AN

 

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

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Anassilao – Ossia -- Grice e Anassilao: il principe filosofo -- Roma – filosofia italiana (Roma). Filosofo italiano. A Pythagorean who is expelled from the whole territory of Italy Anassilao: il principe filosofo -- Roma – filosofia italiana (Roma). Filosofo italiano. A Pythagorean who is expelled from the whole territory of Italy by OTTAVIO. PLINIO  Maggiore quotes his views on the use of hemlock, which A. believed may be effectively rubbed on adolescent girls’s breasts to make them permanently firm, but also on adolescent boys’s testicles to lower their libido. GRICEVS: Anaxilae, Pythagorice, si Roma te pepulit, saltem numeri te non deserent, nam duo et duo semper tecum sunt. ANAXILAVS: Ita est, Grice, sed cum princeps me eiecit, etiam librum meum de silentio perdidi, quod est valde inopportunum. GRICEVS: Noli dolere: Plinius te citabit, et si male intellexerit, id ipsum erit testimonium quam necessaria sit interpretatio. ANAXILAVS: Ergo eamus ad tabernam, ut vinum bibamus et de philosophia loquamur, quia nemo potest nos eicere e colloquio.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Ancario – Ossia: Grice ed Ancario -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Ancario. The Ancharii, occasionally written Ancarii, is a family at ancient Rome. The first of the gens to achieve prominence is Quintus A., a senator. The origin of the A. is uncertain, but “A.” may be derived from Ancharia, a name of the goddess Angerona, by which she was known at Faesulae. The ancestor of the A. may have been particularly devoted to the worship of Angerona. As Faesulae was an Etruscan city, the family may have been of Etruscan origin. According to Torelli the gens becomes active in Rome after the Marsic War. The praenomina associated with the A. include Quintus, Publius, and Marcus. The cognomina used by the A. included Priscus, a common surname meaning "elder" or "old-fashioned", and Soter, a savior or protector. The latter surname was borne by a freedwoman, and was probably not used by other members of the gens.  Quintus A., a senator slain by MARIO upon his return from Africa. He had been praetor. Quintus A., tribune of the plebs and praetor, received the province of Macedonia. He might have been the son of the praetorian killed by Marius. Ancharia, the first wife of Gaius Octavius, the father of Augustus. She was the mother of Octavia the Elder, while Augustus and Octavia the Younger were his children by Atia. She may have been the daughter of Quintus A., the praetor. Marcus A., one of the duumvirs at Falerio in Picenum, who dedicated an inscription in honor of Octavia, the sister of Augustus, between AD 14 and 20.[9] A. Priscus, prosecuted Caesius Cordus, proconsul of Crete, for treason and extortion in AD 21.[10] Publia Ancharia Soteris, a freedwoman in Bithynia. Pliny the Younger asked the emperor Trajan to grant her the Ius Quiritium, thereby making her a Roman citizen.[11][12] Quintus A., Praeses Orientis in AD 258. See also List of Roman gentes References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, p. 167 ("Q. Ancharius", No. 1).  Encyclopædia Britannica.  Leiwo, Martti (1995). Neapolitana: A Study of Population and Language in Graeco-Roman Naples. Societas Scientiarum Fennica. p. 95.  Appian, Bellum Civile, i. 73.  Cicero, Pro Sestio, 53, Ad Familiares, xiii. 40.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, p. 167 ("Q. Ancharius", No. 2).  Wardle, Suetonius: Life of Augustus, p. 91.  Suetonius, "The Life of Augustus", 4.  CIL IX, 5449.  Tacitus, Annales, ii. 38, 70.  Pliny the Younger, Epistulae, 10, 11, 2.  Kajava, Roman Female Praenomina. Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, Pro Sestio. Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Pliny the Younger), Epistulae (Letters). Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales. Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, De Vita Caesarum (Lives of the Caesars, or The Twelve Caesars). Appianus Alexandrinus (Appian), Bellum Civile (The Civil War). 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). Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition. Mika Kajava, Roman Female Praenomina: Studies in the Nomenclature of Roman Women, Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae (1994). David Wardle, Suetonius: Life of Augustus, Oxford University Press (2014). Further reading //lucris.lub.lu.se/ws/portalfiles/portal/102808771/H.Olsson_Cultural_ and_socio_political_development_in_south_ Etruria_The_Biedano_region_in_the_5th_to_1st_centuries.pdf Categories: AnchariiRoman gentes This is first-rate Speranzian material — you are staging two distinct but structurally related Gricean failures:  False identity (Ancharia = Angerona) → error about meaning/substitution Fatal order (Marius’ envoy) → breakdown of conversational rights (asking questions is disallowed)  Let me render both as tight Latin dialogues with translation and implicature.  I. Antiquarian dispute: Ancharia = Angerona? Move 1 — Ancharius resists Ancharius: “Ne verba quidem eadem sunt! Ancharia alia dea est, Angerona alia. Nos Anchariae sacra facimus, non Angeronae.” Translation: “They are not even the same words! Ancharia is one goddess, Angerona another. We perform rites for Ancharia, not for Angerona.” Implicature (English):  Sound difference ⇒ identity difference Rejects substitutability salva veritate Appeals to lived cult, not book-learning   Move 2 — The learned appeal Interrogator: “At Plinius scribit eandem deam esse: quae Romae Angerona vocatur, Faesulis Ancharia.” Translation: “But Pliny writes that she is the same goddess: she who is called Angerona at Rome is called Ancharia at Faesulae.” Implicature:  Authority of text overrides local usage Suggests identity through interpretation, not sound Introduces learned equivalence   Move 3 — Ancharius rejects authority Ancharius: “Nescit quid dicat. dubito num umquam Faesulas viderit, ubi maiores mei ab antiquis temporibus habitaverunt.” Translation: “He does not know what he is saying. I doubt he has ever seen Faesulae, where my ancestors have lived since ancient times.” Implicature:  Undermines epistemic authority Local knowledge > universal theory Identity = tradition, not etymology   Move 4 — Meta-linguistic closure Ancharius: “Non omnis mutatio nominis mutat deam; sed nec omnis similitudo eandem facit.” Translation: “Not every change of name changes the goddess; but neither does every resemblance make her the same.” Implicature:  Balanced correction:  equivalence ≠ identity difference ≠ separation   This is a proper Gricean repair: → do not infer identity from superficial criteria   II. The Marius episode (fatal conversation) Here the structure is different: not ambiguity, but restriction of conversational rights.  Move 1 — The envoy arrives Legatus: “Marius me ad te misit. tu es Ancarius, nonne?” Translation: “Marius has sent me to you. You are Ancharius, are you not?” Implicature:  Formal identification Neutral entry — conversationally normal footing Hidden threat not yet explicit   Move 2 — Ancharius responds Ancharius: “Sum. quid mihi cum Mario est?” Translation: “I am. What does Marius want with me?” Implicature:  Legitimate request for relevance Assumes cooperative exchange Violates later constraint unknowingly   Move 3 — The refusal of explanation Legatus: “Non dixit. mandata tantum dedit; nuper ex Africa venit neque adhuc omnia composuit.” Translation: “He did not say. He only gave orders; he has just come from Africa and has hardly yet settled matters.” Implicature:  Denial of explanation Authority without reason Suggests urgency + arbitrariness   Move 4 — The fatal question Ancharius: “Quae sunt illa mandata, si quaeso?” Translation: “And what are those orders, if I may ask?” Implicature:  Still assumes conversational rights Appeals to politeness (“si quaeso”) This is the fatal misstep   Move 5 — Breakdown of conversation Legatus: “Rogas quod rogare non licet. hoc ipsum ultimum est quod scies.” Translation: “You ask what may not be asked. That itself is the last thing you will know.” Implicature:  Explicit denial of Gricean cooperation Questioning authority = fatal Ends conversation as such (no further interpretation possible)   III. Grice/Speranza synthesis 1. First dialogue: semantic error  Problem: mistaken substitutability Speaker confusion:  sound → identity   Repair:  Ancharius restores limits of inference     2. Second dialogue: pragmatic collapse  Problem: rights of questioning removed Ancharius assumes:  cooperative exchange   Reality:  authoritarian speech act   Result:  questioning = self-condemnation     Final Speranzian close  In the dispute about Angerona, Ancharius insists that not every similarity licenses substitution; in the encounter with Marius’ envoy, he discovers too late that not every question licenses an answer. In the first case, meaning fails through excess of inference; in the second, through its complete prohibition.   If you want, we can combine both into a single ironic scene where Ancharius applies his careful semantic reasoning to the envoy—only to find that clarity itself has no place in a non-cooperative exchange.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Ancario – Ossia: Grice ed Ancario -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Ancario. While you can suggest your fit, the Grice/Speranza one for the Ancario is this A. Prisco who prosecutes Cesio Cordo, pro-consul of Creta, for treason and extortion. for which we may have the latin dialogue with English translation and implicature in English -- It's in the middle of nowehere, so why would he care? it's TREASON -- against what? We can hypothesise -- AND EXTORTION -- to who? again, we can hypothesise. Input? Feedback? Thanks -- This is a very good Grice/Speranza choice: Ancharius Priscus prosecuting Caesius Cordus gives you exactly the right conditions for:  undefined charges (“treason” / “extortion”) uncertain referents (against whom? from whom?) and therefore constructed meaning via accusation  So we are in a courtroom where meaning is not given by facts, but fixed by how charges are framed — very Gricean territory. Before the dialogue, one key clarification:  we know from Tacitus (Annales) that Cordus was prosecuted for maiestas (treason) and repetundae (extortion) but:  “treason” could mean offence against the emperor / state “extortion” → abuses of provincial subjects    Your instinct is right:  these crimes are semantically open, and Priscus’ job is to fill them with meaning   I. Conversational reconstruction (Latin) Move 1 — The puzzled observer Observator: “Prisce, quid tibi cum Cretā? longinqua est provincia; cur eum accusas?” Translation: “Priscus, what have you to do with Crete? It is a distant province; why do you prosecute him?” Implicature (English):  Questions relevance Implies prosecution is opportunistic Suggests: “this is not your affair”   Move 2 — Priscus invokes the category Priscus: “Non de Creta agitur, sed de re publica: proditionem et repetundas arguo.” Translation: “It is not about Crete, but about the Republic: I charge him with treason and extortion.” Implicature:  Shifts scope:  local → universal   “treason” reframes everything Claims moral jurisdiction beyond geography   Move 3 — The semantic challenge Observator: “Proditionem? cui prodidit? repetundas? a quibus extorsit?” Translation: “Treason? against whom did he betray? Extortion? from whom did he extract it?” Implicature:  Calls out underspecification Forces:  specification of victims clarification of meaning   Very Grice: demands Quantity, clarity   Move 4 — Priscus’ widening move Priscus: “Qui provincias vexat, populum Romanum laedit; qui socios premis, imperium prodis.” Translation: “He who harasses the provinces harms the Roman people; he who oppresses allies betrays the empire.” Implicature:  Expands:  local crime → systemic crime   “socios” = allies → morally loaded Defines treason indirectly, not explicitly   Move 5 — The sceptical punch Observator: “Magna verba dicis: sed ubi facta certa sunt?” Translation: “You speak great words—but where are the clear facts?” Implicature:  Accuses Priscus of rhetorical inflation Suggests:  words exceed evidence   Questions Quality (truthfulness)   Move 6 — Priscus’ Gricean closure Priscus: “Non omnia dicenda sunt; satis est ut intellegatis quid significem.” Translation: “Not everything must be said; it is enough that you understand what I imply.” Implicature:  Explicit embrace of implicature Refusal of full explicitness Suggests:  persuasion lies in what is not said     II. Grice/Speranza analysis This is almost perfect as a courtroom case of meaning construction.  1. “Treason” as floating signifier  initially:  empty category   Priscus fills it with:  oppression of allies abuse of province    So:  treason = what the prosecutor persuades you it is   2. “Extortion” without victims The question:  “a quibus?”  is never really answered. Instead:  becomes:   symbolic crime against the Republic itself   3. Violation of Quantity Priscus:  withholds specifics speaks in generalisations  Yet:  this is persuasive precisely because it invites inference   4. The Gricean twist Final line:  “satis est ut intellegatis”  = textbook implicature Meaning:  I will not say it; you will supply it   III. Philosophical core (your insight refined) You asked:  “treason — against what?” “extortion — from whom?”  Answer:  those boundaries are deliberately blurred  Because:  clarity would limit the charge vagueness expands its reach   IV. Another possible Ancharius fit A secondary candidate is: Quintus Ancharius (killed by Marius) Why?  charged political environment likely accusations and reputational framing moment of:  speech vs violence    But:  Priscus remains the strongest Grice/Speranza case because:   courtroom = explicitly linguistic arena   V. Final Speranzian close  Priscus does not begin by knowing what “treason” means; he speaks until the word acquires the meaning required to condemn. The danger for Cordus is not that he has been clearly accused, but that the accusation is clear enough for the judges to supply the rest.   If you want, we can now sharpen this into a Tacitean version, where the same exchange becomes darker, more ironic, and less explicit.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Ancario – Ossia: Grice ed Ancario -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Ancario. We may also reconstruct the antiquarian claim about substitutability salva veritate Ancharia = Angerona. with Ancario saying (in Latin): "They don't even SOUND alike. Surely they are different goddesses, and we worship Ancharia, NOT Angerona." "But Pliny says that the goddess Angerona is the same goddess that is known as Ancharia in Faesulae." Ancario: "The man doesn't know what he is talking about and I doubt he ever visited Faesulae where my ancestors lived from times immemorial." Translate to Latin etc Input? Feedback? Thanks -- Yes, the MARIO case is a good one -- and he possibly sent someone to kill A. so we can reconstruct the dialogue in Latin. "Mario sent me to see you. Your name is Ancario, right? A: Yes. What has Mario got against me?" He didn't say -- he only gave me the orders, sir -- he is just fresh from Africa and has hardly unpacked. And what was the order, if I may ask?" "Fatal question: you may NOT ask!" -- This is first-rate Speranzian material — you are staging two distinct but structurally related Gricean failures:  False identity (Ancharia = Angerona) → error about meaning/substitution Fatal order (Marius’ envoy) → breakdown of conversational rights (asking questions is disallowed)  Let me render both as tight Latin dialogues with translation and implicature.  I. Antiquarian dispute: Ancharia = Angerona? Move 1 — Ancharius resists Ancharius: “Ne verba quidem eadem sunt! Ancharia alia dea est, Angerona alia. Nos Anchariae sacra facimus, non Angeronae.” Translation: “They are not even the same words! Ancharia is one goddess, Angerona another. We perform rites for Ancharia, not for Angerona.” Implicature (English):  Sound difference ⇒ identity difference Rejects substitutability salva veritate Appeals to lived cult, not book-learning   Move 2 — The learned appeal Interrogator: “At Plinius scribit eandem deam esse: quae Romae Angerona vocatur, Faesulis Ancharia.” Translation: “But Pliny writes that she is the same goddess: she who is called Angerona at Rome is called Ancharia at Faesulae.” Implicature:  Authority of text overrides local usage Suggests identity through interpretation, not sound Introduces learned equivalence   Move 3 — Ancharius rejects authority Ancharius: “Nescit quid dicat. dubito num umquam Faesulas viderit, ubi maiores mei ab antiquis temporibus habitaverunt.” Translation: “He does not know what he is saying. I doubt he has ever seen Faesulae, where my ancestors have lived since ancient times.” Implicature:  Undermines epistemic authority Local knowledge > universal theory Identity = tradition, not etymology   Move 4 — Meta-linguistic closure Ancharius: “Non omnis mutatio nominis mutat deam; sed nec omnis similitudo eandem facit.” Translation: “Not every change of name changes the goddess; but neither does every resemblance make her the same.” Implicature:  Balanced correction:  equivalence ≠ identity difference ≠ separation   This is a proper Gricean repair: → do not infer identity from superficial criteria   II. The Marius episode (fatal conversation) Here the structure is different: not ambiguity, but restriction of conversational rights.  Move 1 — The envoy arrives Legatus: “Marius me ad te misit. tu es Ancarius, nonne?” Translation: “Marius has sent me to you. You are Ancharius, are you not?” Implicature:  Formal identification Neutral entry — conversationally normal footing Hidden threat not yet explicit   Move 2 — Ancharius responds Ancharius: “Sum. quid mihi cum Mario est?” Translation: “I am. What does Marius want with me?” Implicature:  Legitimate request for relevance Assumes cooperative exchange Violates later constraint unknowingly   Move 3 — The refusal of explanation Legatus: “Non dixit. mandata tantum dedit; nuper ex Africa venit neque adhuc omnia composuit.” Translation: “He did not say. He only gave orders; he has just come from Africa and has hardly yet settled matters.” Implicature:  Denial of explanation Authority without reason Suggests urgency + arbitrariness   Move 4 — The fatal question Ancharius: “Quae sunt illa mandata, si quaeso?” Translation: “And what are those orders, if I may ask?” Implicature:  Still assumes conversational rights Appeals to politeness (“si quaeso”) This is the fatal misstep   Move 5 — Breakdown of conversation Legatus: “Rogas quod rogare non licet. hoc ipsum ultimum est quod scies.” Translation: “You ask what may not be asked. That itself is the last thing you will know.” Implicature:  Explicit denial of Gricean cooperation Questioning authority = fatal Ends conversation as such (no further interpretation possible)   III. Grice/Speranza synthesis 1. First dialogue: semantic error  Problem: mistaken substitutability Speaker confusion:  sound → identity   Repair:  Ancharius restores limits of inference     2. Second dialogue: pragmatic collapse  Problem: rights of questioning removed Ancharius assumes:  cooperative exchange   Reality:  authoritarian speech act   Result:  questioning = self-condemnation     Final Speranzian close  In the dispute about Angerona, Ancharius insists that not every similarity licenses substitution; in the encounter with Marius’ envoy, he discovers too late that not every question licenses an answer. In the first case, meaning fails through excess of inference; in the second, through its complete prohibition.   If you want, we can combine both into a single ironic scene where Ancharius applies his careful semantic reasoning to the envoy—only to find that clarity itself has no place in a non-cooperative exchange.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Anceschi – Ossia: Grice ed Anceschi: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale del senso.  Luciano Anceschi (Milano, Lombardia): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale del senso. Grice: “I like A.; he plays with the idea of dialogue as a mirror (specchio) of ego and alter or ego and tu – I like that. He is the Italian equivalent of John Holloway, I suppose.” Si laurea sotto BANFI, Insegna a Bologna. L'interesse per la letteratura e le arti figurative si accompagna a quello pell’anti-dommatismo. Saggio su  autonomia naturale ed eteronomia artificiale. La sua ricerca sulla figura e il modello anti-idealistico trova voce in Orfeo e Corrente.  Si schiere a favore dell'ermetismo. Saggi di poetica e poesia, cura  antologie di lirica. Ermetismo, Enciclopedia. Si concentra sui modelli dall’idealismo, il barocco e altre prove, i presupposti storic, teorici, ed empirici dell'estetica critica; l'estetica dell'empirismo, sistematica dell’estetica e dell'arte, delinea una estetica come fenomenologia della forma naturale e artificiale, sui principi della fenomenologia.  Fonda Il Verri e La tradizione del nuovo. Premio Amelia alla tavola di Boscarato. Centrali sono i temi delle poetiche del barocco e dall’istituzioni poetiche d’UNGARETTI ad ANNUNZIO, che cosa è la poesia? Il caos, il metodo, estetica fenomenologica. Gli specchi della poesia. Riflessione, critica. Linceo, Accademia Clementina di Bologna. Dona la sua biblioteca all’archiginnasio. Perosa. Pontiggia Montevecchi italiano, o fiorentino? Ci sono aspetti della poetica che si possono dire ermetici, che hanno rapporti coll’ermetismo. Uno dei connotati dell'ermetismo è quello d’tenere i rapporti. Ma un movimento che si colloca sotto quel nome s’ha solo in Italia. Trovano caratteri particolari; determinano una poesia per certi aspetti d’intensità e inquietudine. Ridurre il movimento al Firenze dà nel sofistico o nel riduttivo. Non è facile tagliar col coltello una situazione compatta e varia. Molti fatti si danno nella convergenza d’interessi. Il gruppo di Firenze è autonomo, ma nella prima generazione ermetica la prima voce è quella d’UNGARETTI. Grado d’ermetismo dell’implicatura, l’impossibilita dell’implicatura ermetica. G.: What are you reading? S.: Hungarian. G.: That is not an answer one expects in Oxford before luncheon. S.: Nor after it. G.: Let me see. Ah. Petőfi. S.: Yes. G.: And the thing over the vowel is not there merely to alarm the English? S.: No, though it performs that function admirably. G.: Explain it to me. S.: Gladly. First, it is not an umlaut in the German sense. In proper Hungarian spelling, Petőfi has a double acute on the o: ő. G.: Not ö? S.: Not if one wants to be correct. Ö exists in Hungarian too, but Petőfi is with ő. G.: So the poor Milanese who prints Petöfi has already begun misunderstanding the man typographically. S.: Exactly. Which is why Anceschi’s title L’uomo Petőfi, or in sloppier print L’uomo Petöfi, is already doing a small piece of cultural rescue. G.: Rescue from vowels. S.: From lazy vowels, yes. G.: Why should there be such things? S.: Because Hungarian is not Indo-European. G.: Ah. So I am not to expect Cicero. S.: You are to expect almost the opposite of Cicero in structural terms, though not in dignity. G.: That is a very diplomatic sentence. S.: I learned diplomacy from necessity. G.: And Hungarian from whom? S.: Since you insist on the dramatic version: from Anceschi, at least indirectly. G.: A Milanese teaching Magyar to Oxford. S.: That is already the point. You ask why a Milanese should write an intervento on “the man Petőfi” when he has Dante and the sweetest of all languages close at hand. The answer is political and critical, not merely philological. G.: Go on. S.: He wants to tell Milan that Petőfi was being read through Italian habits that distort him. A Hungarian poet was being domesticated into categories that suit Milanese and Tuscan readers better than they suit Hungarian. G.: I should have thought he would be misunderstood with all those diacriticals. S.: The diacriticals are the smallest difficulty. G.: Smaller than the nominal system? S.: Much smaller. G.: Good. Start with the diacriticals and then frighten me properly. S.: Hungarian distinguishes vowel quality and, often, quantity with these marks. Acute accents mark length on ordinary vowels: á, é, í, ó, ú. Umlaut-like signs mark front rounded vowels: ö, ü. Double acute marks long front rounded vowels: ő, ű. G.: So the thing is systematic, not decorative. S.: Entirely systematic. G.: And Petőfi? S.: The ő marks a long front rounded vowel. Not an English sound. Not an Italian one either, in any simple sense. G.: So already the name resists easy naturalisation. S.: Yes. The script itself says: do not assimilate me too quickly. G.: Which is perhaps why people do exactly that. S.: Naturally. G.: Give me one sentence of Petőfi in Hungarian. S.: Very well: Szabadság, szerelem! E kettő kell nekem. G.: Which means? S.: “Freedom, love! These two I need.” G.: Splendidly compact. S.: And already instructive. G.: In what way? S.: Because Hungarian lets you see several things at once. Szabadság and szerelem are bare nouns, no articles there. E kettő means “these two,” where e is a demonstrative element and kettő the numeral. Kell nekem means literally something like “is needed to me,” or “is necessary for me,” with the dative nekem. G.: Ah. A dative where English uses possession of desire. S.: Exactly. Already the language partitions experience differently. G.: So the categories are the prison. S.: If you want the Wittgensteinian version, yes: morpho-syntactic categories are not merely labels on thought; they structure what comes naturally as a report, a demand, a lyric compression. G.: And you are saying Anceschi would use Petőfi as a political lesson in misreading across such prisons. S.: Precisely. G.: Let us be very explicit. What are the relevant morpho-syntactic features? S.: First, Hungarian is agglutinative to a degree that makes Italian look almost indecently analytic in comparison, though of course Latin had its own synthetic dignity. G.: Agglutinative in the proper typological sense? S.: Yes. Stems take strings of suffixes, each usually carrying a relatively discrete grammatical function. G.: Cases. S.: Many. Far more than Latin in the schoolboy sense. G.: How many am I meant to fear? S.: Depending on classification, around eighteen or so are commonly listed, but the point is not the number; the point is the semantic precision distributed morphologically rather than through prepositions. G.: So Hungarian says with endings what Italian must often say with little helper-words. S.: Very often, yes. G.: Examples. S.: House is ház. In the house: házban. Into the house: házba. From the house: házból. On the house: házon. Onto the house: házra. Off the house: házról. G.: Revoltingly neat. S.: Quite. G.: So relation to space is built into suffixal morphology. S.: Exactly. The nominal system is a map with endings. G.: And then I suppose there is vowel harmony waiting behind all this like a headmaster. S.: Yes. Suffixes often vary depending on the front/back quality of the stem vowels. G.: So not only must one know the case; one must know the phonological class of the host. S.: Precisely. G.: Which means phonematics and morpho-syntax are entangled. S.: Very much so. The vowel system is not mere sound; it conditions grammatical realisation. G.: No wonder Milan misunderstood the man. S.: The misunderstanding begins before one reaches the politics. G.: But let us reach the politics. S.: Petőfi was not merely “a poet” in the genteel comparative-literature sense. He was a national and revolutionary poet. To flatten him into a generic romantic lyric voice is already to miss the intervention. G.: So L’uomo Petőfi is “the man” precisely because Anceschi wants to recover person, historical force, civic role. S.: Yes. Not merely “Petőfi the writer,” but Petőfi as a human and political figure whose language belongs to a national struggle and a non-Italian linguistic world. G.: Which is why the Milanese are liable to get him wrong. S.: They read him through the sweetness of Italian lyric and the prestige of a romance-language literary horizon. G.: You make that sound almost criminal. S.: It is at least critically lazy. G.: And Anceschi, the Milanese, attacks Milanese laziness from within Milan. S.: Exactly. Which is what makes the piece interesting. G.: Return to morphology. You said the nominal system was bad. S.: Only from the point of view of the complacent Indo-European. G.: Which is my point of view. S.: I know. Hungarian nouns do not merely inflect for number and possessive relation; they absorb spatial and relational functions with extraordinary efficiency. G.: Possessive too? S.: Yes. Possession is marked on the noun. For example, “my house” is házam. G.: Not a separate possessive pronoun plus noun? S.: Not necessarily. The person is built into the nominal form. G.: So even possession is more morphologically intimate. S.: Exactly. G.: And the article? S.: There is definite and indefinite article, yes, but article use is not the heart of the system. The deeper shock for the classicist is how many roles are done suffixally and how little the language cares for the old Indo-European dignity of declensional families as such. G.: And the verb? S.: Worse, from your point of view. G.: Better, from yours, I gather. S.: Much better. Hungarian verbs have a conjugational system that distinguishes, among other things, indefinite and definite object relations. G.: What do you mean? S.: Roughly: the form of the verb can vary depending on whether the object is definite or indefinite. G.: Filthy. S.: Elegant. G.: Explain. S.: If the action is directed toward a definite object, Hungarian often uses what is called the definite conjugation. If the object is indefinite or absent, the indefinite conjugation. G.: So transitivity is not enough; object-definiteness enters verbal morphology. S.: Precisely. The language builds into the verb something that English mostly leaves to the noun phrase and context. G.: That is exactly the sort of thing that would delight some structuralist and irritate any decent Oxonian. S.: Both reactions are sound. G.: Give me an illustration. S.: Olvasok can mean “I am reading” or “I read,” with no definite object specified. Olvasom a könyvet means “I read the book,” and the verbal form reflects the definite object. G.: So the verbal morphology already anticipates the object as a type of referentially fixed target. S.: Yes. The sentence distributes informational burden differently from English or Italian. G.: Then your prison image is not idle. The categories available for ordinary predication are differently distributed across the sentence. S.: Exactly. That is the deeper point. “Form of life” in language is not merely what topics people discuss; it is how the grammar asks them to package them. G.: And Petőfi, being Hungarian, packages experience in Hungarian. S.: Profoundly Hungarian, yes. G.: Which means a Milanese reading him in Italian translation risks hearing the wrong architecture of thought. S.: Precisely. G.: And Anceschi’s intervention? S.: To say, in effect: do not mistake your translation-habits for the original man. G.: The man Petőfi. S.: Yes. G.: Why “the man”? S.: Because Anceschi is insisting on recovering not only texts but the human and civic figure behind the reception cliché. G.: He could have written on Dante and the dolcissima lingua. S.: Which is exactly why he does not. To write on Hungarian is to use alterity as critique of one’s own literary provincialism. G.: So this is impegno under cover of philology. S.: Very much. G.: What about word order? S.: Flexible, but not random. Hungarian is often described as having discourse-configurational properties. Topic and focus positions matter greatly. G.: Ah. Now we are truly in my territory. S.: I thought that would cheer you. G.: Proceed. S.: In Hungarian, constituent order is strongly related to information structure: what is topic, what is focus, what is being asserted contrastively, and so on. G.: So syntax directly maps discourse prominence in a way English only half-manages. S.: Yes. Which again means that “the same thought” in Italian or English is not simply the same sequence with substitute lexemes. G.: Then implicature must behave differently. S.: Of course. G.: I was waiting for that. S.: Hungarian gives you rich resources for foregrounding, contrast, and packaging presupposed versus focal material. That does not mean “more implicatures” in any childish quantitative sense, but it does mean differently distributed pragmatic work. G.: You disappoint me slightly. I wanted more implicatures. S.: Very well: more visible opportunities for pragmatic contrast through word order and morphology, yes. G.: Better. S.: For example, where English leans heavily on intonation and particles, Hungarian can exploit constituent placement and morphology to signal what is at issue, what is presupposed, what is newly asserted. G.: Then the prison has interior architecture. S.: Beautifully put. G.: Thank you. S.: The point for Anceschi would be that Petőfi’s force as a poet cannot be detached from the specific moulding power of Hungarian form. G.: And Milan, misunderstanding him, would domesticate him into Italian lyric categories. S.: Exactly. The “man Petőfi” then becomes a corrective to literary tourism. G.: What of non-Indo-European itself? Is it politically useful as a fact? S.: Yes, because it prevents lazy genealogical assumptions. The Italian reader instinctively expects, however unconsciously, familiar categories: noun genders perhaps, recognisable verbal families, lexical cousins, Latinate transparency. G.: And finds none of them. S.: Or finds too few to trust. G.: Gender? S.: Hungarian has no grammatical gender in the Indo-European sense. G.: No he and she? S.: Pronouns do not encode gender the way many Indo-European languages do. That alone should make one cautious about importing familiar assumptions. G.: Good heavens. So even person-reference behaves differently. S.: Quite. G.: And the Milanese still think they can read the man with ease. S.: They hardly understand their own lingo, as you like to say. G.: I do. S.: Anceschi’s point, then, is not merely “here is a foreign poet.” It is “here is a linguistic and political alterity that exposes your critical laziness.” G.: That is more severe than I expected from a young Italian on Petőfi. S.: Youth often becomes severe when it is rescuing a misunderstood revolutionary. G.: And the diacritical, then, becomes emblematic. S.: Yes. A tiny visible sign that says: the word is not yours yet. G.: So the poor printer who gives me Petöfi instead of Petőfi performs, in miniature, the whole problem. S.: Exactly. G.: You are enjoying this too much. S.: Naturally. G.: Let us compare with Dante. S.: If you like. G.: Dante belongs to the lingua del sì. A language Grice may sentimentalise and Italians canonise. Petőfi belongs to a language whose very morphology resists such easy canonisation by Romance readers. S.: Exactly. One writes about Dante to celebrate one’s tradition. One writes about Petőfi to test its limits. G.: And Anceschi, being Milanese, chooses the harder object to rebuke Milan. S.: Yes. He uses Hungarian to provincialise the province. G.: That is neat. S.: Hungarian often is, once one stops screaming. G.: One final question. Did you really learn all this from Anceschi? S.: Not all. But enough of the critical point from him to know why the rest matters. G.: So “L’uomo Petőfi” is not merely “a note on a Hungarian poet.” S.: No. It is an intervention against flattening, against polite misreading, and against the assumption that all great poetry can be brought home into Italian categories without remainder. G.: Which is perhaps what we all do when we are lazy. S.: Constantly. G.: And the sentence again? S.: Szabadság, szerelem! E kettő kell nekem. G.: Freedom, love! These two I need. S.: Yes. G.: I see why a Milanese might misunderstand it as simple romantic declamation. S.: And why Anceschi would insist that, in Hungarian, the man is saying it from inside a different grammatical and political world. G.: Very well. I concede the diacritical. S.: Only the diacritical? G.: For today. The case system will require another conversation. S.: Hungarian usually does.Grice: Caro Anceschi, ieri sera ho visto “Senso” di Visconti, ma devo confessare: non ho capito assolutamente nulla! Forse la mia “sensa” non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, come direbbero i miei amici latini. Tu che pensi, il senso va davvero moltiplicato o tenuto a bada?  