.  CIL X, 5068.  CIL VI, 16851.  CIL VI, 16853.  CIL VI, 13302. Bibliography Titus Livius (Livy), History of Rome. Paulus Orosius, Historiarum Adversum Paganos (History Against the Pagans). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Theodor Mommsen et alii (eds.), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). L'Année épigraphique, René Cagnat et alii (eds.), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). Friedrich Münzer, Römische Adelsparteien und Adelsfamilien (Roman Aristocratic Parties and Families), Stuttgart, 1920. Mario Mello and Giuseppe Voza, Le iscrizioni latine di Paestum (The Latin Inscriptions of Paestum), Università degli Studi di Napoli, Naples (1968). Category: Roman gentes For this gens (I) -- and you can provide your (II) -- is the one "D. climbed the wall." "I did, too!" -- "Did you reach the summit at the VERY SAME SECOND?" "We both were given DIFFERENT CORONAE." Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Digizio – Ossia: Grice e Digizio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Digizio. I like your Digitius vignette very much because it turns on a subtle Roman problem:  What does "first" mean?  The source says that Sextus Digitius and Quintus Trebellius both claimed to have been the first to scale the walls of Carthago Nova, and both received the corona muralis.  (The gens summary attributes this to Livy 26.48.) The Gricean puzzle is obvious. Grice e Digitio TREBELLIVS  Primus murum ascendi. "I was first up the wall."  DIGITIVS  Immo ego primus ascendi. "No, I was first."  TREBELLIVS  Eodem momento? "At the very same moment?"  DIGITIVS  Fortasse. "Perhaps."  TREBELLIVS  Unus tantum potest esse primus. "Only one man can be first."  DIGITIVS  At duae coronae datae sunt. "Yet two crowns were awarded."  Translation Trebellius: "I was first up the wall." Digitius: "No, I was." Trebellius: "At exactly the same instant?" Digitius: "Perhaps." Trebellius: "Only one man can be first." Digitius: "Yet two crowns were awarded." The Roman authorities are almost forced into a Gricean compromise:  We cannot determine who was first.  Therefore:  We award both.  The interesting thing is that the factual dispute is transformed into a political settlement. My candidate (II) I would choose a vignette before Scipio. Digitius, Trebellius, and Scipio SCIPIO  Quis prior murum ascendit? "Who went up the wall first?"  TREBELLIVS  Ego. "I did."  DIGITIVS  Ego. "I did."  SCIPIO  Testes habetis? "Do you have witnesses?"  TREBELLIVS  Habeo. "I do."  DIGITIVS  Et ego. "So do I."  SCIPIO  Et quid dicunt? "And what do they say?"  TREBELLIVS  Me primum fuisse. "That I was first."  DIGITIVS  Me primum fuisse. "That I was first."  SCIPIO  Intellego. "I understand."  Translation Scipio: "Who was first up the wall?" Trebellius: "I was." Digitius: "I was." Scipio: "Have you witnesses?" Trebellius: "I do." Digitius: "So do I." Scipio: "And what do they say?" Trebellius: "That I was first." Digitius: "That I was first." Scipio: "I see." The humor is that nobody is necessarily lying. The problem is partly semantic:  Does "first" mean first hand on the wall? first foot over the parapet? first into the city? first visible to witnesses?  Grice would enjoy this immensely. The quarrel is not merely over facts but over the criteria for applying a term. And the Roman solution—two mural crowns—almost amounts to:  "Since we cannot uniquely fix the reference of primus, we shall honor both claimants."  A very elegant case of practical Roman philosophy hiding inside a military decoration. And there's DIGITIVS junior, as we can imagine. "What is that corona, dad? It was given to me by Scipio. What for? I was the first to climb the wall of Carthago Nova. "But Trebellius's son, who I see at school, says HIS dad did that." Digitius: "He was the first too". The issue trades on conjunction elimination yielding true propositions "He was the first" "Trebellius was the first" since the conjunction is true "Digitius and Trebellius were the first." "You'll learn that when you pass from letteratura to oratoria, son." Thanks That's delightful, because it turns the military anecdote into a lesson in logic before logic has been invented. A Speranza-Grice reconstruction could go: Digitius Maior et Digitius Minor FILIVS  Quid est ista corona, pater? "What's that crown, father?"  DIGITIVS  Scipio mihi eam dedit. "Scipio gave it to me."  FILIVS  Cur? "Why?"  DIGITIVS  Quia primus murum Carthaginis Novae ascendi. "Because I was the first to climb the wall of New Carthage."  FILIVS  At filius Trebellii in schola dicit patrem suum primum ascensisse. "But Trebellius' son at school says that his father was first."  DIGITIVS  Recte dicit. "He is right."  FILIVS  Quid? Ergo quis primus fuit? "What? Then who was first?"  DIGITIVS  Ego et Trebellius. "Trebellius and I."  FILIVS  Hoc fieri non potest. "That can't be."  DIGITIVS  Nondum orator es. "You are not yet an orator."  FILIVS  Quid vis dicere? "What do you mean?"  DIGITIVS  Exspecta dum a litteris ad forum transieris. "Wait until you leave the schoolroom for the Forum."   The underlying joke is exactly your point. Suppose the politically acceptable proposition becomes:  Digitius et Trebellius primi murum ascenderunt. "Digitius and Trebellius were first to scale the wall."  Then, by conjunction elimination, one may derive:  Digitius was first.  and  Trebellius was first.  without deriving that:  Digitius alone was first.  The ambiguity lies in the word primus. The schoolboy thinks:  "first" means uniquely first.  The Roman statesman thinks:  "first" means "among those awarded first honours."  Scipio's double award is almost a diplomatic solution to a semantic problem. One can even imagine Digitius giving his son a proto-Gricean lesson: DIGITIVS  Aliud est quid verba stricte significent, aliud quid utile sit civitati credere. "One thing is what words strictly signify; another is what it is useful for the state to believe."  FILIVS  Ergo uterque primus fuit? "So both were first?"  DIGITIVS  Ita censuit Scipio. "That was Scipio's judgement."  The lovely irony is that the actual military exploit becomes secondary. The real achievement is getting a formulation under which:  "Digitius was first"  and  "Trebellius was first"  can both be publicly maintained without a civil war among the recipients of the corona muralis. That is indeed the point where the pupil leaves litteratura and begins oratoria.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Dione – Ossa: Grice e Dione --la ragione conversazionale all’orto di Roma – filosofia italiana –  (Roma). Filosofo italiano. He appears to have been a follower of The Garden with whom Cicerone was acquainted but for hom he had little time or respect. Dione. Grice, pel Gruppo di Gioco di Grice, “Grice e Dione. Dione: la ragione conversazionale all’orto di Roma – filosofia italiana –  (Roma). Filosofo italiano. He appears to have been a follower of The Garden with whom Cicerone was acquainted but for hom he had little time or respect. GRICEVS: Dione, audio te in Horto Romae Epicuri vestigia sequi, quem Cicero quidem novit sed vix ferre potuit. DIONE: Grice, Cicero nos hortulanis similes putat, quasi verba colamus potius quam argumenta, sed in Horto etiam brassicae rationem habent. GRICEVS: At cave, nam si nimis tacitus manes, Cicero id pro confessione stultitiae accipiet, et statim epistulam mordacem scribet.DIONE: Tum ego respondebo: “Ciceroni gratias ago, quod nobis parum temporis habet; sic saltem otium habemus ad philosophiam—et ad cenam.”

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Dionigi – Ossia: Grice e Dionigi: la ragione conversazionale e  l’implicatura conversazionale intorno al Cratilo Roberto Dionigi (Barletta, Puglia): la ragione conversazionale e  l’implicatura conversazionale intorno al Cratilo –Grice: I like D.; for one, he wrote on Cratylo, which I love!  Grice: In Platos Cratylo theres possibly all the vocabulary you need to understand Peirce! As if Plato foreshadows C. W. Morris! -- Postmodern Italians like Donigi, and they created a cocktail in his honour! His philosophising on Socrates philosophising with Cratilo on semeiosis proves Whiteheadss dictum that all pragmatics is footnotes to Grice, and all Grice is footnotes to Plato! “Si laurea a Barlett coll’ostacolo epistemologico. Insegna Bologna. ermeneutica che logico-filosofica. Si accost poi alla filosofia analitica e alla svolta "linguistica", vista come approfondimento della critica della metafisica. Le saggi si concentrano sull'ermeneutica semiotica, segnatura, semantica antica (Nomi Forme Cose. Intorno il Cratilo di Platone) descrivere -- La fatica di descrivere. linguaggio della filosofia), del quale condivideva pienamente l'esigenza di ripensare il linguaggio (segnatura) come la "cosa stessa" della filosofia. Cocktail D. e un documentario contenente testimonianze su D., tra i quali Berardi, Bonaga, Picardi, Eco, Cacciari, Marramao. Un filosofo tra accademiae il bar  cf. Speranza, Grice: un filosofo tra lizio e il pub. The development of Platos Cratilo. Commentaries on the Cratilo nella filosofia romana antica. Cicerone e il Cratilo.  -- Sulla correttezza -- dei nomi. Personaggi: Socrate, Cratilo, Ermogene. Il Cratilo  un dialogo di Platone. In esso  trattato il problema del linguaggio, o meglio, della correttezza -- dei nomi o espressioni. Protagonisti del dialogo sono Socrate, Ermogene e Cratilo. La maggior parte dei filosofi concorda sul fatto che venne scritto principalmente durante il cosiddetto periodo di mezzo di Platone. Incontro tra Socrate, Ermogene e Cratilo. Si far, o Socrate, come, tu ammonisci.' ma dintorno a quello aforzati ancora tu di considerare. in torno al cratilo, ermeneutica, svolta linguistica, cratilo, linguaggio, la forma del linguaggio, forma logica. Grice: Dionigi, mi piace che tu ti sia messo a discutere il Cratilo, perché lì Platone nasconde abbastanza lessico da far impallidire persino Peirce. Dionigi: E io mi diverto a tirar fuori l’implicatura conversazionale dal portico platonico, anche se poi gli studenti chiedono se “segnatura” si beve o si declina. Grice: A giudicare dal cocktail che ti hanno dedicato, direi che a Bologna l’ermeneutica ormai si serve con ghiaccio e scorza di limone. Dionigi: Benissimo, allora brindiamo: tu metti le massime, io metto il Cratilo, e il bar mette la prova che tutta la pragmatica è una nota a piè di pub. Dionigi, Roberto (1964). Tesi. Bologna sotto Melandri e Battaglia.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Dissertori – Ossia: Grice e Disertori: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della tensione dell’arco e il volo della freccia,  Giuseppe Disertori (Trento, Trentino-Alto Adige) : la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della tensione dell’arco e il volo della freccia, Grice: “I like D.; especially his ‘studi platonici’ on the archer, and, ‘under the sky (or is it heaven – ‘cielo’ is a trick) of Saturn!” Si laurea a Genova, con  fisiologia  del sistema nervoso centrale. Studia  neurologia con Besta. Conosce REALE, Pacciardi, Battisti, Bacchi, e Manci. -- S’occupa di politica, ricoprendo la carica di presidente regionale del partito repubblicano. Il libro della vita; Trattato delle nevrosi; De anima; Trattato di psichiatria e socio-psichiatria; Sfida al secolo, La collezione si trova già chiaramente ordinata e organizzata da D. stesso, con un ricco carteggio con scienziati, personalità politiche e del mondo della cultura, documenti sull'attività scientifica e pubblicazioni; cronache e materiali raccolti durante i viaggi; recensioni alle sue opere e materiali di ricerche scientifiche. Coppola, Passerini, Zandonati. SIUSA. Coppola, Passerini e Zandonati, Un secolo di vita degl’agiati. Sotto il segno dell'uomo. D. Atti del convegno di studio, Trento, Palazzo Geremia, Pensiero di D., Manfrini, Calliano, L. Menapace et al., Note, Bacchi et al., Biografia, Accademia del Buonconsiglio, Trento,  Raccolta di scritti di D. con documentazione Studi scientifici del periodo svizzero  Fascicolo, carte, opuscoli, raccolta di articoli e scritti di D. rilegati in volume denominata "Zibaldino, Saggi nel cassetto, Fotocopie rilegate in volumi di saggi di D. Il libro della vita. Contiene anche lettere a D. di Lubimov relative al lavoro di traduzione Fascicolo, carte Scritti di D. rilegati in volumi  Minute dattiloscritte rilegate in volume, Scritti; contiene anche carte sciolte  Trattato di psichiatria, la tensione dell’arco e il volo della freccia, libro della vita (why do we live?), il messagio di Timeo, itinerari pitagorici, pitagora e aligheri, tensione dell’arco, volo – eraclito – platone – politeia di Platone – Grice on Plato’s Republic – plato carmide e la medicina – dell’anima – psicologia teoretica -- sul segno dell’uomo, de anima. Grice: Caro Professore Disertori, ho letto con grande interesse i suoi “studi platonici” sulla tensione dell’arco e il volo della freccia. Mi affascina molto questa metafora: secondo lei, cosa ci insegna Platone sull’equilibrio tra il tendere e il lasciar andare nella vita? Disertori: Grazie, Grice, è una domanda che va dritta al cuore della mia ricerca. Platone, attraverso l’immagine dell’arco, ci suggerisce che ogni tensione — sia essa mentale o spirituale — ha senso solo se orientata verso uno scopo. Il volo della freccia rappresenta il momento in cui la decisione è presa, quando la ragione e il coraggio si incontrano e si trasformano in azione. La vita, come il tiro dell’arco, richiede precisione e consapevolezza. Grice: Molto interessante! Allora potremmo dire che la conversazione stessa è un po’ come l’arco: c’è una tensione tra l’ascoltare e il parlare, tra il silenzio e la parola. Le implicature conversazionali, che tanto mi stanno a cuore, nascono proprio in questa dinamica. Lei ha trovato analogie tra la neurologia, che ha studiato, e la filosofia del dialogo? Disertori: Decisamente, Grice. La fisiologia del sistema nervoso centrale mi ha insegnato che la comunicazione tra i neuroni è fatta di tensioni e rilasci, proprio come nell’arco. Ogni scambio, sia scientifico che filosofico, è un volo della freccia che attraversa lo spazio “tra” due interlocutori. È lì che nasce il significato, nel movimento e nell’equilibrio. Come diceva Eraclito: tutto scorre, anche il senso delle nostre parole. Disertori, Giuseppe (1941) La musica nella vita e nella storia dei popoli. Trento: Edizioni della Provincia di Trento.