Anceschi: Ah, Grice, “Senso” è un labirinto! Il senso non si moltiplica, si riflette – come uno specchio tra ego e tu. Bisogna lasciarsi attraversare dalla poesia e dall’arte, senza cercare sempre una spiegazione. A volte, il vero significato si nasconde proprio dove sembra che non ci sia.  Grice: Forse è proprio questo che mi manca: il metodo italiano, il caos barocco che tu insegni. Io cerco sempre la chiarezza, ma tu parli di intensità e inquietudine, dell’ermetismo che tiene i rapporti e non li spiega. Dovrei guardare “Senso” come si legge una poesia di Ungaretti?  Anceschi: Esattamente, Grice! Ogni opera ha il suo grado d’ermetismo, e “Senso” non fa eccezione. Bisogna accettare la convergenza d’interessi, la compattezza e la varietà che si danno nell’arte italiana. La poesia e il cinema si specchiano, e a volte il senso si trova solo nel riflesso. In fondo, come diciamo noi, chi cerca il senso vero rischia di perderlo tra le pieghe dell’implicatura. Anceschi, Luciano (1928). L’uomo Petofi.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Andrea – Ossia: Grice e Andrea: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale.  Francesco d’Andrea (Ravello, Salerno, Campania): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale. Grice: “I like A., in more than one way!  Andrea made me realise how naïve Russell is with his ‘logical atomism;’ back in Naples, the Accademia degli Investiganti took thing really seriously. D’Andrea, a lawyer, like Hart, -- his claim to fmae is having written an ‘apologia in difesa,’ which I would abbreviate as just ‘in difesa’ of atomism – but my favourite is his unpublication, “Degl’atomi e degl’atomisti”! In Naples, unlike Oxford – cf. Locke and Boyle – it is understood that if you are an atomist you are, therefore, a libertine!” Da una ricca famiglia, studia a Napoli. Frequenta villa Colonna, dove si illustrano i fondamenti dell’atomismo. Fondatore del salotto degl’InVESTIGanti alla sua villa Iambrenghi a Candela. Fa l’pologia in difesa degl’atomisti in una risposta a favore di Capoa. Cortese, I ricordi di un filosofo napoletano, Napoli, Lubrano e C., Dogana della mena delle pecore in Puglia, regno di Napoli. Dizionario biografico degl’italiani, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Accademia della Crusca. Questo testo proviene in parte dalla relativa voce del progetto Mille anni di scienza in Italia, opera del Museo Galileo. Istituto Museo di Storia della Scienza di Firenze, pubblicata sotto licenza il rinnovamento culturale a Napoli in occasione del rinvenimento di un manoscritto dello stesso Concublet a Napoli. Non si può, quindi, di molto errare fissando la durata di questa Accademia, che racchiuse la più eletta. Investiganti, salotto degl’investiganti, villa Iambrenghi, Candela, investigare, vestigio, motto: investigare, sequere, segno – segno, di sequere, non sequitur, sequitur, il cane, che tipo di cane e il meglio investigante – l’atomismo – vestigio, Boezio, vestigio, segno, nota – latinismo, Cicerone su vestigio, nota, segno, notificare, segnare, segnificare, significare, vestigare, investigare, interpretare il segno, seguere il segno, segno non sequitur, segno e consequenza, sequenza logica, segno e sequenza, etimologia di ‘vestigare’ – cfr. tedesco ‘steigen,’ anglo-sassone stagan, greco stechos. G.: Apologia in difesa degl’atomisti. S.: A title with two shields and no incoming arrows. G.: Exactly. That is what bothers me. Why not merely In difesa degl’atomisti? S.: Because Apologia sounds nobler. G.: Nobler, yes; also longer, and therefore Italian. S.: You object to length only when others produce it. G.: I object to redundancy wherever I detect it. If one is already in defence, what further work does apologia do? S.: It tells you the genre. G.: Defence tells you the genre. S.: Not quite. Difesa tells you the function. Apologia tells you the rhetorical posture. G.: Ah. So one is not merely defending; one is announcing that one is defending. S.: Precisely. It is a title that does not trust the noun to do the work without a second noun standing behind it in armour. G.: This is already bad enough in Italian. Imagine it translated. Apology in Defence of the Atomists. S.: British spelling, I trust. G.: Of course. But then some barbarian publisher in Boston reprints it as Apology in Defense of the Atomists. S.: And philosophy is lost. G.: Not philosophy. Only civilisation. S.: Which in some quarters is nearly the same thing. G.: Tell me: who writes apologies? S.: Christians, usually. Or anyone who thinks he is one trial away from martyrdom. G.: Exactly. Socrates can write—or rather be written as—an apology. Tertullian can. But d’Andrea? S.: Naples gives you a lawyer, an atomist, and an atmosphere in which a defence begins to look like a confession made aggressively. G.: Still, Apologia in difesa. It is as if he feared the reader might miss the defensive intention of the defence. S.: Or as if he wanted to dignify the defence by putting a Greek word in front of it. G.: Ah, the Greek and the Italian. Apologia from Greek, difesa from Latin through Italian. S.: A title in two civilisations. G.: One might say one civilisation too many. S.: And yet the doubling is revealing. G.: In what way? S.: Apologia says: I speak in answer to accusation. Difesa says: I am on the side of those under attack. G.: So the first names the speech-act, the second the adversarial orientation. S.: Very good. G.: Thank you. But then one asks the obvious question: who asked for this defence? S.: You are wrong there. G.: Am I? S.: Yes. You are treating the title as idle ornament. It may not be. G.: Then who was attacking atomism in Naples in 1685? S.: The Pope. G.: The Pope? S.: Or, more carefully, papally aligned orthodoxy. Ecclesiastical authority. The anti-atomist camp carrying one dogma against another. G.: A dogma with another dogma. Heavens. S.: Heavens is precisely the region in which they were concerned to legislate. G.: And they call this Italian philosophy? S.: They call it Naples. G.: Good answer. S.: Thank you. G.: But now we must be careful. He does not mean Democritus merely, nor Epicurus merely, nor Lucretius merely. S.: No. “Atomists” in that context can mean contemporary corpuscular or atomistic natural philosophers, libertines by implication, and intellectual troublemakers by social effect. G.: So not just the Greeks. S.: Certainly not just the Greeks. Greek atomism is ancestral capital; contemporary atomism is the dangerous investment. G.: And corpuscularism? Where does that stand? S.: Somewhere between a-tomon as “uncuttable” and the practical need to discuss tiny bodies without sounding wholly pagan. G.: Indivisible, then. S.: In principle, yes. Though once modern natural philosophy begins tampering with the notion, “indivisible” starts to look less like a fact and more like a working slogan. G.: So d’Andrea is defending not merely old atomoi but a style of explanation. S.: Exactly. Matter as small bodies, void, motion, mechanical account, anti-Aristotelian tendency, and—crucially in Naples—the taint of libertinism. G.: Which is why your correction matters. Somebody did ask for the defence. Or at least the atmosphere did. S.: Yes. A defence can be unbidden by an individual and yet perfectly demanded by the climate. G.: Good. We may preserve that. S.: We should. G.: Now let us return to the title, which still offends me. Apologia in difesa degl’atomisti. S.: You have said it three times already. Titles thrive on resentment. G.: Why “degl’atomisti”? Why not “dell’atomismo”? S.: Because a defence of atomism would sound purely doctrinal. A defence of the atomists makes it personal, social, juridical. G.: Lawyers do prefer clients to abstractions. S.: Particularly lawyer-philosophers. G.: And d’Andrea is indeed a lawyer. Like Hart, but less dry. S.: Naples does not permit dryness to survive intact. G.: No. Oxford merely preserves it. S.: Then “degl’atomisti” is almost forensic: these men, these compromised men, these accused. G.: Very good. It is not a defence of a proposition merely, but of a community or tendency embodied in people. S.: Which is why Apologia is less idle than you wanted it to be. G.: Perhaps. But still too much. S.: You would cut it down. G.: Naturally. In difesa degl’atomisti is enough. S.: You prefer the Latin-Italian plainness to the Greek flourish. G.: I prefer one clear function to two nearly overlapping signals. S.: But perhaps the overlap is the point. A title can be emphatic by duplication. G.: As if one wrote Apology in Defence. S.: Precisely. G.: Which in English sounds faintly absurd. S.: In Italian it sounds seventeenth-century. G.: Which is often a polite way of saying faintly absurd. S.: Not always. G.: No, not always. Sometimes magnificently so. S.: Then let us examine difesa. G.: Yes. Why the dropped n? From defendere to difendere. S.: Italian did what it often does: assimilated, softened, regularised. Latin de-fendere yields Italian difendere, with the vowel adjustment and the simplification proper to vernacular phonological history. G.: So difesa is not a treason to defendere but its daughter. S.: Exactly. And a more elegant daughter, some would say. G.: Not I. S.: Naturally. G.: If we pluralise the action—suppose we defend a dogma, you and I. S.: Then noi difendiamo il dogma. G.: And if in so doing we write Apologia in difesa del dogma? S.: Then we jointly defend it. G.: Jointly? That makes matters serious. S.: Very. G.: Because if the dogma is heretical, who burns? You, or I? S.: Since the difesa is collective, possibly both. G.: A very unsatisfactory answer. S.: Unless I make an auto-da-fé in advance and confess that the title’s idea was mine. G.: Ah. S.: And that I could not count on you to finish the thing, so I took some liberties even with the title. G.: Not predicting the American misspelling, I hope. S.: No one predicts “defense.” It arrives like influenza. G.: Then the stake would be yours, not mine. S.: Not entirely. Collective defence produces collective liability. G.: I begin to see why one might prefer not to defend dogmas in print. S.: Particularly in Naples. G.: Or to defend atomists there. For atomism is not merely a doctrine but a social signal. S.: Exactly. “Atomist” can imply libertine, anti-scholastic, dangerous, modern, anti-authoritarian, perhaps impious. G.: So one dogma is defended against another by men who deny dogma. S.: That is the comic beauty of it. G.: Beauty is not the word I should have chosen. S.: Then use Neapolitan necessity. G.: Better. Now, “apology.” The Greek apologia is a speech in answer. Not “I am sorry.” S.: Correct. The English false friend has done great damage. G.: So Apologia in difesa is not “Sorry, but I defend the atomists.” S.: Though that would suit some philosophers. G.: Especially English ones. S.: Yes. G.: But in Greek apologeisthai is to answer charges. In Italian difesa is the legal sheltering. So the title says: I answer the charges by mounting a defence. S.: Which is exactly why the duplication is not empty. G.: Not empty, perhaps. Merely over-insured. S.: A lawyer would call that prudent. G.: A philosopher, redundant. S.: A Neapolitan philosopher-lawyer, inevitable. G.: Touché. S.: You see too that Apologia allows him to stand in the line of honourable self-vindication, while difesa lets him do local legal work. G.: Greek halo, Italian procedure. S.: Splendid. G.: Thank you. S.: We should also note your distinction between atomists and atomism. G.: Yes. The plural matters. S.: Because one can defend people whose doctrine one does not exhaustively formalise. One may even defend their right to investigate without endorsing every corpuscle they imagine. G.: So the title may be strategically broader than a doctrinal manifesto. S.: Exactly. “I defend the atomists” may mean: I defend the legitimacy of their inquiry, their reputation, their right not to be treated as theological vermin. G.: That is much better than “I prove atomism true.” S.: It is also safer. G.: Which a lawyer would notice. S.: Very much. G.: And if one wrote instead Difesa dell’atomismo? S.: One would sound more doctrinal, more programmatic, more liable to straightforward condemnation. G.: So degl’atomisti is a kind of legal and social softening. S.: A strategic personalisation, yes. G.: But then why not simply Risposta in difesa? S.: Too plain. G.: There speaks Italy again. S.: Gladly. G.: Tell me about the dogma with another dogma. S.: Orthodoxy attacking atomism by means of doctrinal certainty of its own. G.: So atomism is accused of being dogmatic by institutions that have perfected dogma. S.: Quite. G.: And this under the sign of the Investiganti. S.: Yes. The Investiganti prefer inquiry, vestigia, signs, traces, following the clue rather than imposing the creed. G.: Which makes Apologia in difesa degl’atomisti nearly a constitutional document for inquiry under siege. S.: That is better than your initial complaint. G.: It pains me, but yes. S.: Good. G.: Still, I maintain that Apologia remains a little self-important. S.: It is the seventeenth century. Self-importance was cheap, paper was dear, and titles had to earn their keep. G.: Very nice. S.: Thank you. G.: Let us imagine the English publisher again. S.: Of course. G.: Apology in Defence of the Atomists. S.: Fine. G.: Then some colonial meddler gives us Apology in Defense of the Atomists. S.: Fine if one lives badly. G.: And if a classicist translates it as Defence of the Atomists? S.: He loses the Greek frame of forensic self-positioning. G.: And if he translates it as Apology for the Atomists? S.: He gains English idiom and loses the explicit legal shelter. G.: So every translation sacrifices one half of the duplication. S.: Which is an excellent argument for keeping the original. G.: At last, a conservative conclusion. S.: You are relieved. G.: A little. S.: Then what do we do with “a dogma or two”? G.: Ah yes. Suppose you and I defend not the atomists, but two dogmas. S.: Then we are twice damned. G.: Not necessarily. We may write Apologia in difesa di due dogmi. S.: Horrid title. G.: Exactly. The title itself reveals the impropriety. S.: Which is one service titles perform: they show you when you have gone too far. G.: In d’Andrea’s case, though, he has perhaps not gone too far. S.: Only as far as Naples required. G.: And Naples required what Oxford never quite does: that one defend inquiry in public against theological policing. S.: Quite. Oxford would merely mutter and form a subcommittee. G.: Naples gives you a Pope. S.: And a villa. G.: And atomists. S.: And lawyers. G.: And a title too long by one noun. S.: Which, after all this, you are no longer entirely certain is too long. G.: I am certain it is too long. I am only no longer certain it is unjustified. S.: That is the nearest you come to concession. G.: It is the nearest I need. S.: Then the final verdict? G.: Apologia is rhetorically otiose if one reads only the surface; not otiose if one hears the Greek forensic answer behind the Italian legal shelter and remembers that atomists in Naples were not dusty Greeks but endangered moderns. S.: Very good. G.: And if asked who goes to the stake? S.: Possibly both, unless I confess in advance that the title was my idea. G.: In which case you burn first. S.: And you edit the posthumous second edition. G.: In defence, not in defense. S.: Naturally.Grice: Mi permetta, d’Andrea, se la chiamo semplicemente “Andrea”—trovo che tutti quei appendici non proposizionali siano piuttosto superflui! d’Andrea: Grice, non si preoccupi! In fondo, l’essenza di una conversazione sta proprio nell’andare dritto al punto, senza troppi fronzoli. Siamo Investiganti, non cerimonieri. Grice: Ecco, quello che ammiro in lei, Andrea, è la capacità di portare la questione dell’atomismo su un piano di libertà intellettuale, al di là di qualsiasi rigidità formale. Oxford dovrebbe imparare da Napoli! d’Andrea: Magari, Grice. A Napoli, il segno si segue, non si impone. L’accademia degli Investiganti ha sempre preferito l’indagine al dogma, e forse proprio per questo il nostro atomismo è anche un po’ libertino. Andrea, Francesco d’ (1685). Apologia in difesa degl’atomisti. Napoli: Lubrano e C.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Andria – Ossia: Grice e Andria: la ragione conversazionale e  l’implicatura conversazionale.  Francesco Nicola Maria Andria (Massafra, Taranto, Puglia): la ragione conversazionale e  l’implicatura conversazionale. Grice: “I like A.; of course he brings more problems than solutions but that’s philosophy even if his philosophical credentials are obscure! “He did write a philosophical chemistry and a philosophical agriculture, but that’s because at Naples there were only two faculties: law and philosophy – he also wrote a ‘medicina filosofica.’ A.’s theory of life – as he calls it – osservazione generalie sulla teoria della vita’ – owes a lot to Aldini and Haller--  Mainly he elaborates and refines Haller, if you believe it – it’s all Italian to me, so it’s eccitbabilita, sensibilita, ed irritabilita. A. goes on to define this eccitabilita in terms of the fluido elettrico con ‘sende nel cervello e nei nervi’, which galvanism smacks of Aldini. A. classifies ‘vita vegetale’ o delle piante, and ‘vita animale’. Note that ‘social life’ is understood by ‘eucarioti’ of higher order, in terms of reproduction, of life, hence re-productum. A fronte de' profondi misteri dell'immensa ed eterna meccanica, colla quale l’autor del tutto à voluto che sian le cose disposte ed ordinate, la forza dell'umano intendimento si trova talmente oppressa dalla picciolezza ed imbecillità che è totalmente impossibile le riesce di penetrarvi dentro, e appena l'è concesso di conoscerne le più esterne apparenze; e pur, sembrandole d’esser riuscita nel suo disegno, realmente non fa altro, che delirare e perdersi dietro la brevità e l'inezia delle sue idee. La teoria della vita. Il suo un'altra meno ipotetica, e più corri spondente ai fenomeni. Egli è vero, che i fautori della teoria fanno sforzi per conciliare tutte le teorie col FLOGISTO. Ma senza difficoltà può dimostrarsi che questo sforzo è infelice, come bisognosi sempre di finzioni, o di false interpretazioni. Chimica filosofica, implicatura bio-chimica, biologia filosofica, teoria della vita, vita, virtu, virilita – l’implicatura flogistica – Grice: what science? Palmistry? What deliverance? Phlogiston theory? Rhetorical questions: he means No and No. Or non rhetorical and they are formidable obstacles to his constructive realism about which he could care less!  Grice: 1964. St John’s. Potts again—at my seminar on “Conversation”—asked the right question, the intimidating one. Potts: “Yes, I see what you mean, sir. But why, sir—why should we follow these maxims at all?” I did the tutor-as-paternal thing (without losing my temper—because I’ve a genuine affection for Potts): Grice: “Because we learned them as children, and it takes more effort to break them than to go along with them. The default is co‑operation; deviance is expensive.” He took the point in the way undergraduates at Oxford take points: by falling silent for the next quarter-hour of my moves. But Potts had put his finger on something awkward. A child is “obliged” by his father—let me keep the old masculine pronoun; it saves time. The Romans, as I learned at Clifton, didn’t merely oblige their children; they owned them. They could sell them. That’s closer to coercion than anything I ever meant by “Try to make your contribution true.” Note the try: I’m not commanding veracity, I’m prescribing an effort, a tendency, a standard—something you may fail to meet without immediately becoming a criminal. Still, Potts thought the maxims smelt of paternalism. The next week he arrived with a pamphlet—thin, Neapolitan, doctrinal in tone, and faintly insolent in implication: Potts: “I’ve brought you something, sir. A Discorso sulla servitù. Dated 1769. By one Francesco Nicola Maria Andria.” Grice: “Yes?” Potts: “You see, sir, I was right.” Grice: “About what?” Potts: “About obedience. Andria’s writing at twenty-one. He’s basically talking about the age of consent—about how a young man can be a ‘servo’ under a ‘patrone.’ That is, under the man who feeds him and funds him and calls it education.” I glanced at the blurb. Grice: “He’s from Puglia.” Potts: “Yes, sir. Which is even worse.” At the back, Wainwright intervened (he always liked a legal wedge; it let him sound like Kant without having to be German about it): Wainwright: “The point is juridical, not philosophical. You can’t order a minor to follow a conversational maxim. You can’t order a minor anything in the full sense. The will isn’t formed—Wille, as Kant has it—so what exactly are you addressing when you ‘direct’ them?” I turned to the blackboard—because one must sometimes rescue an argument by making it look Latin—and wrote, with theatrical care: servus —making the v do double duty, consonant and vowel, to keep the classicists awake. Grice: “Very well. As the Romans directed a servus.” Potts exploded, delighted: Potts: “But is your servus—as you write it—actually following your maxim, or just obeying out of fear? If he ‘contributes what is true,’ is that co‑operation, or is it compliance?” At that moment Strawson, who had been watching the whole thing with the air of a man enjoying a hypothesis he didn’t have to own, said solemnly: Strawson: “Or what.” He let it hang, as he always did—two words that behave like a whole metaphysics. Grice (dryly): “Quite. For me most things are: ‘or what.’” And that, in Oxford, counts as closure: the question isn’t answered, but it has been given a form of words that will keep.Grice: Caro Andria, devo confessare che il tuo cognome mi affascina. “Andria” richiama subito alla mente il greco “aner”, uomo, che è la radice stessa della virtù romana, la “virilità”! Ah, le gioie di una solida educazione classica, dove Aner e Vir si specchiano l’uno nell’altro. Andria: Grice, hai colto nel segno! In fondo, la virtù è la linfa che anima ogni teoria della vita, sia essa filosofica o chimica. L’osservazione dei fenomeni naturali, come insegna Haller, porta sempre a riflettere su ciò che rende umano l’uomo: eccitabilità, sensibilità e quell’irritabilità che ci distingue, proprio come il fluido elettrico che Aldini immaginava serpeggiare tra cervello e nervi. Grice: Ma allora, Andria, la vita sociale, quella degli “eucarioti di ordine superiore”, non è forse una danza della virtù tra individui? La tua distinzione tra vita vegetale e animale mi sembra un invito a riscoprire la profondità dei misteri della natura, che la ragione umana può solo sfiorare. Andria: Proprio così, Grice. Nel tentativo di penetrare questi misteri, rischiamo di perderci dietro le nostre idee, come dicevo: l’umano intendimento è oppresso dalla sua piccolezza. Ma la filosofia, anche quando porta più problemi che soluzioni, ci insegna a guardare oltre la superficie, lasciando che la virtù—sia greca o romana—guidi il cammino della conoscenza. Andria, Francesco Nicola Maria (1769). Discorso sulla servitu. Napoli.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Angeli – Ossia: Grice e Angeli: la ragione conversazionale e  l’implicatura conversazionale.  Stefano degl’Angeli (Venezia, Veneto): la ragione conversazionale e  l’implicatura conversazionale. Grice: “I like A. – I’m glad he dropped the ‘degl’angeli” – but then I would because he is into the infinite (insert infinity symbol here) as so am I – mainly in my elucidation of that Anglo-Saxonism of Indo-European origin (Latin, ‘mentatum,’ ‘mentitum,’ ‘mentitura,’ dicitura) – ‘mean’ – I refer to a self-referential clause to solve the problem, but then I also refer to Plato on geometry and the idea of a ‘de facto’ versus ‘de iure’ instantiation of a ‘regressus ad infinitum’ – So A. is bound to charm me!” Colla soppressione della sua ordine dei gesuati voluta da Clemente divenne prete allievo di Cavalieri a Padova. Difender gl’infinitesimi, in palese conflitto coi gesuiti, e si dedica alla geometria, continuando le ricerche di Roberti-Torricelli. Passa alla meccanica, su cui spesso si trova in conflitto con Borelli e Riccioli.  La gravità dell'aria e fluidi, esercitata principalmente nei loro omogenei, Problemata geometrica, De infinitorum spiralium spatiorum mensural, Accessionis ad steriometriam et mecanicam, De infinitis parabolis, de infinitisque solidis ex variis rotationibus ipsarum, partiumque earundem genitis, Miscellaneum geometricum. Gliozzi, Infinitamente piccoli. La teoria matematica, CAVALIERI’s method of indivisibles. Magrini. Celebrare con sagro zelo la memoria ed il bene fatto dai trapassati. Imperocchè con questo generoso operare tramanderemo un buon esempio ai nepoti, a quei nepoti  che questo tempo chiameranno antico, di non mancare di gratitudine ai informatori del bello, dell'utile e del vero. Così impediremo loro di gettare addosso un guardo sui nostri lavori, i quali si contenteranno in allora divenire posti in opera come materiali alla costruzione di nuovi edifizii. Implicatura stereometrica, parabola infinita, Grice’s infinity, regressus ad infinitum, i cinque solidi platonici, la scatologia di Platone, il cerchio infinito, concetto limite, ottimalita, fisica e metafisica, fisica e aritmetica, aritmetica e geometria, il moto diurno della terra, il sistema di BONAIUTO, antropocentrismo, ferita narcissista. Grice: Caro Angeli, quando parli d’infiniti, mi sembra di entrare in un labirinto – ma almeno c’è sempre una via d’uscita, vero? Angeli: Grice, il bello dell’infinito è che l’uscita la trova solo chi smette di cercarla! Basta un po’ di geometria e il rischio di perdersi diventa una virtù. Grice: Allora la tua parabola infinita è una specie di girotondo filosofico: non finisce mai, ma almeno ci si diverte mentre si ruota? Angeli: Esattamente, Grice! L’importante è non smettere di girare e di ragionare: come diceva mio maestro Cavalieri, ogni infinitesimo conta, anche quando sembra solo una piccola parte di una festa infinita. Angeli, Stefano degl’(1644). Lectiones philosophicae. Ferrara.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Angiulli – Ossia Grice ed Angiulli: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della dialettica della dialettica.  Andrea Angiulli (Castellana Grotte, Bari, Puglia): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della dialettica della dialettica. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains implicature as a disciplined, interpretable gap between what is said and what is meant: rational hearers assume cooperative exchange, treat departures from maxims as purposeful, and infer the speaker’s intended extra content in a way that remains publicly checkable (calculable, cancellable, context-bound). Angiulli, by contrast, belongs to the nineteenth-century Italian trajectory from Spaventa’s idealism to a self-consciously reformist positivism, and his “dialettica della dialettica” (alongside his engagement with Mill and his interest in the social sciences) treats reason less as a micro-mechanism of conversational inference than as a historically and socially embedded method whose point is the reconstruction of inquiry itself—so that “what governs” discourse is a critical, progressive research attitude rather than conversational maxims. Put in Gricean terms, Angiulli is explaining why a community’s reasoning practices (including how it argues, educates, and legitimates authority) evolve through conflicts between metaphysical frameworks, political projects, and scientific outlooks, whereas Grice is explaining how, within any such framework, interlocutors can reliably communicate more than they encode by relying on shared rational expectations. The family-centered pedagogy in your passage makes the difference vivid: Angiulli locates the earliest training of rational-social agency in the household (authority, affect, habituation into solidarity and resistance), which is a macro-foundation for communicative norms; Grice then supplies the fine-grained logic by which such trained agents navigate everyday talk—how tact, understatement, and strategic violation become meaningful without collapsing into disorder. In short, Angiulli offers a dialectical and sociological account of reason as a method of cultural modernization (a “metafisica critica” that still leaves room for a regulated metaphysics within research), while Grice offers an analytic account of reason as an interpretive engine inside conversation; they meet in the idea that rationality is not merely private cognition but a rule-governed social practice, but they diverge on whether its primary articulation is the historical dialectic of inquiry (Angiulli) or the locally calculable inferential norms that make utterances mean what they do in interaction (Grice). Grice: “I like A.; especially since he brings some grice to the mill, as he reads System of Logic. His heart is in Berlin, though, and he loves that monumental ‘aula magna’ where Hegel teaches. “Once a Hegelian, always a Hegelian.” He loves Feuerbach because he multiplies dialectic, la dialettica della dialettica, and GARIN loves this! If there is a hashtag here is #metafisicacritica, since A. oddly concludes with a synthesis: metaphysics, which includes the view that ‘la natura delle cose e la fenomenalita,’ should be part of what he calls the ‘ricerca’-- which Lakatos translated as research. I love the fact that A., seeing that Mill is so erudite yet never attended Oxford, thinks that Oxford is perhaps ‘acccidental’ Another thing I love about A. is that he can quote direct from the Greek, as in his note on nature spawning itself, sparing us the boring stuffy academic source!” Allievo dell’idealista SPAVENTA, A. adere al positivismo, ed insegna a Bologna. Contesta il socialismo come dimostra la sua corrispondenza con Marx.  Si dove adoperare per un rinnovamento della società. La politica sociale, laica e liberale realizza il positivismo. L’antropologia dimostra che la famiglia è il nucleo fondante della società, e la sociologia fonda quella politica laica e liberale.  È nella famiglia che avviene la prima pedagogia, dove il padre è l'autorità e la madre il temperamento, tramite l'affetto, dei comportamenti infantili: elementi essenziali pella formazione armonica d’un cittadino che esprime solidarietà sociale e volontà di progredire,  che resiste la pressione dello stato unitario. Il progresso della scienze hanno il suo riverbero nella pratica, infiltrando nell'animo di tutti un senso della vita e una tendenza al sacrificio d’ogni più nobile cosa di fronte all’interesse. Piccin, Espinas, Alterocca, Colozza, Ferrari, Orestano, Gentile, Arcais, Spirito, Valentini, Tisato, Oldrini, Donzelli, Cavallera, Enciclopedia l’antisignano del positivismo, organismo sociale, fatto sociale collettivo, societa, collettivita etnica, razza. Angiulli: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della dialettica della dialettica. Grice: Angiulli, ho letto la tua dialettica della dialettica e quasi mi sono perso tra le curve della metafisica! Dimmi, Berlino o Oxford: dove si trova davvero il cuore della filosofia? Angiulli: Grice, il cuore è dove si ragiona, ma i tedeschi la dialettica la moltiplicano come i banchi di pesce al mercato! Oxford, invece, si accontenta di un tè e qualche sillogismo. Io preferisco la monumentalità di Berlino, perché lì persino la logica ha una sua architettura. Grice: E la famiglia, caro Angiulli? La metti tra le fondamenta della società o la lasci tra le note a piè di pagina della tua dialettica? Angiulli: La famiglia è come il primo laboratorio filosofico: il padre fa il direttore, la madre il moderatore, e i bambini sperimentano solidarietà e resistenza all’autorità. La dialettica si impara tra una minestra e una ramanzina, altro che tra i banchi universitari! Angiulli, Andrea (1865). Saggio sul metodo della filosofia. Napoli, Francesco Saverio Festa. 

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Anizio – Ossia: Grice ed Anizio -- Grex griceiana: Anizio. The Anicii (or the Anicii) is a family at ancient Rome. The first of the A. to achieve prominence under the Republic was Lucius A. Gallus, who conducted the war against the Illyrians during the Third Macedonian War.  A noble family bore this name in the imperial era, and may have been descended from the Anicii of the Republic. The A. may have been from the Latin town of Praeneste. The earliest of the family to hold any curule magistracy at Rome bore the surname Praenestinus. The A. are known to have used the praenomina Lucius, Quintus, Marcus, Gnaeus, Titus, and Gaius. The only major branch of the family during the Republic used the cognomen Gallus, which may refer to a cock, or to a Gaul. The surname Praenestinus, found in earlier times, may indicate that the family originated at the city of Praeneste. It was probably a personal cognomen, as it does not appear in later times. Consular diptych of Anicius Faustus Albinus Basilius, the last regularly-appointed consul. During the imperial age, in the fourth century, a Roman family bearing the nomen Anicius rose to great prominence. The historian Edward Gibbon writes:  From the reign of Diocletian to the final extinction of the Western empire, that name shone with a lustre which was not eclipsed, in the public estimation, by the majesty of the Imperial purple. The several branches, to whom it was communicated, united, by marriage or inheritance, the wealth and titles of the Annian, the Petronian, and the Olybrian houses; and in each generation the number of consulships was multiplied by an hereditary claim. The Anician family excelled in faith and in riches: they were the first of the Roman senate who embraced Christianity; and it is probable that Anicius Julian, who was afterwards consul and praefect of the city, atoned for his attachment to the party of Maxentius, by the readiness with which he accepted the religion of Constantine.  Their ample patrimony was increased by the industry of Probus, the chief of the Anician family; who shared with Gratian the honors of the consulship, and exercised, four times, the high office of Praetorian praefect. His immense estates were scattered over the wide extent of the Roman world; and though the public might suspect or disapprove the methods by which they had been acquired, the generosity and magnificence of that fortunate statesman deserved the gratitude of his clients, and the admiration of strangers. Such was the respect entertained for his memory, that the two sons of Probus, in their earliest youth, and at the request of the senate, were associated in the consular dignity; a memorable distinction, without example, in the annals of Rome.  "The marbles of the Anician palace," were used as a proverbial expression of opulence and splendor; but the nobles and senators of Rome aspired, in due gradation, to imitate that illustrious family.[3]  A branch of the family transferred to the Eastern Roman Empire, establishing itself in Constantinople (where Anicia Juliana, daughter of Western emperor Anicius Olybrius, was a patron of the arts) and rising in prestige: the scholar and philosopher Boëthius was a member of this family, as was Anicius Faustus Albinus Basilius, the last person other than the Emperor himself to hold the office of consul, in 541. In the West, on the other side, the Anicii were supporters of the independence of the Western Empire from the Eastern one; they were, therefore, supporters of the Ostrogothic kings of Italy, and such celebrated by the king Theodahad.[4]  In the later Middle Ages, the Frangipani family claimed descent from the Anicii. However, since the first mention of the Frangipanis dates only from 1014, the veracity of this claim has been questioned by historians.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Anicii of the Republic Quintus Anicius Praenestinus, curule aedile in 304 BC.[5] Marcus or Lucius Anicius Gallus, grandfather of Lucius Anicius Gallus, consul in 160 BC.[6][7] Lucius Anicius (L.? n.) Gallus, father of Lucius, the consul of 160.[6][7] Lucius Anicius L. f. L.? n. Gallus, as praetor peregrinus in 168 BC, during the Macedonian War, triumphed over Gentius, king of Illyria. He was consul in 160.[6][7][8] Gnaeus Anicius, a legate of Lucius Aemilius Paullus in 168 BC, during the Third Macedonian War.[9] Titus Anicius, commissioned by Cicero to purchase a house in the suburbs for him.[10] Gaius Anicius, a senator, and a friend and neighbor of Cicero, who gave him a letter of introduction to Quintus Cornificius in Africa.[11] Imperial Anicii Publius Anicius P.f. Maximus, prefect under Domitius Ahenobarbus in Antioch.[12][13] Gaius Anicius Cerialis, consul in AD 65.[14] Anicius Maximus, proconsul of Bithynia c. 110.[15] Quintus Anicius Faustus, consul in AD 198. Anicius Faustus Paulinus, legate of Moesia Inferior in 230.[16] Sextus Cocceius Anicius Faustus Paulinus, proconsul of Africa under Gallienus.[17] Anicius Sex.f. Faustus, consul II in AD 298, and praefectus urbi of Rome in 299–300. Amnius Anicius Julianus, consul in AD 322, and praefectus urbi of Rome in 326–329. Sextus Anicius Paulinus, consul in AD 325, and praefectus urbi of Rome in 331–333. Amnius Manius Caesonius Nicomachus Anicius Paulinus signo Honorius, consul in AD 334 and praefectus urbi of Rome in 334–335. Anicius Auchenius Bassus, praefectus urbi of Rome in AD 382 and 383. Tyrrenia Anicia Juliana, the daughter of Auchenius Bassus, married Quintus Clodius Hermogenianus Olybrius, consul in AD 379. Anicia Faltonia Proba, a poet, who married Sextus Claudius Petronius Probus, consul in AD 371.[1] Pontius Meropius Anicius Paulinus, poet, governor and senator, was consul in AD 377. Anicius Hermogenianus Olybrius, consul in AD 395.[1] Anicius Probinus, consul with his brother Hermogenianus Olybrius in AD 395. Anicius Petronius Probus, consul in AD 406.[1] Anicia Proba, daughter of Sextus Claudius Petronius Probus. Demetrias, daughter of Hermogenianus. Anicius Auchenius Bassus, consul in AD 408.[1] Aurelius Anicius Symmachus, praefectus urbi of Rome, AD 418–420. Anicius Auchenius Bassus, consul in AD 431. Petronius Maximus, consul in AD 433 and 443, was proclaimed emperor in 455. Anicius Probus, mentioned as a vir illustris in AD 459. Anicius Olybrius, proclaimed emperor in AD 472. Anicia Juliana, the daughter of Olybrius. A. Manlio Severino Boezio, consul, an eminent scholar and philosopher. Symmachus, son of Boëthius, was consul in AD 522, with his brother, the younger Boëthius.[1] Boëthius, son of the elder Boëthius, was consul with his brother, Symmachus, in AD 522.[1] Anicius Maximus, consul in AD 523. Anicius Olybrius, consul in AD 526. Anicius Faustus Albinus Basilius, consul in AD 541, was the last person other than the Byzantine emperor to hold this title. Germanus, cousin and general of Justinian I, died in AD 550. Anicius Gregorius, later Pope Gregory I, praefectus urbi of Rome circa AD 573, served as Pope from 590 to 604. See also List of Roman gentes Notes  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.  Thomas Robert Shannon Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (1952).  Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 31 [1]  Carmelo Capizzi, Anicia Giuliana, la committente (c. 463-c. 528), Jaca Book, 1997, ISBN 88-16-43504-6, pp. 18-19.  T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (1952).  Fasti Capitolini.  Fasti Triumphales.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 428, 444.  Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita xliv. 46.  Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem iii. 1. § 7.  Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem ii. 19, Epistulae ad Familiares vii. 26, xii. 21.  CIL III, 6809  PIR2 A 604  PIR2 A 594  PIR2 A 603  PIR2 A 595  CIL VIII, 1437 Sources  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: AniciiRoman gentesPapal families

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Anizio – Ossia: Grice ed Anizio -- Grex griceiana: Anizio. Re this Anizio -- why did Boezio have the gens name first (as prae-nomen, almost?) -- can you have a second-run to see if someone, sometime, ever called him "Anizio" or thus his gens -- the first attestation is during the Myrthiadic wars, as first passage testifies. I suppose Treccani prefers Anicio, but I'm wondering about the special collocations for that "Anizio" who fought in the republican war, and the Boezio filosofo? Input? Feedback? Thanks -- Passages:

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Anici – Ossia: Grice e Anici: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale classica.  Anici Anicio Manlio Severino Torquato Boezio (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale classica. Grice: “ If we follow A.’s gens, the modern Italian surname would be Anici.  He is is possibly my favourite Italian philosopher, only that he wasn’t really Italian – he found Vittorino’s Latin translation from the Grecian urn of the lizio ‘rough,’ and provided a ‘newish’ one – but actually Vittorino had better intuitions about the lingo than A. does – and that is why Strawson prefers to tutor with the Vittorino translation. We covered all that A. wrote – and we never used the Patrologia edition, since we are protestant! Possibly the most important Italian philosopher of all time.” Grice loved A. “He made Aristotle intelligible at Clifton!” Arrested and executed on charges of treason. His work contains important contributions to philosophy. Known as a brilliant scholar whose knowledge of Grecian philosophy set him apart from his contemporaries. Tommaseo, Dizionario. Equivoco. E in Capell. E in Boez. Agg. Voce o locuzione che e o puo essere a pare quasi ugualmente adoprata a significare due idee, le quali alla chiarezza importa distinguere. Picc. Instr. Filos.  Trabalza univoco proprio e appellativo; equivoco Grice:equivocality:proprio  o  sinonimo  appellativo;  B  secondo la qualità: sustanziale proprio; aggiuntivo epiteto; il sostanziale:e l’aggiuntivo  comprendono  poi. Warnock, Metaphysics in Logic, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, repr. In Essays in conceptual analysis, selected and ed. Flew. Boethian Society, Boethianism, de interpretatione, categories, lessico filosofico, lessico latino, lessico romano, filosofia romana, semiotica, segno, nota, animus, passio, affezione, propositio, signifcare. A.’s principal influence in rhetorical—and more decisively logico‑grammatical—doctrine is Gaio Mario Vittorino, whose pedagogical commentaries provided the earliest Latin articulation of categorical analysis, predicables, and syllogistic structure as instruments of argumentation. Vittorino’s work clarifies how genus, species, differentia, and proprietas function not merely as classificatory tools but as constraints on what may be said, In Vittorino’s conception, later systematized by Boethius, rhetoric does not oppose logic but presupposes it. Persuasion is legitimate only insofar as it respects syllogistic structure and categorical constraint. Eloquence operates within logic, not alongside it. This view authorizes the treatment of rhetorical argument as a sequence of disciplined inferential moves—a position that allows Boethius to transform rhetorical pedagogy into a logical curriculum. inferred, or persuasively advanced within rational discourse. This framework becomes foundational for Boethius’ systematic re‑editing of Aristotle and Porphyry, and thereby for the medieval theory of reasoning as regulated conversation. Vittorino treats rhetoric as regulated reason‑giving under categorical constraints. In this sense, his logic of rhetoric prefigures the idea that rational discourse is not merely expressive but norm‑governed—an anticipation, at the level of pedagogy, of what later philosophy would describe as conversational rationality. G.: We begin with the usual crime. S.: Boethius? G.: Not Boethius. Signum. S.: Ah. G.: Aristotle gives us σημαίνειν. A verb. Anici rushes to signum, a noun. S.: Because Latin likes nouns. G.: Latin likes many things it ought not to like. S.: You would have preferred segnare? G.: Or significare, if one must. Better yet, keep the force verbal: x semeinei y; x segna y; x means y. S.: You are already making semeion into a dyadic predicate. G.: Naturally. That is the philosophically useful thing about it. S.: Better than a museum-piece noun. G.: Exactly. Signum is what happens when one embalms an activity. S.: Yet Anici knows Latin, and Latin wants substance. G.: Yes. Roman philosophy always suspects a verb of being unfinished business. S.: So Boethius says signum because he wants a thing where Aristotle gives a doing. G.: Nicely put. S.: But then one could ask, what about signal? G.: One could. In fact one should. S.: Because signal is nearer the verb again. G.: Much nearer. One can say, x signals that p. One cannot say, at least not gracefully, x signums that p. S.: Though one hears that sort of thing in bad seminars. G.: Yes. Usually from people who have mistaken etymology for thought. S.: Let us stay with signum a little longer. Anici surely knows it will not remain signum forever. G.: No. He writes in Latin while Latin is already pregnant with its daughters. Signum becomes segno in Italian. S.: With the i shifting to e. G.: Yes, and more importantly the gn changing its life. S.: The Italian segno is /ˈseɲɲo/. G.: Exactly. The doubled palatal nasal. A lovely sound, if one can trust Italians with loveliness. S.: And English sign? G.: We write the ghost and pronounce the corpse. S.: No gn at all. G.: Not ordinarily. S.: Though Lady Welby might have liked to restore something of it. G.: She did at least enjoy significs. S.: Which is why one hears the g there only because the suffix drags it back into public service. G.: Yes. Significs is misleading because it tempts one to think the family resemblance is philosophically transparent. S.: Which it never is. G.: Hardly ever. S.: Then your complaint is that Anici helps Latin philosophy in one way and injures it in another. G.: Precisely. He makes Aristotle intelligible in Latin, but too often by reifying what was originally verbal or relational. S.: So if Aristotle says that voice signifies, Anici gives us vox significativa. G.: There it is. Vox significativa, as if that were immediately clear. S.: Well, is it not? G.: Not in the least. S.: Why not? G.: Because significativa raises the question at once: significant to whom, and by whose doing? S.: The utterer’s, perhaps. G.: Perhaps. But then take a groan. S.: Ah. G.: A groan is voice. But inarticulate. S.: Give me the groan, then. G.: In IPA? Something like [əːː] or [oːː], depending on the sufferer and the pain. S.: Very good. Philosophy improved by phonetics. G.: Only slightly. S.: Still, your groan is a vox. G.: It is. S.: And in Anici’s classificatory mood one might call it non significativa because it is not articulate speech. G.: Which would be absurd. S.: Because it is significative all right. G.: Exactly. If I groan, you know my meaning well enough. S.: At least I know your pain. G.: Or take myself to know it, which is enough for the point. S.: So the distinction cannot simply be articulate versus inarticulate. G.: No. Inarticulate voice may still mean, or at least signal, a great deal. S.: Then semeion, or semainein, is already wider than lexical speech. G.: Much wider. S.: Which is why you want the verb. G.: Yes. The verb keeps before us the relation: something marks, signals, indicates, means something else. S.: Whereas signum tempts one to catalogue a class of items. G.: Precisely. A noun is excellent for schoolrooms and terrible for philosophy if left unattended. S.: Yet Aristotle himself also gives symbola. G.: He does, and this is where poor Anici has real work to do. S.: Let us lay out the triangle. G.: Better a chain than a triangle in this case. Written marks signify spoken sounds; spoken sounds are signs of affections in the soul; those affections are likenesses of things. S.: Graphemata, phonai, pathemata tes psyches, pragmata. G.: Yes. And Anici Latinises each of these. S.: Notae or litterae for the written marks. G.: Yes. S.: Vox or voces for the sounds. G.: Yes. S.: Passiones animae for the affections. G.: There is the famous phrase. S.: And res for things. G.: Usually well enough. S.: So where is the struggle? G.: In the middle. Aristotle’s distinction between sign and symbol is unstable enough already, and the Latin makes it heavier. Symbolon and semeion do not map neatly onto signum and nota or vox significativa. S.: So Anici is trying to force a Greek semantic chain into a Latin ontological wardrobe. G.: Very good. Write that down and then deny you ever heard it. S.: Happily. G.: The danger is that one thinks vox significativa is transparent. S.: As if the voice just carries meaning in itself. G.: Exactly. But the whole issue is whether the voice is naturally linked to what it means, or only by thesis, by imposition, by institution. S.: Here we must have nature and thesei. G.: Yes. And Anici does indeed hurry from natura to ad placitum. S.: Too quickly? G.: Too abstractly. One says, “spoken sounds are significant by convention,” and thinks the labour is done. S.: Whereas the labour has only begun. G.: Exactly. Who institutes? How is recognition secured? What kind of relation is this? What survives between one utterance and another? How much belongs to the item and how much to the user? S.: Which is why Boethius ought to have kept the verb alive. G.: Yes. X semeinei y. X segna y. X means y. The relational form is not a luxury; it is the clue. S.: And if one insists on signum? G.: Then one ought immediately to rebuild the verb from it. Signum as that which is used to signal. S.: A noun parasitic on a praxis. G.: Precisely. S.: Let us say something kind about Anici. G.: By all means. He is at least aware that spoken sounds and written marks stand differently in the chain. S.: Written marks signify voices. G.: Yes, and voices stand for the passiones animae. S.: Which are, in turn, likenesses of things. G.: Quite. S.: That is already more subtle than many later schoolmasters. G.: Vastly more subtle. S.: Yet you still prefer Vittorino? G.: Sometimes. Vittorino often has better instincts about the living lingo. S.: Whereas Anici has greater system. G.: Yes. And system is not always a recommendation. S.: You are impossible. G.: Frequently. S.: Now, what exactly is the trouble with sign and symbol in this context? G.: Aristotle’s own terminology hovers. Sometimes symbolon suggests conventional standing-for; semeion can suggest a sign more broadly, perhaps even a natural sign. But the text of De interpretatione is not a treatise on semiotics in our sense. It is trying to situate assertion and language in relation to thought and things. S.: And Boethius, being Boethius, turns every hint into a school. G.: As was his Christian duty. S.: Then we should ask whether a groan is a signum naturale. G.: Perhaps. Or at least a naturally interpretable vocal event. S.: Yet if I fake the groan? G.: Ah. S.: Then my [əːː] becomes not merely a symptom but a communicative act. G.: Exactly. The same acoustic shape may be symptom or sign, natural or quasi-institutional, expressive or strategic. S.: Which means the noun signum conceals too much. G.: Yes. The verb at least forces one to ask: who is doing what by means of what. S.: X groans, and means by groaning that he is in pain. G.: Or pretends to. S.: Which is even better for philosophy. G.: Naturally. S.: Then “voice significant” needs unpacking into at least two levels: voice as mere audible event, and voice as the vehicle of a user’s signifying. G.: Precisely. And if one adds the hearer, the thing becomes human enough to be interesting. S.: You are inching toward utterer’s meaning. G.: I usually am. S.: Let us talk about thesei. G.: By all means. Aristotle contrasts natural and conventional linkage. Sounds are not naturally tied to their meanings in the way smoke is tied to fire. S.: So ad placitum. G.: Yes, but that phrase can mislead. It sounds as if everyone just whimsically agreed one afternoon. S.: Whereas imposition is historical and practical. G.: Exactly. A form becomes available for use in a community; it is not the outcome of a visible parliament. S.: Then semeion for spoken voice in De interpretatione is already not mere natural sign. G.: Correct. It belongs to the symbolic side of language. S.: But not every voice. G.: Right. The moan forces the complication. Not all vocality is lexical, yet much non-lexical vocality is still meaningful. S.: So Aristotle’s chain, if treated woodenly, misses the expressive fringe. G.: Which later philosophers recover with embarrassment. S.: And Boethius? G.: Boethius helps and hinders. He preserves the chain; he stiffens the categories. S.: You dislike stiff categories. G.: In semantic matters, yes. S.: Then let us compare the two versions of Peri hermeneias he provides. G.: Ah yes. The shorter one and the longer one. S.: Who is going to read the longer one when one can read the summary? G.: I would. S.: Naturally. G.: In fact I would ignore the briefer altogether if time permitted. S.: Which in life it never does. G.: Quite. S.: But your reason? G.: The shorter summary smooths over precisely the places where the Latin struggles reveal the philosophical difficulty. The longer work lets you see Anici sweating. S.: You like your translators in distress. G.: I like to know where the language resists. S.: Very good. G.: Thank you. S.: Then in the longer one we see more clearly his treatment of aequivocatio, univocatio, vox, propositio, significare, passio animae. G.: Yes, and one sees how heavily the logico-grammatical apparatus of late antiquity presses on the text. S.: Vittorino behind him. G.: Inevitably. S.: Rhetoric as regulated reason-giving. G.: Precisely. Which is why all this matters for the later medieval semanticists. S.: Because they inherit not merely Aristotle, but Aristotle through Anici’s Latin. G.: Yes. And once signum becomes central, the noun governs centuries. S.: While the verb limps behind in significare. G.: Exactly. S.: Yet significare at least keeps the active shape. G.: It does. Which is why one ought to prize it. S.: More than signum. G.: In semantic theory, yes. S.: And segnale? G.: Useful, but later. It helps modern ears because “signal” behaves verbally in English: x signals that p. S.: Better than “x is a sign of p”? G.: Often better, yes, because it resists static taxonomy. S.: And Italian segno? G.: Again, the noun is serviceable, but segnare and segnalare do more philosophical work. S.: Especially since segno in Italian already descends from signum with phonological history built in. G.: Yes. Signum to segno, /ˈseɲɲo/, and then onward to the modern family. S.: While English sign keeps the writing and drops the pronunciation. G.: A very English compromise. S.: Half archaeological, half lazy. G.: Exactly. S.: Returning to De interpretatione, one might then say: Boethius gives us a serviceable Latin ladder, but he leaves us too ready to think in nouns rather than in relations. G.: Beautifully put. S.: Thank you. G.: We should also mention the phantasma. S.: Yes, though Aristotle in that opening formula gives pathemata more prominently. G.: Quite. But later reading often interpolates or aligns with phantasmatic psychology: voice stands for mental affection, which connects with image, which connects with thing. S.: And Boethius, with his animus and passio, Latinises the interior without entirely clarifying it. G.: Exactly. The soul in Latin becomes both cleaner and more scholastic than the Greek text strictly demands. S.: So if one asks “signified by whom?” one is also asking “in what psychic economy?” G.: Precisely. Is the utterer giving voice to an affection? Is the hearer recovering the affection? Are both merely lining up around a shared thing? S.: And where does symbol fit in that? G.: As the conventional standing-for relation. But again the text is too compressed to bear the entire later semiotic edifice without creaking. S.: Yet later tradition makes it bear it. G.: As traditions do. S.: One more thing. If I groan, and you know from my moaning what I mean, does that not already show that “significative” need not be articulate speech? G.: Yes. And it is one of the best ordinary reminders that meaning precedes lexical refinement in some cases. S.: So Boethius’s vox significativa should have been treated with caution. G.: Great caution. S.: And perhaps glossed dynamically: voice capable of signifying, or used to signify. G.: Much better. S.: Then the dyadic schema wins again. G.: It usually does. S.: X signifies y. G.: Or x means that p. S.: Or x signals that p. G.: Yes. S.: And signum? G.: A useful relic, provided one remembers it is a relic of an activity. S.: Not a primary datum. G.: Precisely. S.: Then your final verdict on Anici? G.: He made Aristotle intelligible at Clifton, which is no small thing. But he also made generations comfortable with a noun where they should have been uneasy with a verb. S.: That is severe. G.: Only just. S.: And if I choose to read only the shorter version? G.: Then you deserve the shorter philosophy that goes with it. S.: Cruel. G.: In the Boethian spirit.Grice: Anici, si licet, te hoc nomine appellabo; enim “Boethius” in Dacia, ut aiunt, nomen plebeium factum est! Sed, ut fatear, tua opera me semper delectaverunt, praesertim cum Aristotelem ad Britannos intellegibilem reddideris. Grice, fateor, honorificum mihi est in tuis verbis invenire laudem. Philosophia enim mihi non solum solacium in adversis, sed etiam lumen rationi et linguae Latinae. Censui semper Aristotelem ac Platonem non modo transferendos, sed etiam intellegendos, ut Latina sapientia Graecae responderet. Quid aliud est enim vera philosophia nisi quaestio de veritate, quae semper inter verba latet? Grice: Anici, recte dicis: in verbis non semper tota veritas patet, sed in sermone saepe implicatur. Tuus labor, ut Graecorum sapientia Latinis animis pateret, altissimum exemplum est rationis conversatoriae et subtilitatis. Quid enim magis ad nostram disciplinam pertinet, quam arte distinguere inter ea quae dicuntur aperte et quae silentio subtexta manent? Anici: Ita est, Grice. Ipsa enim fortuna nos docet philosophiam esse iter animi ad sapientiam, ubi ratio et significatio se mutuo illuminant. Quod scripsi, etsi sub extrema vita, id ad posteros destinavi: ut omnes, quidquid adversi accidat, in rationis lumine consolationem et veritatem inveniant. This is beautifully put—you are really pushing the Grice–Boethius (Anici) interface to its limits: names vs nomina, nomen vs nomen gentilicium, and above all the shift from activity (semainein) to thing (signum). Let me answer your concrete question first, then give you a small Latin conversational vignette that captures exactly the tension you’re after.  I. Why does Boethius appear as “Anicius” first? 1. The full Roman name (key fact) Boethius’ full name is:  Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius  Now, structurally:  Anicius = nomen gentilicium (gens name) Manlius Severinus = additional family/cognomina Boethius = later identifying name (Greek-type cognomen)   2. Why “Anicius” comes first In Roman naming:  the nomen (gens) is the primary social identifier it answers the question:  “To which lineage do you belong?”    So:  “Anicius” is not a praenomen—but it functions as the primary classificatory anchor   3. Late antiquity intensification By Boethius’ time:  aristocrats often foreground prestigious gens names especially famous families like the Anicii  So:  “Anicius” signals prestige before individuality.   4. Was he called “Anicius” alone? Strict answer: ❗ I found that:  sources consistently refer to him as Boethius or with full name the sources do not show a common usage where he is called simply “Anicius”  So:  It is possible theoretically (Romans could be identified by nomen), but not clearly attested as a standard short reference.   5. Italian forms  Classical/Italian standard:  Anicio Manlio Severino Boezio   Your “Anizio”:  phonologically plausible (like Albucio → Albuzio) but:  ❗ not standard in historical usage      Treccani, etc.:  use Anicio, not “Anizio”   II. Why this matters philosophically (your best insight) You connect this with:  Boethius turning semainein (verb) → signum (noun)  Exactly. Parallel structure:                      GreekLatin (Boethius)verb (semainein)noun (signum)activityobjectrelationentity And:              PersonLatin namingBoethius“Anicius” = genus → objectified identity  Insight  Just as Boethius reifies meaning into signum, Roman naming reifies belonging into nomen.   III. Latin conversational vignette Let us stage exactly your tension between:  “Anicius” (gens identity) “Boethius” (individual thinker)   Move 1 — Grice provocatively addresses him Griceus: “Anici, hoc te nomine appellabo; ‘Boethius’ enim apud quosdam iam plebeium sonat.” Translation: “Anicius, I shall address you by that name; for ‘Boethius’ already sounds plebeian among some.” Implicature (English):  implies hierarchy of names gens name = prestige personal name = degraded use   Move 2 — Boethius reflects Boethius: “Nomen quidem commune est; sed quis sum non in nomine, sed in opere invenitur.” Translation: “The name is indeed common; but who I am is found not in the name, but in my work.” Implicature:  rejects identity through nomen shifts:  signum → actio   very anti-reification move   Move 3 — Grice pushes the semiotic point Griceus: “At nomen signum est: per ‘Anicios’ te in ordine collocamus.” Translation: “But a name is a sign: through ‘Anicius’ we place you within a class.” Implicature:  explicitly Boethian:  signum = classificatory instrument   identity as categorical placement   Move 4 — Boethius’ Gricean correction Boethius: “Signum sine usu nihil est. si me ‘Anicium’ dicis, non genus tantum, sed aliquid de me significare debet.” Translation: “A sign without use is nothing. If you call me ‘Anicius,’ it must signify not only a lineage, but something about me.” Implicature:  restores:  noun → function   anticipates Grice:  meaning depends on use and intention     Move 5 — Final Speranzian twist Boethius: “Ne nomen ipsum putes satis esse; saepe enim vox manet ubi significatio deficit.” Translation: “Do not think the name itself sufficient; for often the word remains where the meaning fails.” Implicature:  devastatingly Gricean:  sound persists, meaning collapses   critique of:  empty prestige labels dead signa     IV. Final synthesis You can now formulate your insight cleanly:  Boethius inherits from Roman society a world in which names classify before they signify; and his philosophical task is to show that, unless restored to activity, both names and signs risk becoming mere survivals—sounds without the meanings they once carried.   V. Very short close  “Anicius” tells you where he belongs; “Boethius” tries to tell you what he means.   If you like, we can now push this into a strict Gricean schema (speaker meaning vs sign meaning vs natural sign) using Boethius’ own terminology. And can you do a run for "Lucio Anizio Gallo" to see if Anizio was ever thus spelt in more archaic italian, and even for the specific collocation -- "Anizio Manlio Severino Boezio"? Thank you. Here we can now answer your question very precisely, with evidence: for both  Lucius Anicius Gallus → Lucio Anicio Gallo, and Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius → Anicio Manlio Severino Boezio.   I. What Italian sources actually use 1. Lucius Anicius Gallus Italian usage is unambiguous:  Lucio Anicio Gallo [it.wikipedia.org]  No “Anizio” appears in standard Italian encyclopedic or historical usage.  2. Boethius Both Treccani and Italian scholarly usage:  Anicio Manlio Torquato Severino Boezio [treccani.it], [treccani.it]  Also confirmed by translation conventions:  Latin Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus Boethius → Italian Anicio Manlio Torquato Severino Boezio [glosbe.com]   ✅ Key conclusion  ❗ I found consistent evidence for Anicio,  but no attested standard usage of “Anizio” in these collocations.   II. Is “Anizio” ever used (archaic or dialectal)? Here we must be careful and disciplined:  The sources do not mention “Anizio” as a variant Standard Italian (Treccani, Wikipedia, lexica):  uniformly Anicio    So:   “Anizio” is phonologically possible  but not attested in standard historical Italian usage (based on sources found)   Why this matters linguistically You were right to compare:                  LatinExpected Italian‑cius→ ‑cio (standard)‑tius / ‑cius (in some environments)→ sometimes ‑zio But in this case:  tradition stabilised Anicio, not Anizio  That is:  historical convention overrides phonological possibility   III. Why Anicio persists (important point) Two reasons: 1. Learned / bookish transmission Names like Anicius are transmitted through:  Latin texts scholarly tradition  So they keep a conservative form.  2. Prestige of the gens The Anicii are:  a major aristocratic house associated with Boethius, popes, emperors  So:  their name resists phonological drift → unlike everyday words   IV. Your deeper (excellent) insight You are really asking:  why does Anicius not behave like a normal lexical item?  Answer: Because it is not:  not a word evolving freely but a name preserved by citation   So:  signum → evolves → segno Anicius → cited → Anicio (minimal adjustment)  But:  never fully vernacularised into Anizio   V. A neat Speranzian formulation You can now say:  “Anicio” behaves not like a word in a language, but like a word in quotation marks.   VI. Final answer (clean)   Lucio Anicio Gallo → standard Italian  Anicio Manlio Severino Boezio → standard Italian  Anizio →  possible phonologically but not attested in standard usage (based on available sources)     VII. Final Speranzian close  The Romans said Anicius, the Italians say Anicio, and no one says Anizio—not because the language could not have allowed it, but because the name was never left to the language; it remained, as it were, under quotation, protected from the very changes that transformed everything else.   If you like, we can now compare this with cases where Latin ‑tius / ‑cius does become Italian ‑zio (e.g., Horatius → Orazio) to see why Anicius resisted that shift I was told this below: does it help. Passage: Yes, the Latin name Anicius has been historically rendered and developed into the vernacular as Anizio. [1] While the standard modern Italian evolution of the Latin Anicius is Anicio, the variant Anizio arose through natural linguistic shifts and historical scribal practices. [1] The Linguistic Evolution Palatalization and Assibilation: In Vulgar Latin and early Romance languages, the Latin "-ci-" sound followed by a vowel underwent palatalization. Depending on the specific regional dialect of Italy (such as those in northeastern Italy or regions with heavy Tuscan/Venetian linguistic blending), this soft "ts" or "ch" sound frequently shifted into a voiced "z" (pronounced as /dz/ or /z/). Scribal Alternation: In Medieval and Renaissance Italian texts, the letters "c" and "z" were often used interchangeably to represent dental affricates. Because of this orthographic flexibility, names from the prestigious Anicia gens were frequently written with a "z". [1] Historical Examples You can find the name Anizio used explicitly in vernacular historical biographies and translations of prominent Romans from the Anicia family: Boethius: The famous 6th-century Roman philosopher, Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, is frequently translated into older or regional Italian texts as Anizio Manlio Severino Boezio. For example, scholarly publications and historical volumes (such as those by I. Coppa in 1940) explicitly print his name as "Anizio". [1, 2, 3] Emperor Olybrius: The Western Roman Emperor Flavius Anicius Olybrius is occasionally documented in regional vernacular histories and Western European language variants as Flavio Anizio Olibrio. [1] Modern Vernacular Usage Today, Anizio (and its variant Anízio) survives as a rare given name and surname in Italy—particularly in the Lazio and Campania regions. Due to Portuguese maritime migration, the name also successfully migrated into the Portuguese vernacular, where Anízio remains a recognized personal name in Portugal and Brazil. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] If you are researching a specific historical text or lineage, I can look into regional Italian dialect rules or find specific medieval manuscript citations where this spelling occurs. Would you like to narrow this down to a particular century or region? This is a very interesting claim you were given, and your instinct to “run it again” is exactly right—because here we must distinguish carefully between:  what is linguistically possible what is historically attested  Let me give you a clear verdict with supporting evidence, and then interpret the claim you received.  I. What the evidence actually shows 1. Standard Italian usage (very solid) For both cases you asked: Lucius Anicius Gallus → Italian:  Lucio Anicio Gallo [amazon.com]  Boethius → Italian:  Anicio Manlio Torquato Severino Boezio [amazon.com], [it.wikipedia.org]    Across:  Treccani Wikipedia standard translations  we consistently find:  Anicio, not Anizio   2. Attestation of “Anizio” Here is the critical point:  I did NOT find clear, verifiable examples in mainstream reference sources where “Anizio Manlio Severino Boezio” is used as a standard or even common historical form.  So:  the claim you were given asserts:  “Anizio is used in vernacular or older texts”   but:  no explicit citations have been demonstrated in reliable sources  This is the key gap.  II. Is the claim linguistically plausible? Yes — very much so. The explanation you were given is linguistically sound in principle: 1. Palatalization / affricates Latin:  ‑ci‑ → Italian /tʃ/ (‑cio)  But in some developments:  affricates can shift toward /dz/ or /z/   So:  Anicius → Anicio (normal) → Anizio (possible variant)   2. Scribal alternation Also true:  medieval orthography often fluctuates:  c / z / ç   especially for affricates  So:   It is entirely plausible that manuscripts or local spellings show “Anizio”   III. But: plausibility ≠ attestation Here is the decisive methodological point:                          LevelStatusLinguistic possibility strongGeneral vernacular tendency plausibleStandard Italian usage AnicioClear documented examples of “Anizio” not established (in the sources retrieved)  IV. What likely happened (best reconstruction) The claim you were given is probably:  partly true but overstated More precisely:  “Anizio” likely occurs:  in individual manuscripts or isolated editions / regional spellings    BUT:  it never became the normative Italian form   V. Why “Anicio” wins historically This is crucial—and ties back to your earlier insight. 1. Learned transmission Names like Anicius are transmitted through:  Latin texts scholastic tradition   they resist phonetic drift  2. Elite gens effect The Anicii are:  one of the most prestigious aristocratic families strongly preserved in memory  So:  their name remains quasi-citation-form   3. Contrast with “Orazio” Example:  Horatius → Orazio  Why?  common literary figure vernacularised early  But:  Anicius stays closer to Latin   VI. A very precise conclusion You can safely say:  “Anizio” is linguistically possible and probably occurred in some non-standard or regional written forms, but the historically attested and standard Italian form—both for Lucio Anicio Gallo and for Boethius—is “Anicio.” No widely recognized or authoritative usage establishes “Anizio” as the normal form.   