 

Catalogue Raisonné of J. L. Speranza’s Publications – H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Do

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Dodaro – Ossia: Grice e Dodaro: la ragione cconversazionale e il convito, ossia, tracce di un discorso amoroso.  Francesco Saverio Dodaro: la ragione cconversazionale e il convito, ossia, tracce di un discorso amoroso. Grice: “D. is an interesting one  totally cryptic of course! It is as if he were Nowell-Smith, Austin, and Donne, combined into one! Recall Nowell-Smiths challenge to Austin: Donne is incomprehensible, He surely ain’t!” Studia sotto Morandi, presso l'accademia, infatti, prime espressioni della sua attivit artistica furono la pittura, praticata per una manciata di anni, e il teatro, poi diluito nelle successive esperienze poetiche e narrative. Come pittore produsse alcuni quadri in cui all'informale materico univa le combustioni, applicate, di fatto: Verri riporta in suo intervento: arriva con la novit dei colori "bruciati". Di questo ciclo di opere faceva parte "Svergognato incantesimo di barca", che gli valse, successivamente, la segnalazione presso il premio "Il maggio di Bari". Prima del trasferimento a Lecce, lavora presso l'ufficio stampa della Fiera del Levante, a stretto contatto con Fiore, figlio di Tommaso, venendo influenzato dal meridionalismo. Sempre nel clima della Fiera del levante, strinse un ottimo legame con Tot. andato al Liceo, lavatosi, vi si trattenesse come altre volte, il rimanente della giornata, e trattenutosi cosi, andasse poi la sera a riposare a casa. tracce di un discorso amoroso, mappatura, signature, segnatura, cantata duale, cantata plurale, cantata duale, origine del romano, edipo, caino, mancanza di Lanca, communicazione inter-mediale, communicazione inter-mediale e luto, immagine e segno, senso, sensibilia, visibilia, silenzo silenzo silenzo silenzo Catullo poema rima ritmo batto cuore figlio madre padre orale genitale ma-ma etymology of altro  Hegel on conscience of ego and conscience of alter, Sartre on nous and love affair  infinito  lingua a codice  codice come ripetizione  ripetizione dei suoni del cuore  ontogenesi ripete filogenesi  commune, vacuum del ventre della madre, etimologia di termine chiave, fonema, unita etica, unita emica, Speranza, Schultz, unita emica come classe di unita etica  criterio: un accordo o codice di relevanza  lintenzione del mittente. Grice: Dodaro, lei è come un convito filosofico: ogni volta che tento di afferrare una sua idea, questa mi sfugge fra i “tracciati amorosi” dei suoi discorsi. Mi dica: tracciare un discorso amoroso è più simile a una mappatura o a una cantata? Dodaro: Caro Grice, direi che è una cantata plurale, come quelle che si improvvisano tra amici: si parte dal cuore, si passa per il silenzio e si arriva magari a una rima di Catullo. D’altronde, senza un po’ di ritmo, la filosofia rischia di addormentarsi nella culla della madre! Grice: Ah, quindi la conversazione filosofica è fatta di segnature, di piccole magie bruciate come nei suoi quadri! Ma mi dica, tra Edipo e Caino, dove si trova davvero la traccia dell’“altro”? Dodaro: Grice, l’“altro” è proprio là, dove il silenzio batte il tempo e il codice si ripete come il battito del cuore. In fondo, ogni discorso amoroso è un piccolo esperimento di comunione, dove anche il codice segreto diventa musica da condividere—magari con un bicchiere di vino e una risata complice! Dodaro, Francesco Saverio (1954). Svergognato incantesimo di barca. Bari.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Dolabella – Ossia: Grice e Dolabella: la ragione conversazionale all’orto romano Publio Cornelio Dolabella (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale all’orto romano. A follower of the philosophy of the Garden, and the son-in-law of Cicerone. He achieved the distinction of being pronounced a public enemy by the Roman Senate. He ordered one of his soldiers to kill him. GRICEVS: O Dolabella, hortum Epicuri colere vis, an solum senatum fugere et vitam salvare? DOLABELLA: Colere velim, sed senatus me hostem publicum vocat, et hortus ipse portas claudere videtur. GRICEVS: Si gladio tuo militem iubes, facis quasi “finem” quaeras; sed implicas te otium malle quam tumultum. DOLABELLA: Ita est, Grice, sed Roma mihi semper respondet: “otium tibi dabimus—post mortem,” quod iocus est nimis civicus.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Domizio – Ossia: Grice e Domizio -- Grex griceiana – verablia: Domizio. The gens Domitia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. The first of the gens to achieve prominence was Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, consul in 332 BC. His son, Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus Maximus, was consul in 283, and the first plebeian censor. The family produced several distinguished generals, and towards the end of the Republic, the Domitii were looked upon as one of the most illustrious gentes.[1][2][3][4]  Praenomina The praenomen most associated with the Domitii was Gnaeus. The Domitii Calvini also used Marcus, while the Ahenobarbi used Lucius.  Branches and cognomina During the time of the Republic, there are recorded only two branches of this gens, the Ahenobarbi and Calvini, and with the exception of a few unknown personages mentioned in isolated passages of Cicero, there is none without a cognomen.[1]  Calvinus, the name of the oldest family of the Domitii, is derived from the Latin adjective calvus, meaning "bald." The lengthened form, Calvinus is a diminutive, generally translated as "baldish", although it could also refer to the descendants of someone who had borne the surname Calvus. Such names belong to a common class of cognomina derived from a person's physical features.[1][5]  The family named Ahenobarbus was so called from the red hair which many of its members had. To explain this name, which signifies, "Red-Beard" (literally, "Bronze-Beard"), and to assign a high antiquity to their family, it was said that the Dioscuri announced to one of their ancestors the victory of the Romans over the Latins at Lake Regillus (498 BC), and, to confirm the truth of what they said, that they stroked his black hair and beard, which immediately became red.[6][7][8][9][5][10]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Domitii Calvini Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, father of the consul of 332 BC. Gnaeus Domitius Cn. f. Calvinus, consul in 332 BC.[11] Gnaeus Domitius Cn. f. Cn. n. Calvinus, surnamed Maximus, consul in 283 BC, won a great victory over the Gauls and Etruscans; dictator in 280; after laying down his office, Calvinus became the first plebeian censor.[12][13][14][15][16][17][18] Domitius (Cn. f. Cn. n.) Calvinus, as praetor, conquered the Etruscan town of Luna, which had been occupied by the Illyrians. The year is uncertain, but must have occurred after the First Punic War.[19][20][21] Marcus Domitius Calvinus, grandfather of Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, consul in 53 and 40 BC. Marcus Domitius M. f. Calvinus,[i] praetor in 80 BC, and sent as proconsul to Hispania Citerior. In 79 he was summoned into Hispania Ulterior by Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, who was in want of assistance against Sertorius, but he was defeated and killed by Hirtuleius, quaestor of Sertorius, near the Anas.[22][23][24][25][26][27] Gnaeus Domitius M. f. M. n. Calvinus, consul in 53 and 40 BC, and a partisan of both Caesar and Octavian. Domitia Cn. f. M. n. Calvina, married Lucius Calpurnius Bibulus and had a daughter also called Domitia Calvina.[28] Domitii Ahenobarbi Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, grandfather of the consul of 192 BC. Lucius Domitius L. f. Ahenobarbus, father of the consul of 192 BC. Gnaeus Domitius L. f. L. n. Ahenobarbus, plebeian aedile in 196 BC, as consul in 192 he was sent against the Boii.[29][30][31] Gnaeus Domitius Cn. f. L. n. Ahenobarbus, consul suffectus in 162 BC.[32][33][34] Gnaeus Domitius Cn. f. Cn. n. Ahenobarbus, consul in 122 BC. He was sent against the Allobroges, whom he conquered the following year, and over whom he received a triumph in 120. He was censor in 115.[35][36][37][38][39][40][41] Domitia, the wife of Quintus Lutatius Catulus, consul in 102 BC. Gnaeus Domitius Cn. f. Cn. n. Ahenobarbus, consul in 96 BC, and censor in 92, with Lucius Licinius Crassus, the orator. Known for his simple tastes, severe temper, and private grudges. Crassus said of him "that it was no wonder that a man had a beard of brass, who had a mouth of iron and a heart of lead."[42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49] Lucius Domitius Cn. f. Cn. n. Ahenobarbus, consul in 94 BC. As praetor in Sicily, after the Second Servile War, when slaves were forbidden to carry arms, he ordered a slave to be crucified for killing a wild boar with a hunting spear. During the civil war between Marius and Sulla, he espoused the side of the latter, and was murdered at Rome by the praetor Damasippus, by order of the younger Marius.[50][51][52][53][54] Gnaeus Domitius Cn. f. Cn. n. Ahenobarbus, son-in-law of Cinna, and thus a partisan of Marius. Proscribed by Sulla, who came to power in 82 BC, he fled to Africa, where he collected an army, but he was defeated and killed by Gnaeus Pompeius.[55][56][57][58] Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, praetor in 80 BC, is probably the same person as Marcus Domitius Calvinus, proconsul in Hispania Ulterior.[27] Lucius Domitius Cn. f. Cn. n. Ahenobarbus, consul in 54 BC. Originally an opponent of the First Triumvirate, he later espoused the side of Pompeius against Caesar, against whom he prosecuted the war vigorously. He fell in battle at Pharsalus, in 48 BC.[59][60][61][62][63][64] Gnaeus Domitius (L. f. Cn. n.) Ahenobarbus, praetor in 54 BC. He presided at the second trial of Marcus Caelius Rufus.[65] Gnaeus Domitius L. f. Cn. n. Ahenobarbus, after the murder of Caesar, espoused the side of Brutus, and was condemned. He won a naval battle at Philippi, and subsequently maintained two legions and a fleet of seventy ships along the Ionian Sea. He subsequently reconciled with Marcus Antonius, and became consul in 32 BC. He went over to Octavian, but died before the Battle of Actium.[66][67][68][69][70][71][72] Lucius Domitius Cn. f. L. n. Ahenobarbus, son-in-law of Marcus Antonius, the triumvir. Consul in 16 BC, succeeded Tiberius in command of the Roman army in Germania, where he crossed the Albis, and received a triumph. Suetonius describes him as haughty, prodigal, and cruel, and that Augustus was forced to restrain the bloodshed in his gladiatorial combats. He died in AD 25.[72][73][74][75] Gnaeus Domitius L. f. Cn. n. Ahenobarbus, son-in-law of Germanicus, and father of the emperor Nero. He was consul in AD 32, and afterward proconsul in Sicily. "His life was stained with crimes of every kind... and [he] only escaped execution by the death of Tiberius."[75][76][77][78] Domitia L. f. Cn. n. Lepida Major, aunt of the emperor Nero. She was the wife of Decimus Haterius Agrippa, who was killed by Tiberius in AD 32, and then of Gaius Sallustius Crispus Passienus, who deserted her for Julia Agrippina, the mother of Nero. At an advanced age, Domitia was poisoned by her nephew, that he might get possession of her property at Baiae and in the neighborhood of Ravenna, on which estates he built magnificent gymnasia.[79][80][81][82] Domitia L. f. Cn. n. Lepida Minor, aunt of the emperor Nero. She was the wife of Marcus Valerius Messalla Barbatus, and mother of Messalina, wife of the emperor Claudius. Like her sister, she was a rival of Agrippina, the mother of Nero, who induced her son to have his aunt put to death in AD 55.[83][84] Lucius Domitius Cn. f. L. n. Ahenobarbus, afterward the emperor Nero. Others Marcus Domitius P. f., a senator, sent as an ambassador in Crete in 113 BC. He might have been one of the Calvini, as the Ahenobarbi did not use the praenomen Marcus.[85][86] Domitius Marsus, a Latin poet of the Augustan age. He or one of his ancestors probably belonged to the Marsic nation, and was adopted into the noble house of the Domitii.[87] Domitius Celer, an intimate friend of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, by whom he had been sent into Syria. After the death of Germanicus, Domitius persuaded Piso to return to that province.[88] Domitius Pollio, whose daughter was selected to replace the deceased Vestal Virgin Occia.[89] Gnaeus Domitius Afer, a noted orator of the first century, and consul suffectus in AD 39. Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, consul in AD 39, and one of the greatest of Roman generals. Under Claudius, he obtained the command of the armies in Germania, and enjoyed much success before being recalled by a jealous emperor. Subsequently, he was sent against the Parthians, winning major victories in 54 and 58. However, the suspicious Nero ordered his death in 67. Domitius Balbus, a wealthy man of praetorian rank, whose will was forged in AD 61.[90] Domitius Silus, the husband of Atria Galla, a woman of low birth but great physical beauty. Gaius Calpurnius Piso lured her away from Silus, whose willingness to part with his wife, along with her brazen infidelity, added to Piso's notoriety.[91] Domitia Decidiana, the wife of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, and mother-in-law of the historian Tacitus. Domitius Caecilianus, an intimate friend of Publius Clodius Thrasea Paetus, who informed him of his condemnation by the senate in AD 67.[92] Domitia, the elder daughter of Corbulo, she married the senator Lucius Annius Vinicianus, who was implicated in a plot against the emperor Nero, and took his own life rather than defend himself. Domitia Longina, the younger daughter of Corbulo. She married Lucius Aelius Plautius Lamia Aemilianus, but was carried off by the future emperor Domitian about AD 69. Their marriage was loveless and both spouses unfaithful. Domitia was Roman empress from 81 to 96. Aware of the conspiracy against her husband, but in fear for her own life, she encouraged the conspirators, and outlived the emperor by many years.[93][94] Lucius Domitius Apollinaris, consul suffectus in 97, and patron of Martial. Domitia Paulina, wife of Publius Aelius Hadrianus Afer, and mother of the emperor Hadrian.[95] Aelia Domitia Paulina, sister of the emperor Hadrian. Domitius Labeo, the author of a letter in the Digesta, sometimes thought to have been a jurist. He must have lived in the first part of the second century.[96][97] Domitia Lucilla Major, grandmother of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Domitius Callistratus, the author of a work on Heracleia, consisting of at least seven books.[98] Gaius Domitius Dexter, consul in AD 196, during the reign of Septimius Severus, who appointed him praefectus urbi.[99] Lucius Domitius Honoratus, governor of Egypt in AD 222, and later Pretorian Prefect. Gnaeus Domitius Annius Ulpianus, an influential jurist of the early third century. Domitius Florus, who had been ejected from the senate through the influence of Plautianus, was restored in the reign of Macrinus, and created tribune of the people.[100] Lucius Domitius Aurelianus, emperor from AD 270 to 275. Lucius Domitius Domitianus, a pretender to the imperial dignity in Egypt during the reign of Diocletian. Lucius Domitius Alexander, proclaimed emperor by his troops during the reign of Maxentius, but swiftly defeated and put to death. Domitius Zenofilus, consul in 333 AD. Domitius Leontius, consul in 344. Domitius Modestus, consul in 372. See also List of Roman gentes Footnotes  Identified as Lucius Domitius in Plutarch and Eutropius, some sources describe him as Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus. References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, p. 1061 ("Domitia Gens").  Cicero, Philippicae ii. 29.  Pliny the Elder, vii. 57.  Valerius Maximus, vi. 2. § 8.  Chase, pp. 109, 110.  Suetonius, "The Life of Nero", 1.  Plutarch, "The Life of Aemilius Paullus", 25, "The Life of Coriolanus", 3.  Dionysius, vi. 13.  Tertullian, 22.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, pp. 83, 84 ("Ahenobarbus").  Livy, viii. 17.  Livy, x. 9, Epitome 13.  Pliny the Elder, xxxiii. 1.  Polybius, ii. 19, 20.  Appian, Bellum Samniticum, 6, Bella Celtica, 11.  Florus, i. 13.  Eutropius, ii. 10.  Fasti Capitolini.  Frontinus, Strategemata, iii. 2. § 1.  Livy, Epitome, 20.  Zonaras, viii. 19 ff.  Plutarch, "The Life of Sertorius", 12.  Livy, Epitome, 90.  Eutropius, vi. 1.  Florus, iii. 22.  Orosius, v. 23.  Broughton, vol. II, pp. 79, 84, 85 (note 4).  Syme, Ronald (1987). "M. Bibulus and Four Sons". Harvard Studies in Classical Philology. 91. Department of the Classics, Harvard University: 185–198. doi:10.2307/311404. JSTOR 311404.  Livy, xxxiii. 42, xxxiv. 42, 43, 53, xxxv. 10, 20-22, 40, xxxvi. 37.  Valerius Maximus, i. 6. § 5.  Broughton, Vol. I, p. 335.  Livy, xlii. 28, xliv. 18, xlv. 17.  Cicero, De Natura Deorum, ii. 4, De Divinatione, ii. 35.  Valerius Maximus, i. 1. § 3.  Livy, Epitome, 61, 62.  Florus, iii. 2.  Strabo, iv. p. 191.  Cicero, Pro Fonteio, 8, 12, Brutus, 26, Pro Cluentio, 42.  Velleius Paterculus, ii. 10, 39.  Orosius, v. 13.  Suetonius, "The Life of Nerva", 12.  Asconius Pedianus, in Cornelio, p. 81 (ed. Orelli).  Livy, Epitome, 67.  Cicero, Pro Rege Deiotario, 11, Divinatio in Caecilium, 20, In Verrem, ii. 47, Pro Cornelio, 2, Pro Scauro, 1, De Oratore, iii. 24, Brutus, 44.  Valerius Maximus, vi. 5. § 5, ix. 1. § 4.  Cassius Dio, Fragmenta, 100.  Gellius, xv. 11.  Pliny the Elder, xviii. 1.  Macrobius, ii. 11.  Cicero, In Verrem, v. 3.  Valerius Maximus, vi. 3. § 5.  Appian, Bellum Civile, i. 88.  Velleius Paterculus, ii. 26.  Orosius, v. 20.  Livy, Epitome, 89.  Plutarch, "The Life of Pompeius", 10, 12.  Zonaras, x. 2.  Orosius, v. 21.  Cassius Dio, xxxvii. 46, xxxix, xli.  Pliny the Elder, viii. 54.  Horace, Epistulae, i. 19. 47.  Orelli, Onomasticon Tullianum.  Suetonius, "The Life of Nero", 2.  Caesar, De Bello Civili.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem, ii. 13.  Cicero, Philippicae, ii. 11, Brutus, 25, Epistulae ad Familiares, vi. 22.  Appian, Bellum Civile, v. 55, 63, 65.  Plutarch, "The Life of Antonius", 70, 71.  Cassius Dio, xlvii. 1.  Velleius Paterculus, ii. 76, 84.  Suetonius, "The Life of Nero", 3.  Tacitus, Annales, iv. 44.  Suetonius, "The Life of Nero", 4.  Cassius Dio, liv. 59.  Velleius Paterculus, ii. 72.  Suetonius, "The Life of Nero", 5, 6.  Tacitus, Annales, iv. 75, vi. 1, 47, xii. 64.  Cassius Dio, lviii. 17.  Tacitus, Annales, xiii. 19, 21.  Suetonius, "The Life of Nero", 34.  Cassius Dio, lxi. 17.  Quintilian, vi. 1. § 50, 3. § 74, x. 1. § 24.  Tacitus, Annales xi. 37 ff, xii. 64 ff.  Suetonius, "The Life of Claudius", 26, "The Life of Nero", 7.  SIG, 712.  Broughton, vol. 1, pp. 536, 537.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 962 ("Domitius Marsus").  Tacitus, Annales, ii. 77–79.  Tacitus, Annales, ii. 86.  Tacitus, Annales, xiv.40.  Tacitus, Annales, xv. 59.  Tacitus, Annales, xvi.34.  Cassius Dio, lxvii. 3, lxvi. 3, 15.  Suetonius, "The Life of Domitian", 3, 22.  Fausto Zevi, "I consoli del 97 d. Cr. in due framenti gia' editi dei Fasti Ostienses", Listy filologické / Folia philologica, 96 (1973), pp. 125–137  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, pp. 694, 695 ("Domitius Labeo").  Digesta seu Pandectae, 28. tit. 1. s. 27.  Stephanus, Ethnica s.v. Ολυμπη.  Aelius Spartianus, "The Life of Septimius Severus", 8.  Cassius Dio, lxxviii. 