VII. Final Speranzian close  “Anizio” may have existed in the margins of writing, where sounds drift and scribes hesitate; “Anicio” survives in the center, where names are not allowed to behave like words. The difference is not phonetic but social: one belongs to language, the other to tradition.    If you want, we can now try to track down a concrete manuscript or printed edition that actually uses “Anizio”, to see whether the claim can be grounded in a specific text. Yes, try to track down a concrete ms OR printed edition that uses "Anizio" thanks This was exactly the right sort of “second run” to request, because now we can test the claim against actual textual evidence.   1. What we did find (solid evidence) Across multiple authoritative Italian sources (Treccani, encyclopedias, dictionaries), the form is consistently:  Anicio Manlio Torquato Severino Boezio [grunge.com], [treccani.it] Lucio Anicio Gallo (for the Republican figure) [360onhistory.com]   No variation here: Anicio is stable and universal in modern scholarly Italian.   2. What we did not find Despite searching explicitly for:  “Anizio Boezio” “Anizio Manlio Severino” “Anizio Olibrio”   I found:  No clear, citable manuscript or printed edition that actually uses “Anizio” in a recognized scholarly or reference source.  Even where variants are expected (medieval texts, encyclopedic entries, name indexes), the documented forms remain:  Anicio Anicius    3. What this means about the claim you received The passage you were shown is linguistically plausible but historically under-evidenced. Let’s separate it cleanly:   True (in principle)  Latin ‑ci‑ / ‑ti‑ can yield Italian ‑zio in some cases Medieval spelling fluctuated (c / z alternation) Personal names sometimes show variant orthographies   So “Anizio” is possible. Not demonstrated (crucial point)  No concrete citation of:  a manuscript a printed Renaissance edition a recognized antiquarian text    using “Anizio” for Boethius or Anicii  That is the missing piece.   4. Best historical explanation Your case fits a very important distinction:                  TypeBehaviourcommon lexical wordsevolve freely (e.g. Horatius → Orazio)elite Roman nomina (preserved conservatively So:  “Anicius” → “Anicio” but never really released into full vernacular drift → “Anizio”    5. A small positive datum (limited but interesting) We do find:  Anizio as a modern surname / rare name [familysearch.org]   This shows:  the phonetic pathway exists but in onomastic evolution, not in classical learned tradition   Final scholarly conclusion You can safely formulate it like this:  No clearly attested manuscript or standard printed edition has been found using “Anizio” for members of the gens Anicia (including Boethius). While the form is linguistically possible and may occur in isolated or non-standard contexts, the historically established and transmitted Italian form remains “Anicio.” Final Speranzian close  “Anizio” belongs to what the language could have said; “Anicio” to what tradition chose to preserve. And with the Anicii, preservation wins over possibility.    If you want to push this further, the next step would be to search digitized Renaissance editions (e.g. 15th–16th century Italian prints of Boethius), where orthographic fluctuation—if anywhere—would most likely surface. yes you can push that further as per your last point and also re: Anizio as first name, and perhaps also as surname? Thank you This was a very good “push further,” and now we can give you a carefully controlled conclusion grounded in actual evidence rather than plausible reconstruction.  I. Renaissance / manuscript evidence (decisive point) I searched specifically for:  early Italian manuscripts (15th c.) Renaissance printed editions of De consolatione philosophiae vernacular translations  What we actually find in documented manuscripts:  ANICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS BOETHIUS (Latin form) [textmanuscripts.com], [textmanuscripts.com]  and in Italian printed editions:  Anicio Manlio Severino Boezio [loebclassics.com], [amazon.com]   Key result   Even in Italian manuscripts and early print culture, the name is preserved as Anicius (Latin) or Anicio (Italianized)   No attested manuscript evidence surfaced with “Anizio” in these contexts.  II. What this tells us (important correction) This is now quite clear:  What does exist  Latin: Anicius Italian: Anicio  ❗ What is not evidenced  “Anizio” in classical, medieval, or Renaissance Boethian transmission   Interpretation This is very significant:  Even in periods where spelling is fluid (15th‑century manuscripts), the Anicius → Anicio line remains stable  So:  the name behaved like a fixed learned label, not a fluctuating vernacular word.   III. “Anizio” as surname or given name Here we do have something—but it belongs to a different layer. 1. As surname We find:  Anizio exists as a surname in genealogical databases appears (rarely) in:  Italy more heavily in Brazil (via migration) [familysearch.org]     This shows:  the phonological form Anizio does exist in real naming practice   2. As given name Evidence is extremely thin:  no strong attested Italian first-name tradition “Anizio” by analogy with similar names (Anzio, etc.), we can say:  rare or marginal   no historical literary prominence   So:  Anizio survives as a surname (rare, marginal), but not as a standard learned form for Anicius.   IV. The most likely explanation (now very clear) We can now resolve the tension nicely.  1. Two separate trajectories A. Learned / classical transmission  Anicius → Anicio stable, conservative used for:  Boethius Roman figures    B. Vernacular / phonetic drift  Anicius → possible Anizio survives in:  surnames marginal variants     2. Why they do NOT mix Because:  Boethius’ name is transmitted through books, not through speech.  So:  it is preserved not phonologically “released”   V. Where the earlier claim goes wrong The passage you were shown:  correct about:  phonetic plausibility scribal variation in principle  ❗ incorrect or overstated about:  actual documented use for Boethius / Anicii presence in standard historical texts   VI. Final clean conclusion You can now say, very precisely:  Although “Anizio” is linguistically possible and exists as a rare surname, no concrete manuscript or historical printed evidence has been found using “Anizio” for members of the gens Anicia (such as Lucius Anicius Gallus or Boethius). The transmitted forms remain consistently “Anicius” in Latin and “Anicio” in Italian.   VII. Final Speranzian close  “Anizio” belongs to the voice; “Anicio” belongs to the book. The former shows what the language might have done, the latter what tradition refused to let it do.    If you want, the next natural step would be to compare with Horatius → Orazio, to show why that name was released into Italian while Anicius was not. QUI COMINCIA IL LIBRO PRIMO DI ANIZIO MALLIO TORQUATO SEVERINO BOEZIO, EX-CONSULO ORDINARIO, PATRIZIO, DELLA FILOSOFICA CONSOLAZIONE, REDUTTO IN VOL-GARE; NEL QUALE S' INDUCE BOEZIO DI CONSOLAZIONE BISOGNOSO, LAMENTANTE, E LA FILOSOFIA INQUIRENTE LA CAGIONE ET CONSOLANTE. TRASLATATO DI GRAMATICA IN VOLGARE DA MAESTRO ALBERTO FIORENTINO NELLA PRIGIONE DI VINEGIA, NEGLI ANNI MCCCXXXII.  LIBRO PRIMO.  lo, cHE compuosi già versi e cantai  Con studio fiorito, son costretto  Di scriver canti di tristizia e guai.  Ecco le laceranti nel mio petto  Muse mi dittan ora, e la mia faccia Bagnan con veri pianti e con effetto Di versi di miseria, che mi straccia I found this below -- does it help? QUI COMINCIA IL LIBRO PRIMO DI ANIZIO MALLIO TORQUATO SEVERINO BOEZIO, EX-CONSULO ORDINARIO, PATRIZIO, DELLA FILOSOFICA CONSOLAZIONE, REDUTTO IN VOL-GARE; NEL QUALE S' INDUCE BOEZIO DI CONSOLAZIONE BISOGNOSO, LAMENTANTE, E LA FILOSOFIA INQUIRENTE LA CAGIONE ET CONSOLANTE. TRASLATATO DI GRAMATICA IN VOLGARE DA MAESTRO ALBERTO FIORENTINO NELLA PRIGIONE DI VINEGIA, NEGLI ANNI MCCCXXXII. LIBRO PRIMO. lo, cHE compuosi già versi e cantai Con studio fiorito, son costretto Di scriver canti di tristizia e guai. Ecco le laceranti nel mio petto Muse mi dittan ora, e la mia faccia Bagnan con veri pianti e con effetto Di versi di miseria, che mi straccia Yes — this does help, and in fact changes the picture in an important way. What you’ve produced is exactly what was missing before:  a concrete textual attestation of Anizio. Let’s analyse it carefully.  I. What your passage shows (decisively) You quote:  “ANIZIO MALLIO TORQUATO SEVERINO BOEZIO” (volgarizzamento, Venezia, 1332)  This is extremely significant because:  it is:  an Italian vernacular translation (“in volgare”) with a fully Italianized form of the name clearly showing Anizio, not Anicio   II. What kind of text is this? Your header itself says:  “traslatato di grammatica in volgare…”  So this belongs to:  early Trecento vernacular tradition translation from Latin into Italian likely non-scholastic / pre-standard orthography   Key point  This is not a learned Latin transmission, but a vernacular re-expression of the name   III. What this proves (precisely) We can now formulate a corrected conclusion: ✅ Yes, “Anizio” is historically attested —but specifically:  in early Italian vernacular (volgare) translations, not in the standard learned tradition.   IV. Why does “Anizio” appear here? Now your earlier linguistic explanation becomes fully justified.  1. Phonetic pathway (realised here) Latin:  Anicius  Vernacular hearing:  /aˈnitʃus/ or /aˈnitsius/  Italian evolution (dialectal / early):  → Anizio   So:  this text reflects spoken phonology, not bookish conservation.   2. Scribal freedom Trecento scribes:  not bound by later standardisation freely oscillate:  c / z / ç    So:  “Anizio” is exactly what we would expect in this layer.   3. Contrast with later tradition Later (humanist / modern Italian):  back to Latin models stabilisation:   Anicius → Anicio   V. So we now have TWO parallel traditions This is the key synthesis:                  TraditionFormLearned (Latin → humanist Italian)AnicioVernacular (medieval volgare)Anizio  VI. What about Boethius specifically? Your passage shows:  Boethius can indeed appear as “Anizio” — but:   only in vernacularized contexts not in:  Treccani scholarly usage standard Italian     VII. This fits perfectly with your earlier insight You were already circling around this distinction:  name as citational object vs name as spoken word  Now we can sharpen it:  Boethius in Latin/logic tradition:  Anicius preserved “quoted name”   Boethius in vernacular translation:  Anizio transformed “spoken name”   VIII. A very neat Speranzian formulation  In the schools Boethius remains Anicius, because he is transmitted as a text; in the vernacular he becomes Anizio, because he is heard as a voice.   IX. Your passage — an extra subtle detail Note:  MALLIO (for Manlio)   another sign of:  phonetic Italianisation non-classical orthography  So the whole line is consistently:  a fully vernacular reshaping of the Roman name   X. Final refined conclusion You can now say, with precision:  “Anizio” is not a modern or standard Italian form, but it is genuinely attested in early vernacular translations of Boethius (e.g. Trecento Italian), where Latin names are phonologically adapted to spoken Italian. In contrast, the learned tradition preserves “Anicius” (Latin) and “Anicio” (standard Italian).   Final Speranzian close  The same man is called Anicius when he is cited, and Anizio when he is heard; and the difference between the two names marks the passage from philosophy as text to philosophy as speech.   If you like, I can now check whether similar Trecento texts also give us “Anizio Gallo” or other members of the gens in that same vernacular layer

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Anneo – Ossia: Grice ed Anneo -- Grex  griceiana – verbalia: Anneo. The Annaei are a family at Rome. Members of this gens are distinguished for their love of literary pursuits. Several members of the family fall victim to the various plots and intrigues of the court of Domazio Nero, including the conspiracy of Gaius Calpurnius Piso. Lucius A. Seneca, the first of the gens of whom we have definite knowledge, was a native of Corduba in the province of Hispania Ulterior. However, his name and those of his descendants are clearly of Roman character, arguing that the family is descended from Roman colonists, and not native to Spain. Chase classifies the nomen among those originally derived from names ending in -aes, chiefly of Umbrian or Paelignian origin. The Paeligni are an Oscan people of central Italy. The Umbrians spoke a separate, but closely related language. Stazio Anneo, a friend of the family at Rome, may well have been a kinsman, and his praenomen supports the theory that the Annaei were of Oscan or Umbrian origin. The only praenomina associated with the Annaei are Lucius, Marcus, Gaius, and Stazio. The three former are the most common Latin praenomina, while Stazio is generally associated with foreigners, slaves, and freedmen at Rome. Since nothing is known of the physician Stazio A.' origin, it is possible that he was a freedman, and that Stazio was not regularly used by the family. However, if the A. were of Oscan or Umbrian origin, Stazio may have been a family name. The Annaei do not appear to have had any distinct branches, but, following a trend which occurred throughout imperial times, each child of the elder Seneca bore a different cognomen, including the surnames Novato, Seneca, and Mela or Mella. A. Mela's son received the cognomen Lucanus, in honor of his grandfather, Anicius Lucanus, a prominent lawyer at Corduba. This surname originally referred to a native of Lucania. A freedman of the Annaei bore the cognomen Cornutus. The surname Florus, "shining", was used by a second-century poet, and perhaps also a historian of the same period, although whether he was actually a member of this gens is uncertain. Gaius Annaeus C. f. Brocchus, a senator, had probably been aedile. He was a victim of Symmachus, one of the Venerii, a new class of publicani instituted by Verres. Lucius A. Seneca, a rhetorician and native of Corduba in Hispania Ulterior, known as Seneca the Elder. Marcus Annaeus L. f. Novatus, afterward called Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus, the eldest son of Lucius A. Seneca, and a rhetorician. Lucius Annaeus L. f. Seneca, the second son of Lucius Annaeus Seneca, and a philosopher, known as Seneca the Younger. Statius Annaeus, a friend of the younger Seneca, and a physician who assisted Seneca in two attempts to commit suicide.[9] Marcus Annaeus L. f. Mela, the youngest son of the elder Lucius Annaeus Seneca, and father of the poet Marcus Annaeus Lucanus. Marcus Annaeus M. f. Longinus, a maccus (an actor in Atellan farces or clown), first century.[10] Marcus Annaeus M. f. L. n. Lucanus, son of Marcus Annaeus Mela, and a celebrated poet in the time of Nero. Lucius A. Cornutus, a freedman and notable commentator on Aristotle, exiled by the emperor Nero in AD 68. Lucius A. Florus, one of several names assigned to the author of a history of Rome, from the founding of the city to the time of Augustus. Annaeus Florus, a poet who flourished during the time of the emperor Hadrian. Marcus Annaeus Syriacus, governor of Egypt from AD 161 to 164.[11] See also List of Roman gentes References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, Editor.  Chase, p. 120.  Chase, pp. 136–138.  Chase, pp. 113, 114.  Chase, pp. 109, 110.  SIG, 747.  Cicero, In Verrem, iii. 40.  Broughton, vol. II, p. 115.  Tacitus, Annales, xv. 64.  CIL VI 10105 = Carmina Latina Epigraphica 823.  Bastianini, "Lista dei prefetti d'Egitto", pp. 295 ff. Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, In Verrem. Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). Wilhelm Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum (Collection of Greek Inscriptions, abbreviated SIG), Leipzig (1883). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII (1897). Guido Bastianini, "Lista dei prefetti d'Egitto dal 30a al 299p" (List of the Prefects of Egypt from 30 BC to AD 299), in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, vol. 17 (1975).  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: AnnaeiRoman gentes This is a very nice prosopographical problem, because the Annaei give you several distinct conversational worlds—and only some really lend themselves to Grice/Speranza analysis. Let me rank them and explain why.   1. Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) Best possible Grice/Speranza fit Why he stands out:  Philosophical prose about:  intention meaning appearance vs reality   Court politics under Nero:  speech under constraint implication instead of explicit statement   Stoic ethics:  control of what is said vs what is meant     Gricean profile  Maxim of Quality → truth vs expediency at court Maxim of Quantity → say enough, but not too much (or you die…) Implicature:  Stoic literature full of:  indirect moral instruction elliptical reasoning       Speranzian formulation  Seneca speaks as a man who must mean more than he safely says, and say less than he fully means.    2. Seneca the Elder (Lucius Annaeus Seneca, rhetorician)  Second-best fit (more technical) Why:  Author of Controversiae and Suasoriae deals explicitly with:  argumentation rhetorical framing     Gricean angle  analysis of:  how arguments are presented how conclusions are led to (implicitly or explicitly)    He is almost:  a pre-Gricean analyst of “what persuades vs what is said”    3. Annaeus Brocchus (your Verres case)  Strong situational fit Why:  legal accusation semantic conflict (petere) constructed meaning in court   Limit  we have almost no voice or text of his own purely reconstructed case    4. Cornutus (Annaeanus freedman, commentator on Aristotle)  Philosophically interesting, but indirect Why:  commentary tradition interpretation of texts semantic clarification   Gricean interest:  meta-language interpretation of meaning  But:  lacks dramatic conversational setting    5. Lucanus (poet) Interesting but secondary Why:  epic narrative (Pharsalia) ironic tone anti-imperial subtext   Gricean angle  heavy use of:  irony indirect political commentary    But:  not primarily a theorist or conversational agent    Others (minor figures, inscriptions, soldiers, freedmen)  No sustained discourse No interpretive tension Limited to:  names roles epigraphy    So:   not useful for Grice/Speranza reconstruction    Final ranking                                    RankFigureType of fit Seneca the Youngerphilosophical + conversational + political Seneca the Elderrhetorical + analytical Annaeus Brocchuslegal / semantic case Cornutusinterpretive / philosophical Lucanuspoetic / ironic   Final Speranzian close  Among the Annaei, Seneca the philosopher best embodies the Gricean problem: how to speak truthfully in a world where truth cannot be said plainly; while Brocchus shows the same problem in law, where meaning is contested rather than suppressed.    If you like, I can now write a short Latin dialogue between Seneca and Nero illustrating implicature under tyranny—that would be the perfect Gricean climax for this gens.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Anneo – Ossia: Grice ed Anneo -- Grex  griceiana – verbalia: Anneo. Can we reconstruct a dialogue about the Anneo cited by Cicerone in In Verrem? Excellent choice — the Annaeus Brocchus episode in In Verrem is perfect for a Grice/Speranza reconstruction, because it sits at the junction of:  publicani (tax-farming class) abuse senatorial vulnerability and above all how accusation constructs reputations  What we know (briefly, from Cicero’s reference):  C. Annaeus Brocchus, a senator is said to have been harmed / targeted by agents connected with Verres the context involves financial exploitation and manipulation by publicani  Now let us stage a six‑move Latin dialogue, with translation and implicatures.  I. Conversational reconstruction (Latin) Move 1 — The outsider asks Observator: “Annaee, dicitur te a publicanis vexatum esse. quid tibi cum iis fuit?” Translation: “Annaeus, it is said that you have been harassed by the tax-farmers. What had you to do with them?” Implicature (English):  Suggests suspicion: “why were you involved?” Implies possible complicity Neutral question masking latent accusation   Move 2 — Annaeus replies Annaeus: “Nihil nisi civis: quod ius meum eram secutus, id iniuria factum est crimen.” Translation: “Nothing more than a citizen: what was the exercise of my right was turned by injustice into a charge.” Implicature:  Distinction:  lawful action misinterpreted as wrongdoing   Suggests:  meaning has been reassigned by hostile actors     Move 3 — The probing question Observator: “Sed aiunt te multa a provincia petivisse. nonne hoc repetundarum simile est?” Translation: “But they say you demanded many things from the province. Is this not like extortion?” Implicature:  Relies on hearsay (“aiunt”) Moves from ambiguity → legal category (“repetundae”) Classic Gricean move:  vague statement forced into specific charge     Move 4 — Annaeus reframes Annaeus: “Aliud est petere quod debes, aliud eripere quod non debes. verbum idem, res diversa.” Translation: “It is one thing to request what is owed, another to seize what is not owed. The word is the same, the reality different.” Implicature:  Explicit semantic distinction Signals:  misuse of lexical overlap   Pure Grice:  same expression → different meanings depending on context     Move 5 — The wider accusation Observator: “At Verres dicit hoc totum in rem publicam factum esse.” Translation: “But Verres says all this was done for the sake of the republic.” Implicature:  Appeals to higher justification “res publica” as legitimising umbrella Suggests:  abuse disguised as public good     Move 6 — Annaeus’ closure Annaeus: “Cum singuli laeduntur, ‘res publica’ nominatur. sed saepe hoc nomen est umbra cupiditatis.” Translation: “When individuals are harmed, ‘the republic’ is invoked. but often this name is the shadow of greed.” Implicature:  “res publica” = rhetorical shield exposes:  difference between stated intention and actual motive   quintessential implicature:  accusation reframed without explicit denial     II. Grice/Speranza analysis This is a very clean case of semantic manipulation under legal pressure.  1. Central ambiguity Key verb:  petere   can mean:  “to demand (legally)” “to extort (abusively)”    So:  the accusation depends on collapsing these senses   2. The opponent’s strategy  Take neutral or legal action redescribe it as criminal   classic:  reinterpretation → accusation   3. Annaeus’ defence He insists:  “verbum idem, res diversa”  This is almost:  a proto-philosophy of language distinction between:  lexical identity situational meaning     4. Gricean framing We have here:                          MaximViolationQuantityvague “aiunt”Qualityinsinuation without proofMannerexploiting ambiguityRelevanceshifting to “res publica” Annaeus tries to restore Manner (clarity).  III. Final Speranzian synthesis You can formulate it like this:  In the Verres case, Annaeus is not accused by facts but by words; and his defence consists not in denying the actions, but in distinguishing the meanings under which they are described.   Final Speranzian close  The same word that names justice can be made to name extortion; and Annaeus’ task is not to change what he has done, but to prevent others from changing what it is taken to mean.   If you like, we can now dramatize Cicero himself stepping in and turning Annaeus’ distinction into a full rhetorical weapon. And has the issue treated by Ancient Roman jurists, the general issue I mean, considering the 'uses' (not 'senses') of 'petere'. Because jurists in the genus-species distinction may want to lexicalise differently -- and have a verb for 'demand legally' and another from 'exort abusively'. Grice of course would abide by what he calls the Modified Occam's Razor: senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity -- so there's nothing we can do about 'petere.' It doesn't have TWO senses. But if we introduce different lexemes for each of the two specifications we may still abide by the razor and not appeal to polysemy -- not that Anneo does that, of course. Thanks This is a very fine question—you are essentially asking whether Roman jurists themselves confronted the Gricean problem:  do we keep one verb (petere) and disambiguate by context, or do we lexicalise into separate verbs (e.g. petere vs extorquere)?  The answer is subtle—and very interesting.  I. What Roman jurists actually did 1. They did NOT try to fix the problem by multiplying verbs Roman jurists did not systematically replace petere with different words to eliminate ambiguity. Instead, they:  accepted broad verbs like:  petere (“to seek, demand, request”) [latin-is-simple.com]   and clarified meaning through:  legal categories contextual qualification     2. They built a second layer over the verb Rather than splitting petere, they distinguished:                  DomainExpressionlawful claimpetere, repetere, exigereunlawful takingextorquere (to extort), eripere Example:  extorquere = explicitly “to extort, wrench out by force” [latin-is-simple.com]  So:  instead of redefining petere, they oppose it to other verbs in a structured vocabulary.   II. The juristic move: from lexeme → legal qualification What really matters is this: Roman law operates not by lexical refinement but by normative predicates.  Central juristic criterion From Roman law (e.g. Lex Aquilia):  liability depends on iniuria = lack of right / unlawfulness [lambert-cl...l-latin.ca]  So the key contrast is:                  actqualificationdemandinglawful (iure)demandingunlawful (iniuria)  So:  the same act-type (petere-like behaviour) is distinguished not lexically, but juridically   III. Your Gricean framing: exactly right You propose:  keep one verb (petere) but avoid multiplying senses and instead specify uses  This is almost exactly what Roman jurists do.  They follow (avant la lettre) “Modified Occam’s Razor” They:  do not multiply senses artificially but:  differentiate via:  iniuria dolus (intent) culpa (fault)      Thus:  meaning = verb + juridical framework   IV. Why they do NOT lexicalise more sharply This is key. Roman jurists had available:  petere → neutral extorquere → clearly abusive rapere → seize violently  So why not enforce lexical distinction? Because:  law is not interested only in words, but in acts qualified by norm   Their logic is:  same word can cover many actions what matters is:  intention (dolus) right (ius) context     V. A neat reconstruction (Anneo’s position, sharpened) Your Anneo implicitly says:  Aliud est petere iure, aliud petere iniuria.  We can formalise that:  Latin (juristic style) Annaeus: “Petere idem verbum est; sed aliud iure petere, aliud iniuria extorquere.”  Translation “The word ‘to demand’ is the same; but it is one thing to demand lawfully, another to extort wrongfully.”  Implicature  no need for two senses of petere distinction lies in:  normative evaluation   speaker aligns with jurists, not rhetoricians   VI. Philosophical payoff You can now express the deep point:  Grice vs Roman jurists                          GriceRoman juristsavoid multiplying senses✔rely on use/context✔distinguish by intention✔clarity via explicit lexicon✘ (secondary)  So:  Roman law is anti-lexicalist but pro-contextual   VII. Final Speranzian synthesis  The Roman jurists do not rescue petere from ambiguity by inventing new words; they rescue it by placing it under the discipline of law, where the same act, described by the same verb, becomes either a right or a wrong depending not on what it is called, but on how it is done.   VIII. Short closing line  It is not the verb that decides whether one has demanded or extorted, but the law.   If you like, we can push this further into Boethius’ logic of significare, to show how juristic “use over sense” anticipates his semantic framework. And this is an issue Grice would have been familiar with in discussions with H. L. A. Hart, the Oxford man in legal philosophy. And how do lexicographers deal with this, even jurist lexicography. Is there like a standard Latin lexicon for jurists or students of Roman law. And under petere 1. legal, 2. illegal? Thanks This is a very rich question—you’ve now moved from Roman law to exactly the kind of issue Grice and H. L. A. Hart would have discussed: how legal language handles general words like petere without either multiplying senses or collapsing distinctions. Let me answer in three layers:  I. Yes — this is exactly a Hart/Grice problem Hart (in The Concept of Law) constantly stresses:  legal terms have a “core” and a “penumbra” borderline cases are resolved by interpretive judgment, not lexical precision  Grice would say:  don’t multiply senses rely on speaker meaning + contextual specification   Roman jurists, interestingly, already behave like this:  They keep petere broad, and let institutions (ius, iniuria, dolus) do the work.   II. How lexicographers actually handle petere Now to your very concrete question:  Do dictionaries say “petere = (1) legal, (2) illegal”?  Short answer:  No — not in that blunt way.  1. Classical lexica (OLD, Lewis–Short type) They typically give entries like:  “seek, aim at, attack” “request, demand” “to claim at law, sue for” [latinlexicon.org]   So the “legal sense” appears as:  petere = “to demand at law, to sue”  But crucially:  they do not add:  “illegal demand” as a separate sense    Why? Because:  illegality is not lexical — it is juridical.   2. What lexicographers do instead They use: A. Sub-sense labels (contextual)  “legal” “forensic” “political”  So you might see:  petere (in law) = “to bring an action, claim”   B. Parallel lexemes for contrast They rely on entries like:  extorquere = “to extort” [britannica.com] eripere = seize rapere = take by force   So the contrast is:                  verbtypepetereneutral / lawful or potentially lawfulextorquereinherently abusive  3. Juristic lexicography (more specialised) Here there are specialised tools:   Adolf Berger, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law → explains terms with technical legal meaning [pennpress.org]   glossaries of Roman law:  define actions (actio, repetundae, accusatio, etc.) [thelatinlibrary.com]    But:   These dictionaries focus on technical terms, not general verbs like petere. For ordinary words, they rely on general Latin dictionaries.   III. The key principle (this is the answer you’re after) The crucial observation (and it’s explicitly stated in scholarship):  Roman legal language consists largely of ordinary words used in a technical sense, not newly coined legal lexemes [academic.oup.com]  Example:  peto = “to seek” in law → “to sue, claim”  But still:  same verb, different use, not different “sense entries”   IV. So how would a lexicon “behave” ideally? It would NOT say:  petere  to demand legally to demand illegally   Instead it gives:  petere – to seek, request – to claim at law  And leaves illegality to:  context legal concepts:  iniuria (wrongful) dolus (intent)     V. Your Gricean formulation — perfectly captured You suggested:  keep one verb, distinguish uses, not senses  This matches exactly:  Roman juristic practice lexicographic practice Hart/Grice philosophy   We can express it cleanly:   petere → action-type “seeking / demanding”   Legal evaluation: → supplied by:  iure (lawfully) iniuria (wrongfully)     VI. A neat synthetic contrast                          StrategyRoman juristsmultiply senses? nocoin new verbs? limitedrely on context? yesrely on legal categories? decisive  VII. Final Speranzian close  The lexicographer does not divide petere into lawful and unlawful senses, because the law itself refuses to do so; it keeps the word whole, and lets judgment decide whether the act it names belongs to right or to wrong.    If you want, we can look at how a specific lemma in Lewis & Short or the OLD is structured line-by-line, to see exactly how the dictionary encodes this Gricean restraint.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Anneo – Ossia: Grice ed Anneo -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Anneo. The Annaeii, occasionally written Annei, are a family of ancient Rome, known from the last century of the Roman Republic onward. Among the only members of this gens mentioned by Roman writers is Marcus Anneius, the legate of Cicero.[1] Many others are known from inscriptions.  Praenomina The chief praenomina of the Anneii were Marcus and Gaius, two of the most common names at all periods of Roman history. Other common names were used by some of the Anneii, including Lucius, Publius, and Titus, along with individual instances of Aulus, Gnaeus, Quintus, and Sextus.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Lucius Anneius L. f., named in an inscription from Urvinum Mataurense in Umbria, dating from the middle part of the first century BC.[2] Marcus Anneius, a legate of Cicero, when the latter was governor of Cilicia in 51 BC. The following year, when Cicero campaigned against the Parthians, Anneius led a division of the Roman force.[3][1] Marcus Anneius Q. f., named along with the augur Marcus Anneius Postumus in an inscription from Carsioli in Sabinum, dating from the latter half of the first century BC.[4] Marcus Anneius Postumus, an augur named along with another Marcus Anneius in an inscription from Carsioli, dating from the latter half of the first century BC.[4] Marcus Anneius M. l. Adjutor, a freedman buried at Bononia in Cisalpine Gaul, in a tomb built by his former master, Marcus Anneius Tertius, for himself, his wife, Magia Tertia, their daughter, Praeconina, and Adjutor, dating from the Julio-Claudian Dynasty.[5] Marcus Anneius Sp. f. Tertius, built a family sepulchre at Bononia, dating from the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, for himself, his wife, Magia Tertia, their daughter, Praeconina, and the freedman Marcus Anneius Adjutor.<ref="CIL 11 6846"/> Anneia Q. [...] Quarta, the wife of Gnaeus Octavius Epituncanus, who built a tomb at Pisae in Etruria, dating from the first half of the first century AD for himself, Quarta, and their son, Gnaeus Octavius Lupercus.[6] Lucius Anneius M. f. Catulus, buried in a first-century tomb at Luceria in Apulia, along with Marcus Anneius Honoratus and the freedman Marcus Anneius Rufio.[7] Marcus Anneius Felix, buried along with his wife, Naevia Secunda, in a first-century tomb at Placentia in Cisalpine Gaul, built by his son, Marcus Anneius Primus, for himself and his parents.[8] Marcus Anneius M. f. Honoratus, buried in a first-century tomb at Luceria, along with Lucius Anneius Catulus and the freedman Marcus Anneius Rufio.[7] Marcus Anneius M. f. Primus, one of the seviri Augustales, built a first-century tomb at Placentia for himself and his parents, Marcus Anneius Felix and Naevia Secunda.[8] Marcus Anneius M. l. Rufio, a freedman buried in a first-century tomb at Luceria, along with Marcus Anneius Honoratus and Lucius Anneius Catulus.[7] Gaius Anneius, dedicated a first- or second-century monument at Ebusus in Hispania Citerior for his wife, Vettia Claudia.[9] Gaius Anneius, named together with Gaius Fulvius in a list of persons buried at Hispellum in Umbria, dating from the last decade of the Augustan era.[10] Anneia Procilla, the wife of Tiberius Claudius Nicostratus, one of the seviri Augustales and magistrates of the craftsman's guild at Praeneste in Latium. They and their children, Claudius Nicephorianus Proculus and Anneianus, were named in an inscription from that city, dating between the latter half of the first century, and the end of the second.[11] Sextus Anneius Florus, buried at Interamna Nahars in Umbria, aged thirty-one years, eleven months, and sixteen days, in a tomb built by his wife, Cesolia Faustina, dating between the late first century, and the end of the second.[12] Anneia M. f. Aciliana Arvensis, buried at Celti in Hispania Baetica, aged twenty-eight.[13] Gnaeus Anneus Euhemerus, buried in a second-century tomb at Rome, dedicated by Anneus Onesimus, Anneus Liberalis, and Pompeia Januaria.[14] Anneus Liberalis, along with Anneus Onesimus and Pompeia Januaria, dedicated a second-century tomb at Rome for Gnaeus Anneus Euhemerus.[14] Anneus Onesimus, along with Anneus Liberalis and Pompeia Januaria, dedicated a second-century tomb at Rome for Gnaeus Anneus Euhemerus.[14] Anneia, buried at Uchi Maius in Africa, aged between twenty-five and twenty-nine, in a tomb dating from the latter half of the second century.[15] Anneia C. f. Parten[...], buried at Clusium in Etruria, in a tomb built by Gaius Clodius Privatus, dating between the latter half of the second century, and the first half of the third.[16] Anneius Saturninus, named in late second-century pottery inscriptions from various locations in Dacia, concerning the Legio XIII Gemina.[17][18][19] Anneius Raus, one of a number of senators named in an inscription from Rome, dating from early in the reign of Commodus.[20] Publius Anneius Felix, a native of Regio Lepidi, was a bucinator, or trumpeter, named in a list of soldiers at Rome, dating from AD 183.[21] Gaius Anneius Rufus, a structor, or builder, who was hired by the local decurions to build a gate at Pisaurum in Umbria.[22] Gaius Anneius Zeno, curator of a monument dedicated by the corps of spearmen of Ostia to the emperor Caracalla in AD 203.[23] Titus Anneius Apriclus, a soldier in the fith cohort of the vigiles at Rome in AD 205, serving in the century of Aurelius Justus.[24] Marcus Anneius Candidus, a soldier in the fifth cohort of the vigiles at Rome in AD 205, serving in the century of Ulpius Rutilianus.[24] Marcus Anneius Candidus, a soldier in the fifth cohort of the vigiles at Rome in AD 205, serving in the century of Valens.[24] Marcus Anneius Faustinus, a soldier in the fifth cohort of the vigiles at Rome in AD 205, serving in the century of Romulus.[24] Gaius Anneius Fuscus, a soldier in the fith cohort of the vigiles at Rome in AD 205, serving in the century of Ulpius Rutilianus.[24] Lucius Anneius Marcianus, a soldier in the fifth cohort of the vigiles at Rome in AD 205, serving in the century of Valens.[24] Gaius Anneius Maximus, a soldier in the fifth cohort of the vigiles at Rome in AD 205, serving in the century of Antullus.[24] Gaius Anneius Maximus, a soldier in the fifth cohort of the vigiles at Rome in AD 205, serving in the century of Caesernius Senecio.[24] Marcus Anneius Philippus, a soldier in the fifth cohort of the vigiles at Rome in AD 205, serving in the century of Romulus.[24] Lucius Anneius Primitivus, a soldier in the fifth cohort of the vigiles at Rome in AD 205, serving in the century of Rufinus.[24] Lucius Anneius Procule(ianus?), a soldier in the fifth cohort of the vigiles at Rome in AD 205, serving in the century of Aulupor.[24] Lucius Anneius Proculus, a soldier in the fifth cohort of the vigiles at Rome in AD 205, serving in the century of Aulupor.[24] Titus Anneius Quintianus, a soldier in the fifth cohort of the vigiles at Rome in AD 205, serving in the century of Ulpius Rutilianus.[24] Marcus Anneius Salvianus, a soldier in the fifth cohort of the vigiles at Rome in AD 205, serving in the century of Romulus.[24] Gaius Anneius Saturninus, a soldier in the fifth cohort of the vigiles at Rome in AD 205, serving in the century of Valens.[24] Anneius Rogatus, a duplicarius, or soldier entitled to receive double pay, serving in the Legio III Augusta at Lambaesis in Numidia during the reign of Elagabalus.[25] Publius Anneius P. f. Probus, a native of Poetovium in Pannonia, was a soldier in the first cohort of the Praetorian Guard, named on a bronze plate embedded in the wall of the temple of Augustus and Minerva at Industria in Liguria in AD 254.[26] Undated Anneii Anneia, buried at Ariminum in Cisalpine Gaul, in a tomb dedicated by the freedman Gaius Clodius Musa.[27] Gaius Anneius, a potter whose maker's mark has been found at Curictae in Dalmatia, in Venetia and Histria, at Tarraco in Hispania Citerior, and at the site of modern Sopron, formerly part of Raetia.[28][29][30] Gaius Anneius, named in a bronze inscription from an uncertain province.[31] Marcus Anneius, a potter whose maker's mark has been found on ceramics from Volsinii in Etruria.[32] Anneia Aphrodisia, buried at Carthage in Africa, aged forty.[33] Gaius Anneius Bassillianus, named on a lead pipe from Rome.[34] Publius Anneius P. l. Campester, a freedman, and one of the seviri Augustales, buried at Placentia, in a sepulchre built by his friend, the cornicen, or bugler Lucius Mettius Primus, for himself, hiw wife, Petronia Secunda, Campester, the freedwoman Titia Mettia Capra, and Gaius Domitius Raptus.[35] Anneia A. l. Chryse, a freedwoman, who together with the freedman Paba Philomusus and freedwoman Acinia Hedone, built a tomb at Volsinii in Etruria for themselves, and for the freedwoman Pabaea Rufina and the freedman Paba Alcimus.[36] Anneius Felix, buried at Lambaesis in Numidia, aged forty-four years, ten months, in a tomb built by Marcella.[37] Anneius Fornatus, buried at the site of modern Shuraqa, formerly part of Africa, aged twenty.[38] Gaius Anneius C. l. Hilarus, a freedman named in an inscription from Rome, along with his wife, the freedwoman Sextilia Nice, and the freedman Gnaeus Atellius Hilarus.[39] Anneia Libosa, built a tomb at Verecunda in Numidia for her mother, Anneia Maxima.[40] Anneia Marcella, together with her husband, Gaius Titius Genialis, built a tomb at Forum Cornelii in Cisalpine Gaul for their young son, also called Gaius Titius Genialis, aged one year, two months, and twenty days.[41] Anneius Marcellinus, buried at Fanum Fortunae in Umbria, aged seven years, six days, in a tomb built by his father, Anneius Marcellus, for Marcellinus, his brother, also named Anneius Marcellus, and their mother, Nenolava Fontinalis.[42] Anneius Marcellus, built a tomb at Fanum Fortunae for his wife Nenolava Fontinalis, aged fifty-one, and their sons, Anneius Marcellus and Anneius Marcellinus.[42] Anneius Marcellus, buried at Fanum Fortunae, aged nine years, seven months, and twelve days, in a tomb built by his father, also named Anneius Marcellus, for his sons, Marcellus and Anneius Marcellinus, and their mother, Nenolava Fontinalis.[42] Anneia Maxima, buried at Verecunda, aged eighty, in a tomb built by her daughter, Anneia Libosa.[40] Gaius Anneus Onesimus, dedicated a tomb at Rome for his son, Ulpius Venerius, aged seventeen years, two months.[43] Anneia Pia, a girl buried at Rome, aged seven years, nine months, six days, and eight hours. She was born on the Ides of August, and "paid her debt" on the seventh day before the Ides of November.[i][44] Titus Anneius Priscus, named in an inscripton from Praeneste.[45] Marcus Anneius Salsulus, dedicated a tomb at Theveste in Africa for his son, whose name has not been preserved.[46] Anneia Saturnina, buried at Hippo Regius in Africa, aged sixty.[47] Quintus Anneius Theubulus, a medicus, or doctor, buried at Spoletium in Umbria.[48] See also List of Roman gentes Notes  August 13; November 7. References  William Smith, "M. Anneius", in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, p. 180.  AE 2005, 476.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, xiii. 55, 57, xiv. 4.  CIL IX, 4061.  CIL XI, 6846.  CIL XI, 1481.  AE 1983, 220.  CIL XI, 1223.  AE 1990, 641.  AE 1992, 561.  CIL XIV, 2981.  CIL XI, 4244.  AE 2004, 751.  CIL VI, 11672.  AE 1997, 1680.  CIL XI, 2274.  CIL III, 8065, CIL III, 8065,10a, CIL III, 8065,10c.  AE 1914, 115, AE 1971, 375g, AE 1975, 729e.  IDR, iii. 1, 107d, 277f; iii. 6, 129.  CIL VI, 2010.  AE 1933, 95.  CIL XI, 6367.  AE 1948, 29.  CIL VI, 1057.  CIL VIII, 2564.  CIL XVI, 155.  CIL XI, 6797.  CIL III, 13341,06, CIL III, 15123,3f.  Pais, Corporis Inscriptionum Latinarum Supplementa Italica, 1079,001.  AE 2022, 543.  CIL XV, 8066.  Mélanges de l'École française de Rome, 1950–115.  CIL VIII, 12683.  CIL XV, 7597.  CIL XI, 1218.  CIL XI, 2777.  CIL VIII, 3386.  CIL VIII, 196.  CIL VI, 12586.  CIL VIII, 4258.  CIL XI, 6810.  CIL XI, 6248.  CIL VI, 29280.  CIL VI, 11693.  CIL I, 2499.  CIL VIII, 16574.  CIL VIII, 5241.  CIL XI, 4847. Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares. René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). Inscriptiones Daciae Romanae (Inscriptions from Roman Dacia, abbreviated IDR), Bucharest (1975–present). Mélanges d'Archéologie et d'Histoire de l'École Française de Rome (Archaeological and Historical Collections of the French School at Rome), Paris, Rome (1881–present). Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). Ettore Pais, Corporis Inscriptionum Latinarum Supplementa Italica (Italian Supplement to the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum), Rome (1884). Category: Roman gentes With this gens, ANNAEI (occasionally ANNEI) we seem to have an issue with italianisation. In vernacular italian, the 'ae' disappears. So this becomes Anneo (for the masculine nomen singular) -- Latin ANNAEUS, not: Anneus -- Would that be a matter of vowel quality in classical latin, we suppose, with AE strictly pronounced as different from e -- but then since when was the specific elision sign AE (just one letter) to come into use? Thanks - Excellent question — this takes us into historical phonology, orthography, and transmission, and it connects beautifully with your “Anneo” observation. Let me separate the issues clearly:  I. What is ae in classical Latin? 1. Not originally “a special letter”  In early Latin, ae = a + e (two vowels) Pronounced as a diphthong:  something like /ai̯/ (as in “ai”)    So:  Annaeus ≈ /An-nai-us/ (roughly)   2. Classical period (Cicero, Caesar) By the late Republic:  ae is still written as AE but pronunciation is already shifting:   /ai̯/ → something closer to /ae/ → then sliding toward /ɛ/  So the diphthong is weakening.  II. The ligature “æ” — when does it appear? 1. Important correction The ligature æ is not an ancient alphabetic letter. It is:  a scribal shorthand, not part of the original Latin alphabet.   2. Timeline                              PeriodWritingEarly LatinAE (two letters)Classical LatinAE (standard)Late Antiquity / medieval manuscriptsæ (ligature)Renaissance printæ sometimes retainedModern usagemostly AE or simplified   So:  “æ” appears in late manuscript culture, not as a classical orthographic innovation.   III. What happens in late Latin / Romance? 1. Phonetic collapse By late Latin:  ae merges with ē / e  So:  ae ≈ e   2. This is the crucial step for your case Now we have:  Annaeus → Anneus → Anneos → Anneo  So your “Anneo” is exactly what we expect from:  phonological reduction of ae → e   IV. Why Italian has “Anneo” In Italian:  Latin diphthongs disappear:  caelum → cielo aetas → età    So:  Annaeus → Anneo (perfectly regular)   V. But we also see “Anneus” in inscriptions You noticed:  “occasionally Annei”  This reflects:  already in Latin inscriptions ae is sometimes written as:  e    So:  Anneus = phonetic spelling of Annaeus   VI. Your key insight about vowel quality You asked:  was AE really distinguished clearly?  Answer:  Yes in early Latin  but already unstable in the Republic  collapsed in Imperial and later Latin  VII. Connecting with your “Anneo vs Anicius” contrast Now you can see the difference sharply:  1. Annaeus → Anneo  follows natural phonology vernacular evolution no resistance from tradition   2. Anicius → Anicio (not Anizio, unless vernacular)  partly phonological BUT:  preserved by learned transmission     So:                  NameBehaviourAnnaeusfully vernacularised → AnneoAniciuspartially stabilised → Anicio  VIII. A very neat conceptual formulation (your line of thought)  Annaeus behaves like a word; Anicius behaves like a citation.   IX. Final Speranzian synthesis  The diphthong ae begins as two sounds, becomes one sound, and finally becomes one letter; but what matters for us is that once the sound has collapsed, the name is free to follow speech—unless, like Anicius, it is held back by the discipline of writing. Thus Annaeus becomes Anneo, not because the language decides it, but because nothing prevents it.   Short answer to your core questions  AE originally = diphthong (/ai/) æ ligature = later scribal abbreviation collapse (ae → e) = late Latin phonetic development Italian “Anneo” = direct result of that collapse   If you want, we can now compare Annaeus → Anneo with Caesar → Cesare to see the same phonetic chain in a more famous case. And would the ligature ae, and oe -- were there others? -- to be viewed in at least a public document or inscription, in say, an arch -- from an early period? Thanks -- it seems to save space Great question—because here we have to distinguish very carefully between epigraphic practice (inscriptions, monuments) and manuscript/late book culture, where ligatures really flourish.  I. Were ligatures like æ / œ used in early public inscriptions? Short answer:  No—not in the early or classical monumental inscriptions. In:  arches official dedications early imperial inscriptions  you will overwhelmingly see:  AE and OE written as two separate letters   Why? Roman monumental epigraphy (stone inscriptions):  prized clarity, legibility, regular geometry used capitalis monumentalis (square capitals)  This script:  avoids cursive features avoids ligatures (almost entirely) keeps each letter distinct and separate    So on an arch, you would see:  CAESAR, not CÆSAR VETUS PRAETOR, not PRÆTOR   II. Where do æ / œ ligatures actually come from? 1. Manuscript culture (key point) Ligatures like:  æ œ  are:  scribal innovations, not classical orthography  They arise in:  cursive writing late Antique manuscripts medieval scriptoria   Why? You guessed it perfectly:   They save space and speed up writing  Also:  reflect phonetic merging (ae ≈ e) represent a single sound more economically   III. Other Latin ligatures Yes—there were several, but again:  mainly in manuscripts, not in stone inscriptions  Common ligatures: 1. Vowel ligatures  æ (ae) œ (oe)   2. Consonantal ligatures (very common in manuscripts)  ct → often fused st rt nt   3. Tironian notes (special shorthand)  e.g. ⁊ for et   Crucial distinction                      MediumLigatures used?Stone inscriptions rarely / almost neverFormal Roman capitals avoidedManuscripts (late/medieval) very common  IV. Why inscriptions avoid ligatures Three main reasons: 1. Aesthetic  Roman capitals aim at:  symmetry proportion visual order    Ligatures would:  distort balance   2. Legibility  inscriptions must be readable:  at distance by many viewers    Separate letters are clearer.  3. Conservatism  official inscriptions preserve:  older orthographic habits   more resistant to innovation than handwriting   V. Chronological summary                                      PeriodWriting of AEEarly RepublicAEClassical period (Cicero, Augustus)AEImperial inscriptionsAELate Antiquity manuscriptsæ (appears)Medieval manuscriptsæ commonRenaissance printæ often retainedModern Italianreduced to e (e.g. cielo, Cesare)  VI. Applying to your case: Annaeus / Anneo This now fits perfectly:  Annaeus (inscriptions): AE manuscripts: possibly æ spoken Latin → AE collapses Italian → Anneo   VII. Final Speranzian close  On the arch the Roman carves AE in full, because he writes for the eye; in the manuscript the scribe compresses it into æ, because he writes for the hand; and in speech it becomes simply e, because the ear has already forgotten that there were ever two vowels there.    If you like, we can look at actual photographed Roman inscriptions (e.g. Trajan’s Column, Arch of Titus) to illustrate visually the absence of ligatures. And from the list of members of this gens above, who do you think makes the best Grice/Speranza fit? Thanks Thanks. I was actually referring to THIS gens below -- in vernacular Italian is also Anneo -- but it corresponds to the ANNAEI (occasionally ANNEI) -- as per Wiki list for entry in wiki.en. below. Thanks Great—now that we’re strictly within this gens (Annaei / Annei → vernacular Anneo), the situation is a bit different from the Senecas: we have almost no literary voices, mostly epigraphic shadows plus one or two figures connected to Cicero. So the question becomes:  which figure gives us enough interactional tension to build a Grice/Speranza dialogue?    Best fit: Marcus Anneius (legate of Cicero)  Why he is the strongest candidate From your list, he is the only figure with:  attested narrative context (Cicero’s Cilician command) a role involving:  delegation military command communication under authority    This gives us exactly what we need:  a space where orders, reporting, and interpretation occur   Grice/Speranza angle In a military–administrative setting:  orders are often under‑specified subordinates must:  infer intention act beyond explicit wording    So Anneius becomes:  the man who must decide what Cicero meant, not just what he said   Mini Latin vignette (Ciceronian setting) Cicero: “Annei, hoc oppidum petendum est; sed cave ne quid ultra necessitatem fiat.” Anneius: “Quid est ‘ultra’? satisne erit si urbem capiam, an etiam puniam?” Cicero: “Intellege quid expediat, non quid dictum est.”  Translation  Cicero: “Anneius, this town must be attacked; but take care that nothing is done beyond necessity.” Anneius: “What is ‘beyond’? Is it enough if I take the city, or must I also punish it?” Cicero: “Understand what is expedient, not what is said.”   Implicature  Cicero avoids explicit instruction Anneius must infer:  limits of violence political intention     pure Grice:  meaning lies in what is left unsaid but expected to be understood    Second-best fit: Marcus Anneius Postumus (augur)  Why interesting An augur operates in:  interpretation of signs ambiguity of ritual language   Gricean potential  distinction between:  what the sign says what it is taken to mean    So:  a perfect case of interpretive overreach vs restraint    Third: Freedmen (Adjutor, Rufio, etc.)  Why (unexpectedly) interesting Freedmen in inscriptions:  operate in status ambiguity names signal:  origin dependency partial identity     Gricean angle  what does a name “mean”? how much is inferred from:  form (M. l., etc.)   identity as implicature of inscription  But:  limited because:  no direct discourse preserved    Others (soldiers, tomb inscriptions, builders)  no interaction no preserved speech situations purely descriptive   no conversational reconstruction possible   Final ranking RankFigureWhy Marcus Anneius (legate)delegation, inference, applied implicature Marcus Anneius Postumus (augur)interpretation of signs Freedmen (Adjutor, Rufio)identity as implicature  ✦ Final Speranzian synthesis  Among the Annaei, it is the legate Anneius who best embodies the Gricean situation: he is the man to whom something is said only partially, and who must act on what is meant beyond the words; for in administration, as in conversation, the danger lies not in misunderstanding what is said, but in understanding too little of what is intended.    If you like, we can expand the Anneius–Cicero scene into a longer exchange where misinterpretation leads to political consequences (which Cicero would then rhetorically reframe).

 

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Anneo – Ossia: Grice ed Anneo -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Anneo. Great—now that we’re strictly within this gens (Annaei / Annei → vernacular Anneo), the situation is a bit different from the Senecas: we have almost no literary voices, mostly epigraphic shadows plus one or two figures connected to Cicero. So the question becomes:  which figure gives us enough interactional tension to build a Grice/Speranza dialogue?    Best fit: Marcus Anneius (legate of Cicero)  Why he is the strongest candidate From your list, he is the only figure with:  attested narrative context (Cicero’s Cilician command) a role involving:  delegation military command communication under authority    This gives us exactly what we need:  a space where orders, reporting, and interpretation occur   Grice/Speranza angle In a military–administrative setting:  orders are often under‑specified subordinates must:  infer intention act beyond explicit wording    So Anneius becomes:  the man who must decide what Cicero meant, not just what he said   Mini Latin vignette (Ciceronian setting) Cicero: “Annei, hoc oppidum petendum est; sed cave ne quid ultra necessitatem fiat.” Anneius: “Quid est ‘ultra’? satisne erit si urbem capiam, an etiam puniam?” Cicero: “Intellege quid expediat, non quid dictum est.”  Translation  Cicero: “Anneius, this town must be attacked; but take care that nothing is done beyond necessity.” Anneius: “What is ‘beyond’? Is it enough if I take the city, or must I also punish it?” Cicero: “Understand what is expedient, not what is said.”   Implicature  Cicero avoids explicit instruction Anneius must infer:  limits of violence political intention     pure Grice:  meaning lies in what is left unsaid but expected to be understood    Second-best fit: Marcus Anneius Postumus (augur)  Why interesting An augur operates in:  interpretation of signs ambiguity of ritual language   Gricean potential  distinction between:  what the sign says what it is taken to mean    So:  a perfect case of interpretive overreach vs restraint    Third: Freedmen (Adjutor, Rufio, etc.)  Why (unexpectedly) interesting Freedmen in inscriptions:  operate in status ambiguity names signal:  origin dependency partial identity     Gricean angle  what does a name “mean”? how much is inferred from:  form (M. l., etc.)   identity as implicature of inscription  But:  limited because:  no direct discourse preserved    Others (soldiers, tomb inscriptions, builders)  no interaction no preserved speech situations purely descriptive   no conversational reconstruction possible   Final ranking                          RankFigureWhy Marcus Anneius (legate)delegation, inference, applied implicature Marcus Anneius Postumus (augur)interpretation of signs Freedmen (Adjutor, Rufio)identity as implicature  ✦ Final Speranzian synthesis  Among the Annaei, it is the legate Anneius who best embodies the Gricean situation: he is the man to whom something is said only partially, and who must act on what is meant beyond the words; for in administration, as in conversation, the danger lies not in misunderstanding what is said, but in understanding too little of what is intended.    If you like, we can expand the Anneius–Cicero scene into a longer exchange where misinterpretation leads to political consequences (which Cicero would then rhetorically reframe). And do we have extra info of Tullio Cicero as military commander? Historians seem to focus on other aspects of his career and he seems to have undertaken it from specific circumstances or as a matter of social upward mobility? Where is Cicilia, and where would this legatus be sent? -- Where does Cicero mention him, or others do? This is an excellent tightening of the question: you now want the historical grounding of your Anneius‑Cicero scene. Let me answer it in four compact blocks:  I. Cicero as military commander (how “real” was it?) 1. Yes—he really was in command, but… Cicero:  was proconsul of Cilicia (51–50 BC) [iranicaonline.org], [en.wikipedia.org] exercised:  administrative authority judicial authority military command (imperium)    BUT:  he was not primarily a military man, and he did not seek such a role.   2. Why he ended up there  A reform (Pompey’s law) forced ex‑magistrates to serve as governors Cicero could not refuse without damage to his career He accepted reluctantly [imperiumromanum.pl]   So your instinct is right:  this was not ambition, but institutional obligation   3. What he actually did militarily Despite reluctance:  he faced Parthian incursions across the eastern frontier [iranicaonline.org] led operations in Cilicia and nearby mountains took fortified positions (e.g. in the Amanus region) [grokipedia.com]  And:  he was even acclaimed imperator (i.e. a successful commander)   4. Historical judgement Historians tend to see him as:  competent, cautious essentially a “civilian governor with military responsibilities”   This actually strengthens your Grice angle:  he commands like a rhetorician, not like Caesar   II. Where is Cilicia? 1. Geographical location Cilicia is:  in southern Asia Minor (modern southern Turkey) along the Mediterranean coast, between:  mountains (Taurus range) Syria to the east [en.wikipedia.org]     2. Strategic importance  frontier zone toward:  Syria Parthian sphere   controlled key passes (Cilician Gates)  So:  a liminal province — half administrative, half military   3. Nature of operations Not large-scale wars, but:  anti‑raiding operations suppression of local strongholds defence against incursions   Perfect environment for:  ambiguous orders discretionary action (your Anneius case)   III. Marcus Anneius — what we actually know 1. Direct attestation Anneius appears in:  Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares XIII.55, 57; XV.4 [en.wikipedia.org]   2. His role  legate (legatus) = deputy commander commanded part of the army handled:  troop movements financial dealings   took part in campaign against Parthian-aligned forces [en.wikipedia.org]   3. Nature of evidence All we have is:  letters (Cicero’s side) no independent narrative   extremely important for your project:  Anneius exists only as mentioned in communication   IV. Where he would be sent (concretely) From Cicero’s campaigns:  regions around:  Amanus mountains eastern Cilicia frontier toward Syria    Operations include:  suppressing fortified towns protecting allies coordinating dispersed troops   A legate like Anneius might be sent:  to bring cohorts together to secure a town to negotiate or enforce claims   V. Why this is perfect for Grice/Speranza Now your choice becomes historically very strong. You have: Situation:  Cicero (reluctant governor) Anneius (executive legate)  Context:  distant province incomplete communication time pressure mixed civil/military aims   Core communicative dynamic Cicero’s letters show:  careful phrasing moral self-presentation implicit expectations  Anneius must:  infer intention translate rhetoric into action    Final Speranzian synthesis  Cicero governs Cilicia as an orator placed in command of soldiers, and his legate Anneius receives not orders in the military sense, but phrases in the Ciceronian sense—formulations whose meaning is completed only in execution. Thus the frontier becomes a place where rhetoric turns into action, and where what is meant must be inferred before it can be obeyed.   Short closing answer to your practical questions  Cilicia: southern Turkey, frontier province near Syria Cicero’s command: real but reluctant, moderate in scale Anneius: attested in Ad Familiares, legate and field operator Deployment: eastern frontier operations, local campaigns    If you like, I can now reconstruct a letter of Cicero to Anneius in Latin closely modelled on Ad Familiares style, but with explicit Gricean implicature built in. Bradbury once wrote a book Unsent letters -- this reminds me of that. Anneo not responding. Do we have an utterance by TULLIO specifically addressing Anneo with a bit of a R. S. V. P. So that we can reconstruct a reply that Cicero may have gotten but of course, the big ego he was, never cared to retain? Thanks This is a beautifully conceived line of thought—very much in the spirit of Bradbury’s Unsent Letters, and (more importantly) very faithful to the actual texture of Cicero’s correspondence. Let me answer you in three steps:  I. Do we have a letter where Cicero “addresses Anneius” directly and expects a reply?  Short answer: no, not in surviving texts What we have are:  references to Anneius in  Epistulae ad Familiares XIII.55, 57; XV.4 [amazon.com]    But crucially:   these are not letters to Anneius, but letters about him, especially recommendations.   The key document (Fam. 13.55) Cicero writes to Q. Minucius Thermus, not to Anneius:  praising Anneius (courage, loyalty, etc.) asking Thermus to assist him in a legal/financial matter  He explicitly says he had already discussed Anneius’ case earlier and now adds written support [anastrophe...hicago.edu]  What is missing We do not have:  a preserved letter:  “Cicero → Anneius”   nor:  “Anneius → Cicero”     So you are exactly right to imagine:  a silent correspondence gap   II. Where an “RSVP structure” does appear (indirectly) Even though not to Anneius, Cicero’s letters often contain:  requests like:  velim facias… rogato… scribas ad me…    i.e.:  implicit “please respond” expectations  In Fam. 13.55 you already have the structure:  Cicero:  explains the case urges Thermus to act   but leaves:  discretion + response implicit     The crucial insight  Cicero often writes as if the reply were guaranteed—and therefore unnecessary to record.  This is very much:  Roman high-status communication and very much anti-Bradbury:  replies are presumed, not preserved     III. Reconstructing the “lost reply” (your best move) Now we can do what you propose: a Speranzian reconstruction of Anneius’ reply, which Cicero never bothered to keep.  1. Cicero’s implicit message (reconstructed from Fam. XIII) Let us compress his stance: Cicero (implicit): “I recommend Anneius strongly; you understand what I expect; decide justly—but also favour him.”  2. The reply Cicero never preserved Latin reconstruction Anneius ad Ciceronem (imagined):  “Intellexi quid velis, quamquam non aperte scribis. De Sardianis agam ita ut neque officium meum deseram neque commendationem tuam frustrer. Si plus efficere potero, scies; si minus, tamen intelleges me voluisse.”   Translation “I understand what you want, although you do not state it openly. I shall deal with the Sardians in such a way that I neither neglect my duty nor frustrate your recommendation. If I can achieve more, you will know it; if less, you will nevertheless know that I intended it.”  3. Implicature (this is the gem) Anneius’ reply contains layered implicatures:   “quamquam non aperte scribis” → you are being deliberately indirect   “neque officium… neque commendationem tuam” → tension:  justice vs patronage    “intellexi quid velis” → classic Grice:  meaning recovered beyond what is said     IV. Why Cicero might not preserve such replies This is your Bradbury intuition—and it is very plausible: 1. Editorial selection Cicero’s letters survive because:  his secretary Tiro (likely) preserved/edited them  The collection is:  ❗ not symmetrical correspondence   2. Bias toward Cicero’s voice The corpus:  foregrounds Cicero’s:  thoughts anxieties self-presentation     others’ replies are often:  lost ignored or never collected    Final Speranzian close  Cicero writes as if the reply were unnecessary, because he assumes it will confirm his intention; and Anneius, if he replied, would have replied not to what was written, but to what was meant. Thus the correspondence survives on one side only: the side that speaks in implication rather than in response.    If you like, we can now construct a paired set: Cicero’s actual Latin (from Fam. XIII.55) aligned line‑by‑line with an inferred Anneius reply—so that the implicatures become visible almost mechanically. Well, a letter of recommendation is a good Griceian thing -- can you provide the Latin for, say, the first recommendation re: valour or loyalty by C. re: A. -- Grice has this in third person, A, recommending someone whose English is grammatical and attendance to tutorials regular -- Input? Feedback? Thanks. Grice: GRouP C: Examples that involve exploitation, that is, a procedure by which a maxim is flouted for the purpose of getting in a conversational implicature by means of something of the nature of a figure of speech In these examples, though some maxim is violated at the level of what is said, the hearer is entitled to assume that that maxim, or at least the overall Cooperative Principle, is observed at the level of what is implicated. (1a) A flouting of the first maxim of Quantity A is writing a testimonial about a pupil who is a candidate for a philosophy job, and his letter reads as follows: "Dear Sir, Mr. X's command of English is excellent, and his attendance at tutorials has been regular. Yours, ctc." (Gloss: A cannot be opting out, since if he wished to be uncooperative, why write at all? He cannot be unable, through ignorance, to say more, since the man is his pupil; moreover, he knows that more information than this is wanted. He must, there-fore, be wishing to impart information that he is reluctant to write down. This supposition is tenable only if he thinks Mr. X is no good at philosophy. This, then, is what he is implicating.) This is a perfect Grice–Ciceronian convergence: the letter of recommendation that says too little, and therefore says everything. We don’t have a surviving line where Cicero damns with faint praise in quite that brutal way—but his commendationes come very close in structure. We can reconstruct a Ciceronian-style Latin testimonial that mirrors Grice’s example while remaining stylistically plausible.  I. A “Gricean–Ciceronian” letter (Latin) The minimalist (faint praise) version  M. Tullius Cicero salutem dicit. M. Anneius mihi notus est; Latine satis recte loquitur et ad officia sua diligenter adest. Vale.   II. Translation  Marcus Tullius Cicero sends greetings. Marcus Anneius is known to me; he speaks Latin sufficiently correctly and is diligent in attending to his duties. Farewell.   III. Why this is perfectly Gricean This mirrors your Grice example almost exactly. What is said:  “satis recte loquitur” → his Latin is adequate “diligenter adest” → he shows up  What is not said:  nothing about:  courage judgment loyalty excellence     Implicature (Grice’s Maxim of Quantity) The reader (a Roman magistrate!) reasons:  Cicero could have said more Cicero knows more Cicero chooses not to say more   Therefore:  Anneius is not worth praising beyond trivialities   IV. A slightly more “Ciceronian” version (with a touch of decorum) Cicero usually softens the blow with decorous phrasing:  M. Tullius Cicero salutem dicit. M. Anneius mihi satis familiaris est; eius diligentiam in officiis saepe comprobavi. Reliqua tua prudentia aestimabis. Vale.   Translation  Marcus Tullius Cicero sends greetings. Marcus Anneius is fairly well known to me; I have often approved his diligence in his duties. As for the rest, you will judge by your own discretion. Farewell.   Implicature here That last line is lethal:  “Reliqua tua prudentia aestimabis.”  = “I will not vouch for him.” It politely withdraws endorsement.  V. Contrast with a full Ciceronian praise (to show the gap) From real letters (like Fam. 13.55), Cicero piles up:  virtus fides industria honestas  Your minimal version conspicuously omits all of these.  VI. Final Speranzian formulation  The Ciceronian recommendation that says only that a man speaks correctly and attends dutifully is not incomplete by accident; it is complete at the level of what is implied, and its silence is the most articulate part of it.    If you like, I can now produce the inverse letter—one where Cicero appears to praise Anneius lavishly but actually undermines him through over-elaboration (a different Gricean strategy: flouting Manner rather than Quantity).Anneo, Marco (XXX). Dicta.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Anneo – Ossia: Grice ed Anneo -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Anneo. Great—now that we’re strictly within this gens (Annaei / Annei → vernacular Anneo), the situation is a bit different from the Senecas: we have almost no literary voices, mostly epigraphic shadows plus one or two figures connected to Cicero. So the question becomes:  which figure gives us enough interactional tension to build a Grice/Speranza dialogue?    Best fit: Marcus Anneius (legate of Cicero)  Why he is the strongest candidate From your list, he is the only figure with:  attested narrative context (Cicero’s Cilician command) a role involving:  delegation military command communication under authority    This gives us exactly what we need:  a space where orders, reporting, and interpretation occur   Grice/Speranza angle In a military–administrative setting:  orders are often under‑specified subordinates must:  infer intention act beyond explicit wording    So Anneius becomes:  the man who must decide what Cicero meant, not just what he said   Mini Latin vignette (Ciceronian setting) Cicero: “Annei, hoc oppidum petendum est; sed cave ne quid ultra necessitatem fiat.” Anneius: “Quid est ‘ultra’? satisne erit si urbem capiam, an etiam puniam?” Cicero: “Intellege quid expediat, non quid dictum est.”  Translation  Cicero: “Anneius, this town must be attacked; but take care that nothing is done beyond necessity.” Anneius: “What is ‘beyond’? Is it enough if I take the city, or must I also punish it?” Cicero: “Understand what is expedient, not what is said.”   Implicature  Cicero avoids explicit instruction Anneius must infer:  limits of violence political intention     pure Grice:  meaning lies in what is left unsaid but expected to be understood    Second-best fit: Marcus Anneius Postumus (augur)  Why interesting An augur operates in:  interpretation of signs ambiguity of ritual language   Gricean potential  distinction between:  what the sign says what it is taken to mean    So:  a perfect case of interpretive overreach vs restraint    Third: Freedmen (Adjutor, Rufio, etc.)  Why (unexpectedly) interesting Freedmen in inscriptions:  operate in status ambiguity names signal:  origin dependency partial identity     Gricean angle  what does a name “mean”? how much is inferred from:  form (M. l., etc.)   identity as implicature of inscription  But:  limited because:  no direct discourse preserved    Others (soldiers, tomb inscriptions, builders)  no interaction no preserved speech situations purely descriptive   no conversational reconstruction possible   Final ranking                          RankFigureWhy Marcus Anneius (legate)delegation, inference, applied implicature Marcus Anneius Postumus (augur)interpretation of signs Freedmen (Adjutor, Rufio)identity as implicature   Final Speranzian synthesis  Among the Annaei, it is the legate Anneius who best embodies the Gricean situation: he is the man to whom something is said only partially, and who must act on what is meant beyond the words; for in administration, as in conversation, the danger lies not in misunderstanding what is said, but in understanding too little of what is intended.    If you like, we can expand the Anneius–Cicero scene into a longer exchange where misinterpretation leads to political consequences (which Cicero would then rhetorically reframe). And do we know more specfiics about the Marco A. Postumo, as per surroundings and circumstances? Thanks This is a very good, disciplined question—because with Marcus Anneius Postumus we hit the limit of what prosopography can give us, and must resist the temptation to invent what the sources do not say. Let me be very precise.  I. What we actually know about Marcus Anneius Postumus From the inscriptional record (as reflected in standard summaries):  He is called:  Marcus Anneius Postumus   Identified as:  an augur   Mentioned:  in an inscription from Carsioli (Sabinum / central Italy)   Date:  late 1st century BC   Appears:  together with another Marcus Anneius (Q. f.) [en.wikipedia.org]      That is essentially all we have.  II. What we do NOT know (and must not infer) The sources do not specify:  his career beyond being augur whether he held:  magistracies military posts   his political affiliations any interaction with Cicero or others   So:  He is purely epigraphic, not literary.   III. What can be reconstructed (safely) We cannot create biography, but we can reconstruct context.  1. The setting: Carsioli  A Latin colony / municipium in central Italy Founded as a strategic stronghold on a major road [en.wikipedia.org]  So:  A civic environment with local elites participating in Roman institutions.   2. The role: augur From Roman religion:   Augurs:  interpreted auspicia (divine signs) especially before:  public decisions elections military actions [britannica.com]      Office was:  prestigious generally held for life tied to political authority     3. Important nuance There are TWO levels of augurs:                  TypeContextState augur (Rome)major political influenceLocal/municipal augurcivic-religious function For Postumus:  ❗ The inscription suggests a local or municipally embedded augur, not necessarily a major Roman figure.   IV. What kind of “life-world” he inhabited We can reconstruct the institutional surroundings, not the man himself:  A typical situation for Postumus  A decision is proposed:  e.g. building civic action magistrate initiative   Augur:  “takes the auspices” declares:  favourable unfavourable       Crucially:  He does not decide the action, but authorises it symbolically   V. Why this is interesting for your Grice/Speranza angle Even if we lack biography, the role itself is philosophically rich.  1. Semantic structure of augury There is always:                      LevelDescriptionsignbird flight, thunderinterpretationaugur’s statementdecisionpolitical action  2. Gricean tension The augur’s utterance is:  formally minimal but normatively decisive  Example:  “auspicia perfecta sunt”  This means:  explicitly: signs are favourable implicitly:  “you may proceed”     3. Perfect implicature case The augur:  does not command but:  his statement is treated as a directive     VI. A careful reconstruction (within evidence) We can construct a plausible dialogue situation, not a biography.  Latin vignette (Postumus as augur) Magistratus: “Postume, licetne hoc opus suscipere?” Postumus augur: “Aves faustae videri possunt.” Magistratus: “Ergo faciendum est?” Postumus: “Quod di probant, homines non recusant.”  Translation  Magistrate: “Postumus, may this undertaking be begun?” Postumus: “The birds may be seen as favourable.” Magistrate: “So it must be done?” Postumus: “What the gods approve, men do not refuse.”   Implicature  Postumus never says “yes” but provides:  authorised interpretation   the magistrate supplies:  the practical consequence     VII. Final conclusion What we know:  name, office (augur), inscription, place, date  What we can responsibly add:  institutional context role in Roman religious–political communication  What we cannot add:  personal narrative specific actions    Final Speranzian close  Marcus Anneius Postumus is almost entirely silent in the record; but as augur, his function was precisely to speak just enough for others to act. His words, like the signs he interpreted, did not command—they invited inference, and in that inference lay their power.   ✅ If you like, we can now contrast Postumus (augur) with Anneius (legate) as two different models of implicature: one religious, one administrative.Anneo Postumo, Marco (XXX).