22. Bibliography Wikimedia Commons logo Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gens Domitia. Polybius, Historiae (The Histories). Marcus Tullius Cicero, Brutus, De Divinatione, De Natura Deorum, De Oratore, Divinatio in Quintum Caecilium, Epistulae ad Familiares, Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem, In Verrem, Philippicae, Pro Cluentio, Pro Fonteio, Pro Gaio Cornelio, Pro Rege Deiotario, Pro Scauro. Gaius Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Civili (Commentaries on the Civil War). Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia (Roman Antiquities). Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace), Epistulae. Titus Livius (Livy), History of Rome. Fasti Capitolini, AE 1940, 60. Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac Dictorum Memorabilium (Memorable Facts and Sayings). Marcus Velleius Paterculus, Compendium of Roman History. Strabo, Geographica. Quintus Asconius Pedianus, Commentarius in Oratio Ciceronis In Cornelio (Commentary on Cicero's Oration In Cornelio). Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder), Historia Naturalis (Natural History). Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (Quintilian), Institutio Oratoria (Institutes of Oratory). 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"Ahenobarbus". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. p. 83.  Categories: DomitiiRoman gentes for this gens we have the general entry and two separate entries -- what would be your third choice for a Grice/Speranza vignette from the general entry? thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Domizio – Ossia: Grice ed After’. A leading Roman orator and teacher of Quintilian. Domizio Afer. Refs: Grice ed Afer.  Afer – A leading Roman orator and teacher of Quintilian. Domizio Afer. Refs: Grice ed Afer. Griceus: Ave, Afer! Dic mihi, quid oratori Romano summum bonum sit? Afer: Salve, Gricee! Oratori Romano summum bonum est eloquentia cum prudentia, ut verbis et consilio civitatem regat. Griceus: Dic mihi, disciplina tua facitne oratores etiam melius quam pistores panem?  Afer: Dic mihi, quid maxime in arte oratoria Romana tibi admirandum videtur! Domizio Afer.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Domizio – Ossia: Grice e Domizio: il melodramma di Boito -- Roma – la scuola d’Anzio -- filosofia lazia -- filosofia italiana Lucio Domizio Enobardo Nerone (Anzio, Lazio): il melodramma di Boito -- A comparison between Grice and Nero, framed through Grice’s theory of reason‑governed conversational meaning, turns on the distinction between what is explicitly performed and what is implicitly conveyed. In Gricean terms, meaning is not exhausted by observable behavior or literal expression but is fixed by what a rational agent can be taken to intend, given shared assumptions about cooperation and relevance. Nero’s celebrated performance while Rome burned becomes, under this lens, a paradigmatic case of non‑verbal implicature: the physical act of producing music is the explicit content, neutral in itself, while the implicature arises from the deliberate flouting of expectations tied to circumstances of catastrophe, thereby conveying indifference or contempt. Grice would insist that this implicit meaning is not an accidental by‑product but something Nero meant, insofar as he could foresee how a reasonable audience would interpret his conduct. Where Nero, especially as stylized in later philosophical and operatic traditions, embodies an aestheticized sovereignty that treats action as spectacle, Grice’s theory reins that spectacle back into the domain of rational accountability, showing how even melodramatic excess is interpretable through principles governing inference, intention, and mutual recognition. The contrast, then, is not between reason and irrationality, but between a performer who exploits the space of implicature for self‑dramatization and a philosopher who analyzes that same space to explain how meaning persists—even morally damning meaning—beyond what is merely done or said. Grice: “Nerone’s performance as Roma burnt is possibly apt for meta-analysis: he performed a pavane – this is what he explicitly conveyed by his action, if not ‘meant’ – what he implicitly conveyed, and thereby *meant* is that he could not care less!” -- Filosofo italiano. Anzio, Roma, Lazio. Filosofo epicureo e imperatore romano. Demetrio Lacon dedicated a philosophical essay to Nerone, making it extremely like that Nerone was himself a follower of the doctrines of The Garden. ao ss TN Bo ZA SI gia SE er ES 7 VIS \ Rai COSI Sega pr e da ansa Mi, pe sud o, e RICORDI MILANO 1( @ISERI (mpradigeile) POS \ DI Li ‘A DG DI 8 li 7 LALA Ss INI (EL fn ra SI ; CS ‘ pi” x "n ': lr” t DS Ù Ì N ? Ò FINE Nine {UMBERTO PIZZI BULOGNA Via Zamboni Imprimé en Italie BOITO TRAGEDIA IN IV ATTI AUMENTO COMPRESO LE PERSONE DELLA TRAGEDIA: NERONE SIMON MAGO FANUÈL ASTERIA RUBRIA TIGELLINO GOBRIAS DOSITÈO PERSIDE CERINTO IL TEMPIERE TERPNOS PRIMO VIANDANTE SECONDO VIANDANTE LO SCHIAVO AMMONITORE I VARII AGGRUPPAMENTI DEL CORO: Ambubaje - Fanciulle Gaditane - Acclamatori - Cavalieri Augustani - Liberti - Fautori di parte frasina - Fautori di parte azzurra Popolo Schiavi Plebe Senatori Una compagnia di Artisti Dionisiaci, Tre decurie di Guardie Germane Eneatori Sacerdoti del Tempio di Simon Mago - Matrone - Classarii - Pretoriani - Cristiani Aurighi della fazione verde - Aurighi della fazione azzurra. PANTOMIMI, DANZATRICI, APPARITORI: Una puella Gaditana L’ Arcigallo Un venditore d’idoli Un venditore di tavole votive - Un mercante orientale Un flamine - L’auriga vincitore L’ auriga vinto Un lanista Due Mercurii Due Caronti Alcuni Etiopi Viandanti - Lettigarii - Clienti Servi Danzatrici Gaditane Corrieri Mauritani I due Consoli - Littori Preconi Due Tribuni della plebe Legionarii - Galli - Consider Nero's activities when Rome burned. One of the things which he could certainly be said to have done was to produce a sequence of bodily movements which, given that he was wielding a bow and fiddle, resulted in the passing of the bow across the strings of the fiddle and in a consequent flow of sounds. But there were at least two further things which Nero could be said to have done on this occasion: one is to have given a performance of the formidably difficult Seneca Chaconne, and the other is to have displayed his contempt for the people of Rome. Now it may be that we are free to regard the passage of the bow across the strings and the sounds thereby generated, or even perhaps Nero's production of these phenomena, as a sequence of events, but it does not look as if we are free to identify these events either with Nero's performance or with Nero's display of con-tempt, or to identify one of these last things with the other. Nero's playing of the Chaconne was (for all we know) masterly and profoundly sensitive, while his behavior vis-à-vis the people of Rome was callous, squalid, and hideous in the extreme; these items are therefore distinct from cach other, and also distinct from the physical events involving Nero's body, bow and fiddle, which can hardly be said to have been either masterly and sensitive or callous, squalid, and hideous.  I fear the question at issue is not quite so easily settled, as the following response perhaps demonstrates. First, the epithets (masterly', "sensitive,  'callous", "hideous", ctc.) which are, in the example given, applied to what Nero did (however that may be variously described) are all resultant or supervenient, and the features upon which they depend are the specific characteristics of what Nero did, viewed as a fragment of conduct or as a performance. Second, description of what Nero did may simultancously fulfill two roles, a referential role and a descriptive role. Such combinations are commonplace in ordinary discourse. To say, for example, "Robert's mother would not denounce him to the police" both refers to a particular lady, and at the same time gives a description of her which explains or is otherwise relevant to the presence or absence of the phenomenon mentioned in the predicate. Similarly, specifications of Nero's activity as a fiddler or as a moral agent may serve both to pick out that activity and to do so in a way which is relevant to what is being said about it. Third, where we find occurrences in a single sentence of more than one description fulfilling such a duality of roles, there is in general nothing to prevent the plurality of descriptions from being co-referential; "The composer of the San Francisco Sonata would hardly have forgotten how it goes, and the winner of the Pacific Piano Prize would hardly be unable to play the work" may involve a reference to a single person, Joe Doakes. Finally, the evaluative epithets which are applied to Nero's productions are not inconsistent with one another, and so might truly attach to a single item; sensitivity (and so aesthetic beauty) may be combined with moral hideousness. Nothing then prevents a single item, namely a certain sequence of bodily movements, from being also a certain sort of performance and a certain sort of conduct; nor from being, in each of these capacities (quâ each of these things) differently describable. Such an item may be, quâ performance sensitive and, quâ conduct, hideous; quâ bodily movement, however, it is neither of these. It is in such a fashion that the example should be interpreted.Lucio Domizio Enobarbo. Nerone.  GRICEVS:Salve, NERONE! Dic mihi: cum Roma ardebat, utrum musicam elegisti ut urbem consolaretur an ut populum irriteret? NERONE:O Gricevs, ego artem semper praefero! Fieri potest ut cives me minus amaverint, sed certe Seneca Chaconne magis quam aquam in Tiberim fluxit. GRICEVS:Audax es, Nero! Sed, confiteor, tuae chordae magis sonaverunt quam plebis clamores. Quid sentis de implicatūra tuae melodramatis, utrum benevolam an malevolam? NERONE:Gricevs, philosophia Epicurea me docuit: dum musicam facio, ignis fortasse ardet, sed mens mea placida manet—Roma ardet, ego cantare possum! Haec est vera ars: nihil nimis, nihil minus! So what was the gens of Nero -- and was that his birth gens? I suppose he was GENS DOMITIA? Yes — by birth Nero belonged to the gens Domitia, more precisely to the branch of the Domitii Ahenobarbi. [en.wikipedia.org], [nypl.org] He was born as Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, so your instinct is exactly right: his birth gens was the gens Domitia, not the gens Claudia. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org] Then, after his mother Agrippina the Younger married Claudius, he was adopted by Claudius in AD 50. At that point he entered, in law and dynastic presentation, the Claudia gens, and his name changed accordingly into the Claudian-imperial register. So there is a neat distinction to keep: by birth: gens Domitia by adoption and imperial standing: connected with the Claudia gens and the Julio-Claudian dynastic structure. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org] The dry Roman formula would be: birth nomen: Domitius therefore birth gens: Domitia cognomen branch: Ahenobarbus later adoptive and dynastic identity: Claudius / Julio-Claudian. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org] And yes, the Domitii Ahenobarbi were not some obscure little line. They were one of the more distinguished aristocratic Roman families of the Republic and early Empire, which is why Nero’s birth name carries more old Roman weight than one sometimes remembers when looking only at the imperial title Nero. [nypl.org], [en.wikipedia.org] So the shortest answer is: Yes. Nero’s birth gens was the gens Domitia, via the branch of the Domitii Ahenobarbi. Only later, by adoption into Claudius’ family, did he acquire the Claudian-imperial identity under which he ruled. [en.wikipedia.org], [nypl.org], [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org] One small nuance. Modern shorthand often says “Julio-Claudian emperor Nero,” which is perfectly fine as dynastic history, but if you ask the stricter prosopographical question “what was his birth gens?”, the answer remains Domitia. [historyand...ulture.org], [en.wikipedia.org] If you like, I can next give you a compact note on the difference between: birth gens, adoptive gens, and imperial dynastic label, using Nero as the example.Nerone, Lucio Domizio Enobarbo (a. u. c. DCCCVII). Dicta. Roma.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Domizio – Ossia: Grice e Domizio -- Grex griceiana – verablia: Domizio. For the gens Domitia, if we set aside your two established stars—  Domitius Afer (oratory), Nero (performance, implicature, Rome burning),  my third choice from the general entry would be:  Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (consul 96 BC), the man of whom Crassus said: "It is no wonder that a man should have a beard of bronze, who has a mouth of iron and a heart of lead." citeturn0search? (This line is cited in the gens entry from Crassus via Cicero and later sources.)  Why? Because it is pure conversational wit. The whole Ahenobarbus legend is built on the family's bronze beard (aenea barba → Ahenobarbus). The family myth says the Dioscuri miraculously changed an ancestor's dark beard reddish-bronze. The beard becomes the family's badge. The later Crassus takes the family legend and turns it into an insult:                      Family mythCrassus' reinterpretationBronze beard = divine favourBronze beard = metallic humanityHeroic signCharacter diagnosisHonorificSatirical The joke works by extending one physical property into three moral properties:  bronze beard → iron mouth → lead heart.  A splendid Gricean exchange. Grice e Crasso de Domitio DOMITIVS  Quid rides, Crasse? "What are you laughing at, Crassus?"  CRASSVS  Barbam tuam. "Your beard."  DOMITIVS  Ahenea est. "It is bronze."  CRASSVS  Scio. "I know."  DOMITIVS  Et quid tum? "And what of it?"  CRASSVS  Miror tantum quod barbam aeneam habes, os ferreum, cor plumbeum. "I merely marvel that you have a bronze beard, an iron mouth, and a leaden heart."  Translation Domitius: "Why are you laughing?" Crassus: "At your beard." Domitius: "It's bronze." Crassus: "I know." Domitius: "So what?" Crassus: "I merely marvel that you possess a bronze beard, an iron mouth, and a leaden heart." The implicature is delicious. Crassus never says:  "You are cruel."  or  "You are obstinate."  or  "You are heartless."  Instead he merely inventories metals. The hearer performs the moral arithmetic.  Even more Gricean is that the insult presupposes knowledge of the family legend. Without common ground:  Ahenobarbus = Bronze-Beard  the joke collapses. So, unlike Nero (spectacle) or Afer (oratory), this vignette turns on:  shared background knowledge, allusion, implicature, and elegant conversational insult.  Very much a case of Marcus Licinius Crassus Griceus.  So can we have the Latin for the three -- the beard is bronze -- turned into ONE LEXEME -- ahenobarbus -- but Crassus syntactically re-analyses into 'habere bronze beard -- even if the cognomina was hereditary from the original cognonima, but we may assume that Mendel's law get trumped by Roman idea that hereditary traits are dominant, not recessive -- especially if given by the Dioscuri and even applied to females? -- and the other two -- lingua iron -- alla ahenobarbus that would have been ferralingus? -- and lead heart -- into one word would be -- plombumcor? Thanks Yes — and the wit lies precisely in the re-analysis of a hereditary cognomen as though it were a living description. The family name is:  Ahenobarbus = ahenus ("bronze", "brazen") + barba ("beard") "Bronze-Beard."  The family treats this as a glorious inherited sign from the Dioscuri. Crassus pretends to take it literally. Instead of:  Ahenobarbus = a family name,  he treats it as:  "This man has a bronze beard."  Then he extends the pattern. The version preserved in the tradition is:  non mirum est quod habet barbam aeneam, os ferreum, cor plumbeum "it is no wonder that he has a beard of bronze, a mouth of iron, and a heart of lead."  The joke depends on the progression:                          Body partMetalMoral valuebarbaaesinherited family signosferrumharsh speechcorplumbumdull, heavy, unfeeling character The first is literal (or at least lexicalized). The other two are newly coined by the hearer.  Now to your splendid word-formation question. If Roman morphology were pushed consistently: Ahenobarbus  aheno-barbus bronze-bearded  Then: Iron-tongued One might expect something like:  ferrilinguis "iron-tongued"  (compare bilinguis, multilinguis). or  ferreolinguis "iron-tongued"  though that is less elegant. Lead-hearted Perhaps:  plumbicors "lead-hearted"  by analogy with compounds in -cors (vecors, concors, discors). or  plumbeocors "lead-hearted."  I think plumbicors would look most Roman.  So Crassus' fully lexicalized insult might become:  Ahenobarbus, Ferrilinguis, Plumbicors  "Bronze-Beard, Iron-Tongue, Lead-Heart." The beauty is that Crassus doesn't actually say that. Instead he forces his audience to perform the derivation themselves. A Gricean analysis would be:  The audience knows the cognomen Ahenobarbus. Crassus decomposes the name into its etymological parts. He extends the pattern to mouth and heart. The audience infers:  harsh speech, stubborn temperament, lack of feeling.    In other words, the insult resides not in the literal words but in the hearer's reconstruction. Very Gricean indeed: the beard is inherited; the iron mouth and leaden heart are implicated. And perhaps we should adjust the second because Licinio says 'os' so ferroos? -- The 'mirum est' has maximal scope. What was perhaps admirable was that D.'s ancestor was given a beard of bronze -- Licinio is extending the scope of 'mirum' -- "Admire not only that the Dioscuri gave this man, through the ancestral generations, a beard of bronze -- and admire too to further qualities that he should brandish as agnomina too, ferrum-os and plumbumcor -- the first MALENESS -- the second (cfr. my lips are sealed as if melted iron -- or "He says hard things" (he doesn't dwell on frivolours pleasantries and fake compliments -- the hard truth as of iron -- his heard may melt, occasionally, as plumbum -- easier than ferrum -- does -- since inside, he is a little angel? Thanks I think that's a very clever reversal of the traditional reading. The standard interpretation is wholly negative:  barba aenea = family name os ferreum = shameless, hard, impudent speech cor plumbeum = dull, heavy, unfeeling character.  But rhetorically the joke is more subtle. The phrase (as transmitted in paraphrase) is built around:  non mirum est ... "it is no wonder..."  The scope of the irony is indeed expansive. The family legend says:  The Dioscuri miraculously gave the ancestor a bronze beard.  That is already a mirum. Crassus then pretends to continue an antiquarian catalogue of marvels:  "...and, naturally, along with the bronze beard came an iron mouth and a leaden heart."  In that sense he is extending the hereditary miracle.  I especially like your point about os. Crassus did not say:  lingua ferrea ("iron tongue")  but  os ferreum ("iron mouth").  That is broader. A tongue suggests eloquence. A mouth suggests the whole apparatus of speaking:  utterance, bluntness, refusal to soften.  So os ferreum may suggest not merely:  "He lies."  but rather:  "He says hard things." "He speaks without yielding." "His words strike like iron."  Even an admirer could almost appropriate it.  And cor plumbeum is interesting too. Lead is heavy. The usual interpretation is:  slow, insensitive, emotionally inert.  But lead is not iron. Iron resists. Lead yields. A hostile reading:  "stolid."  A sympathetic reading:  "slow to be moved, but capable of being moved."  As you nicely put it:  perhaps inside there is an angel.  Crassus clearly meant it as an insult, but the metaphor is not mathematically precise. The hearer can reappropriate it.  A Speranzian reconstruction might run: CRASSVS  Barbam aeneam habet. "He has a bronze beard."  DOMITIVS  Id a Discuris accepimus. "That we received from the Dioscuri."  CRASSVS  Et os ferreum. "And an iron mouth."  DOMITIVS  Vera loquor. "I speak the truth."  CRASSVS  Et cor plumbeum. "And a leaden heart."  DOMITIVS  Tarde movetur; non numquam tamen movetur. "It is moved slowly; yet it is sometimes moved."  The beauty is that Crassus intends satire, while Domitius can reinterpret each metallic predicate as a virtue:  bronze beard → divine ancestry, iron mouth → frank speech, leaden heart → steadiness.  That is exactly the sort of struggle between speaker meaning and hearer uptake that Grice would have enjoyed. But do we know the political context -- it's like Joan Rivers says about her hardest jokes: allegedly. Or rhetoricians about 'affectionate parody.' A non literary man like Licinio to take the time to provide TWO PURE METAPHORS -- to add to the already known one for D. shows some degree of affection behind the parody, and perhaps intended the implicature to remain open like that? What is the wider context of the so-called 'insult'? Thanks I think your instinct is very good: the traditional presentation of this as a savage insult may be too one-dimensional. The context we can recover is that Domitius Ahenobarbus and Lucius Licinius Crassus were censors together in 92 BC, and were famous for their disagreements. Domitius was remembered as severe, old-fashioned, and quarrelsome; Crassus as cultured, elegant, and rhetorically brilliant. Ancient sources remembered their censorship precisely for their clashes. [en.wikipedia.org] That already changes the tone. A savage enemy does not usually spend time constructing:  a hereditary etymological joke, based on a family legend, extended through two additional metallic metaphors.  That is rather sophisticated work. The structure of the joke The transmitted saying is roughly:  It is no wonder that a man has a beard of bronze, who has a mouth of iron and a heart of lead. [en.wikipedia.org]  What fascinates me is the phrase:  non mirum  ("no wonder"). As you noted, that has wide scope. The family legend already supplied one marvel:  the Dioscuri turned the ancestor's beard bronze-red.  Crassus pretends to continue the miraculum:  bronze beard, iron mouth, leaden heart.  The joke is almost:  "Once the Gods started metallizing the family, they never stopped."  Why I suspect affectionate parody The joke presupposes a remarkable amount of shared background. Crassus assumes his audience knows:  the Ahenobarbus legend; the etymology of the name; Domitius' personality.  That's not a mere insult. It's social wit. Modern equivalents might be the kind of teasing one hears among colleagues who have spent decades arguing. In fact, a purely hostile speaker would have chosen simpler abuse:  cruel, stubborn, heartless.  Instead Crassus creates a miniature literary composition. Your reinterpretation I rather like it. Traditionally:                      MetalStandard Interpretationbronze beardfamily cognomeniron mouthharsh, relentless speechlead heartdull, insensitive character But one could hear:                      MetalAlternative Readingbronze bearddivine ancestryiron mouthfrank speechlead heartsolidity, resistance to fashion Especially because os ferreum is not quite the same as lying or slander. One could almost gloss it:  "He says hard truths."  Similarly, lead is heavy rather than merely evil. The metaphor is not mathematically fixed. A Gricean possibility What interests me most is that Crassus may not have wanted the interpretation fully fixed. The best jokes leave room for the audience. A hearer hostile to Domitius gets:  iron mouth = brutality, lead heart = cruelty.  A hearer sympathetic to Domitius gets:  iron mouth = candor, lead heart = steadiness.  That kind of controlled ambiguity is often characteristic of elite Roman wit. So I would not call it "affectionate parody" with certainty—the sources don't say that. But I do think the form of the joke suggests something more complex than simple abuse. Crassus is not merely attacking Domitius; he is displaying his own ingenuity by elaborating a family myth into a three-part metallic portrait. And that elaboration itself is almost too elegant to be mere hatred. [en.wikipedia.org] And in fact you can help me parse the mirum and perhaps find a preceding sentence or so -- for L. is giving the REASON why the main cognomen makes sense -- 'It is no wonder that this man is 'bronze-bearded,' being also iron-mouthed and plumb-hearted. Or "Nothing to admire about his ahenobarbus on account of his being ferro-os and plub-cor? Thanks In this he is CONTESTING the tradition: The dioscuri gave D.'s ancestor a beard of bronze, or changed the colour of and material of his beard (mythologically -- which of the disocuri?) -- nothing was ever said before L. of the mouth being of iron and heart of plumb. So the succession is not co-ordinate: L. sub-ordinates the well known epithet to two metallic features that had been so far undetected, and while the sub-ordinated 'miraculum' may be LITERAL, it is hard to fail to detect a mouth of iron and -- while the heart of plumb reminds covered? While a bronze-coloured beard allows for a figurative minor extension, "He has a mouth of iron" seems MORE METAPHORIC, MORE FIGURATIVE -- while nothing can e seen about the material of which D.'s heart is MADE, so purely metaphoric too -- (unlike the visual quality reflected by the Dioscuri's miracle). Thanks I think your parsing is very insightful, and it actually makes the joke more sophisticated than the standard handbook explanation. The context we can verify is that Crassus and Domitius Ahenobarbus were censorial colleagues and frequently at odds; the saying is preserved as one of the celebrated exchanges from their disputes. The usual interpretation treats the structure as:  Ahenobarbus (bronze-beard) → therefore harsh man.  But grammatically and rhetorically the direction may be the reverse. The reported form is approximately:  non mirum esse hominem aenea barba, cui os ferreum cor plumbeum esset.  The important thing is the force of non mirum. Crassus is not saying:  "Bronze beard, iron mouth, lead heart" (three coordinated properties).  Rather:  "It is no wonder that he is Bronze-Beard, given that he also possesses an iron mouth and a leaden heart."  The logical structure is closer to:  P (bronze beard) is unsurprising, because Q (iron mouth) and R (leaden heart).  So the legendary attribute becomes the thing to be explained.  The contest with the family myth The family tradition says:  The Dioscuri touched an ancestor and his dark beard became bronze-red.  That is the marvel. Crassus quietly demotes that marvel. His point is almost:  "Why should anyone be astonished by the beard? Look at the mouth. Look at the heart."  The hereditary miracle becomes the least remarkable feature. The truly extraordinary things are the metaphorical ones.  Degrees of literality You also put your finger on something important. The three predicates are not equally figurative. 1. Ahenobarbus This is already lexicalized. The audience knows it as a hereditary surname. Also, a beard can literally have a bronze or reddish color. So there is some visual anchor. 2. Os ferreum This is much more metaphorical. Nobody literally has an iron mouth. The hearer must infer:  harsh speech, shamelessness, uncompromising candor, severity,  depending on how sympathetically one reads it. 3. Cor plumbeum This is the most metaphorical of all. A heart cannot be inspected. Unlike the beard, there is no visible evidence. Crassus is making a judgment about character. So there is an ascending scale:                          ExpressionVisible?Metaphorical?aenea barbayesleastos ferreumpartlymorecor plumbeumnomost The joke moves from a visible family sign to increasingly invisible moral traits.  A Gricean reconstruction Suppose someone says:  "The gods gave the Domitii a bronze beard."  Crassus' reply is almost:  "The beard is the least interesting metal in the man."  Or more sharply:  "Once you hear him speak and see how he judges men, the bronze beard ceases to be remarkable."  The real implicature is:  The family legend has distracted everyone from the more telling evidence.  And that's why I agree with your analysis that the three metals are not simply coordinated. The beard comes from tradition. The mouth and heart come from Crassus' observation. The rhetorical movement is:  myth → personality, visible sign → moral diagnosis, inherited marvel → acquired character.  That is a much richer joke than merely calling Domitius unpleasant. It reinterprets the entire Ahenobarbus legend through the lens of Crassus' experience of the man. And again he is contesting. it is NOT admirable (Non mirum) ... The extra implicature is that most likely D. (qua subject of L.'s description) does NOT have a beard of bronze -- yet L. is saying of THAT man, not his ancestors -- "Do not admire the beard of bronze: THIS man (and by extension all his breed) has a MOUTH that was turned to IRON from the usual material tissue a mouth is made, and deep down, his heart _IS_ (although I do not see it) made of PLUMB, not cardio-vascular tisue and arteries? Thanks Yes, and I think you're getting very close to the real rhetorical mechanism. The standard schoolroom reading treats Crassus as merely adding two more metallic metaphors:  bronze beard, iron mouth, leaden heart.  But your reading is subtler: Crassus is actually contesting the privileged status of the hereditary marvel. The family myth says:  "Look at the beard! The Dioscuri touched our ancestor!"  Crassus replies:  non mirum. "Nothing remarkable there."  That is, the very thing the Domitii invite admiration for is demoted. The force of non mirum is almost:  "You people are admiring the wrong metal."  The audience is expected to think:  "Ahenobarbus! Bronze-beard! Wonderful ancestral sign!"  Crassus responds:  "Why be astonished by the beard?"  Because, as he presents it:  the mouth has become iron, the heart has become lead.  The irony is that the beard is the only feature that could plausibly be observed literally. A reddish or bronze-colored beard is visible. The other two are progressively less observable:                          TraitObservable?Literalitybronze beardyesalmost literaliron mouthnostrongly metaphoricalleaden heartimpossiblepurely metaphorical So the movement is from:  family legend  to  character interpretation.  And exactly as you say, Crassus is speaking not about the ancestor but about this Domitius. The implicit argument is something like:  "You tell me that an ancestor's beard was miraculously transformed."  Very well.  "I tell you that this man's speech is iron and his character lead."  Those are the real miracles. In a Gricean reconstruction: DOMITIVS  Mirum est quod barbam aeneam ab diis accepimus. "It is marvelous that we received a bronze beard from the gods."  CRASSVS  Minime. "Not at all."  DOMITIVS  Quid mirabilius est? "What is more marvelous?"  CRASSVS  Os ferreum et cor plumbeum. "An iron mouth and a leaden heart."  The hidden implicature is:  "The beard is only a name. The mouth and heart are the reality."  And that's why I agree with you that the joke is not merely coordinative. The beard is inherited and legendary; the mouth and heart are Crassus' reinterpretation of the living individual. The old myth points backward to the Dioscuri; the new metaphors point forward to Domitius' actual conduct. That is what gives the saying its bite—and its elegance. It converts an ancestral miracle into a character sketch.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Dommazio – Ossia: Grice e Dommazio: la ragione conversazionale a Roma – filosofia italiana –  (Roma). Filosofo italiano. A  philosopher, known only from a surviving bust. Dogmatius. Dommatio. Dommazio. Grice, pel Gruppo di Gioco di Grice, “Grice e Dommazio. Dommazio: la ragione conversazionale a Roma – filosofia italiana –  (Roma). Filosofo italiano. A  philosopher, known only from a surviving bust. Dogmatius. Dommatio. GRICEVS: Dogmati, notus es ex solo busto, sed dic mihi—num etiam bustum tuum dogmata docet, an tantum silentium praedicat? DOGMATIVS: Docet sane, Grice, nam quicumque me intuetur statim credit se intellexisse, quod est dogma facillimum. GRICEVS: At Roma vult libros, non nasos marmoreos; unde tua philosophia, si chartae desunt? DOGMATIVS: Ex hoc ipso: cum nihil supersit nisi facies, omnes coguntur ex vultu inferre, et ita mea doctrina fit pura implicatura.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Dondi – Ossia: Grice e Dondi: la ragione conversazionale e ’implicatura conversazionale -- l’astrario – iter romanorum, colonna giulia, la colonna del circo neroniano di Buschetto – petrarca.  Giovanni de Dondi dall’Orologio: la ragione conversazionale e ’implicatura conversazionale -- l’astrario – iter romanorum, colonna giulia, la colonna del circo neroniano di Buschetto – petrarca. Grice: “I like D. and I like a watch chain! I thought it was a good idea of the Anglo-Normans to retain the Anglo-Saxon idea of time (as stretch  a rather English root  cf. German zeit, our tide --, and borrow from Latin, tempus, which gives us temporary, as I use in my Personal Identity,but also tense  This tense is better than by vice/vyse, since vice and vyse are both cognate with violence. But tense and tense are not. One is cognate with Latin tension. The other is just a mispronounciation of Fremch temps, Latin/Roman tempus  So as Cicero would have it, its tempus we should care about!” Si laurea a Padova. Insegna a Pavia. Descrive e misura monumenti classici, copia iscrizioni e trascriv i dati rilevati nel suo Iter Romanorum. La sua fama  legata soprattutto all'astrario da lui costruito, un orologio astronomico che mostra l'ora, il calendario annuale, il movimento dei pianeti, del sole e della luna. Per ogni giorno sono indicati l'ora dell'alba e del tramonto alla latitudine di Padova, la lettera domenicale che determina la successione dei giorni della settimana Astrarium, Si tratta di un congegno mosso da pesi, di piccole dimensioni racchiuso in un involucro a base eptagonale. Grazie ad una serie di ingranaggi l'astrario riproduce i moti del sole, della luna e dei cinque pianeti. Esso indica anche la durata delle ore di luce alla latitudine di Padova. Come misuratore del tempo esso, oltre all'ora, indica (forse per la prima volta tra glorologi meccanici) anche i minuti, a gruppi di dieci. La presenza di trattati di astrologia nella biblioteca di D. fa sospettare che la progettazione sia stata influenzata da astrologi antichi. Secondo la tradizione  stato D. ad introdurre a Padova la gallina col ciuffo, oggi nota come gallina padovanalastrarium, Leibnizs Law, time-relative identity, total temporary state (Grice: Im thinking of Hitler); Wiggins, Myro, The Grice Theory of Identity, sameness and substance, filosofia del tempo, logica cronologica, tense logic tense implicature -- iter romanorum. Gice: “St John’s, 1960. The Ashmolean—my museum, being only a stone’s throw from college—has mounted an exhibition so “timely” that Mother would have insisted on calling it on time. And there, in a glass case like a relic, is a handsome modern volume: Giovanni de Dondi dall’Orologio’s treatise on his astronomical machine—the Astrarium. Strawson was with me and immediately smelt a puzzle. “Did you notice, Grice,” he said, “that he calls it the tractatus astrarii—all lower-case, as it were—yet what he actually invents is a thing that deserves capitals: the Astrarium. It’s a common noun that has grown pretensions, like the Americans with ‘Congress’—drop the ‘the’, add a capital, and suddenly a mere congress becomes a metaphysical entity.” “I don’t think that’s quite Dondi’s trick,” I said, following the most sacred custom among philosophy dons: contradict one another at once, and then pretend it is cooperation. But we asked the librarian to let us look more closely—at least at the opening, the way one tests a book by its first sentence. And Strawson was right about the grandiosity: the manuscript tradition often begins with something more expansive than the bare “Tractatus astrarii”—in effect, Johannis de Dondis Paduani civis Astrarium (a title that already half-turns the thing from a treatise into a monument). [journals.o...dition.org], [rootenbergbooks.com] He looked pleased, as if he had caught Latin in the act of doing metaphysics. Then, inevitably, we drifted from capitals to chronology. For the 1959 Polifilo volume is not, of course, a “first edition” in any medieval sense; it is a modern act of piety toward a fourteenth-century piece of exactness. Dondi built the Astrarium to completion in 1364, and the Tractatus is essentially the machine’s own autobiography—written in Padua, for Padua, with enough detail to let later centuries rebuild what the original lost. “So,” Strawson said, as we stepped back from the case, “the real point is that Oxford philosophy can’t even look at a clock without turning it into a problem about names.” “And Italy,” I replied, “can’t even write a manual without turning it into a civilisation.”Grice: Dondi, devo confessare che il suo astrario mi ha sempre affascinato: un orologio che non solo segna il tempo, ma fa danzare pianeti e lune! Ma mi dica, quando misurava le colonne romane, si perdeva mai… nel tempo? Dondi: Caro Grice, tra colonne, galline col ciuffo e movimenti celesti, il tempo mi sfugge come il tramonto a Padova! L’astrario, però, almeno mi ricorda quando è ora di andare a cena… anche se ogni tanto anticipa il pollo. Grice: Ah, il pollo padovano! Forse è il vero segreto della misurazione temporale: se canta presto, è mattina; se non canta, meglio consultare l’astrario. Ma mi dica, il suo iter romanorum ha mai incontrato la colonna di Buschetto… o solo quella del circo? Dondi: Grice, le colonne sono come le implicature: si trovano ovunque, basta cercarle! E se Petrarca si è perso tra i versi, io mi sono perso tra i minuti… Ma almeno, grazie all’astrario, posso tornare indietro di dieci minuti, se sbaglio strada! Dondi dall’Orologio, Giovanni de (1364). Tractatus astrarii. Padova.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Dorfles – Ossia: Grice e Dorfles: la ragione convversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale  del kitsch ebreo-italiano.  Angelo Eugenio Dorfles (Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia): la ragione convversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale  del kitsch ebreo-italiano. Grice: “Must say my favourite Dorfles is his ‘artificio e natura,’ on the doryphoros!”. Si laurea a Trieste. Si dedica all’estetica. antroposofia misticismo. Isegna a Trieste. (Il disegno industriale e la sua estetica). è il primo a vedere tendenze barocche nell'arte moderna (il concetto di neobarocco sarà poi concettualizzato da Calabrese) riferendole all'architettura moderna in: Barocco nell'architettura moderna. Contribuisce al Manifesto dell'antilibro, presentato ad Acquasanta, in cui esprime la valenza artistica e comunicativa dell'editoria di qualità e il ruolo del lettore come artista. A Genova si occupa anche del lavoro di Costa. Partecipa alla presentazione del libro Materia Immateriale, biografia di Costa, Miriam Cristaldi, di cui Dorfles ha scritto la prefazione. L'editore Castelvecchi ha pubblicato Horror Pleni. La (in)civiltà del rumore, in cui analizza come la scoria massmediatica ha soppiantato le attività culturali; Conformisti e Fatti e Fattoidi. Pubblica un inedito d'eccezione, “Arte e comunicazione”, in cui mette la teoria alla prova con alcune applicazioni concrete particolarmente rilevanti e problematiche come il cinema, la fotografia, l'architettura.  