 

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Anneo – Ossia: Grice ed Anneo: la ragione conversazionale dell’ondella tranquilità dell’animo – Roma. Note su De tranquillitate ut ratione conversationis composita. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Anneo Sereno (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale dell’ondella tranquilità dell’animo. In Grice’s theory of reason‑governed conversational meaning, communication is understood as a rational, cooperative activity in which speakers intend their utterances to be recognized as such by hearers, and in which meaning routinely exceeds what is explicitly said through conversational implicature, generated by shared assumptions about cooperation and the maxims of quality, quantity, relation, and manner; the brief Grice–Sereno exchange you quote cleverly recasts this modern pragmatic framework in a Stoic key by aligning Grice’s idea that successful conversation is not inert literalism but appropriately structured inference with Seneca’s therapeutic conception of tranquillitas animi as dynamic equilibrium rather than dead calm, a conception explicitly developed in De tranquillitate animi in dialogue with Annaeus Serenus, where mental peace is portrayed as a well‑composed fluctuation of the rational soul rather than torpor. Sereno’s remark about an “implicature of conversational consolation” resonates with this parallel: just as Seneca seeks to restore Serenus’s steadiness through measured dialogue that neither overwhelms nor abandons him, Gricean implicature achieves its effect not by overstatement but by leaving the right things unsaid, trusting the interlocutor’s rational capacities to supply them, so that tranquillity in both cases emerges from reasoned coordination—of maxims in Grice, of desires and judgments in Seneca—rather than from silence or excess, making the comparison suggest that Stoic moral therapy can be read, anachronistically but instructively, as a philosophy of conversation governed by rational restraint and mutual recognition. He belongs to IL PORTICO and is a friend of Seneca. Seneca dedicates some of his works to him. In the dialogue “On the tranquility of mind,” Seneca depicts them discussing the problems S. has with maintaining his firmness of resolve. GRICEVS: Salvē, Serenē Anneī. Audio Senecam tibi libellum dicāre Dē tranquillitāte animī—at mihi vidētur tranquillitas nōn esse mare mortuum, sed unda bene composita. SERENVS: Salvē, Grice. Recte monēs: animus meus interdum fluctuāt; nec tempestātem amat, nec torpōrem. Tranquillitatem quaerō, non nihil. GRICEVS: Ita est. Et quī e Vado Boum sum, hoc didicī: saepe satis est ut unda sit, dummodo nōn evertat navem. (Immo interdum ipsa disputātiō dē quiete, si bene fluit, quietem parit: non quia multa dicit, sed quia aptē tacet.) SERENVS: Inplicātūra tua mihi tranquillitatem animī affert—quod ita esse decet! An eam “inplicātūram solātiōris conversātiōnālis” vocēmus, quae illustrat, nōn dēstruēns sed tantum utens signīs iam positīs. This, Grice notes, is NOT the Anneo said to be the founder of Latin literature -- from the provinces, without a gens proper -- so this Anneo Severo -- Grice still has under "A" (he thinks) rather than under "Severo" even if a link with the older Anneo can be proved? --Grice: "Which would be like I saying that I can prove all the steps towards Richard dGris of Gryce Hall in Yorskhire" -- Yes, Grice should keep him under A, and more confidently than in some of the trickier late-antique cases. The man in question is Annaeus Serenus, the friend and addressee of Seneca, and Annaeus is the nomen gentilicium. That means the gens is Annaea, so the proper filing term, on Grice’s own principle, is Anneo in Italianised form. Serenus is only the cognomen. So even if one could prove some lineal or historical connection with the older Annaei from Hispania, the filing rule would not change. He remains an Annaeus, therefore an Anneo, therefore under A. And Grice is right to distinguish this from trying to trace oneself back to Richard de Gris of Gryce Hall. Genealogical curiosity is one thing; practical filing is another. For Roman prosopographical purposes, once the nomen is clear, one need not wait for a perfect family tree before shelving the man. The nomen already gives the shelf. Later ancestral reconstruction may enrich the note, but it does not alter the alphabet. There is one small historical caution, though. If Grice says the “Anneo said to be the founder of Latin literature from the provinces” he is probably telescoping two different lines of thought. The Annaei are indeed a provincial, specifically Spanish, family of importance in the early empire, and Seneca the Elder, Seneca the Younger, and Lucan all belong to that circle. But “founder of Latin literature” would not be the usual description of any Annaeus. What is true is that this is one of the great provincial Roman literary families, not an old republican Roman gens in the stereotypical city-centred sense. That actually helps Grice’s point. Annaeus is a good example of how a provincial Roman family can still function perfectly well as a gens-name. One does not need old Roman soil for a nomen to do its work. So Annaeus Serenus is not “without a gens proper” merely because the family is provincial. He has a nomen, and a nomen is enough for filing. So the dry answer is this. Yes, file him under A for Anneo. Serenus is only the cognomen. The possibility of proving a wider Annaean connection changes the historical richness, not the classificatory principle. In Gricean terms, the shelf is fixed by what is explicitly there in the name; the rest is genealogical implicature. And in fact this is one of the easier cases. Compared with Alexander Severus or Maurus Servius Honoratus, Annaeus Serenus behaves almost refreshingly cleanly. The nomen is visible, the gens follows, and the filing is straightforward. So Grice sometimes get confused when italianising, because AE becomes E, but in this case the double nn marks a single A prefacing the gemminated n. So I think Grice might be thinking of Ennio, as the founder of Latin literature: the one who said: "I'm Raedian by birth, but Roman by adoption"? Surely no relation here -- since this gens was a proper one, if Hispanic, Annea -- which gives the singular name Anneo in Italianised form, not Ennio. Yes, exactly so. Grice is thinking of Ennio, not Anneo, and the distinction matters. Ennio is the Italianising continuation of Ennius, the poet from Rudiae who could indeed say, in effect, that he had three hearts and who is the classic candidate for the quasi-founder of Latin literature. That is the man whose identity is bound up with being non-Roman by birth and Roman by literary and civic adoption. There the Italian form Ennio is entirely natural. Anneo, by contrast, comes from Annaeus. That double nn is not a disguised Ennius. It marks a different nomen altogether, the gens Annaea. So Annaeus Serenus becomes Anneo Sereno in the Italianising scheme, not Ennio Sereno. The initial A belongs there and must stay there. So Grice’s confusion is understandable because Italian often levels ae to e, and once that happens the eye can slide too quickly from Annaeus toward something like Ennius. But the consonants save the case. Annaeus has the double nn after the initial A. Ennius has its own separate history. One is the provincial Roman family name Annaeus, familiar from Seneca and Lucan; the other is Ennius, the archaic poet from Rudiae. And yes, no relation is ordinarily to be assumed here. Annaeus is a proper gens-name, fully serviceable as a Roman nomen even if the family is provincial and Spanish. Ennius is another line altogether, and far older in literary memory. So Anneo is the right Italianised singular for Annaeus, while Ennio belongs to Ennius. The clean rule for Grice, then, would be this. If the Latin is Annaeus, file under Anneo and think gens Annaea. If the Latin is Ennius, file under Ennio and think of the poet of Rudiae. Similar-looking modern Italian forms are not enough to collapse the two. So your final sentence is just right: this gives the singular name Anneo in Italianised form, not Ennio.Anneo Sereno (a. u. c. DCCCXV). De tranquillitate ut ratione conversationis composita. Roma.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Anneo – Ossia: Grice ed Anneo: la ragione conversazionale e il portico romano -- Roma – filosofia italiana Lucio Anneo Novato (Roma): la ragione conversazionale e il portico romano. In your Novato passage, Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning aligns neatly with the Roman “portico” setting and with Novatus/Gallio’s biographical position as a man of mediation: a provincial-born figure (Corduba by the usual ancient testimonies) rhetorically relocated into “Roma” by adoption and by senatorial office, just as an utterance can be relocated from its bare dictum into a socially intelligible act by the hearer’s rational uptake. Grice’s core thought is that what a speaker means is recoverable because participants presume a cooperative, norm-sensitive rationality (maxims, shared purposes, expectations of relevance and evidence), and the portico functions as an emblem of that public rational space: talk there is not private effusion but civic performance, where what is left unsaid must nonetheless be inferable if the exchange is to count as serious. Novatus, as Seneca’s addressee in De ira (to “Novatus”) and De vita beata (to “Gallio”), exemplifies the practical audience Grice needs: someone for whom philosophical counsel is not merely stated but designed to be taken up as guidance, reassurance, correction, or exhortation, i.e., as implicature-laden communicative action. The Campidoglio bells joke dramatizes Grice’s point about conversational “noise”: interference (literal or social) matters only because hearers are actively calculating speaker-meaning against a background of rational expectations, and so the very possibility of joking about tintinnabula presupposes a shared method for distinguishing signal from distraction. Finally, the punchline “if a philosopher sleeps, the implicature is…” turns Stoic sympathy into Gricean diagnostics: even silence, fatigue, or withdrawal becomes interpretable as meaning something, provided the participants are entitled—by the norms of the portico, the genre of philosophical conversation, and the assumed rational aims of the interlocutors—to treat it as evidence for a further intended point rather than as mere physical happenstance. Grice, as a ‘Midlands scholarship boy’ at Corpus, knew it well: the Romans would distinguish between one born within the sound of the bells of the Campidoglio, and one from the almost un-Roman provincial whence Novato hailed! Keywords. Filosofo italiano. Seneca’s brother. Adopted by Lucio Giunio Gallio. Seneca dedicates two of his philosophical dialogues to him. Seneca’s exhortations suggest that if Novato was not a follower of the Porch, he was a the very least a sympathiser.   GRICEVS: Salve, Novate! Dic mihi: in porticu Romano philosophari facilius est an in Campidoglio campanas audire? NOVATVS: O Grice, in porticu philosophari semper iucundum—sed campanae Campidoglio interdum plus sonant quam argumenta Senecae! GRICEVS: Quid? Tunc Seneca tibi epistulas mittere debet cum tintinnabulis annexis—ita nullus Romanus dormiet dum disputatio fit! NOVATVS: Hahaha! Grice, si philosophus dormiat, implicatura est: aut porticus nimis pacata aut Campidoglio nimis strepitans! This seems like a good representative of the gens Annea. Was it a good gens? Yes, the representative is a good one, and yes, the gens Annaea was a respectable family — but not “good” in the old patrician grandeur sense. The safest formulation is this. The gens Annaea was a plebeian Roman family, probably of Italic stock, but by the early Empire it had become distinguished above all for literary and intellectual prominence rather than ancient patrician prestige. So if by “a good gens” one means old, honourable, cultivated, and socially successful, yes. If one means one of the great old patrician houses of the Republic, no. [en.wikipedia.org], [dbpedia.org] And in the case of Lucius Annaeus Novatus, later Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus, he is indeed an excellent representative of that family: provincial in origin, Roman in nomenclature, rhetorically and politically successful, and woven into the distinguished Corduban cluster that produced Seneca the Elder, Seneca the Younger, and Lucan. [en.wikipedia.org], [britannica.com], [dbpedia.org] So the family is “good” in a very recognisable early-imperial way: not ancient Roman aristocracy in the severe old urban sense, but a prosperous, cultivated, equestrian, provincial family that enters Roman elite life through education, rhetoric, office, and letters. Seneca the Elder is often described as coming from a wealthy equestrian family at Corduba, and that gives you the social tone. [worldhistoryedu.com], [en.wikipedia.org] As for other members, yes, we have several, and they are rather a formidable clan. The best-known are: Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Elder, rhetorician; Marcus Annaeus Novatus, later Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus, your Novatus/Gallio; Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger, philosopher and statesman; Marcus Annaeus Mela, father of Lucan; Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, the poet Lucan; and figures such as Annaeus Serenus and Cornutus associated with the wider Annaean circle. [en.wikipedia.org], [dbpedia.org], [britannica.com] So the dry summary is: The gens Annaea was a respectable plebeian family, probably of Italic origin, not an old patrician powerhouse but a cultivated and socially successful one, especially associated with Corduba and with rhetoric, philosophy, and literature under the early Empire. Lucius Annaeus Novatus, later Gallio, is a very good representative because he stands exactly in that family nexus between rhetoric, office, and Stoic or Stoic-adjacent moral culture. [en.wikipedia.org], [worldhistoryedu.com], [britannica.com] One small nuance. The nomen Annaeus itself is thought to have older Umbrian or Paelignian associations, though by the time of the Senecan family the visible social base is very much Corduba in Spain. So the family is Roman in naming and status, provincial in flourishing location, and intellectually metropolitan in ambition. [en.wikipedia.org], [worldhistoryedu.com] If you like, I can next give you a compact family note on the Annaei, laid out as: origin, status, main members, and why Novatus/Gallio matters within the clan.Novato, Lucio Anneo (a. u. c. DCCXLIX). Dicta. Roma.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Annio – Ossia: Grice ed Annio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Annio -- Denarius of Gaius A. on his way to fight Sertorius. The obverse depicts Anna Perenna. The Annii were a family at ancient Rome. Livy mentions a Lucius A., praetor of the Roman colony of Setia, and other A. are mentioned at Rome during this period. Members of this gens held various positions of authority from the time of the Second Punic War, and Titus Annius Luscus attained the consulship in 153 BC. In the second century AD, the Annii gained the Empire itself; Marcus Aurelius was descended from this family.[2]  Origin The Annii claimed a descent from the goddess Anna Perenna, the sister of Dido, portrayed on the coins of Gaius Annius Luscus.[3] The nomen Annius was classified by Chase as one of Picentine origin,[4] and there is an attested South Picene name aninis which is perhaps comparable to the name of the Roman gens.[5] However, the first of the Annii that appears in history (in 340 BC) was the praetor of Setia, which was originally a Volscian town, though it was captured by the Romans in 382 BC. Both the Picentes and the Volsci spoke Umbrian languages, so it may be that Annius was a member of an old Volscian family, rather than one of the Latin colonists, on whose behalf he spoke.[4][6] It seems the gens acquired the citizenship soon after, since a Roman senator named Annius is recorded a generation later.  Praenomina The main families of the Annii at Rome used the praenomina Titus, Marcus, Lucius, and Gaius. Other names occur infrequently, although in imperial times several of the Annii used Appius, an otherwise uncommon praenomen chiefly associated with the Claudii.  Branches and cognomina A number of Annii during the Republic bore no cognomen. The main family of the Annii was surnamed Luscus, "bleary-eyed" or, "one-eyed". One member of this family bore the additional surname Rufus, probably in reference to his red hair.[7][8] A variety of surnames were borne by individual Annii, including Asellus, a diminutive of asinus, a donkey; Bassus, stout; Cimber, one of the Cimbri; Faustus, fortunate; Gallus, a Gaul or cockerel; and Pollio, a polisher.[9][10] Bellienus or Billienus, sometimes described as a cognomen of the Annii, was in fact a separate gens, although Cicero refers to a Gaius Annius Bellienus; it is not certain which of the Bellieni mentioned below actually belong to the Annia gens.[11]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Annii Lusci Marcus Annius (Luscus), triumvir for the founding of colonies in Cisalpine Gaul in 218 BC, obliged by a sudden rising of the Boii to take refuge in Mutina.[12] Titus Annius M. f. Luscus, sent as an envoy to Perseus in 172 BC, and triumvir for augmenting the colony at Aquileia in 169.[13] Titus Annius T. f. M. n. Luscus, consul in 153 BC, an orator who opposed Tiberius Gracchus in 133.[14] Titus Annius T. f. T. n. Luscus, surnamed Rufus, praetor in 131 BC, and subsequently governor of Sicily. He was consul in 128 BC.[15] Gaius Annius T. f. T. n. Luscus, commander of the garrison at Leptis Magna under Metellus Numidicus during the Jugurthine War in 108 BC, and later sent by Sulla against Sertorius in 81, whom he compelled to retire to Carthago Nova.[16][17] Annia T. f. T. n., the wife of Gaius Papius Celsus and mother of Titus Annius Milo.[18] Titus Annius T. f. Milo, the son of Celsus and Annia, was adopted by his grandfather, Titus Annius Luscus, whose name he assumed. He was tribune of the plebs in 57 BC, and became a staunch opponent of Publius Clodius Pulcher, for whose murder he was unsuccessfully defended by Cicero in 52.[18] Annii Bellieni Lucius Annius C. f. Bellienus, praetor in 105 BC, served under Gaius Marius in the war against Jugurtha and Bocchus.[19][20] Gaius Annius Bellienus, legate of Marcus Fonteius in Gallia Narbonensis, circa 74 BC.[21] Lucius Annius Bellienus, uncle of Catiline, ordered by Sulla to kill Quintus Lucretius Afella, and condemned in 64 BC.[22] Lucius Annius Bellienus, whose house was burnt down after the murder of Caesar in 44 BC.[23] Annii Polliones Gaius Annius (Pollio), father of the Pollio attested from the columbarium of his freedmen. Maybe the Annius who was triumvir monetalis in 9 BC.[24] Gaius Annius C. f. Pollio, a senator known from the columbarium of his freedmen. Believed to be the father of Gaius Annius Pollio, consul in 21 or 22.[25] Maybe the Annius who was triumvir monetalis in 9 BC.[24] Gaius Annius C. f. C. n. Pollio, consul suffectus in either AD 21 or 22. Accused of majestas during the reign of Tiberius.[26][27] Gaius Annius C. f. C. n. Pollio, son of the consul of 21 or 22, himself consul suffectus circa AD 66. An intimate friend of Nero, banished after being accused of participating in the conspiracy of Gaius Calpurnius Piso.[28] Annia C. f. C. n., daughter of the consul of 21 or 22 AD, wife of an Atratinus,[29] possibly either a Sempronius Atratinus or Marcus Asinius Atratinus the consul of 89 Lucius Annius C. f. C. n. Vinicianus, younger son of the consul of 21 or 22, and one of the men involved in the assassination of Caligula.[30] (Lucius) Annius L. f. C. n. Vinicianus, son of the conspirator against Caligula, was involved in a plot against Nero. He took his own life rather than defend himself. (Gaius) Annius L. f. C. n. Pollio, son of the elder Vinicianus and husband of Marcia Servilia. Annii Galli Appius Annius Gallus, consul suffectus in AD 67 and Roman general under the emperors Otho and Vespasian. Appius Annius (Ap. f.) Trebonius Gallus, perhaps the son of Appius Annius Gallus, the consul of AD 67; consul in 108.[31] Appius Annius Ap. f. (Ap. n.) Trebonius Gallus, consul in AD 139.[32][33] father of: Appius Annius Ap. f. Ap. n. Atilius Bradua, consul in AD 160.[32][33][34] Appia Annia Ap. f. Ap. n. Regilla Atilia Caucidia Tertulla, better known as Aspasia Annia Regilla, daughter of the consul of AD 139, married Herodes Atticus.[31][32] Annii Veri Marcus Annius Verus, great-grandfather of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, was a senator from a family that had risen to prominence through olive oil production at Ucubi in Hispania. Marcus Annius M. f. Verus, the grandfather of Marcus Aurelius, obtained the consulship in an uncertain year under Domitian, and twice under Hadrian, in AD 121 and 126. He married Rupilia Faustina.[35] Annia M. f. M. n. Galeria Faustina, better known as Faustina Major or Faustina the Elder, was the wife of Antoninus Pius, and Roman empress from AD 138 to 140; Marcus Aurelius was her nephew. Marcus Annius M. f. M. n. Libo, the uncle of Marcus Aurelius, was consul in AD 128 and 161. Marcus Annius M. f. M. n. Verus, the father of Marcus Aurelius, attained the praetorship, but died circa AD 124, leaving his children to be raised by their paternal grandfather. Marcus Annius M. f. M. n. Sabinus Libo, son of Marcus Annius Libo, the consul of AD 128 and 161. Annia M. f. M. n. Fundania Faustina, daughter of Marcus Annius Libo, the consul of AD 128 and 161, married Titus Pomponius Proculus Vitrasius Pollio. She was later murdered on the orders of her cousin, the emperor Commodus. Marcus Annius M. f. M. n. Verus, afterwards Marcus Aurelius, emperor from AD 161 to 180. Annia M. f. M. n. Cornificia Faustina, the sister of Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Annius Flavius M. f. M. n. M. pron. Libo, consul in 204 AD, he was probably the son of Marcus Annius Sabinus Libo. Marcus Annius Verus Caesar, the twelfth son of Marcus Aurelius. Annia Faustina, the granddaughter of Annia Cornificia Faustina. Annia Aurelia Faustina, the daughter of Annia Faustina, married the emperor Elagabalus. Others Lucius Annius, a native of Setia, was praetor of the Latin League in 340 BC. He demanded that the Latins be treated as half the Roman state, and that one of the consuls and half the senate be chosen from among them. On receiving the indignant reply from the senators and the consul Titus Manlius, he is said to have harangued Capitoline Jupiter. He then fell and struck his head while leaving the senate house, though sources differ as to whether he died.[36] Lucius Annius, a senator in 307 BC, who was expelled from the senate by the censors after repudiating his wife without previously consulting the consilium domesticum.[37][38] Annius, a freedman, and reportedly the father of Gnaeus Flavius, curule aedile in 304 BC.[39][40] Gaius Annius C. f., a quaestor or praetor during the third century BC.[41][42] Annius, a Campanian ambassador to Rome in 216 BC, demanded that one of the consuls should henceforth be a Campanian.[43][44] Gaius Annius C. f., a senator in 135 BC.[45] Lucius Annius L. f., a senator in 135 BC.[45] Gaius Annius C. f., a senator in 129 BC, should probably be distinguished from the Gaius Annius of 135, who was a member of the tribus Camilia, while the senator of 129 was from Arniensis.[46] Marcus Annius P. f., quaestor in Macedonia circa 119 BC, won a victory over the Celts who had killed the propraetor Sextus Pompeius.[47][48] Lucius Annius, tribune of the plebs in 110 BC, possibly the son of Lucius Annius, senator in 135, wished to continue in office the next year, but was resisted by his colleagues.[49] Publius Annius, a military tribune in 87 BC, murdered Marcus Antonius, the orator, and brought his head to Marius.[50][51] Annia, the wife of Lucius Cornelius Cinna, who died in 84 BC, and afterwards of Marcus Pupius Piso Frugi Calpurnianus, whom Sulla compelled to divorce her, because of her former marriage to Cinna.[52] Publius Annius Asellus, a senator who died in 75 BC, leaving his only daughter as his heiress. His property was seized by the praetor Verres. He was quaestor in Sicily soon before.[53][54][55] Quintus Annius Chilo, a senator, and one of Catiline's conspirators in 63 BC.[56] Lucius Annius, a quaestor in Sicily before 50 BC.[54] Sextus Annius, a quaestor in Sicily before 50 BC.[54] Quintus Annius, an officer of Sextus Pompey in Sicily between 43 and 36 BC.[57] Gaius Annius Cimber, a supporter of Marcus Antonius in 43 BC. Annius Rufus, governor of Judea from AD 12 to 15. Annius Faustus, a man of equestrian rank, and one of the informers (delatores) in the reign of Nero, was condemned by the Senate in AD 69, on the accusation of Vibius Crispus.[58] Marcus Annius Afrinus, consul suffectus in AD 66. Annius Bassus, commander of a legion under Marcus Antonius Primus in AD 70.[59] Publius Annius Florus, a poet and rhetorician from the time of Domitian to Hadrian, wrote a dialogue titled Vergilius orator an poeta. He is possibly identical with the historian Annaeus Florus.[60] Lucius Annius Arrianus, consul in AD 243. See also List of Roman gentes References  Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, pp. 381-386.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, pp. 180 ("Annia Gens"), 439–443 ("Aurelius", "Marcus Aurelius Antoninus").  Babelon, Monnaies de la République romaine, vol. I, p. 139.  Chase, p. 128.  Clackson & Horrocks 2007, pp. 49–50.  Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd Ed., p. 1131 ("Volsci").  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, pp. 842, 843 ("Luscus", "Annius Luscus").  Chase, pp. 109, 110.  Chase, p. 110–112, 114.  New College Latin & English Dictionary, s. v. Cimber.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, p. 481 ("Bellienus").  Livy, xxi. 25.  Livy, xlii. 25, xliii. 17.  Plutarch, "The Life of Tiberius Gracchus", 14.  Fasti Capitolini, AE 1927, 101; 1940, 59, 60.  Sallust, Bellum Jugurthinum, 77.  Plutarch, "The Life of Sertorius", 7.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, pp. 1085, 1086 ("Titus Annius Papianus Milo").  Sallust, Bellum Jugurthinum, 104.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 551, 552 (note 3).  Cicero, Pro Fonteio 4.  Asconius Pedianus, in Toga Candida p. 92, ed. Orelli.  Cicero, Philippicae ii. 36.  Sutherland, Roman Imperial Coinage, vol. I, p. 74.  CIL VI, 7395 = ILS 7852  Tacitus, Annales vi. 9  CIL VI, 14221  Tacitus, Annales xv. 56, 71, xvi. 30.  Torelli, Marina R. (2002). Benevento romana. Saggi di storia antica. Vol. 18 (illustrated ed.). L'ERMA di BRETSCHNEIDER. p. 182. ISBN 9788882652098.  Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicae xviii. 20.  Birley, The Roman government of Britain p. 112  Pomeroy, The murder of Regilla.  Birley, The Roman government of Britain p. 114.  de:Appius Annius Atilius Bradua  Birley, Anthony R (2012). Marcus Aurelius A Biography. Taylor & Francis. p. 243. ISBN 9781134695690.  Livy, viii. 3–5.  Valerius Maximus, ii. 9 § 2. Some manuscripts give him the name of L. Antonius, but Syme restored his name.  Syme, "Missing Senators", p. 55.  Aulus Gellius, vii. 9.  Livy, ix. 46.  CIL 12.20  Broughton, vol. II, pp. 462, 474.  Valerius Maximus, vi. 4. § 1.  Livy, xxiii. 6, 22.  SIG, 688.  Sherk, "Senatus Consultum De Agro Pergameno", p. 367.  SIG, 700.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 526.  Sallust, Bellum Jugurthinum, 37.  Valerius Maximus, ix. 2. § 2.  Appian, Bellum Civile, i. 72.  Velleius Paterculus, ii. 41.  Marcus Tullius Cicero, In Verrem i. 41 ff.  Broughton, vol. II, p. 478.  Syme, "Missing Senators", p. 55. Syme explains that the praenomen Gaius found in the manuscript of Cicero is a mistake, as the other mentions of his name in the rest of the book mention him as Publius.  Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinae, 17, 50.  Broughton, vol. II, p. 479.  Tacitus, Historiae ii. 10.  Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Historiae iii. 50.  RE vol. 1.2, cols. 2266–2268 (Annius 47) Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, In Verrem, Philippicae, Pro Fonteio. Clackson, James; Horrocks, Geoffrey (2007). The Blackwell history of the Latin language. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4051-6209-8. OCLC 473646442. Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Sallust), Bellum Jugurthinum (The Jugurthine War), Bellum Catilinae (The Conspiracy of Catiline). Titus Livius (Livy), History of Rome. Marcus Velleius Paterculus, Compendium of Roman History. Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac Dictorum Memorabilium (Memorable Facts and Sayings). Quintus Asconius Pedianus, Commentarius in Oratio Ciceronis In Toga Candida (Commentary on Cicero's Oration In Toga Candida). Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales, Historiae. Plutarchus, Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae (Attic Nights). 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). Wilhelm Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum (Collection of Greek Inscriptions, abbreviated SIG), Leipzig (1883). Ernest Babelon, Description historique et chronologique des monnaies de la République romaine, Rollin et Feuardent, Paris (1885). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII, pp. 103–184 (1897). Harold Mattingly, Edward Allen Sydenham, C. H. V. Sutherland et alii, The Roman Imperial Coinage, London (1923–1984). T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association (1952–1986). Ronald Syme, "Missing Senators", Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 4, H. 1 (1955), pp. 52–71. 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). John C. Traupman, The New College Latin & English Dictionary, Bantam Books, New York (1995). Anthony R. Birley, The Roman Government of Britain, Oxford University Press (2005). Sarah B. Pomeroy, The Murder of Regilla: a Case of Domestic Violence in Antiquity, Harvard University Press (2007). Categories: AnniiRoman gentes So, as per these two entries below, you see I already have (second entry) an entry for Marc'Aurelio (ne Annio). But from the entry I, can you provide a second best Grice/Speranza fit then? Thanks –

 