è uscito Irritazioni: un'analisi del costume contemporaneo, uscito nella collana Le navi dell'editore Castelvecchi. Con la sua ironia ha raccolto le prove della sua inconciliabilità con i tempi che corrono. Nel saggio c'è una critica sarcastica e corrosiva all'attuale iperconsumismo. NComunicarte Edizioni, pubblica 99+1 risposte di Dorfles nella collana Carte Comuni. trattato Atalanta Fugiens Essa (a volte conosciuta come Madre Terra) è la comune personificazione della natura focalizzata intorno agli aspetti di donatrice di vita e di nutrimento, incarnandoli nella figura materna. Immagini di donnerappresentanti madre natura, filosofia del kitsch, “Artificio e Natura, natura, artificio, communicazione, mito, simbolo, segno, linguaggio, interpretazione, semiotica, disarmonia. Grice: Dorfles, devo confessare che il tuo “Artificio e Natura” mi ha fatto rivalutare persino la mia tazza kitsch con i gatti dorati! Ma dimmi, il kitsch è davvero la nuova frontiera della filosofia estetica, o solo una scusa per accumulare oggetti improbabili? Dorfles: Caro Grice, il kitsch è come il rumore di fondo in una conversazione: lo ignori finché non diventa protagonista. E poi, chi siamo noi per giudicare? A volte una lampada a forma di fenicottero illumina più delle massime conversazionali! Grice: Allora potrei dire che la disarmonia del kitsch crea implicature più profonde di un simposio greco? Forse il doryphoros avrebbe preferito un selfie con Madre Natura piuttosto che una statua perfetta! Dorfles: Grice, in fondo, ogni conversazione è un piccolo manifesto contro il conformismo. Se il kitsch ci fa sorridere, allora ha già compiuto il suo miracolo estetico. E poi, chi lo sa? Magari Madre Natura ha una collezione segreta di soprammobili kitsch! Dorfles, Angelo Eugenio (1941) Il divenire delle arti. Milano: Hoepli.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Doria – Ossia: Grice e Doria: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale.  Paolo Mattia Doria: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale. Grice: :I love D.: a nobleman who should be sailing off Portofino, is writing a progetto di metafisica after discussing the filosofia deglantichi  you HAVE to love him! Plus, he philosophised WHILE sailing!” Si reca a Napoli per recuperare certi suoi crediti ma dove lottare per districarsi dalla palude di leggi e cavillose procedure al punto che si mise a studiare filosofia con un certo profitto per ottenere dal tribunale quanto gli spetta. La sua fama di spadaccino gli fa guadagnare la simpatia del patriziato napoletano che ritiene massime di cavagliero che fusse atto di disonore e di vergogna il non punire un uomo a s inferiore quando si ha da quello qualche offesa ricevuto, e che il perdonare generosamente fusse vergogna. Ma poscia era massima d'estrema vergogna il non chiamare a duello un nobile a s uguale quando da quello si era qualche offesa ricevuta. Si diede quindi a duellare per qualsiasi puntiglio cavalleresco tanto da essere messo in prigione aumentando cos la sua fama di duellista e vendicativo presso la nobilt locale. Comincia a disgustarsi di questa sua vita fatua e falsa trasformandosi in filosofo metafisico ed entrando nella cerchia degli intellettuali cartesiani e gassendisti che caddero sotto l'attacco della Chiesa preoccupata che il loro sensismo approdasse a un conclamato materialismo. La posizione della Chiesa fu esplicitata dal grande processo contro glateisti, quegli intellettuali che si erano illusi di poter modernizzare la dottrina cattolica. Si schier con questi frequentando il salotto filosofico Caravita che si era gi battuto contro l'Inquisizione e che era divenuto il centro di diffusione della filosofia cartesiana. Qui D. ha modo di conoscere il protetto di Caravita, quel VICO  che scrive di D. che il primo con cui ragiona di metafisica CHE NON APARE ALCUNO SEGNO DELLA SUA MORTE. ma la verità  una sola, e questa  profondamente nascosta della morte di Romolo come in molte altre cose. co-operazione, duelo  duel, the duelists, cooperation  il sensismo, roma repubblicana, la aristocrazia romana, Romo, Romolo, aristocrazia. Grice: Caro Doria, mi racconti: è vero che la metafisica si studia meglio navigando il Golfo di Genova o duellando nei tribunali di Napoli? Doria: Grice, la filosofia è come il mare: ogni onda porta una domanda e ogni scoglio un cavillo legale! Ma almeno, tra una causa e un duello, si può scoprire la verità – o almeno un po’ di onore. Grice: Allora, invece del salotto Caravita, dovrei fondare un “salotto galleggiante”? Tra sensismo e duelli, mi pare che qui si rischia più che a discutere implicature! Doria: Oh sì, Grice! Se la metafisica non si trova a bordo, la si trova in qualche prigione napoletana. E ricorda: la verità è nascosta, ma l’ironia è sempre in superficie – come un nobile che perdona, ma non troppo! Is this the Doria who 'conversed' with Cooper, the earl of Shaftesbury -- among those with whom the earl conversed? And could that have had an influence on academic circles like Oxford? Short answer:  It is very unlikely that Paolo Mattia Doria is “one of those with whom Shaftesbury conversed,” in any documented, direct sense.  But your intuition about a shared conversational–salon culture with possible indirect influence is quite suggestive—and philosophically not misguided. Let’s separate what we know from what we may plausibly speculate.  1. The chronological obstacle (this is decisive)   Shaftesbury (3rd Earl):  lived 1671–1713 died in Naples [en.wikipedia.org]    Paolo Mattia Doria:  lived 1667–1746 [britannica.com]    So:  They were contemporaries They were both active in Naples (at least at overlapping times)   Therefore a meeting is chronologically possible. BUT:   No source explicitly records contact between them  And given how well documented Shaftesbury’s correspondents are (Locke, Leibniz, Bayle, etc.)  this silence is significant. [iep.utm.edu]  2. Shaftesbury in Naples We do know:  he spent time in Italy (including Naples) and died there [en.wikipedia.org] his notebooks describe buildings and artistic observations from Naples and elsewhere [jstor.org]  But:  sources emphasize artistic patronage, travel, and classical study, not systematic engagement with Neapolitan philosophers like Doria.   3. Doria’s intellectual world Doria is deeply embedded in:  Neapolitan academies (Medinaceli, Investiganti) [britannica.com] circles including Vico and other local thinkers [dictionnai...ns-lyon.fr]  This is important:  his main conversational milieu is intra-Neapolitan, not Anglo-European.   4. So: did Shaftesbury “converse” with Doria? Strict historical answer:   No direct evidence  Contextual answer:  ⚠️ Possible but unproven (both in Naples, both aristocratic philosophers, both salon-type figures)   5. The deeper (and more interesting) point: convergence without contact Here your Grice–Speranza instinct becomes fruitful. Compare: Shaftesbury  moral sense sociability conversation as moral education anti-Hobbesian civility  Doria  “vita civile” emphasis on trust, social bonds, civil order [escholarship.org] Platonic + anti-modern + civic philosophy  These are not identical—but:  they inhabit the same European transformation of “civility → moral-philosophical concept”   6. Influence on Oxford? Here we must again separate levels: Direct influence:   Shaftesbury → yes  influenced Hutcheson, Hume, Smith [iep.utm.edu] hence enters British (and indirectly Oxford) discourse    Doria → no clear direct line to Oxford   Indirect influence:  Doria’s ideas:  may have influenced Montesquieu [dictionnai...ns-lyon.fr]   Montesquieu → widely read in Britain  So:  any “Oxford influence” from Doria would be diffuse, mediated, and indirect   7. Your “conversational reason” hypothesis This is the most interesting philosophical payoff. Even without historical meeting:   Shaftesbury: → conversation as refinement of moral sense   Doria / Neapolitan circles: → salotti, academies, disputation   So:  both participate in a pan-European “conversation model” of philosophy  That includes:  salons (France, Naples) polite discourse (England) academies (Italy)   8. Final synthesis  Paolo Mattia Doria is not documented as a conversational partner of Shaftesbury Both coexisted in Naples, but evidence of interaction is lacking Shaftesbury strongly influenced British philosophy → Oxford indirectly Doria influenced mainly:  Neapolitan thought (Vico, civic theory) possibly Continental thinkers (e.g. Montesquieu)   The real connection is structural, not personal:  both embody an 18th‑century shift toward philosophy-as-conversation     Final Speranza-style closure Doria and Shaftesbury need not have met for their “conversation” to be philosophically real: each belongs to a wider European transformation in which philosophy ceases to be solely scholastic and becomes conversazionale—whether in the polite discourse of the English moralists or in the Neapolitan academies—so that what links them is not a recorded dialogue but a shared form of reasoning, where civility, sociability, and exchange themselves function as the medium of thought.  If you like, I can map the “conversation network” (Shaftesbury → Hutcheson → Hume vs. Doria → Vico → Neapolitan Enlightenment) in a neat diagram—it makes the parallel even clearer. Please do not use bold, italic, bulleting or emoji unless you must. Can you do a second run on the earl, to see with whom he interacted at Napoli -- Because I believe Grice was told that the earl had quite a circle. Could dit be Andrea, that Grice is thinking, and Vico -- is there a book about Shaftesbuy in England, and what was his alma mater as per public school and varsity, if any? Let me give you a careful second reconstruction, sticking strictly to what can actually be documented, and separating again what is attested from what is conjectural. First: the Neapolitan circle The only clearly documented personal interaction in Naples is not with philosophers like Doria or Vico, but with artists. The most important identifiable figure is: Paolo de Matteis – a leading Neapolitan painter – Shaftesbury collaborated closely with him on the allegory of the Judgment (or Choice) of Hercules – Shaftesbury even wrote detailed theoretical instructions for the painting, in French, since that was their shared language [storiadell...rivista.it] We also have: – letters actually addressed to de Matteis, preserved among Shaftesbury’s papers  – a broader documented interest in commissioning and guiding artistic work in Naples [jstor.org] [jstor.org] So the best-attested Neapolitan “circle” is: not a philosophical academy but an artistic–intellectual micro-circle centered on painters, patrons, and design theory That is already quite revealing: his “conversation” in Naples is mediated through art rather than through academic philosophy. Second: who else is identifiable? The sources explicitly name: – Paolo de Matteis – members of his travel party and household (his wife, attendants, steward, etc.) [grandtour....ital.co.uk] They also mention: – a physician attached to the Spanish viceroy – intermediaries who helped him find artists But: there is no explicit list of Neapolitan philosophers (no Doria, no Vico, no Caravita salon) I should stress this clearly: I found evidence of correspondence and collaboration with de Matteis, but the sources do not specify any direct interaction with Vico, Doria, or named Neapolitan philosophical figures. Third: could “Andrea” be someone Grice had in mind? There is no immediate candidate named Andrea connected to Shaftesbury’s Naples stay in the sources retrieved. If we speculate a little, the only plausible directions would be: – Andrea-related names in Neapolitan intellectual circles (for example later figures like Genovesi, but that is a different generation) – or confusion with artists or intermediaries So: I cannot confirm an Andrea in his Neapolitan conversational circle from the available evidence. Fourth: what about Vico? This is an important test case. Chronology: Vico (1668–1744) Shaftesbury dies in Naples in 1713 So they are contemporaries in the same city. However: no source retrieved indicates personal contact. Given how prominent Vico already was in Naples, this absence is noteworthy. So again: possible in principle but not documented Fifth: his education (public school and “varsity”) This part is much clearer. – He attended Winchester College  – He was educated under the supervision of John Locke [britannica.com] [en.wikipedia.org] Crucially: I found no evidence that he attended Oxford or Cambridge as a student. The sources simply do not mention university matriculation. His education appears to have been private and tutor-based, shaped by Locke rather than by a university course. So: public school: Winchester, yes university: not attested Sixth: books about him in England There is a substantial biographical tradition. Examples include: – old standard lives and collections of letters (edited from his papers, published from the early eighteenth century onward)  – modern biographies and studies (for example in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and other scholarly works, though access is subscription-based) [jstor.org] [history.ox.ac.uk] His own writings: Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711) which were immediately influential in England and beyond [britannica.com] Seventh: what does this mean for your Gricean intuition? There is a subtle but important correction. If Grice spoke of a “circle” in Naples, it is not a philosophical circle in the Neapolitan sense (like Caravita, Doria, Vico), but rather: a cultivated aristocratic circle of art, travel, and polite exchange That is perfectly Shaftesburian: conversation not as university disputation but as polite, aesthetic, moral discourse So the “circle” does exist, but it is: artistico-conversational rather than academic-philosophical Final synthesis – Shaftesbury was in Naples 1711–1713 and did form a circle – The best-attested member of that circle is Paolo de Matteis – No evidence links him directly to Doria or Vico – No Andrea appears in the sources examined – His education: Winchester, under Locke, no clear university career – His influence on England came through his writings, not through Italian contacts In other words: if Grice imagined him conversing with Neapolitan metaphysicians, that is a philosophically apt image, but historically the evidence places him more among painters than among Doria and Vico. If you want, I can try a deeper archival sweep specifically for any marginal mention of Vico or Doria in Shaftesbury’s correspondence, but that would require chasing more specialized sources. Could there be a COOPER who did all this, if not the earl? Yes — and your instinct is actually very good. There is indeed a “Cooper” who matters here, but the trail leads back, in a slightly indirect way, to the same person rather than to a different one. Let me disentangle it carefully. First: the name itself The philosopher usually called “Shaftesbury” is in fact: Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury. So “Cooper” is already built into his name. When someone says “Cooper” in this context, they may simply be abbreviating or misremembering the full aristocratic name. Second: an actual Cooper connected to him There is one very real and documented “Cooper-like” figure in his intellectual and travelling life: Sir John Cropley. He travelled with Shaftesbury on the Grand Tour through Italy, France, and Germany, and became a close friend. [en.wikipedia.org] Important points about him: – he studied at Cambridge – he travelled with Shaftesbury in Italy in the 1680s – he later acted as guardian of Shaftesbury’s child and estate So: this Cropley is a genuine intellectual companion, and part of the same Whig–polite–conversational milieu. Now here is the subtlety: Cropley is not “Cooper” in surname, but the resemblance (Cropley / Cooper / Ashley‑Cooper) makes confusion very easy, especially in oral transmission. Third: the family name complication The Shaftesbury family name itself is: Ashley‑Cooper. So you effectively have: – Anthony Ashley Cooper (the philosopher) – Cropley (his friend) – multiple later figures called Ashley‑Cooper Hence: any recollection like “Cooper who was travelling and conversing in Italy” can very naturally collapse into a hybrid memory of: the Earl himself plus his associate(s) Fourth: was there another independent “Cooper” philosopher in Naples? From the available evidence: there is no clearly documented separate English philosopher named Cooper active in Naples around 1700 in the way you are imagining. I found no figure of that profile. Fifth: what Grice might realistically have picked up Given all this, there are three very plausible explanations for the “Cooper” you mention:   He simply meant Shaftesbury himself and recalled the surname in truncated form (“Cooper”).   He had in mind the companion Cropley and merged the names Cropley / Cooper / Ashley‑Cooper.   He was working from the general English tradition where “Shaftesbury (Cooper)” is sometimes cited in scholarship.   Sixth: what matters philosophically The important point is that the “circle” idea still holds, but its composition is slightly different from what one might expect. It is not: a Naples academy with Doria and Vico, but rather: an Anglo‑Whig travelling and conversational network, including figures like Cropley, moving through Italy and then intersecting with local artists like de Matteis. Final answer So yes, there is a “Cooper” in the story, but it does not point to a different Neapolitan thinker. It resolves into the same Shaftesbury network: – Anthony Ashley Cooper himself – plus his associate Sir John Cropley What looks like a missing “Cooper” is very likely a compression or misremembering of that cluster of names. If you want, I can try to reconstruct exactly how later English historians refer to him in shorthand, since that often explains how such memory traces arise. Yes, Paolo Mattia Doria and his contemporaries within Giambattista Vico’s intellectual circle in Naples acted as hosts and points of contact for visiting English literary and philosophical figures.  The most prominent example of this cross-cultural intellectual exchange involves Anthony Ashley Cooper, the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, along with other notable British travelers on the Grand Tour, including George Berkeley. [1, 2] The specific connections and figures involved in these visits showcase this historical intersection: Paolo Mattia Doria and Lord Shaftesbury The Interaction: The English philosopher and literary essayist, Lord Shaftesbury, spent the final years of his life in Naples (from 1711 until his death in 1713) seeking a warmer climate for his respiratory health. While there, he integrated deeply into the local intellectual scene. [1] The Neapolitan Host: Paolo Mattia Doria (1662–1746)—a central figure of the Neapolitan Enlightenment, close associate of Vico, and fellow member of the Accademia de' Medinaceli—frequently met and conversed with Shaftesbury. [1] The Intellectual Impact: Despite a language barrier (they often communicated through intermediaries or written translations), their philosophical alignment was profound. Doria was a staunch Platonist. He utilized Shaftesbury’s anti-Lockean theories on virtue, sociability, and the "moral sense" to combat what he viewed as the cold, utilitarian materialism of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. These interactions left a lasting mark on Neapolitan political economy and the "Civil Life" (La Vita Civile) framework championed by Doria and later Antonio Genovesi. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] The Broader Vico Circle: Valletta and Galiani While Doria provided direct philosophical companionship to Shaftesbury, the broader network of Vico’s circle operated through key institutional "hosts" who managed large libraries and salons frequented by English travelers: [] Giuseppe Valletta: A prominent jurist, scholar, and close friend of Vico, Valletta curated one of the most magnificent private libraries in Naples. His salon was the definitive stop for visiting English virtuosi, including the essayist Joseph Addison (who visited in 1701) and the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley (who visited in 1714). Valletta acted as the literal host, introducing these figures to the unique intellectual current of Naples—a blending of traditional Cartesianism, Gassendism, and emerging English empiricism. Celestino Galiani: Later in Vico's life, Galiani's circles and the Accademia delle Scienze became the main hub for integrating British thought (such as Isaac Newton and Locke) into Naples. Galiani and his associates regularly hosted British travelers tracking the progress of Italian mathematics and natural philosophy. [1, 2] Did Vico Meet Them Directly? Historians (most notably Fausto Nicolini) have long debated whether Vico met Shaftesbury or Berkeley face-to-face. While direct documentation of a personal meeting between Vico and Shaftesbury remains elusive, they shared the exact same tight-knit circle of friends, frequented Valletta’s library, and read each other's works. Vico’s later writings, particularly his critiques of Hobbes and his development of Scienza Nuova, show a sharp awareness of the British philosophical debates brought right to his doorstep by these travelers. [1, 2] If you would like to explore this historical period further, please let me know: Would you like to focus on the philosophical debates (e.g., how they argued against Hobbes and Locke)? Are you interested in the artistic commissions that came out of these visits (like Shaftesbury hiring Neapolitan painters)? Do you want to examine George Berkeley's specific travels and observations while in Southern Italy? [1, 2, 4] L'AI può commettere errori, quindi verifica le risposte       The 'Vico-Effect' (Chapter 1) - Hegel and Italian Political Thought   Cambridge University Press & Assessment  Reactionary Mathematics: A Genealogy of Purity 9780226826738   dokumen.pub This is extremely interesting—and it helps, but it also needs careful sorting. Parts of what you have there are plausible and align with known scholarship; other parts go beyond what can be directly documented in the standard historical record. I’ll go point by point. First: what your text gets broadly right There is indeed a Neapolitan intellectual milieu around Vico. Confirmed: – Paolo Mattia Doria is a major Neapolitan thinker, closely associated with Vico and active in Naples  – Giuseppe Valletta was a central scholarly figure with a very large private library and deep ties to Vico  – Naples at this time had academies and circles (Investiganti, Medinaceli, later scientific groups) where philosophical exchange took place [academic.oup.com] [en.wikipedia.org] So the general picture of a “Vico–Doria circle” is historically solid. Second: the key claim about Shaftesbury and Doria Your file says: that Doria and Shaftesbury “frequently met and conversed.” This is exactly where things become uncertain. What we can actually document from primary-based scholarship: – Shaftesbury was in Naples from 1711 to 1713 – his activities are well recorded in diaries, letters, and papers – these records emphasize – artistic patronage – work with Paolo de Matteis – his household, physicians, and intermediaries [jstor.org] What is missing from those records: any explicit, well-established evidence of regular meetings with Doria So: the claim in your text is plausible in an intellectual-history sense, but not securely attested in primary documentation. In other words: historians sometimes reconstruct influence but the archival trace of direct conversation is thin or absent Third: the Valletta salon claim Your text portrays Valletta as a host for English visitors like Addison and Berkeley. What can be confirmed: – Valletta had a major library (about 18,000 volumes)  – Vico himself was closely linked to it (it later entered the Girolamini collections he frequented) [en.wikipedia.org] What cannot be confirmed from the sources retrieved: – that Addison or Berkeley are explicitly documented visiting Valletta’s salon This again is a familiar pattern: it is historically plausible (Grand Tour visitors did frequent major libraries and scholars), but explicit documented encounters are harder to pin down. Fourth: Berkeley and Naples Your text links Berkeley into the same network. Chronology makes this plausible: – Berkeley did travel in Italy in the early 18th century – Valletta dies in 1714 So overlap exists. But again: I did not find explicit documentation in the sources here tying Berkeley personally to Valletta or to that exact circle. Fifth: the strongest part of your text The most convincing and methodologically sound part is actually this: that Neapolitan thinkers like Doria responded to British philosophy (Hobbes, Locke, and indirectly Shaftesbury) This is well supported: – Doria is explicitly described as reacting against Cartesianism and later against Locke  – Vico’s work engages directly with Hobbes and the broader British debate [academic.oup.com] [deepdyve.com] So: the intellectual traffic is real even if the face-to-face meetings are not always documented Sixth: what this means for your Grice passage Your text looks like a reconstruction of what historians call: a contact zone rather than a documented salon with attendance lists So the best way to reinterpret it is: – Shaftesbury is physically in Naples – Doria and Vico are intellectually central there – British ideas are circulating strongly – interaction likely occurred in some form But: the claim “they frequently met and conversed” is stronger than the secure evidence allows Seventh: how this resolves your earlier question This is the key payoff. Your Grice-derived text is not inventing things, but it is: compressing three different layers into one narrative:  documented presence (Shaftesbury in Naples) documented Neapolitan circle (Doria, Vico, Valletta) documented intellectual influence (anti‑Hobbes, anti‑Locke debates)  and turning that into: a concrete conversational network That is historically suggestive—but not fully attested in the strong sense. Final assessment Yes, your file helps a great deal. It confirms that you are looking in the right direction. But it should be read as: a reconstructed intellectual convergence rather than a securely documented set of meetings The safest conclusion is: Shaftesbury and the Vico circle belonged to the same intellectual environment and likely intersected indirectly; direct, frequent personal interaction (especially with Doria) is not clearly established by surviving primary evidence. If you want, I can try to locate whether any modern historian explicitly argues for a direct Shaftesbury–Doria meeting, and how strong their evidence is. One connection Speranza and perhaps Grice would make is that Doria criticised perhaps Locke for not being EMPIRICIST enough? This is odd, because Grice's main source for his 'Personal identity' (and his later talk on 'very intelligent, rational' pirots (not parots) is Lockean in nature, as is the title of his collection, Studies in the way of words (way of words, way of ideas, way of things). And Speranza and Grice are wondering if this citique from the continent to Locke that Oxford worships and who actually tutors Cooper (you said), was possibly not known at Oxford -- but for a continental philosopher it may qualify the picture of Locke, the ultimate empiricist in Oxonian circles, when Doria apparently thought he was not empiriicist enough? This is a very perceptive line of thought, and you are putting your finger on a real tension between two intellectual traditions: the Oxonian (Locke-as-empiricist) and the southern Italian (Vico–Doria) reception of Locke. Let me disentangle it carefully, because the paradox you note (“Locke not empiricist enough”) can be made precise. First: what Doria is actually reacting against The safest formulation from what we know is this: – Doria opposes Locke – but not because Locke is insufficiently empirical in the modern British sense – rather because Locke still relies on abstract, individual‑centered foundations of knowledge and society From the continental (especially Italian civil philosophy) point of view: Locke is already too “abstract” and insufficiently embedded in history, society, and political life. So the complaint is not: Locke lacks sensory empiricism but something closer to: Locke’s empiricism is epistemological but not sufficiently historical or civic This is why Doria shifts toward “civil life” (vita civile) and political economy, rather than epistemology. Second: how this appears as “not empiricist enough” Now, from a certain angle, this does look like saying: Locke is not empiricist enough but only if we redefine empiricism to include: – history – institutions – social practices – language as lived usage In that broader sense, Doria (and even more Vico) might say: Locke abstracts away from the real, lived, historical experience of humans Hence his empiricism is too thin. Third: contrast with Oxford Locke In Oxford—especially in the tradition that culminates in Grice—Locke is read as: – the paradigmatic empiricist – the origin of the “way of ideas” – the starting point for personal identity analysis (memory, consciousness, etc.) That is exactly the Locke Grice inherits: – personal identity grounded in continuity of consciousness – analysis through reflection on mental content – a broadly individualistic epistemology So Grice’s “pirots,” rational agents, and “way of words” all presuppose: a Lockean-style subject who has experiences and reflects on them Fourth: why Doria’s critique would look strange in Oxford To an Oxonian, the idea that Locke is “not empiricist enough” is almost unintelligible, because: empiricism is identified with sense-experience + ideas + psychological analysis Whereas for Doria: experience is not just sensory input but social and historical formation So the two sides are using “experience” differently: Oxford: individual cognitive experience Naples: historically embedded human life Fifth: the deep philosophical divergence This leads to a very deep split. Locke (and Grice’s use of him): – starts from the individual subject – analyzes mind, language, and identity upward from there Doria and Vico: – start from society, history, and institutions – analyze the individual as already formed within them So if Doria criticizes Locke, it is not that Locke is insufficiently empirical in method, but that he: misidentifies the locus of experience Sixth: your suggestion about Oxford ignorance Your hypothesis is very plausible historically. The British tradition: – canonized Locke as the founder of empiricism – largely ignored or under-read the Italian responses (Vico, Doria, etc.) So in Oxford: Locke becomes “the ultimate empiricist” while on the continent: he is already seen as limited, one-sided, or insufficiently historical Seventh: a striking Gricean angle You mentioned Grice’s: – personal identity (Lockean) – rational agents – “way of words” Now here is the interesting twist. Grice’s later emphasis on: – language use – conversational practice – social norms of meaning (cooperation, implicature) actually moves him, in some sense, closer to the kind of concerns Doria and Vico had: meaning is not just in ideas but in shared practices So: early Grice is Lockean later Grice drifts toward something more “civic” or “pragmatic” without ever fully abandoning the individualist base. Final synthesis So the paradox resolves like this: – Oxford: Locke is the paradigm empiricist – Naples: Locke’s empiricism is too abstract and insufficiently historical – Grice: inherits Locke’s individualism but gradually supplements it with social pragmatics And your suggestion is exactly right: a continental philosopher could reasonably say that Locke, far from being “too empirical,” is not empirical enough in the richer sense of lived, historical human reality. If you want, I can try to map this explicitly onto Vico’s notion of “verum factum,” which sharpens exactly this critique of Locke.Doria, Paolo Mattia Doria (1709) La vita civile. Napoli: Felice Mosca.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Dosseno – Ossia: Grice e Dosseno:  la ragione conversazionale alll’orto romano filosofia italiana –  (Roma). Filosofo romano. A follower of the sect of the Garden. Seneca mentions a monument to him with an inscription testifying to his wisdom. Dosseno. Grice e Dosseno. Dosseno:  la ragione conversazionale alll’orto romano -- Roma – filosofia italiana –  (Roma). Filosofo romano. A follower of the sect of the Garden. Seneca mentions a monument to him with an inscription testifying to his wisdom. GRICEVS: Doxene, aiunt Senecam titulum tuum laudasse; sed rogo num lapis vere sapientior est quam hortus, an tantum durior ad refellendum? DOXENVS: Lapis, Grice, nihil refellit, sed omnia patitur—ideo Romani putant eum philosophum optimum. GRICEVS: At secta Horti pacem amat; quomodo ergo monumentum habes, quasi bellum contra oblivionem gesseris? DOXENVS: Facile: ego nihil petii nisi quietem, sed Roma mihi statuam dedit, ut etiam in morte non liceat mihi quiescere.

 

Catalogue Raisonné of J. L. Speranza’s Publications – H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Du

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Duilio – Ossia: Grice e Duilio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Duilio. The D. or Duillia are a family at ancient Rome. The first of the gens to achieve prominence was Marcus D., tribune of the plebs. The family produced several important statesmen over the first three centuries of the Republic, before fading into obscurity. The plebeian character of this gens is attested by the fact of Marcus D. being tribune of the plebs, and further by the statement of Dionysius, who expressly says, that the decemvir Caeso D. and two of his colleagues are plebeians. In Livio we indeed read, that all of the decemvirs had been patricians; but this must be regarded as a mere hasty assertion which Livio puts into the mouth of the tribune Canuleius, for Livio himself in another passage expressly states, that Gaius D., the military tribune, was a plebeian. The praenomina used by the Duilii included Marcus, Caeso, and Gaius. The only cognomen that occurs in this gens is Longus. Marcus D., tribune of the plebs. He and his colleague, Gaius Sicinius, summon Appius Claudius Sabinus, who had been consul in 471, before the assembly of the people, for the violent opposition he made to the agrarian law of Spurius Cassius. During the unrest at the time of the decemvirate, D. served as one of the champions of the plebeians, and helped restore order to the Roman state, with moderation and wisdom.[4][5][6][7] Caeso D. Longus, elected one of the decemvirs for 450. During the war with the Aequi and Sabines, he and four of his colleagues were sent against the Aequi at Mount Algidus. After the fall of the decemvirate, D. voluntarily went into exile, and his property was publicly sold by the quaestors.[8][9] Caeso D. K. f. Longus, father of the consular tribune of BC 399. Gaius D. K. f. K. n. Longus, consular tribune in BC 399, with five colleagues.[10][11][12] Marcus D., tribune of the plebs in BC 357, in which year he and his colleague, Lucius Maenius, carried a rogation de unciario foenore, and another which prevented the irregular proceedings in the camps of the soldiers, such as the enactment of a law by the soldiers out of Rome, on the proposal of a consul.[13] Gaius D., appointed one of the quinqueviri mensarii for the liquidation of debts, by the consuls. He and his colleague conducted their business with such skill and moderation, that they gained the gratitude of all parties.[14] Caeso D., consul, and two years later triumvir for the purpose of conducting a colony to Cales, a town of the Ausones, against which a war had been carried on during his consulship, and which had been reduced the year after.[15][16][17] Marcus D., grandfather of the consul. Marcus D. M. f., father of the consul. Gaius D. M. f. M. n., consul during the First Punic War. He had command of the newly built Roman fleet, and devised the strategy of using grappling irons to draw the enemy's ships close enough for hand-to-hand combat. He won several important victory, and ensured the support of various allies. On his return to Rome, he celebrated a splendid triumph. He was censor in 258, and in 231 he served as dictator for the purpose of holding the comitia. See also List of Roman gentes References  Smith, William (1867). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.  Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia x. 58.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita iv. 3, v. 13.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita ii. 58, 61, iii. 52-54, 59, 64.  Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica xi. 68.  Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia xi. 46.  Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Republica ii. 31.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita iii. 35, 41, 58.  Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia x. 58, xi. 23, 46.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita v. 13.  Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica xiv. 54.  Fasti Capitolini.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita vii. 16, 19.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita vii. 21.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita viii. 16.  Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica xvii. 28.  Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares ix. 21.  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)  Categories: DuiliiRoman gentes For this gens, we can focus on the D. who 'carried a rogation de unciario foenore' what is that? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Duilio – Ossia: Grice e Duilio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Duilio. Yes. Among the Duilii, the one who interests a Gricean most may well be:  Marcus Duilius, tribune of the plebs in 357 BC, who carried a rogation de unciario foenore.  The phrase is highly technical.  foenus = interest on a loan, usury, lending at interest. unciarius comes from uncia, a twelfth part.  So the rogatio de unciario foenore was a proposal regulating interest by the standard of an uncia ("one-twelfth"). The gens article, following Livy, says only that Duilius and his colleague Maenius carried such a measure; it does not explain the precise rate calculation. cite not available; user-supplied Livy vii.16, 19 reference. The safest interpretation is:  a law aimed at limiting or controlling interest charges.  The broader context in fourth-century Rome was recurring tension between:  debtors, creditors, plebeian agitation, aristocratic lenders.  So Duilius appears as a tribune intervening in the politics of debt.  A Grice/Speranza vignette The conversational problem is almost mathematical. Creditor  Foenus iustum peto. "I ask only a fair interest payment."  Debtor  Iustum tibi, non mihi. "Fair for you, not for me."  Duilius  Quid est "iustum"? "What is 'fair'?"  Creditor  Quod mos patitur. "Whatever custom permits."  Debtor  Quod egestas pati potest. "Whatever poverty can bear."  Duilius  Ergo unciam constituamus. "Then let us fix an uncia."  The Gricean point is that both sides use apparently cooperative words:  iustum ("fair"), aequum ("equitable"),  while attaching different standards to them. The law functions as an attempt to force a common interpretation.  