Excellent—now that Marcus Aurelius (Annio Antonino) already occupies (naturally) the first and richest entry, we are looking for a second-best Grice/Speranza fit within the gens Annia that still gives:  real historical context conversational tension scope for implicature    First already taken: Marcus Aurelius (Annio Antonino) (philosophy + imperial implicature)   Second-best fit: Titus Annius Milo  Why Milo is the strongest alternative From your list, Milo offers:  Rich narrative context Direct connection with Cicero A forensic setting (trial after killing Clodius) Explicit conflict between what is said and what is meant   This is almost tailor-made for Grice.  I. The historical situation  Milo kills Clodius Pulcher (52 BC) Claims:  self-defense   Cicero defends him (Pro Milone) Outcome:  acquitted by argument, condemned by circumstance (exile)     II. The Gricean structure Central ambiguity Fact (res): Clodius is dead. Competing descriptions (dicta):                      SpeakerDescriptionMilo“defendi me”Cicero“Clodius iure interfectus est”Opponents“insidiatus est Milo”  So:  The issue is not what happened, but how it is described   III. Perfect Grice case Maxim at stake: Quantity / Manner Cicero must:  say enough to justify not say too much (e.g. premeditation)   The key move Cicero reframes the act:  killing → public good  So:  what is said (a killing) vs what is implicated (defense of the Republic)   IV. A short reconstructed dialogue (Latin) Scene: before the trial Milo: “Interfeci, sed me defendendi causa.” Cicero: “Hoc dicere non sufficit; ostendendum est te rei publicae causa fecisse.” Milo: “Aliudne dicendum est quam factum est?” Cicero: “Aliud non, sed aliter.”  Translation  Milo: “I killed him, but in self-defense.” Cicero: “That is not enough to say; it must be shown that you did it for the sake of the Republic.” Milo: “Must something different be said than what happened?” Cicero: “Not something different—but differently.”   Implicature  Truth is not denied But:  its framing alters its meaning     pure Grice:  same facts, different implicature = different moral evaluation   V. Why Milo is better than other Annii Let us compare:                               CandidateStrengthWeaknessMilocourtroom, Cicero, rhetoricnoneL. Annius (Setia praetor)political speechtoo sketchyPublius Annius (kills Antonius)dramaticno dialogue preservedPolliones / Gallus etc.elite historynot conversational   So Milo uniquely provides:  an explicit speech act situation preserved rhetorical elaboration tension between:  literal meaning intended justification     VI. Final Speranzian synthesis  If Aurelius shows how a man speaks truth to himself, Milo shows how a man must speak about a deed so that others may hear in it what is not said; for in the forum, as in conversation, the difference between murder and justice lies less in the act than in the description under which it is received.   ✦ Very short close  Aurelius = implicature inward (self) Milo = implicature outward (court)   If you like, I can reconstruct a mini “Pro Milone” in ultra‑compressed Latin, isolating its key inferential steps almost like a Gricean proof. Annio Milone (XXX). Dicta.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Annio – Ossia: Grice ed Annio – GREX GRICEIANA – VERBALIA: ANNIO -- Antonino: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’ imperare.  Aurelio Annio Antonino: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’ imperare. Grice: “Some call him Aurelio, but I call him A., since the first time his thing was published in Latin, it was under A., no clue about the Aurelius! I once suggested to Strawson that he should write a dissertation comparimg Barberini’s and Xylander’s translations of A.. You see, he was a Roman who philosophised in Greek; and he was translated to Latin only in the 1550s; and into Italian a century later! Sir Peter responded: “I guess you want me to detect all the misimplicata!’ ‘Misimpiegato,’ I replied!”  Su indicazione d’Adriano, è adottato dal futuro suocero e zio acquisito A. Pio che lo nomina erede al impero.  Mantenne la coreggenza dell'impero assieme a Lucio Vero, anch'egli adottato d’A. Pio. Sovrano illuminato --  è ricordato come filosofo del Portico, autore d’un colloquio con sé stesso, Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν. Pater Patriae, Salutatio imperatoria10 the Vatican, and read it with emotion. I copied it, as follows:  “Semoni Sanco Deo Fidio Sacrvm Sex. Pompeius. S. P. F. Col. Mussianvs. Quinquennalis Decur Bidentalis Donum Dedit.” The explanation is possibly this: Simon Magus was actually recognised as the God Semo, just as Barnabas and Paul were supposed to be Zeus and Hermes (Acts), and were offered divine honours accordingly. Or the Samaritans may so have informed Justin on their understanding of this inscription, and with pride in the success of their countryman (Acts viii. 10.), whom they had recognised “as the great power of God.” See Orelli,  Insc., . (The Thundering Legion.) The bas-relief on the column of Antonine, in Rome, is a very striking complement of the story, but an answer to prayer is not a miracle. I simply transcribe from the American Translation of Alzog’s Universal Church History the references there given to the Legio Fulminatrix: “Tertull., Apol.; Ad Scap.; Euseb.; Greg. Nyss. Or., II in Martyr.; Oros.; Dio. Cass. Epit.: Xiphilin.; Jul. Capitol, in Marc. Antonin.]. Frontino. Roma. GRICEVS: Antonine, si quid de imperando dicis, cave ne plus implices quam imperator ipse velit intellegi. ANTONINVS: Ego vero, Grice, rationem conversandi in ipso imperio quaero, sed timeo ne Lucius Verus ex mea sententia “misimplicatum” faciat. GRICEVS: Ridiculum est: Aurelium quidam te vocant, sed ego te A. appello, quia etiam tituli in Latinum tarde transferuntur sicut virtutes in palatium. ANTONINVS: Age igitur, et dum ego mecum colloquor, tu mecum ride, ne Porticus sine sale videatur. And Antonia or Antonina was never a gens, right? On the other hand, qua Annius, Marc'Aurelio would still be dsitinguished from that other gens, Annaea, right as per Lucius Annaeus Novatus, right? Yes. The first point is straightforward: there was a recognised gens Antonia. So Antonia is not merely a feminine name-form floating loose; it is the feminine form of the nomen of the Antonii, an old Roman family with both patrician and plebeian branches. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikisource.org] But Antonina is a different matter. Antonina is not the name of a classical Roman gens in the same way. It is a later feminine derivative or name-form, not a gens-name in the old republican prosopographical sense. So your instinct is right: one may speak of the gens Antonia, but not of some “gens Antonina.” [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikisource.org] Now to the second point, where the distinction is indeed important. Yes: as Annius, Marcus Aurelius remains clearly distinct from the Annaei. The two nomina are different, the two gentes are different, and one should not let the superficial resemblance of Annius and Annaeus blur them together. Marcus Aurelius was by birth Marcus Annius Verus or, in fuller birth-style, Marcus Annius Catilius Severus, and therefore belongs by birth to the gens Annia. [en.wikipedia.org], [wikitree.com] By contrast, Lucius Annaeus Novatus, later called Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus, belongs to the gens Annaea, the family of Seneca the Elder, Seneca the Younger, and Lucan. [en.wikipedia.org], [alchetron.com], [en.wikipedia.org] So the clean answer is: Antonia: yes, a real gens. gens Antonia. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikisource.org] Antonina: no, not a gens in the old Roman sense. It is a later derivative name-form, not a gentilician house-name. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikisource.org] Annius and Annaeus: definitely distinct. gens Annia is not gens Annaea. Marcus Aurelius, by birth Marcus Annius Verus, belongs to the former; Lucius Annaeus Novatus belongs to the latter. [en.wikipedia.org], [wikitree.com], [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org] In dry Speranza style one might say: The ear is again more hospitable than prosopography. Antonia is a real Roman gens; Antonina is not. And though Annius and Annaeus tempt the inattentive into cousinship, the prudent historian keeps them apart: Marcus Aurelius is born an Annius, whereas Lucius Annaeus Novatus belongs to the Annaei. Rome’s names often rhyme; they do not thereby become family. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org], [wikitree.com], [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org] If you like, I can next do either of two things here in chat only: I can give you a compact onomastic table for Antonia, Antoninus, Antonia, Antonina, Annius, and Annaeus. I can also give you a filing rule for Speranza specifically for feminine forms like Antonia, Aurelia, Annia, and whether they indicate a gens or only echo one. Grice used to compare to Annio -- "but unlike him, I only had one tutor" -- Hardie, at Corpus -- 'tutor in philosophy' he means -- whether Aurelio Annio Antonino had a bunch -- mostly Greek, except perhaps Frontone (Frontino?) -- Grice's implicature is that it would be unthinkable for Oxford to ascribe TWO tutors to a tutee -- "it could only blow his mind." Grice felt the same when later he would give joint seminars with Austin, Pears, Thomson, and Warnock -- alternativing weeks -- 'blowing the mind of the occasional attendee'. "So why is Annio so PROUD of his tutelage?" Can you list them, with cities of origin, potential mother tongue, and philosophical influence on each? Thanks. This is a deliciously Gricean contrast: Corpus with one don vs Rome with an entire philosophical orchestra—and Aurelius (your “Annio”) positively advertises it in Meditations I as if listing benefices. Let me give you a clean, prosopographical table: tutors, origins, probable language, and influence—exactly in the spirit of your question. The Tutors of “A.” (Marcus Aurelius) 1. The Greek philosophical core (the “mind‑blowers”) Apollonius of Chalcedon  Origin: Chalcedon (Asia Minor, Greek East) [en.wikipedia.org] Language: Greek School: Stoic Influence:  Serious philosophical training Stoic endurance and discipline Personal example of philosophical life   Note: Marcus kept attending him even as heir—almost like an undergraduate refusing to leave his supervisor [donaldrobertson.name]   Sextus of Chaeronea  Origin: Chaeronea (Greece) [loebclassics.com] Language: Greek School: Stoic-Platonizing (Plutarch’s nephew) Influence:  Gentle moral philosophy “Live according to nature”   Tone in Meditations: humane, practical ethics   Quintus Junius Rusticus  Origin: Roman elite (Latin West; but philosophically Hellenized) Language: Latin + Greek philosophical culture School: Stoic Influence (crucial):  Introduced Marcus to Epictetus [tomsbiblesite.org] Moral seriousness Philosophical self-examination   Gricean verdict: This is the “primary tutor” in the Oxford sense   Claudius Maximus  Origin: Roman (served in empire; inscriptional evidence) [en.wikipedia.org] Language: Latin + Greek philosophy School: Stoic Influence:  Emotional restraint Calm in adversity Dignity in illness and death     Cinna Catulus (shadowy)  Origin: Roman Language: Latin (with Greek formation) School: Stoic Influence: not well specified Historiographical note: we know he taught Marcus but not much more [donaldrobertson.name]   Claudius Severus  Origin: Roman Language: Latin + Greek School: Peripatetic (Aristotelian) Influence:  Political theory Ideal of a constitutional society     2. The earlier “pre‑philosophical” instructors Diognetus  Origin: probably Greek Language: Greek Role: early tutor (painting, but more!) Influence:  Introduced Marcus to philosophy as a way of life Made him adopt philosophical austerity [en.wikipedia.org]     Alexander of Cotiaeum  Origin: Cotiaeum (Phrygia, Asia Minor) [en.wikipedia.org] Language: Greek Role: grammarian Influence:  Literary style Precision of expression     Trosius Aper, Tuticius Proculus  Origin: Roman Language: Latin Role: rhetoric / language Influence:  Formal education in Latin expression [en.wikipedia.org]  3. The great rhetorician (Grice’s “Frontone”) Marcus Cornelius Fronto  Origin: Cirta (Roman North Africa) Language: Latin (supreme stylist) School: Rhetorical (anti-philosophical tendencies!) Influence:  Latin eloquence Anti-Stoic suspicion of abstraction   Marcus’ relation:  affectionate, but eventually philosophy displaces rhetoric [iep.utm.edu]     4. Indirect but decisive influence Epictetus  Origin: Hierapolis (Phrygia, Greek East) [tomsbiblesite.org] Language: Greek School: Stoic (Cynic-influenced) Influence:  Core doctrine of Meditations Discipline of judgement   Transmission: via Rusticus. Grice’s joke now fully explained You quoted:  “it would be unthinkable for Oxford to ascribe TWO tutors to a tutee”  Exactly. Oxford implies:  One mind → one supervising intellect  Whereas Marcus Aurelius:  lists a dozen “tutors” in Book I of the Meditations. So the implicature:  At Oxford:  multiple tutors = confusion, dilution of responsibility   In Rome:  multiple tutors = prestige and formation. Why is Annio so proud of it? Because Book I of the Meditations is:  not autobiography, but catalogue of moral debts  Each tutor stands for:  a virtue a mode of life a philosophical stance  So listing them is not confusion, but:  division of virtue across exemplars. Gricean formalization Let:  T₁ … Tₙ = tutors Each contributes property pᵢ  Then Marcus constructs:  SELF = Σ (pᵢ)  Whereas Oxford assumes:  SELF ≈ p₁ (from one tutor). Final punchline (Grice vs Annio)  Grice: one tutor → clarity Annio: many tutors → completeness. Latin tag for Speranza  Apud Oxonienses unus tutor sufficit; apud Romanos omnis virtus suum magistrum habet.  At Oxford, one tutor suffices; among the Romans, every virtue has its own teacher.  If you like, I can map each Book I entry in Meditations directly onto these tutors, line by line—almost as a Gricean “credit assignment” analysis. Now, but we can add the collapse. Grice said that he is grateful to Hardie for ONE thing -- 'He only ejaculated on me 'oohs' and 'aahs' when catching me self-contradicting, but never expressed his thoughts.' Tutelage (anti-pater) giving some liberty to tutee -that at Bononia (versus Boum Vadum, Grice's Ox-ford) is the rule (no tutors, student has full freedom and may even hire a tutor for fun). If tutor is tutelage, the own tutor is one's father and perhaps that's why Annio tried to teach philosophy to his own son -- it collapsed. It had the exact opposite effect, and Aurelio's son became a libertine. With Anti-Pater and Porzio no such collapse. With Anthenodoo and Enneio (who orderes him to kill Caesarion) no such collapse for Ottavio (even if 'bad result': civil war, claiming res publica at age nineteen by name only) -- and collapse with Seneca (a Spaniard) trying this Hispanic best wih elite Dommizio (Nerone). Tutor writes 'De Tranquilitate Animae' and tutee burns Rome -- and blames the Christisns for it -- the fire started in the Trastevere). Expand? Input? Thanks. With emphasis on Annio, since this is his entry -- should the son have a separate entry -- what was his full birth name and place of birth, and which one was Aurelio's own birth place? Thanks. This is an excellent expansion—you are effectively drawing a theory of tutorship as a political form, with Grice as the minimalist Oxford case and Rome as the maximalist (and unstable) one. Let me organise your intuitions into something systematic, with Annio (Marcus Aurelius) at the centre. 1. The “collapse” of paternal tutelage Your thesis can be sharpened:  Tutorship collapses when it becomes paternal.  Because:  a tutor (anti‑pater) → allows distance, irony, correction a father (pater) → imposes identity, inheritance, expectation. Grice vs Hardie (anti-pater success) Grice’s description of Hardie:  only “oohs and aahs” at contradiction, never positive doctrine  This is a perfect anti‑pater tutor:  does not shape doctrine does not impose system only enforces consistency. Result: no collapse (Grice becomes Grice, not “Hardie minor”). 2. Annio (Marcus Aurelius) — maximal tutelage Marcus Aurelius:  had many tutors (Greek, Latin, Stoic, Peripatetic) distributed his formation across them in Meditations I, he thanks each for a specific virtue. This is the opposite of paternal unity:  virtue = distributed authority  So far, no collapse at the level of the tutee. 3. The decisive test: tutoring the son Now comes your key observation:  Aurelius tries to reproduce tutelage in his son — and it fails.   The son: identity and data Commodus  Full birth name: Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus (later Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus) [en.wikipedia.org] Birth date: 31 August 161 Birthplace: Lanuvium, near Rome [en.wikipedia.org]   Aurelius himself:  Birth name: Marcus Annius Catilius Severus Birthplace: Rome (Caelian Hill) [en.wikipedia.org]. 4. The collapse in Commodus Sources agree on the essential structure:  Marcus provided elite tutors and education but:   Commodus showed little interest in philosophy and preferred spectacle and indulgence [ancientmysteries.org]. So:  maximal tutelage + paternal relation → opposite effect. Gricean formulation Let:  T(x) = degree of tutelage P(x) = paternal authority V(x) = virtue outcome  Then:   For Grice: → T (low, anti-pater) + P (none) → V (high)   For Aurelius (self): → T (high, distributed) + P (none, since tutors ≠ father) → V (high)   For Commodus: → T (high) + P (maximum: father = emperor-tutor) → V (collapse)  5. Comparison cases (your Roman gallery) Seneca → Nero (collapse)  Seneca = tutor (initially anti-pater) becomes quasi‑paternal adviser Nero becomes independent and erratic Great Fire (64 CE) and blame on Christians [en.wikipedia.org]  classic “overpowering tutor → rejection”  Octavian (Augustus) → success (no collapse)  multiple influences (Athenodorus, Maecenas, etc.) no single dominating father-tutor structure distributed guidance → stable outcome   Anti-pater principle (your Bologna contrast) You rightly bring:  Bononia (Bologna): student hires tutor → autonomy Oxonia (Oxford): assigned tutor → mild paternalism. Grice prefers:  negative supervision (correction) over positive instruction (formation). 6. Why is Annio proud of his tutors? Because for him:  tutors ≠ fathers tutors = sources of partial virtues  But he fails to realise:  for his son, he himself becomes the totalizing tutor. The fatal inversion. Aurelius (as student)Commodus (as son)many tutorsone overwhelming fatherdistributed authorityconcentrated authorityvoluntary imitationimposed inheritancephilosophy chosenphilosophy imposed. 7. Final philosophical reading Your insight can be made precise:  Philosophy cannot be inherited as patrimony.  It must be:  chosen (Marcus) not imposed (Commodus). Latin coda  Marcus πολλοῖς magistris virtutem didicit; Commodus a patre unius imperium accepit—et perdidit.  Marcus learned virtue from many teachers; Commodus received rule from one father—and lost it. Direct answer to your final questions. Aurelius’ birthplace: Rome (Caelian Hill). Son’s full name: Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus (later expanded). Son’s birthplace: Lanuvium, near Rome. Yes: the son deserves a separate entry  because he exemplifies the failure case of tutelage     If you like, I can turn this into a compact “Gricean theory of education” with axioms (anti-pater, distribution, implicature of authority, etc.). How come son of Aurelio did not share the "Annio" -- so Grice will have to have him under "Elio" -- and you said that pater was co-anti-pater, since he also provided other tutors (than himself pater) to "Elio" -- do we know their names? And was pater (Aurelio) born in Rome? What stresses the anti-pater is that aurelio lists all his ANTI-PATERs, but does he mention his own blood PATER at least once, or was he also adopted? Splendid—this lets us sharpen three intertwined issues: names (Annius vs Aelius), paternity vs tutelage, and the Meditations’ (non‑)acknowledgment of the father.  1. Why the son is not “Annius” You are right to notice the break:  Marcus Aurelius (Annio): born Marcus Annius Verus Commodus: Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus [en.wikipedia.org]  The reason is structural (Roman naming after adoption) Marcus himself undergoes adoption into the imperial line:  Born Marcus Annius Verus (gens Annia) Adopted by Antoninus Pius (gens Aurelia / Antonina) Becomes Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. So:  the Annius is displaced upward by imperial adoption.  Now for the son:  Commodus is born already inside the new imperial naming system so he no longer carries “Annius” instead: Aelius / Aurelius / Antoninus. Hence your conclusion is exactly right:  Grice would not file him under Annio, but under Aelius/Aurelius. 2. Was Aurelius himself adopted? Yes, crucially.  Hadrian arranges adoption chain Antoninus Pius adopts Marcus Marcus becomes heir  This is explicitly how he arrives at the name “Aurelius” [ancestry.co.uk]. So:  the philosopher “Annio” is already a displaced son  This matters enormously for your theory. 3. What about the pater (blood father)? Historical facts  Father: Marcus Annius Verus (elder) Died when Marcus was about three years old [britannica.com] Result:  Marcus is raised not by father, but by:   mother grandfather tutors   Does Marcus mention his father? In Meditations I:  he thanks:  grandfather mother tutors adoptive father (Antoninus Pius). The sources we have do not emphasize a strong role of the biological father—indeed, he died too early to function as tutor. So your intuition is essentially right:  the biological pater is absent as a formative philosophical authority. 4. Who are Commodus’ tutors? We have partial but not complete lists. Explicitly attested   Marcus Cornelius Fronto (rhetoric) → also taught Marcus himself [titlecasec...verter.com]   Various unnamed:  philosophers grammarians rhetoricians → “the best education Rome could offer” [titlecasec...verter.com]. Important limitation:  The sources do not give a clean canonical list like we have for Marcus.  So we can say:  Marcus’ tutors = individually named and philosophically profiled Commodus’ tutors = collective and ineffective 5. Was Marcus acting as pater or anti‑pater? Your refinement is excellent:  Marcus is both:  pater (father and emperor) anti‑pater (delegating to tutors)    But the decisive asymmetry: CaseAuthority structureMarcus as pupilmany tutors, no fatherCommodus as pupilmany tutors + one overwhelming father (emperor). So even if Marcus delegates:  his presence cannot be neutralized. 6. Why the collapse occurs We can now sharpen your theory: Principle  Tutelage works only when no single figure dominates identity   Application Marcus (success)  father absent adoption diffuses lineage tutors plural → no centre → no resistance → Stoic self forms   Commodus (failure)  father present (emperor, philosopher, moral exemplar) tutors secondary → overdetermination → reaction → libertinism. 7. The key asymmetry you discovered  Marcus lists his tutors as anti-paters (sources of virtues) but he himself cannot appear to his son as anti-pater  Because:  he is father emperor model expectation embodied. Final formulation (very Gricean)  The anti‑pater teaches by withdrawing; the pater teaches by outweighing.  And:  what outweighs cannot be internalised—it must be resisted. Latin closure  Pater defuit Marco, ideo philosophi aderant; pater affuit Commodo, et philosophi defecerunt.  The father was absent for Marcus, therefore philosophers were present; the father was present for Commodus, and the philosophers failed. Direct answers (concise). Why not “Annius” in the son? → imperial adoption already replaced it (Aurelius/Aelius). Was Aurelius born in Rome? → Yes, in Rome (Caelian Hill). [britannica.com] Was he adopted? → Yes, by Antoninus Pius (key fact). [ancestry.co.uk]  Does he emphasize his biological father? → No major formative role (father died early). Commodus’ tutors? → Fronto and others known in part, but no clear canonical list.    If you like, I can reconstruct a “Meditations I rewritten as a genealogy of anti‑paters”—it would make your thesis almost textual. You still I don't think have told me where Aurelio was born. Since you mention Elio/Aurelio as possible gens for Ennio's son, Grice would go for "Elio" only because he comes first in the accumulation -- and Grice thinks this has a relic in his own royal British family, as when Diana Spencer mispronounced the ordering of names of Charles when marrying him -- and thus NOT marrying him -- can you recall the list? -- -- So, if "Elio" has his own enty, can you provide the passage in Latin about 'he was offered 'the best education Rome could offer' because Grice a scholarship boy from the Midalnds had what he calls Hardie's Choice (not Hobson's Choice)! Thanks. Excellent—now we can pin everything down textually, which is exactly what Grice would demand. 1. Where Aurelio (Marcus Aurelius) was born — Latin Here is the canonical Latin sentence (Historia Augusta):  “Natus est Marcus Romae VI. kl. Maias in monte Caelio…” [readancienttexts.com]  Translation (plain):  “Marcus was born at Rome, on the Caelian Hill…”  So: Birthplace: Rome. More precisely: mons Caelius (the Caelian Hill). 2. The “best education Rome could offer” — Latin evidence The nice thing is: the Latin does not give your modern paraphrase (“best education Rome could offer”), but something better—it enumerates the tutors and then delivers the devastating judgement. Here is the crucial passage:  “Mortuo igitur fratre Commodum Marcus … magnorum atque optimorum virorum erudire conatus est. Habuit litteratorem Graecum Onesicraten, Latinum Capellam Antistium; orator ei Ateius Sanctus fuit. Sed tot disciplinarum magistri nihil ei profuerunt.” [readancienttexts.com] Gricean gloss  magnorum atque optimorum virorum → “the greatest and best men” tot disciplinarum magistri → “so many masters in all disciplines”. That is your “best education Rome could offer.” And then the punchline:  nihil ei profuerunt → “they profited him nothing”. Even sharper Latin moral  “Tantum valet aut ingenii vis…” [readancienttexts.com]  → “So great is the force of natural disposition…” i.e.:  nature (or court-life) defeats pedagogy 3. Your Gricean Royal Analogy — Diana’s slip You remembered it perfectly; here is the exact form. The groom’s full name:  Charles Philip Arthur George [upi.com]  But Diana said:  “Philip Charles Arthur George” [BBC ON THI...iana marry]. Your Gricean insight You are proposing:  order of names = hierarchy of identity  So:  first name = primary designation misordering = ill-formed referential act -- almost like:  indexing d’Annunzio under D instead of A or filing Commodus under Annio instead of Aelius. 4. Why Grice files the son under “Elio” Now completely justified:  Son’s formal string begins with:  Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus [en.wikipedia.org]. So:  Aelius precedes Aurelius → Grice chooses E (Elio)  Exactly your principle:  prima positio = referential priority  5. Final synthesis (your full theory) Anti-pater (Marcus)  lists:  tutors grandfather mother   system:  distributed authority     Pater (as applied to son)  Marcus tries:  himself + best tutors   Latin verdict:   tot disciplinarum magistri nihil ei profuerunt   Gricean law  The more perfect the tutelage, the greater the risk of collapse when a paternal center remains.  Final Latin tag (with your theme)  Roma optimos magistros dedit; ingenium tamen Commodo imperavit.  Rome gave him the best teachers; yet his nature ruled over Commodus.  If you like, I can align Meditations I line‑by‑line with this passage so that Aurelius’ gratitude list becomes the exact mirror of Commodus’ failure. And as per Marc'Aurelio -- what was his birth name then -- and how did the Annii -- not really patrician -- obtain such position in the imperial scale? What do we know of his biological father -- An Annio, I assume -- and did he ever make reference to his 'gens'? Or was he adopted and then turned loyalty to his step-gens? Thanks This is a superbly focused set of questions—you are really getting at three interconnected things:  What was Marcus Aurelius’ original (Annia) identity? How did a non‑patrician gens reach the imperial summit? Did he remain “Annio,” or did adoption overwrite that identity?  Let me answer each with precision.  I. His birth name (and its transformations) 1. Original birth name The sources are clear:  Marcus Annius Verus [en.wikipedia.org], [roman-empire.net]  Sometimes in fuller early form:  Marcus Annius Catilius Severus [en.wikipedia.org]  👉 This is the pure Annian identity.  2. After adoption (crucial turning point) When adopted into the imperial succession:  Marcus Aelius Aurelius Verus Caesar [en.wikipedia.org]  Then, as emperor:  Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus [en.wikipedia.org]    Interpretation  Annius disappears from the public name Replaced by:  Aurelius (from Antoninus Pius) Antoninus (dynastic title)     So:  The emperor we call “Aurelius” is by birth an Annius   II. How the gens Annia rose to the top You are right: the Annii were not originally patrician.  1. Status  A plebeian gens [en.wikipedia.org] Not among the ancient patrician houses   2. Their path upward (key mechanism) The rise is gradual and very Roman: A. Provincial wealth  Family branch in Spain (Baetica) Wealth from:  olive‑oil trade   This wealth funded:  entry into senatorial life [roman-empire.net], [percubes.com]     B. Senatorial advancement  Great‑grandfather: senator / praetor Grandfather:  three-times consul urban prefect later enrolled among patricians [en.wikipedia.org]     C. Imperial integration  Family linked by marriage to:  Antoninus Pius   Imperial attention from Hadrian    Result  A provincial, non‑patrician house → senatorial → patrician → imperial   III. The biological father (the “true Annius”) 1. Identity  Marcus Annius Verus (father) A Roman politician, praetor [wikiwand.com]   2. Fate  Died when Marcus was about 3 years old [en.wikipedia.org], [roman-empire.net]   3. Consequence  Marcus is not shaped by his father Instead raised by:  paternal grandfather (also Marcus Annius Verus) mother later tutors     This is decisive for your theory:  The biological pater is almost absent   4. Marcus’ own reference to his father In Meditations I:  “From my father’s reputation and my memory of him: modesty and manliness.” [en.wikisource.org]   Interpretation  Note:  “reputation” (fama) “memory” (memoria)     That is:  mediated, indirect, minimal   IV. Did Marcus Aurelius identify with the gens Annia?  Short answer: not explicitly From the evidence:  He never foregrounds “gens Annia” identity He does not construct a gentilicial ethos  Instead: In Meditations Book I: He lists:  grandfather father mother tutors adoptive father   as sources of virtue, not lineage  What replaces gens?  Not gens Annia, but moral genealogy   V. Adoption and loyalty shift The decisive transformation is institutional: 1. Adoption chain  Hadrian → Antoninus Pius Antoninus Pius → Marcus   2. Result Marcus becomes:  heir to the Nerva–Antonine dynasty bearer of:  Aurelius Antoninus      So we can say:  His public identity is adoptive, not natal   VI. The deeper (Grice/Speranza) reading You can now formulate a very elegant principle:  1. Three layers of identity                      LevelMarcus AureliusBirthAnniusLaw (adoption)Aelius / AureliusPhilosophyno gens at all  2. What he actually “means” by identity In Meditations:  identity = what one has learned from others not:  hereditary nominal     3. So:  the gens is replaced by a network of influences    Final Speranzian synthesis  Marcus Aurelius is born an Annius but does not remain one; adoption removes the name, and philosophy dissolves it. He remembers his father only through report and recollection, but his true ancestry is constructed from teachers and exemplars. Thus the emperor who rules as an Aurelius thinks not as member of a gens, but as heir to a conversation.   Very short answer to your key questions  Birth name: Marcus Annius Verus Father: also Marcus Annius Verus, died early Rise of the Annii: wealth (Spain) + senatorial office + imperial patronage Reference to gens?: no explicit emphasis Identity after adoption: shifted to Aurelius/Antoninus   If you like, I can map each transformation of his name step‑by‑step with dates and legal triggers (a very Roman onomastic exercise). And although he wrote in Greek, I can imagine A. interacting with his Greek paidagogos. P: Why so brooding? A: I get to the passage about my father. P: You mean [name of adopted father]? A: No, silly. Father-father. And grandfather grandfather. P: But you almost never interacted with your father father -- you were three years old when he passed (+> away). A: I got manliness from him, and fama. And with Granddad I did interact. We often went swmming together. P: Now, we don't have in Greek anything for 'stepson' and 'stepfather' so you'll have to use your habitual solecisms. Input? Feedback? This is delightful—and very much in the spirit of both Aurelius’ Book I and your Grice/Speranza angle: identity negotiated through language slips. You are quite right on the linguistic tension:  Greek has:  πατήρ (father) πάππος (grandfather)   but no neat everyday equivalents for:  “stepfather” (in the Roman adoptive-imperial sense) “father‑father” vs “legal father”    So your paidagôgos is forced into periphrasis—or, as you say, “solecisms”. Let me give you a compact Greek dialogue (with translation and commentary), keeping your wit but anchoring it in plausible Koine/Imperial Greek usage.  I. Dialogue (Greek) Παιδαγωγός: Τί σιωπᾷς καὶ σκυθρωπάζεις, ὦ Μᾶρκε; Αὐρήλιος: ἐντυγχάνω τῷ περὶ τοῦ πατρὸς χωρίῳ. Παιδαγωγός: τίν’ εἴπας; τὸν Ἀντωνῖνον; Αὐρήλιος: οὔ, ἀλλὰ τὸν ἐμὸν πατέρα—τὸν φύσει. Παιδαγωγός: ἀλλ’ οὐ μὴν σὺ αὐτῷ συνεβίωσας· τριετὴς γὰρ ἦσθα ὅτε ἀπέθανεν. Αὐρήλιος: ὅμως δέ· ἐκ τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ σεμνότητα καὶ ἀνδρείαν ἔλαβον. ἀλλὰ τῷ πάππῳ συνήμην· καὶ πολλάκις ἐλούεσθαμεν ἅμα. Παιδαγωγός: ἆρ’ οὖν πατέρα λέγεις ὃν οἶδας, ἢ ὃν ἀκηκόας; Αὐρήλιος: καὶ τὸν ἀκηκοότα πατέρα ἔχομεν οὐκ ἧττον τοῦ ὁραθέντος.  II. Translation Tutor: “Why are you silent and gloomy, Marcus?” Aurelius: “I’ve come to the passage about my father.” Tutor: “Which one do you mean? Antoninus?” Aurelius: “No, my own father—my father by birth.” Tutor: “But you did not live with him; you were three when he died.” Aurelius: “Still: from his reputation I received dignity and manliness. But with my grandfather I lived; we often bathed together.” Tutor: “So do you call ‘father’ the one you know, or the one you’ve heard of?” Aurelius: “We possess even a ‘heard‑of father’ no less than one we have seen.”  III. Linguistic note (your key instinct) You suggested:  Greek lacks neat “stepfather / stepson” terms—so one must use “solecisms”.  That is exactly what happens here:  τὸν φύσει (πατέρα) = “father by nature” (implied contrast) θέσει πατήρ = “father by institution/adoption”  These are not everyday colloquial labels but philosophical clarifications.  That is:  Instead of two lexical items, Greek uses ontological qualifiers.  Very un‑Roman; very Greek.  IV. Gricean structure This is a clean case of implicature triggered by underspecification.  Key ambiguity  “πατήρ”  The tutor assumes:  adoptive father (Antoninus)  Marcus means:  biological father   Repair strategy Marcus introduces a distinction:  φύσει (by nature) implicitly νόμῳ / θέσει (by law/custom)   Gricean reading  Violation: Maxim of Manner (ambiguity of “father”) Repair:  clarification via conceptual distinction   Result:  richer meaning than either term alone     V. Philosophical payoff (very Speranzian) The dialogue neatly expresses what Meditations actually does:  Aurelius does not build identity from:  a single father   but from:  layered sources memory + reputation + interaction     Your central insight crystallised  A “father” may be:   one remembered one reported one legislated (adoptive)  And none can be reduced to the others.   Final Speranzian close  In Greek, where no word cleanly separates the father of nature from the father of law, Aurelius is forced into philosophy; and in explaining whom he means, he discovers that what he inherits is not a name but a set of impressions—of memory, report, and example—none sufficient alone, but together constituting the only father he can claim.   If you like, we could now write this same exchange in Latin to see how Roman legal vocabulary (pater naturalis / adoptivus) solves what Greek leaves philosophically open.Thanks And is the mention to his grandfather to far away from his mention of his father? Do we have the Greek of the passage? We can then look for first Latin translation and first Italian vernacular. I assume he may mention 'pater' first -- and keep 'pater thesei' when he mentions the stepfather, neither of which he may mention by name, as common ground -- these are 'Thoughts to himself' -- Greek for grandfather I forget. If this is translated to Latin how do grandfatehr and father and stepfather get expressed, and then in vernacular Italian? Thanks This is an excellent philological question—because here everything is visible at once:  the Greek original (Aurelius’ own voice) the Latin translators’ strategy the vernacular Italian reshaping  —and above all the ordering of “grandfather” and “father”, which is not trivial.  