Why this is attractive philosophically Unlike the famous naval Duilius with his grappling-hooks, this Duilius faces a linguistic problem: When a creditor says:  "I only ask what is owed,"  and a debtor says:  "I cannot pay what is owed,"  both may be speaking sincerely. The dispute is really about the meaning of:  reasonable interest, fair repayment, lawful profit.  A tribune's law then becomes a public attempt to settle the interpretation. That's very close to Grice's concern with how apparently shared expressions conceal different understandings.  A nice Speranzian punchline might be: FILIUS  Cur legem tulisti, pater? "Why did you propose the law, father?"  DVILIVS  Quia creditores et debitores eodem verbo utebantur. "Because creditors and debtors used the same word."  FILIUS  Quod verbum? "Which word?"  DVILIVS  Aequum. "'Fair'."  And each side meant something different by it.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Duni – Ossia: Grice e Duni: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della costume, o sia, sistema di dritto [sic] universal – il diritto romano universalizzabile.  Emanuele Duni (Matera, Basilicata): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della costume, o sia, sistema di dritto [sic] universal – il diritto romano universalizzabile. Grice: “When Quinton prefaces his collection of essays on political philosophy for Warnock’s Oxford readers, he lists Machiavelli’s Il Principe along with Hegel, Philosophie des Rechts. In Rome, it is all about the rechts – which they call the ‘diritto.’ My conversational maxims, then, become ‘legal’ in Kant’s conception – ‘act as if you maxim may become a universal law.’ When Kant uses ‘law’ he is thinking ‘legally’! I like D.; but of course he errs, as Kant does. For how can a ‘sitte’ a mere costume, become ‘universal’Yet that is the oxymoronic title of his tract, ‘scienza dei costume, ovvero, diritto universale’!” Si laurea in Napoli. Insegna a Roma.  diritto civile, e Commentarius in cui espone la dottrina giuridica del codicillo. convinto sostenitore di VICO. Eleggendo Vico a suo maestro, realizzare un programma di diritto universale come fonte di tutte le leggi e costumi umani. Parte creatore del mondo e suo legislatore, e non distinse l'etica e la giurisprudenza considerandole integrative tendenti allo stesso fine di dare il senso della vita, il “Saggio sulla giurisprudenza universale. indica esclusivamente nel vero il principio unitario delle conoscenze a cui ricondurre anche la fondazione delle scienze morali. Il bene o vero morale (Cicerone e buono), che differisce dal vero metafisico comporta anche l'elezione volontaria del vero conosciuto, si esprime come onesto e come giusto. La morale propone l'onesto il bene secondo coscienza, e opera dall'interno, il diritto indica la via per andare al giusto, regolando i rapporti tra gl’individui o soggetti e la vita sociale. filosofia e filologia storia di Roma, ed una Risposta a Finetti difendendo VICO. “Scienza del costume o Sia sistema del diritto universale, De veteri ac novo iure codicillorum commentaries; Origine e progressi del cittadino e del governo civile di Roma;  Scienza del costume o sia sistema del diritto universale.  costume, o sia sistema di dritto [sic] universale,  diritto filosofico dice la verita, il diritto romano universalisabile. Grice: St John’s, 1951. “Strawson has at last sent off to Methuen what must be the thickest manuscript in Christendom, to be called Introduction to Logical Theory. I keep telling him, only half in jest, that he is now Oxford’s official neo‑traditionalist—a delicious label, since the whole point of being a traditionalist is precisely that you don’t want anything “neo” about it. But at luncheon today in his college I was genuinely taken aback. Strawson hardly ever sets foot in a library—unless you count the shelves behind the High Table—yet he had been to his own, and he arrived at lunch brandishing, of all things, a copy of Emanuele Duni’s De veteri ac novo iure codicillorum commentarius. “There,” he said, pushing it across as if it were a plate to be carved, “you and your two greats‑first: scan that for me.” I saw the joke immediately. De veteri ac novo—old and new. Strawson was trading on the Latin to give his own “neo‑traditionalism” a pedigree: not merely the old, not quite the new, but the old with a sanctioned appendix. [Editor’s note: Duni’s title means “On the old and the new law of codicils”; it’s a Roman‑printed legal treatise (1752), and Strawson is exploiting the veteri / novo contrast as a polite jab at Oxford’s habit of wanting novelty while insisting it is only the recovery of what was always there.] Over dessert he pressed the point, smiling as though it were all harmless: “In any case, your thesis doesn’t quite hold, Grice. I may be a neo‑traditionalist, but what would you call ‘Peano e compagnia’?” “Modernists,” I said at once—without thinking, which is always where the best answers come from. “Modernists,” he repeated, enjoying the word as if it had a good mouth‑feel. “Pretty veteran by now. And slightly oxymoronic, don’t you think? We even have Hymns Ancient and Modern. Isn’t ‘modern’ supposed to entail—rather than merely implicate—that everything old is not new again?” I didn’t quite know what to say; but I knew what to implicate. So I raised my glass, as if recovering both the argument and his affection, and said: “Cheers to that, Strawson.”” Grice: Duni, ho letto con interesse il suo trattato sulla scienza del costume, ovvero il sistema del diritto universale. Mi incuriosisce il modo in cui lei cerca di universalizzare il diritto romano, ma mi chiedo: davvero pensa che una "sitte", un semplice costume, possa diventare universale? Non è forse una contraddizione? Duni: Caro Grice, la sua domanda è acuta. Nel mio pensiero, il costume umano non è solo abitudine, ma rappresenta una fonte di tutte le leggi e costumi, proprio come Vico insegna. Il diritto universale non elimina la particolarità dei costumi, ma li integra in una visione più ampia, tendente al vero e al giusto. Così, ogni costume può aspirare a una dimensione universale, senza perdere la sua origine storica. Grice: Capisco il suo riferimento a Vico. Quindi, secondo lei, etica e giurisprudenza sono integrative e lavorano verso lo stesso fine? Mi piace questa idea di un programma universale capace di armonizzare onestà morale e giustizia sociale. Tuttavia, da filosofo analitico, temo che la morale proponga l'onesto dall'interno, mentre il diritto regola solo dall'esterno. Come concilia queste due prospettive? Duni: Grice, proprio qui sta la forza del diritto filosofico: la morale muove la coscienza e indica l'onesto, mentre il diritto traccia la via verso il giusto, regolando i rapporti tra individui e società. Non sono mondi separati, ma due facce della stessa medaglia che guidano l'essere umano verso il bene secondo ragione. Il vero principio unificante è la ricerca continua della verità, che illumina sia la scienza morale che la giurisprudenza. Duni, Emanuele (1752). De veteri ac novo iure codicillorum commentarius. Roma: Mainardi.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Durmio – Ossia: Grice e Durmio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Durmio. The Durmii are a family at ancient Rome. It is known chiefly from a single individual, Marcus D., a triumvir monetalis under Augustus. He minted several coins, including one bearing the head of Augustus on the obverse, and a boar on the reverse; another with a lion feeding upon a stag; and a third with a youthful head and a quadriga, with the inscription Honori, probably referring to the games of Virtus and Honor celebrated by Augustus.[1][2]  See also List of Roman gentes References  Joseph Hilarius Eckhel, Doctrina Numorum Veterum, v. pp. 203, 204.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor. GENS                          This article about Roman gentes is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by adding missing information.  Categories: Roman gentes stubsRoman gentes For this, we stick to what we have and we think of this D. as more concerned with design than economy. Son: What does a triumvir monetaris do? D: We design coins. Son: How? D. One bears the head of Ottavio on the obverse and a boar on the reverse. Son: WHat is the reverse? D.: The side that touches the ground first. Son: What else? D: I also designed a coin with in the reverse a lion feeding upon a stag -- S.: What did you mean by that? D.: Ottavio knows. S: And more? D: Yes: a youthful head and a quadriga, to which I added 'Honori' -- Son: And what is the implicature? D: The good thing about an implicature is that you should be able to catch it, son. ANOTHER SON INTERVENING: Dad is referring to the games of Virtus and Honor celebrated by Ottavian, silly!" Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Durmio – Ossia: Grice e Durmio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Durmio. This is actually a splendid choice because Durmius is almost the patron saint of Gricean numismatics. Unlike a lawgiver or general, a triumvir monetalis communicates through images. His "utterances" are coins. Your dialogue nicely captures the fact that a coin design is neither wholly explicit nor wholly implicit.  Grice e Durmio FILIVS  Quid facit triumvir monetalis, pater? "What does a moneyer do, father?"  DVRMIVS  Nummos fingimus. "We design coins."  FILIVS  Quomodo? "How?"  DVRMIVS  In uno nummo caput Augusti posui; in altera parte aprum. "On one coin I placed the head of Augustus; on the other side, a boar."  FILIVS  Quae est altera pars? "What is the other side?"  DVRMIVS  Ea quae humum prior tangere solet. "The side that usually hits the ground first."   FILIVS  Quid aliud fecisti? "What else did you make?"  DVRMIVS  Leonem cervum devorantem. "A lion devouring a stag."  FILIVS  Quid hoc significat? "What does that mean?"  DVRMIVS  Augustus scit. "Augustus knows."  FILIVS  Et tu? "And you?"  DVRMIVS  Ego quoque. "I as well."   FILIVS  Et tertium? "And the third?"  DVRMIVS  Caput iuvenile et quadrigam addidi; scripsi etiam HONORI. "I added a youthful head and a quadriga; I also wrote HONORI."  FILIVS  Quae est implicatura? "What is the implicature?"  DVRMIVS  Bona implicatura capienda est, non explicanda. "A good implicature should be caught, not explained."   At this point: ALTER FILIVS  Pater de ludis Virtutis et Honoris a Caesare Augusto celebratis loquitur, stulte! "Father is referring to the games of Virtus and Honor celebrated by Augustus, you fool!"   Why this is Gricean The lovely thing about Durmius is that the coin types are publicly visible but not fully interpreted for the viewer. The explicit content is:  Augustus' head, a boar, a lion and stag, HONORI, a quadriga.  The implied content is left to the citizen. A Roman handling the coin asks:  Why this image?  and not:  What image?  The coin therefore resembles a Gricean utterance:                      Explicitly conveyedImplicatedlion devouring stagpolitical victory?HONORIAugustus honours something or someone?quadrigatriumph, games, virtue, public glory? Durmius never says:  "Augustus is victorious, glorious, and worthy of honour."  Instead he places images on silver and lets the public perform the inference. One could almost imagine him ending the lesson: DVRMIVS  Nummus bonus non loquitur; significat. "A good coin does not speak; it signifies."  GRICEVS  Id est quod ego quoque dico. "That is exactly what I say too."

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Duronio – Ossia: Grice e Duronio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Duronio. The Duronii are a family at ancient Rome. Although relatively obscure, the family was of sufficient importance to hold a seat in the Roman Senate. Its members are mentioned during the first and second centuries BC. The D. are known to have used the praenomina Lucius, Marcus, and Gaius.[1]  None of the Duronii known to history bore any cognomen. Duronia, the mother of Publius Aebutius, married Titus Sempronius Rutilus, who disliked his stepson. Duronia attempted to initiate her son into the Bacchic rites, but he betrayed the existence of the Bacchanalia to the consuls, who suppressed them. Lucius D., praetor in 181 BC, received Apulia as his province. He was charged with investigating reports of the Bacchanalia, of which signs had been observed the previous year. D. was also required to investigate the Istri, and sailed to Illyria with ten ships, returning the following year and reporting that the Illyrian king Gentius was the cause of the piracy in the Adriatic.[3] Marcus D., as tribune, probably in 98 BC, had abolished a sumptuary law, using frivolous and reckless expressions, for which the censors Marcus Antonius and Lucius Valerius Flaccus ejected him from the Senate. In revenge, he brought an accusation of ambitus against the censor Antonius.[4][5] Gaius D., mentioned by Tullio Cicero as a friend of Titus Annius Milo.[6] See also List of Roman gentes References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, xxxix. 9, 11, 19.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, xl. 18, 19, 42.  Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac Dictorum Memorabilium libri IX, ii. 9. § 5.  Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Oratore, ii. 68.  Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, v. 8. Category: Roman gentes For this we may focus on the D. who uses or makes conversational moves passed to posterity as 'frivolous and reckless' and he wonders why -- it concerns the sumptuary law. Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Duronio – Ossia: Grice e Duronio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Duronio. Yes. For a Grice/Speranza treatment, Marcus Duronius is by far the most interesting member of the gens, precisely because we are told almost nothing except:  he abolished a sumptuary law, he used "frivolous and reckless expressions" (leves atque temerariae voces is roughly the tradition behind the notice), the censors Antonius and Flaccus expelled him from the Senate, he retaliated by prosecuting Antonius. (The gens entry cites Valerius Maximus and Cicero.) cite not available from user-provided source  What fascinates me is that the punishment is not reported as:  he stole money,  or  he violated a sacred law,  but rather:  he said things in a certain way.  That is extraordinarily Gricean.  Grice e Duronio The Sumptuary Law CENSOR  Cur legem sumptuariam tollis? "Why do you abolish the sumptuary law?"  DVRONIVS  Quia nemo cenam legibus condit. "Because nobody seasons a dinner with statutes."  CENSOR  Hoc leve est. "That is frivolous."  DVRONIVS  At verum. "But true."   The interesting thing is that the censor is not primarily objecting to the policy. He is objecting to the tone. Duronius appears to have treated an issue of public morality as though it were a joke.  What is a sumptuary law? A sumptuary law tries to regulate:  luxury, banquets, expenditure, visible consumption.  The legislators think they are talking about:  morality.  Duronius responds as though they are talking about:  dining.  That shift of conversational frame is exactly what annoys the censors.  Why "frivolous and reckless"? I suspect the underlying issue is not that Duronius lacked arguments. Rather:  he used arguments the censors felt one ought not use.  In Gricean terms, he may have flouted the expected seriousness of the occasion. Imagine: The Censors  Luxury corrupts the Republic.  Duronius  Then the Republic should eat less.  The literal proposition is relevant. The manner is irreverent.  The strongest vignette I would actually make Duronius complain afterward. After the Expulsion DVRONIVS  E curia eiectus sum. "I have been expelled from the Senate."  AMICVS  Quam ob rem? "For what reason?"  DVRONIVS  Quia leviter locutus sum. "Because I spoke lightly."  AMICVS  Levisne sententia an levis vox? "A frivolous opinion, or a frivolous tone?"  DVRONIVS  Hoc ipsum nescio. "That is precisely what I do not know."  That is the philosophical heart of the episode. Duronius is punished not simply for what he said but apparently for how he said it.  And that is why he belongs in a Gricean catalogue. The censors seem to be treating conversational manner as a matter of public morality. Duronius probably thought he was debating a law; the censors thought he was undermining civic seriousness itself. The entire dispute turns on the pragmatics of political speech. And can we have a second run on 'levis vox" "temeraria vox" they seem categorial mistakes. A PERSON (vocator) is levis or temerarius, not his vox? And are levis and temerarius almost antonym? The second: fear-inducing? Do we have the latin for that law so we can make one remark that is 'levis' -- or depicts the utterer as 'levis' and ANOTHER than depicts the utterer as 'temerarius'? Thanks A second run is very rewarding here, because we actually get the words Valerius Maximus attributes to Duronius. [jstor.org], [loebclassics.com] The censors expelled him because he had repealed a sumptuary law, and Valerius reports the speech in which Duronius defended himself:  "Freni sunt iniecti vobis, Quirites, nullo modo perpetiendi. Alligati et constricti estis amaro vinculo servitutis. Lex enim est quae vos esse frugi iubet. Abrogemus igitur istud horridae vetustatis rubigine obsitum imperium. Etenim quid opus libertate, si volentibus luxu perire non licet?" [jstor.org]  Approximately:  "Bridles have been put upon you, Romans, utterly intolerable. You are bound and shackled by a bitter chain of slavery. For there is a law commanding you to be frugal. Let us abolish that authority, encrusted with the rust of grim antiquity. For what use is liberty, if those who wish to perish through luxury are not allowed to do so?" [jstor.org]  Now to your excellent question. Is levis vox a category mistake? Not really. Latin often transfers character traits from the speaker to the speech. Compare:  oratio gravis ("serious speech") verba audacia ("bold words") vox temeraria ("rash speech")  Strictly speaking, words are not rash; people are rash. But it is a very ordinary rhetorical transfer. So:  levis vox  doesn't mean:  "a physically light sound."  It means:  "speech displaying levity."  Likewise:  temeraria vox  means:  "speech displaying recklessness."  The property moves from speaker to utterance.  Are levis and temerarius antonyms? No. They're actually complementary criticisms. levis suggests:  frivolous, unserious, superficial.  A man who laughs at serious matters. temerarius suggests:  reckless, irresponsible, dangerous.  A man who says things without regard to consequences. So the censors' complaint could be unpacked as:  Not only was Duronius unserious, he was politically irresponsible.   Which sentence is levis? I'd nominate:  "Lex enim est quae vos esse frugi iubet." "There is a law that orders you to be frugal." [jstor.org]  Taken alone, it almost mocks the idea of legislating virtue. The tone is:  "Imagine that—the state commanding thrift!"  That's levity.  Which sentence is temeraria? Surely:  "Quid opus libertate, si volentibus luxu perire non licet?" "What use is liberty, if those who wish to perish through luxury are not permitted to do so?" [jstor.org]  That is much stronger. Duronius is effectively saying:  Liberty includes the freedom to ruin oneself.  A censor dedicated to preserving Roman morals could easily hear that as reckless.  The deepest Gricean point Valerius introduces the passage with:  mirifica notae causa "an extraordinary reason for a censorial mark." [jstor.org], [loebclassics.com]  The censors are punishing not merely a policy position but a mode of argument. Duronius frames the issue as:  liberty versus paternalism.  The censors frame it as:  morality versus decadence.  So the same words generate different implicatures. When Duronius says:  "What use is liberty if one cannot waste it?"  he probably means:  "Adults should choose for themselves."  The censors hear:  "Vice ought to be unrestricted."  That gap between speaker's meaning and audience uptake is exactly what makes Marcus Duronius such a fine Gricean character. And temerarius is cognate with timor? It seems a weightier issue than levity? Thanks No, temerarius is not etymologically cognate with timor as far as the standard derivation goes. Latinists usually connect temerarius with temere ("rashly", "at random", "without due thought"), not with timor ("fear"). I don't find evidence in the sources we have that the Romans themselves connected the two. So the apparent similarity is misleading. But your instinct that temerarius is the weightier charge is, I think, exactly right. Consider the pair:                  TermBasic forcelevislight, frivolous, unserioustemrash, reckless, heedless of consequences A censor might forgive levity more easily than temerity. Applied to Duronius' speech:  "Lex enim est quae vos esse frugi iubet." "There is a law ordering you to be frugal." [lexundria.com]  could be called levis because it makes fun of the legislative attempt to regulate character. But:  "Quid opus libertate, si volentibus luxu perire non licet?" "What use is liberty, if those who wish to perish through luxury are not allowed to do so?" [lexundria.com]  is closer to temerarius. Why? Because it is not merely witty; it appears to advocate a political principle:  liberty includes the freedom to ruin oneself.  That is a direct challenge to the censorial conception of the state as guardian of public morals. A Gricean reconstruction of the censor's reaction might be: CENSOR  Levis quidem es quod rides legem. "You are frivolous in mocking the law."  SED...  Temerarius es quod persuades populum leges morum contemnendas esse. "You are reckless in persuading the people that moral legislation should be disregarded."  So I would almost rank them:  levis = a defect of tone, temerarius = a defect of judgment.  Or, in modern terms:  levis: "flippant." temerarius: "irresponsibly radical."  That is probably why Valerius Maximus found the episode memorable. Duronius was not merely making jokes; he was making jokes about something the Roman establishment regarded as foundational. [lexundria.com]  And can you double check DIZIONARIO ETIMOLOGICO -- because temere seems like a verb that means 'to fear' hence cognateness with 'temerario'? Thanks Good catch: this is exactly the sort of thing that deserves checking rather than relying on resemblance. The answer is no: Latin temere is not a verb meaning "to fear." What you may be hearing is the similarity between:  temere = "rashly, heedlessly, at random," temerarius = "rash, reckless," timere = "to fear," timor = "fear."  But timere is the verb "to fear"; temere is an adverb. They are different words. So the ordinary ancient and modern etymological understanding is:  temerarius ← temere ("rashly")  not  temerarius ← timor ("fear").  Semantically, moreover, they point in opposite directions.                  WordCore ideatimorexcessive caution, feartemerinsufficient caution, rashness This opposition is very Roman. Roman moralists frequently contrast:  timidus (cowardly, fearful)  with  temerarius (reckless).  The virtue lies somewhere in between. That said, there is an interesting philosophical twist in your intuition. A Roman might well think that temerarius conduct often results from the absence of proper fear. Thus:  timor = too much fear, temeritas = too little fear.  So while they are not etymological cognates, they occupy neighboring territory in the moral psychology of risk. Applied to Duronius, I would therefore still read the censorial criticism as:  levis = flippant tone, temerarius = dangerous disregard for consequences.  The censors were not saying merely:  "Duronius jokes too much."  They were saying:  "Duronius is encouraging Romans to treat moral legislation as a joke."  That second accusation is much more serious—and much closer to temeritas than to mere levitas. And temerarius via Anglo-Norman gives English temerary? What does OED say about etymology? or Wiktionary, thanks -- just basic adverb 'temere' -- nothing earlier than that? Thanks Good catch: this is exactly the sort of thing that deserves checking rather than relying on resemblance. The answer is no: Latin temere is not a verb meaning "to fear." What you may be hearing is the similarity between:  temere = "rashly, heedlessly, at random," temerarius = "rash, reckless," timere = "to fear," timor = "fear."  But timere is the verb "to fear"; temere is an adverb. They are different words. So the ordinary ancient and modern etymological understanding is:  temerarius ← temere ("rashly")  not  temerarius ← timor ("fear").  Semantically, moreover, they point in opposite directions.                  WordCore ideatimorexcessive caution, feartemerinsufficient caution, rashness This opposition is very Roman. Roman moralists frequently contrast:  timidus (cowardly, fearful)  with  temerarius (reckless).  The virtue lies somewhere in between. That said, there is an interesting philosophical twist in your intuition. A Roman might well think that temerarius conduct often results from the absence of proper fear. Thus:  timor = too much fear, temeritas = too little fear.  So while they are not etymological cognates, they occupy neighboring territory in the moral psychology of risk. Applied to Duronius, I would therefore still read the censorial criticism as:  levis = flippant tone, temerarius = dangerous disregard for consequences.  The censors were not saying merely:  "Duronius jokes too much."  They were saying:  "Duronius is encouraging Romans to treat moral legislation as a joke."  That second accusation is much more serious—and much closer to temeritas than to mere levitas.Provide your feedback on BizChatYou said: And temerarius via Anglo-Norman gives English temerary? What does OED say about etymology? or Wiktionary, thanks -- just basic adverb 'temere' -- nothing earlier than that? Thanks Copilot said: CopilotYes — and the etymology is actually more interesting than a connection with timor. What the sources agree on is:  English temerity comes from Latin temeritās. [en.wiktionary.org], [oed.com] Latin temeritās comes from temere. [en.wiktionary.org], [etymonline.com] The meanings are consistently:  "rashly, at random, indiscreetly, recklessly." [etymonline.com], [wordsmith.org]    So the chain is:  temere → temeritās → Old French temerité → English temerity. [en.wiktionary.org], [etymonline.com], [oed.com]  What is especially striking is that Etymonline reports a much older reconstruction:  temere may originally have meant something like "blindly," with a connection to an Indo-European root for darkness. [etymonline.com], [wordsmith.org]  Hence the semantic development:  darkness → blindness → acting without seeing → acting without foresight → rashness. [etymonline.com], [wordsmith.org]  That is quite different from:  fear → timor → timidus.  In Roman moral vocabulary the contrast is almost the opposite:              Too much cautionToo little cautiontimortemeritas A coward may suffer from timor; a fool may suffer from temeritas. As for your question:  "just basic adverb temere — nothing earlier than that?"  For classical Latin, yes: the ancient word we can point to is the adverb temere ("rashly, heedlessly, at random"), from which the nouns and adjectives are derived. [en.wiktionary.org], [etymonline.com] So Duronius' temeraria vox is not:  a fearful speech,  but rather:  a speech uttered temere, without proper regard for consequences, heedlessly, rashly.  Which fits the censorial context rather well. When Duronius says:  quid opus libertate, si volentibus luxu perire non licet? [lexundria.com]  the censors could hear not merely levity (levitas), but recklessness (temeritas): a man advocating a principle without sufficiently foreseeing where it might lead. And what antonyms for both levity and temerity can we find so that when D. challenges the expulsion, they tell him, you did not EXPLOIT but DISOBEYED the principle of conversational ANTI-LEVITY (formulate in imperative) AND the Principle of conversational ANTI-TEmerity (formulate in imperative). How he asks. They give the two examples you gave: the first disobeing (rather than flouting for the purpose of implicature) the first, the second the second. Thanks I like this very much because it turns the censorial judgment into a proto-Gricean code of senatorial conversation. The Romans would not formulate the principles quite this way, but from the vocabulary itself we can reconstruct two opposed virtues.                     ViceRoman nounOpposed virtuelevitasfrivolity, shallownessgravitastemeritasrashness, recklessnessprudentia, consideratio, consilium So the censors' complaint against Duronius could be reconstrued as: Principium contra levitatem  Graviter loquere. "Speak seriously."  or  Rem publicam graviter tracta. "Treat public affairs seriously."  Principium contra temeritatem  Considera consequentia antequam loquaris. "Consider the consequences before you speak."  or more Romanly:  Cum consilio loquere, non temere. "Speak with deliberation, not rashly."   Then comes Duronius' appeal. Duronius before the censors DVRONIVS  Cur ex senatu sum motus? "Why was I expelled from the Senate?"  ANTONIVS CENSOR  Quia duo praecepta violasti. "Because you violated two principles."  DVRONIVS  Quae? "Which?"  ANTONIVS  Primum: Graviter loquere. "First: Speak seriously."  DVRONIVS  Quando? "When?"  ANTONIVS  Quando dixisti: "Lex enim est quae vos esse frugi iubet." [attalus.org]   "When you said: 'There is a law which orders you to be frugal.'"  ANTONIVS  Rem gravissimam quasi iocum tractabas. "You treated a very serious matter as though it were a joke."  That would illustrate levitas.  Then the second principle. DVRONIVS  Et alterum? "And the second?"  ANTONIVS  Cum consilio loquere, non temere. "Speak with deliberation, not rashly."  DVRONIVS  Quo loco? "Where?"  ANTONIVS  Quando dixisti: "Quid opus libertate, si volentibus luxu perire non licet?" [attalus.org]   "When you said: 'What use is liberty, if those wishing to perish through luxury are not permitted to do so?'"  ANTONIVS  Non ridebas tantum; persuadebas. "You were not merely joking; you were persuading."  DVRONIVS  Et quid mali est in eo? "And what is wrong with that?"  ANTONIVS  Consequentias non reputabas. "You were not reckoning the consequences."   The beautiful Gricean twist is that Duronius would probably answer:  "I was not violating either principle. I was exploiting them."  That is, he might claim:  the apparent levity was a rhetorical device, the apparent temerity was a reductio of paternalist legislation.  In Gricean terms, the censors interpret his utterances literally and morally; Duronius would insist that they were meant as provocative vehicles for a deeper implicature. So the real dispute becomes:  Was Duronius flouting gravitas in order to make a point,  or was he simply lacking gravitas? Likewise:  Was he appearing rash in order to expose an absurdity,  or was he genuinely rash? That's exactly the sort of disagreement about speaker meaning and audience uptake that Grice would relish. Especially when Grice gives implicature as ESPECIALLY springing from FLOUTING, which Grice defines as BLATANTLY violating a praecept assuming a higher principle of conversational helpfulness is NOT violated. So here we have to consider addresee -- as a senator, his speech was meant to persuade OTHER senators -- and the one who had D. expelled obviously did not catch the 'implicature' that D. may have claimed to have had in mind? Thanks -- now the expeller may claim that while the IMMEDIATE addressee are fellow senators, the MEDIATE addressee is POPULUS ROMANUS and thus be more stringent about flouts and violations. Thanks Yes — I think this is exactly where a Gricean reconstruction becomes illuminating. Grice's notion of flouting is crucial. A speaker may blatantly fail to conform to a conversational expectation, yet remain cooperative at a higher level. The hearer is then invited to search for an implicature. Duronius might defend himself precisely along those lines. The censors hear:  Quid opus libertate, si volentibus luxu perire non licet? [attalus.org]  and conclude:  "He is advocating luxury."  Duronius' reply would be:  "No. I am forcing you to think about the limits of legislation."  In Gricean terms:  apparent violation, search for speaker meaning, recovery of a higher-level point.  The problem is that the censors deny that such recovery is available. The Two Audiences Your distinction between immediate and mediate addressee is excellent. Immediate addressee The senators present. Duronius might say:  "Any intelligent senator understood perfectly well that I was speaking paradoxically."  A Gricean defense:  "I flouted seriousness in order to make a serious point."  Mediate addressee The Roman people. The censor might answer:  "That is precisely the problem."  Because Duronius spoke from the rostra. Valerius Maximus explicitly reports him addressing:  Quirites. [attalus.org]  So the censors could argue that the relevant audience is not merely a circle of sophisticated political insiders. The speech enters public circulation. The ordinary hearer may recover:  "Luxury is liberty."  rather than:  "Paternal legislation has limits."  A Possible Reconstruction Duronius  Non temere locutus sum; consulto locutus sum. "I did not speak rashly; I spoke deliberately."  Antonius  Senatores fortasse intellegunt. "Perhaps the senators understand."  Duronius  Id satis est. "That is enough."  Antonius  Non satis est. "It is not enough."  Duronius  Cur? "Why?"  Antonius  Quia non solis senatoribus loqueris. "Because you are not speaking to senators alone."  Duronius  Quibus igitur? "Then to whom?"  Antonius  Populo Romano. "To the Roman People."  That is, I think, the deepest issue. Duronius treats public rhetoric almost as a sophisticated conversational game, where a bold formulation can be redeemed by a recoverable implicature. The censor takes a more paternal view:  the larger the audience, the less liberty one has to rely on subtle implicatures.  In modern Gricean language: Duronius claims he was flouting. The censor claims that, given the audience, the flout functioned as an ordinary violation. The punishment follows because the censor refuses to grant the speaker the cooperative intention on which the implicature depends.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Duso – Ossia: Grice e Duso: la ragione conversazionale e  l’implicatura conversazionale di Romolo e compagnia.  Giuseppe Duso (Treviso): la ragione conversazionale e  l’implicatura conversazionale di Romolo e compagnia. Grice: “I was taught, at Corpus, by Hardie, if not earlier, at Clifton, that ‘man’ is the ‘rational animal’. With Hardie, I spent a tutorial or two on ‘il Lizio,’ as the Italians call him, that either man is the rational or the political animal, and contrived a thesis that made them compatible. Drawing from Locke on man and parrot, a parrot is neither a rational nor a political animal. But also with Locke, there’s Man and Person, homo and persona, in Etrurian. RAGIONE features in both, but differently distributed. IN MAN ACCIDENTALY as in ‘man is a rational animal’, IN PERSON, ESSENTIALLY. We may err morally because we don’t know, yet a person is FREE to set his own ENDS, and it may be that some OTHER person conceives the first as of ill-will. It is a characteristic of RAGIONE that it operates on a pre-rational state, think self-deception or akrasia, yet a person is deemed RAGIONAVOLE even if the ends he sets for himself do not agree with ours! My colleague Pears goes further. In motivated irrationaliy, rationality is an essential property of a person, an irrational person does not pose a conceptual paradox as that of the white raven does! D. is right that idealism connects constitution and freedom analytically, the Romans did not. My favourite D. is on freedom, where, while he could have drawn from diritto romano  he doesn’t! I consider myself, a contractualist, or quasi-contractualist, but I should not be confused with [G> R.] Grice – a FULL-BLOWN contractualist aequi-vocal Poterer only has one sense: poterer rain/run. Credibility/desirability modes are not Fregeian senses, gius naturalismo. Si laurea a Padova. con Heglato. Insegna a Padova. ricerca sul lessico lessico giuridico analisi lingue. concetto contratto sociale diritto naturale mette in questione nell’elenco genesi logica aporie diritto ius uguale libero potere democrazia concetto politico repubblica rappresentazione soverano filosofia politica idealismo rivoluze regime di governo verbo modo verbo servile aussiliare aletica doxastica e deontica pact, compact morale. Grice: St John’s — some time in the sixties. “I don’t quite know why I persist in reading other people’s dissertation abstracts and laurea titles. Ryle would have none of it here. Oxford has become a place of training—perhaps even indoctrination—and I feel a faint, proprietary guilt about that. It isn’t the teaching that troubles me (a tutee is, after all, free to misunderstand); it’s the examining. The Sub-Faculty approves, these days, of only one kind of examination: the sort that consists in interrogating “ordinary linguistic use,” as if philosophy were a viva in diction. And so I find myself envying—up to a point—the liberties of elsewhere. I play, in tutorials, with my own little hybrids: Kantotle, for the benefit of those who think “Aristotle” and “Kant” exhaust the history of mind; and Potts, my brightest, proposes Ariskant as having the better ring. (It does ring—though it also sounds like a brand of cough mixture.) Meanwhile, in Padua—of all places—one Giuseppe Duso is happily at work on Hegel interprete di Platone (1966): an entire thesis under the sign of what one might call Heglato or Plathegel. But would those be the proper antonyms? The joke, I suspect, doesn’t travel. Kantotle works in English because we don’t say Aristotele (as the Italians do); we say “Aristotle,” as if we were abbreviating him for efficiency. And the Italians don’t even give us “Plato” in the nominative; they insist on the vernacular accusative—Platone—as if the philosopher had been declined into permanence. Still, the point survives the phonetics. The proportion holds, more or less: Aristotle : Kant :: Plato : Hegel. So perhaps Duso’s Heglato predates my Kantotle—or at any rate makes it look less original than I’d like. Potts, naturally, pushes it further: if Aristotle was Plato’s rebellious student, then by the same logic (he says, with that irritating undergraduate confidence) Hegel must be Kant’s rebellious student. “Well,” I tell him, “implicaturally speaking, he was.” Grice: Duso, le confesso che, dopo anni fra Corpus e Clifton, sono ancora indeciso: l’uomo è animale razionale o politico? E poi, i pappagalli, poveretti, non sono né razionali né tantomeno politici. Chi la spunta? Duso: Caro Grice, l’importante è non finire a fare filosofia con i pappagalli! Secondo me, ragione e libertà danzano insieme, anche se a Roma preferivano il giro di valzer con la legge. Lei lo sa: ragione c’è sempre, ma a volte prende il tram sbagliato! Grice: Ah, quindi non basta essere ragionevoli, bisogna anche scegliere la fermata giusta? Mi piace! Ma mi dica: se uno prende il tram per la libertà, non rischia di scendere a “Aporia”, fermata finale? Duso: Beh, Grice, dipende dal biglietto! Se lo ha comprato con il contratto sociale, può anche cambiare linea e andare dritto verso la democrazia. L’importante è non lasciarsi confondere dal pappagallo – che ripete tutto ma non capisce niente! Duso, Giuseppe (1966). Hegel interprete di Platone. Padova.