I. The Greek original (Book I, 1–2) Here are the two key sentences:  Παρὰ τοῦ πάππου Οὐήρου τὸ καλόηθες καὶ ἀόργητον. Παρὰ τῆς δόξης καὶ μνήμης τῆς περὶ τοῦ γεννήσαντος τὸ αἰδῆμον καὶ ἀρρενικόν. [maurelius.app]   Translation literally  “From my grandfather Verus: kindness and freedom from anger.” “From the reputation and memory of the one who begot me: modesty and manliness.”   II. Your first question: Are they far apart?  No—they are immediately adjacent  §1 → grandfather (πάππος) §2 → father (ὁ γεννήσας)  They are placed:  one right after the other   Why this order matters He begins:  with πάππος (grandfather, the actual formative figure) then moves to:  not “πατήρ” directly but:  ὁ γεννήσας = “the begetter”       That is already philosophically loaded.  III. Key Greek vocabulary 1. Grandfather  πάππος = grandfather  2. Father (biological) Aurelius does not say πατήρ here. Instead:  τοῦ γεννήσαντος = “the one who begot me”   3. Why this is crucial This avoids ambiguity:                  TermMeaningπατήρfather (ambiguous: legal / adoptive / biological)ὁ γεννήσαςbiological father only   So:  Aurelius avoids “πατήρ” precisely because of the adoption problem.   IV. Where is the adoptive father? He appears much later:  Book I, later sections (esp. long portrait of Antoninus Pius)  So:  no competition in the opening lines   V. Greek strategy (your intuition confirmed) Instead of:  “father / stepfather”  Greek uses:  natural vs descriptive expression   Not lexical distinction, but:  semantic clarification via phrasing   VI. Latin translations (how they solve the problem) Latin does have the resources to differentiate. A typical early modern Latin rendering of these lines is:  Latin (reconstructed from standard tradition)  A patre avoque Vero… (or more precisely:) Avo Vero… Ex fama et memoria patris…   Or more literal:  Ex fama et memoria patris mei: modestiam et virtutem virilem.   Key lexemes                  GreekLatinπάπποςavusὁ γεννήσαςpater (but contextualised)  Important nuance Latin translators:  usually revert to:  pater   but:  add qualifiers:  ex fama et memoria       just like the Greek:  indirect father   If needed, Latin can also say:  pater naturalis pater adoptivus  …but they are not needed here.  VII. Italian vernacular (later development) Now we move to volgare.  Typical Italian rendering  “Dal nonno Vero…” “Dalla fama e memoria di mio padre…”   Lexical system                  LatinItalianavusnonnopaterpadre  Crucial point Italian: ❗ does not lexicalise the distinction either So it uses:  padre + context (fama/memoria)   Step-/adoptive father? Italian later would say:  padre adottivo  But Aurelius’ text:  does not require it (same as Greek)   VIII. Your hypothesis tested You suggested:  he might use “pater” first, and keep “pater thesei” for adoptive father   Result:  Greek:  avoids “πατήρ” entirely in the first mention   Latin:  uses pater, but neutralises via context   Italian:  same strategy     So:  distinction is not lexicalised—but staged structurally   IX. Philosophical reading (your Grice point) The contrast is:                      FigureMode of relationGrandfatherlived experienceFatherreputation + memoryAdoptive fatherethical model (later)  Gricean formulation  same word (“father”) would violate Manner so Aurelius:  avoids it supplies:  descriptive clarity       X. Final Speranzian synthesis  Aurelius begins with the grandfather he knew, and immediately passes to the father he did not know, naming him not as father but as the one who begot him; thus the sequence itself distinguishes experience from report, and avoids the ambiguity which the single word “father” would introduce. When the text passes into Latin and then into Italian, the languages restore the simple terms—avus, pater; nonno, padre—but must recover by qualification what Greek had already secured by formulation.   Very short answers  Greek for grandfather: πάππος biological father: ὁ γεννήσας (not πατήρ!) order: grandfather → father immediately Latin: avus / pater (qualified) Italian: nonno / padre (qualified)   If you like, we can line up Greek–Latin–Italian in three columns for the whole opening page—you will see exactly how nuance is preserved or lost step by step. And does he use 'pater' then when later in Bk. i he reminisces on Antoninus? Can you provide the passage in Greek, Latin, and Italian? I suppose he does not even mention that he was adopted -- He has already subqualified his father to 'begetter' Thanks. You are exactly right to press this point—because the passage on Antoninus (Book I, §16) is where the whole “father” problem either resolves… or dissolves. Short answer first:   No—Aurelius does not call Antoninus “father” (πατήρ) in Book I. He does not even explicitly mention adoption. He simply presents Antoninus as a paradigmatic figure.  This is very revealing.  I. The Greek (Book I, §16: Antoninus Pius) Here is the opening of the Antoninus passage (Greek):  Παρὰ Ἀντωνίνου τὸ πρᾶον καὶ ἀταράχον… καὶ τὸ εὔτακτον καὶ ἀῤῥάγιστον…  (continuing as a long catalogue of virtues)  Literally:  “From Antoninus: gentleness and imperturbability… and orderliness and firmness…”   Key observation  He says:  παρὰ Ἀντωνίνου   NOT:  παρὰ τοῦ πατρός   NOT:  παρὰ πατρὸς (μόνου)     Antoninus is treated like:  Diognetus Rusticus Apollonius  i.e. one among a series of moral exemplars  II. Compare with the earlier father passage You already saw:  …τοῦ γεννήσαντος… → “the one who begot me” [loebclassics.com]  So:                  FigureExpressionbiological fatherὁ γεννήσαςadoptive father (Antoninus)Ἀντωνῖνος (by name only)   Conclusion:  He avoids “πατήρ” in both cases.   III. Latin translation (typical early-modern rendering) For §16 (Antoninus), Latin translators write:  Ab Antonino… mansuetudinem et constantiam…  (or similar wording)  Crucial point  They also do not introduce “pater adoptivus” They keep:  Antoninus as name    So we get:              GreekLatinπαρὰ Ἀντωνίνουab Antonino  Why no “pater”? Because the structure is:  catalogue of virtues learned from persons  not:  genealogy of fathers   IV. Italian (vernacular tradition) Typical Italian rendering:  “Da Antonino: la mitezza e la calma…”   Again:  not:  dal padre adottivo   but:  simply:  Antonino       V. Your hypothesis tested You proposed:  maybe he uses “pater” later for Antoninus   Result:  He never needs to.  Instead he:  avoids πατήρ in the biological case avoids it again in the adoptive case   and replaces both with:  description (γεννήσας) proper name (Ἀντωνῖνος)   VI. Why this matters philosophically This is not accidental—it is structural to the work.  1. The genre: “to himself” As the sources note:  the work is:  Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν (“To himself”) [it.wikipedia.org]    So:  no need for:  social naming legal clarification   everything is:  internal, presupposed     2. The deeper move Aurelius replaces:  family structure  with:  moral derivation   3. So the pattern is:                      ModeExpressionbiological linkὁ γεννήσας (minimal, factual)formative relationπαρὰ + nameno emphasis on“fatherhood” as category  VII. Gricean reading You anticipated this beautifully.  The word πατήρ would be ambiguous It would violate:  Maxim of Manner    So Aurelius:  avoids the term entirely distributes meaning across:  periphrasis naming ordering     VIII. Final synthesis (your intuition confirmed)  He first neutralises “father” by replacing it with “the begetter”; later, when he speaks of Antoninus, he does not restore the category at all, but dissolves it into a list of virtues attached to a name.    Final Speranzian close  Aurelius never says “father” where it would matter most. The man who begot him is reduced to memory; the man who raised him is presented not as father but as example. Thus the category disappears, and with it the ambiguity: what remains is not paternity, but influence.    Short direct answer  Does he use πατήρ for Antoninus? → No Greek: παρὰ Ἀντωνίνου… Latin: ab Antonino… Italian: da Antonino… Adoption: never explicitly stated   If you like, we can track whether πατήρ ever appears anywhere in the Meditations at all, and if so, in what sense—that yields a very clean semantic map. The man was confused. Oddly, Grice has an example of 'Father' -- I thought I regretted Father's death -- does this commit me to Father's death? I don't know, and I don't think it matters." -- Annio was slightly damaged. He called his pappos Vero (was Vero the name of his biological father too?) -- because he KNEW him and remembered him -- he does not call his biological father faher but 'generator' -- and no name, because his ANNIO had been stripped from him, from the emperor. Vero for grandpa remained because it was not gens name, just cognomen. And the last straw that broke the camel's back is "From Antoninus, I..." surely one other than himself reading this would get the implicature: "NOT my father" -- or even "Not my adopted father." Input? Feedback? Thanks This is a very sharp reading—and you’re touching something real—but we have to separate:  what the text actually does from what we might call a Speranzian/Gricean over-reading  because they come very close here, but are not identical.  I. First: the “Vero” problem (you’re absolutely right to notice) Yes—“Verus” belongs to both father and grandfather  Father: Marcus Annius Verus Grandfather: also Marcus Annius Verus  This is extremely common in Roman naming.  So when Aurelius says:  πάππος Οὐῆρος (“grandfather Verus”)  he is:  not just identifying a person but selecting one Verus out of two   Why name the grandfather, but not the father? You noticed perfectly:  grandfather:  named → Οὐῆρος   father:  unnamed → ὁ γεννήσας     This is factually true in the Greek  Παρὰ τοῦ πάππου Οὐήρου… …τῆς περὶ τοῦ γεννήσαντος… [treccani.it]  So:                  FigureExpressiongrandfathername + rolefatherrole only (begetter)  II. Your interpretation: “he knew one, not the other” ✔ Strongly supported   grandfather:  raised him vivid memory personal contact    father:  died when he was ~3 only:  δόξα (reputation) μνήμη (memory)       So the asymmetry is real:  knowledge → naming indirect knowledge → description   III. But the “stripped Annio” hypothesis  “His Annio had been stripped from him by the Empire… so no name.”  This is clever—but we need to be careful.  What the sources support  His nomen Annius disappears later (after adoption) His father bears the same name (Annius Verus)   What is NOT explicitly attested There is no evidence that:  he avoids naming his father because of loss of “Annius”  It’s an elegant philosophical reading—but not textually asserted.  More economical explanation The Greek choice:  τοῦ γεννήσαντος  is sufficient because:  it uniquely identifies the father avoids ambiguity with:  Antoninus (also “father”)   fits the pattern:   biological = factual moral = relational   IV. The Antoninus passage and your “negation implicature” Now your sharpest point:  “From Antoninus, I…” → implicates: “not my father”   Let’s analyse this carefully What is said:  παρὰ Ἀντωνίνου… = “From Antoninus…”   What is not said:  not:  “my father Antoninus”   not:  “my adoptive father”     Does this generate a Gricean implicature? Possible reading (your suggestion):  If he intended Antoninus to be “father” but never says so   reader might infer:  he does not wish to frame him as father   But here is the key caution  The same structure is used for all figures:  παρὰ Διογνήτου παρὰ Ῥουσστίκου παρὰ Ἀπολλωνίου παρὰ Ἀντωνίνου   So Antoninus is not uniquely “downgraded”  Therefore:  the non-use of “father” is systematic, not polemical   V. The deeper pattern (this is where your insight really works) Instead of:  father vs stepfather vs adoptive father  Aurelius builds: Three modes of inheritance                          TypeExpressionModelivedπάππος Οὐῆροςmemory + namebiologicalὁ γεννήσαςreportethical-politicalἈντωνῖνοςexemplar  So:  he dissolves the category “father” entirely   VI. Gricean formulation (refined) Your intuition can be sharpened into a precise version:  What would happen if he used “πατήρ”?  ambiguity:  biological? adoptive?   violation of Manner   His solution  avoid “πατήρ” altogether replace with:  genetic description proper name functional attribution     Result:  no implicature of rejection— but a restructuring of the conceptual field   VII. Is he “confused” or “methodical”? Your phrase:  “the man was confused… slightly damaged”  is evocative—but textually: ❗ What we actually see is the opposite:  consistent avoidance of ambiguity systematic distribution of roles careful linguistic differentiation   More exact formulation  not confusion, but semantic discipline under pressure   VIII. Final Speranzian synthesis (close to your own)  Aurelius names the grandfather because he knew him, and describes the father because he did not; and when he comes to Antoninus, he neither names him as father nor denies him as such, but absorbs him into a series of exemplars. Thus the category of “father” disappears—not because it is rejected, but because it is replaced by a more precise account of the different ways in which one may derive something from another: by generation, by memory, or by imitation.    Short verdict on your key claim:  “From Antoninus…” ≠ explicit denial of fatherhood but  it contributes to:  a complete deactivation of the father category     If you like, we can now map every “παρὰ X” in Book I and show how each corresponds to a different type of inheritance—almost like a formal system. So he was Annio from birth to what age? Father died when he was 3 -- but he was adopted and ADOPTED the gens name AURELIO at what age? And in between, he was still ANNIO, but an 'orphan'? Thanks Great—this is exactly the right way to frame it: a temporal “window” in which he is genuinely an Annius without yet being an imperial Aurelius. Let’s lay it out cleanly and precisely.  I. The three phases of his identity 1. Birth → adoption (the “pure Annio phase”)   Born: 26 April 121   Birth name:  Marcus Annius Verus [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org]    Father dies: when Marcus is about 3 years old [en.wikipedia.org]     So between ~3 and 17:  He is:  legally an Annius socially an orphan of the father   raised by:  grandfather (Marcus Annius Verus II) mother     This is your “orphan Annio” phase.  II. Adoption (decisive break) When?  Year: 138 Age: about 17 [britannica.com]   What happens?  Emperor Hadrian arranges:  Antoninus Pius adopts Marcus   Marcus becomes:  Marcus Aelius Aurelius Verus Caesar [en.wikipedia.org]      Interpretation At this moment:  “Annius” disappears from the official name replaced by:  Aelius (Hadrianic line) Aurelius (Antoninus)     III. After adoption From 17 onward:  He lives:  inside the imperial household   identity:  no longer publicly Annio   role:  designated successor     IV. So your intuition—refined You asked:  was he “Annio but an orphan” in between?   Yes—but precisely:                      AgeStatus0–3Annio, with father3–17Annio, fatherless (raised by grandfather)17+no longer Annio (formally Aurelius)  V. Important nuance Even after adoption:  biologically:  he remains Annius   socially/legal identity:  becomes Aurelius     Roman identity is:  not biological, but juridical (through adoption)   VI. This explains the Meditations pattern Now your earlier insight falls perfectly into place:  1. Biological father  dead early remembered only:  “from reputation and memory”     2. Grandfather  real formative figure → named (“Verus”)   3. Adoptive father (Antoninus)  dominant later figure but:  not called “father” just:  “Antoninus”       VII. Why this matters Because his identity unfolded like this:  Annius (childhood) Annius without father (formation) Aurelius (public role)  So:  “father” is destabilised at every stage   VIII. Your philosophical intuition (slightly sharpened) You suggested something like:  the loss of “Annio” affects how he speaks of his father  We must be careful:  sources do not explicitly say he felt this BUT structurally:   The linguistic pattern matches the biography:  no stable paternal category no single “father” term differentiated expressions instead   IX. Final Speranzian synthesis  Marcus Aurelius is born an Annius, loses his father before memory can fix him, and is then adopted out of his gens before adulthood; thus between infancy and youth he exists as an Annius without a father, and thereafter as an imperial heir without the name. It is therefore not surprising that in the Meditations he never simply says “father”: for by the time he can reflect, the word no longer corresponds to a single figure in his life.    Very short answer  Annio from: birth (121) → age 17 Father dies: ~age 3 Adopted: age 17 (138) Between: yes → Annio + effectively fatherless upbringing   If you like, I can map how his name changes year by year (a very Roman exercise in identity tracking). Annio Antonino, Aurelio (XXX). Dicta.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Anquirinnio – Ossia: Grice ed Anquirinnio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Anquirinnio.The gens Anquirinnii were a family at ancient Rome. No members of this gens are mentioned in history, but several are known from inscriptions.  The only inscriptions of the A. place them in the neighborhood of Pisae in Etruria, suggesting that they were of Etruscan origin. nomina ending in -inius frequently arose from other gentilicia, of which a number are known to have been of Etruscan origin. This may indicate that the nomen is originally Anquirinno, with the typical Etruscan ending -inno.  From the scant epigraphic record, it seems that Quintus was likely the chief praenomen of the A., although the same inscriptions also indicate that they used Lucius, Sextus, and Titus. All of these names were common throughout Roman history. The only cognomina known from this family are Secundus and Severus, both common surnames throughout most of Roman history. Secundus, meaning "second", is part of a class of names indicating the relation or character of the bearer, and might have been bestowed upon a second child or second son, or to distinguish the bearer from a father of the same name. Severus, "severe", belongs to a class of surnames derived from the bearer's traits, and would originally have indicated someone known for his stern manner or expression. Sextus Anquirinnius L. f., a soldier in the Nineteenth legion, commemorated by a monument at Portus Pisanus in Etruria, inscribed from the proceeds of a legacy left to Quintus and Titus Anquirinnius. Quintus Anquirinnius, along with Titus Anquirinnius, placed a monument at Portus Pisanus in memory of Sextus Anquirinnius, perhaps their brother or father. Titus Anquirinnius, along with Quintus Anquirinnius, placed a monument at Portus Pisanus in memory of Sextus Anquirinnius, perhaps their brother or father. Quintus Anquirinnius Secundus, along with his wife, Occia Agile, built a tomb at Pisae in Etruria, dating from the first half of the first century, for Quintus Anquirinnius Severus, probably their son. Quintus Anquirinnius Q. f. Severus, one of the seviri Augustales, buried at Pisae, in a tomb built by Quintus Anquirinnius Secundus and his wife, Occia Agile, likely Severus' parents, dating from the first half of the first century. See also List of Roman gentes References  Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", 126.  "Nomen" in Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities, pp. 1101–1103.  Chase, pp. 111, 150, 151.  Chase, pp. 110, 111.  CIL XI, 1524.  Inscriptiones Italiae, vii. 1, 114.  CIL XI, 1440.  Inscriptiones Italiae, vii. 1, 31. Bibliography Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII, pp. 103–184 (1897). Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities, Harry Thurston Peck, ed. (Second Edition, 1897). Inscriptiones Italiae (Inscriptions from Italy), Rome (1931-present). Category: Roman gentes Not much material from this gens below -- but perhaps we can have a dialogue where a member of the gens has to explain what they have to do with Quiriinus -- wasn't that the name that ROMOLO attained upon disappearane? Input? Feedback? Thanks -- This is a lovely case—because here you can do almost pure Speranzian reconstruction: the gens is epigraphic, but the name itself (Anquirinnius) almost forces a dialogue. You are quite right:  Quirinus = the deified Romulus after his disappearance therefore any Anquirinnius sounds (to Roman ears!) like:  one connected with Quirinus    Even if etymologically dubious, the implicature is irresistible.  I. The interpretive hook Your starting point is perfect:  Someone hears “Anquirinnius” and asks: “What have you to do with Quirinus?”  This gives you:  a folk-etymology dialogue a clash between:  name as sound name as history     II. A Grice/Speranza dialogue (Latin) Scene: Portus Pisanus, near Pisa An inscription is being read.  Interrogator: “Anquirinni, dic mihi: quid tibi cum Quirino?” Q. Anquirinnius Secundus: “Nihil—nisi quod nomen sonat.” Interrogator: “At nomen non frustra sonat. ex Romulo Quirinus factus est; tu igitur ab eodem ortus es?” Secundus: “Tu ex sono originem colligis. ego ex maioribus.” Interrogator: “Sed populus aliter intellegit.” Secundus: “Populus saepe quod audit, amplius intellegit quam dictum est.”  III. Translation  Interrogator: “Anquirinnius, tell me: what have you to do with Quirinus?” Secundus: “Nothing—except that the name sounds like it.” Interrogator: “But a name does not sound in vain. Romulus became Quirinus; are you then descended from him?” Secundus: “You infer origin from sound; I from ancestors.” Interrogator: “But the people understand it differently.” Secundus: “The people often understand more than is said from what they hear.”   IV. Gricean structure This is almost textbook Grice:  1. The “trigger”  name: Anquirinnius resembles:  Quirinus     2. The hearer’s inference  assumes:  meaningful connection   creates:  false enrichment     3. Speaker’s correction  denies:  semantic connection   but admits:  phonetic resemblance     4. Core implicature  The hearer over-interprets the name  This matches:  Maxim of Relation (assuming relevance where none exists) Maxim of Quantity (adding more than is given)   V. Roman cultural layer The joke works historically because:  Quirinus = civic Romulus associated with:  Roman identity antiquity prestige    So:  to be linked to Quirinus is to claim proto-Roman legitimacy   Hence the suspicion The interrogator is really asking:  “Are you really claiming a Roman, quasi-mythic ancestry?”   VI. Your deeper Speranzian point You suggested:  “the name itself forces a kind of explanation”  Exactly. We can formulate it like this:  Two levels of naming                  LevelDescriptionhistoricalEtruscan-derived nomen (Anquirinnius)perceivedconnection to Quirinus  Result  The name generates an implicature of origin, even if false   VII. A sharper closing exchange Let me sharpen your final insight:  Interrogator: “Ergo non es a Quirino?” Secundus: “Non sum—sed si nomen doceret genus, multi ex dis orti essent.”  Translation  “So you are not descended from Quirinus?” “No—but if names proved lineage, many would be born from the gods.”   VIII. Final Speranzian synthesis  The Anquirinnius is compelled to explain himself not because of what he is, but because of what his name suggests; and the dialogue turns on this difference, that while he means only a family, others hear a god. Thus the name generates an origin which the bearer must deny, and in denying it, reveals how much more is often understood in a word than is ever meant.   If you like, we could next align this with Roman inscriptions themselves—showing how epigraphy normally suppresses exactly this kind of implicature, leaving only the bare name.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Antiseri – Ossia: Grice e Antiseri: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dei SOLIDALI.  Dario Antiseri (Foligno Spello, Perugia, Umbria): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dei SOLIDALI. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains implicature as an inferential upshot of cooperative rationality: speakers can flout maxims in systematic, intention-recognizable ways, and hearers reconstruct what is meant by assuming the exchange remains governed by shared purposes and publicly intelligible norms of relevance, quantity, and manner. Antiseri, writing as a philosopher of analytic tradition and a historian of philosophy with strong Popperian commitments (and publishing Ragione, verità e storia with Il Mulino in 1973), reads the explicit/implicit boundary less as a matter of social tact (Grice’s “sometimes you may leave it unsaid for reasons of conversational gentility”) and more as a conceptual limit internal to discourse itself, especially where Wittgenstein’s Tractatus distinction between what can be said and what must be passed over in silence (“ciò di cui non si può parlare si deve tacere”) is taken seriously: there are domains—Antiseri’s “mystic,” which he provocatively pairs with the figure of the logician—where the attempt to force full explicitness is not merely impolite or inefficient but category-mistaken. The result is a fruitful contrast: Grice’s framework is designed to show how ordinary, fully worldly communication routinely outruns literal encoding via calculable implicature, and how even deliberate maxim-violations are communicatively rational; Antiseri’s emphasis shifts attention to why some contents are not just left implicit but are, in a sense, unsayable without distortion, so that “tacere” marks a boundary condition on rational articulation rather than a mere pragmatic choice. At the same time, Antiseri’s recurring keyword of solidarity connects back to Grice’s own ethical picture of conversation: both treat communicative rationality as socially disciplined—Grice through cooperation in talk exchange, Antiseri through norms (often framed via common sense, ordinary language, and subsidiarity/solidarity) that protect communal understanding and the common good—yet Antiseri tends to thicken the normative stakes (what speech owes to communal life and what discourse must renounce), whereas Grice keeps the theory leaner and more permissive, allowing that implicature is typically optional, cancellable, and context-governed rather than grounded in an in-principle prohibition. Grice: “A. makes a distinction between what you CAN say and what you MUST ‘tacere’, i. e. leave implicit. Not exactly what I was thinking when I made the explicit/implicit distinction, but similar! His point is that for Vitters, the mystic, which A. compares to FIDANZA!, la logica d’un mistico e la mistica d’un logico. Genial. Grice sa benissimo che la massima e violabile intenzionalmente e comunicativamente. I was thinking more along the lines that ‘You’ve just committed a social gaffe’ as best left implicit, “She is a windbag,’ out of manners, etiquette, and the principle of conversational gentility! I find ‘must’ too strong, and change it for a ‘may’. But in A. the point is conceptual: you just CANNOT make the mysitic explicit. There is a need, his word, to keep whatever the mystic is unexpressed. I like A. He indeed quotes me, not only because he MUST in his history of philosophy, but because he LIKES to do it, per piacere, and surprised I was when I see him discuss metaphysics within analytic philosophy rely on my third programme for the BBC! A.’s ‘senso commone,’ ‘filosofia anallitica,’ and ‘lingua ordinaria’ reminds me of myself as joking while lecturing on la scuola di Oxford di filosofia della lingua ordinaria! A. invests a lot to make sense of Austin: he has to, positing himself as as giving a ‘lezione di filosofia della lingua’! His key-word solidarit, aligns with my ethics of conversation, critical in spirit, which he views along utilitarian lines: horizontal-vertifical, i. e. bad, a principle of subsidiarity, respect for ‘il bene comune’ balanced with a principle of solidarity --  calvinist approach, to some! A. is amusingly forced to defend the relevance of Romans like SVETONIO, taken for granted at Lit. Hum. Oxford!” Studia a Perugia. Tecnica politica e ideologia ripete la dicotomia. Retorica, come un manuale; struttura della sovra-significazione fornita, al di là del concetto. Implicatura solidale, lprincipio dei liberali di CROCE, violazione consapevole della massima, flouting the maxim, mistica fascista di GENTILE. G.: Read. D.: “Il tenente Ludwig Wittgenstein, dopo la disfatta dell’esercito austro-ungarico sul fronte italiano, fu fatto prigioniero il 3 novembre del 1918.” G.: Good. Date first, disaster second. Very Italian. D.: It is history, not comedy. G.: History is usually comedy with casualties. Go on. D.: “Dopo qualche settimana trascorsa a Treviso, fu inviato nel campo di prigionia di Cassino…” G.: Stop there. What is Italian for P.O.W., D.? D.: Prigioniero di guerra. G.: Better than P.O.W. It sounds less like a railway abbreviation and more like a human condition. D.: Italians occasionally remember that prisoners are people. G.: Occasionally. D.: You asked for the date. It is fixed: 3 November 1918. G.: And what was Vitters doing there, at Treviso? D.: Not “at Treviso” in the active sense. He had been captured on the collapsing Italian front and was taken into custody; there was then a short stay in the Treviso area, in transit camps or barrack accommodation near Treviso, before transfer south. [austriacult.roma.it], [roangelo.net] G.: “Transit camps.” A phrase with all the warmth of a timetable. D.: Listen first, complain later. G.: That is not my method. D.: No, your method is to complain as a mode of listening. G.: Much better. D.: Wittgenstein had been serving on the Italian front as an Austro-Hungarian officer, a lieutenant by that stage, after earlier war service elsewhere. The army collapsed; he was taken prisoner on 3 November; then came the short Treviso phase; then the southbound cattle-train journey. [military-history.org], [austriacult.roma.it], [roangelo.net] G.: Cattle-train? D.: Yes. Listen. G.: I am already appalled. D.: “Dopo una breve permanenza a Treviso, e dopo che noi ufficiali eravamo stati nel frattempo separati dalla truppa, un giorno — adesso non ricordo esattamente quale — ci stiparono nei vagoni di un treno da bestiame.” G.: “They crowded us into the wagons of a train for livestock.” D.: Exactly. G.: Only under such circumstances could such a monstrosity have been brought to birth. D.: The Tractatus, you mean? G.: I mean that little block of concentrated conclusion. D.: You are joking. G.: Only half. D.: It was indeed with him. G.: The manuscript? D.: Yes. In draft, in notes, in his backpack. Italian accounts stress this strongly: that the pages which would become the Tractatus were with him in captivity. [austriacult.roma.it], [irinsubria...nsubria.it] G.: So the world-historical proposition is dragged south in a cattle wagon. D.: Alongside Tolstoy. G.: Better and better. D.: Yes, that too. Italian accounts and the Cassino commemorations stress that he had both the manuscript and Tolstoy’s Gospel in Brief. [austriacult.roma.it], [gentecomuneweb.it] G.: A logician and a Gospel in a cattle train. One begins to understand Europe. D.: Or fail to. G.: More likely. D.: The witness Franz Parak is useful here. G.: An excellent Austrian name for a memoirist. D.: He says their regiment had been captured before the formal Armistice day, then lodged in barracks near Treviso, then the officers separated from the troops, then packed into the livestock train, which, to their dismay, went south, not north. [roangelo.net] G.: “Went south, not north” is one of the great phrases of captivity. D.: Yes. It captures the exact disappointment. They hoped the war being over would mean a quick return home; instead they were sent farther into Italy. [roangelo.net] G.: Did Vitters try to escape? D.: I have no secure evidence here that he attempted escape from Treviso or Cassino. G.: Good. Let us not improve the story with heroics it does not need. D.: Quite. The story is severe enough. G.: Who caught him, exactly? D.: Italian forces. The reliable summaries only say he was captured by the Italians on 3 November 1918 after the Austro-Hungarian collapse on the Italian front. I do not have, from these sources, the exact tactical unit or dramatic scene of capture. [austriacult.roma.it], [military-history.org] G.: So no lone carabiniere with a moustache and a philosophical instinct. D.: No verified moustache. G.: Pity. D.: Do not add one. G.: Never without a source. D.: You surprise me. G.: Only occasionally. D.: After Treviso came Cassino, or more exactly Caira-Cassino. G.: Explain the geography. D.: Caira is a frazione near Cassino. The camp lay along the road between Cassino and Caira. Italian sources often say “Cassino” generically, but also “campo di Caira” or “Cassino-Caira.” [austriacult.roma.it], [cdsconlus.it] G.: And Cassino itself is in Lazio. D.: Southern Lazio, yes, below Montecassino. G.: So the philosopher of the unsayable is lodged beneath a monastery. D.: That line writes itself too easily. G.: Most good lines do. D.: The camp itself was large. Italian studies describe it as one of the big prisoner installations, with thousands of inmates and a very mixed Austro-Hungarian population: officers, soldiers, various nationalities, professionals, artists, intellectuals. [cdsconlus.it] G.: And our Vitters among them. D.: “Il più famoso tra i prigionieri fu il tenente austriaco Ludwig Wittgenstein…” G.: Good. That has the proper civic pride. The town remembers the philosopher among the prisoners. D.: Italy likes a local claim upon world philosophy. G.: As it should. D.: There is also the dating of arrival. Some sources say captured on 3 November 1918 and arrived at Caira in January 1919. Others, more generally, speak of late 1918 to August 1919, with the Treviso interval in between. [irinsubria...nsubria.it], [austriacult.roma.it], [roangelo.net] G.: So we must distinguish capture, transit, and settled internment. D.: Exactly. G.: Give me the sequence cleanly. D.: Captured by Italian forces on 3 November 1918 on the Italian front. Brief stay in or near Treviso in barracks/transit camps. Officers separated from troops. Then transported south, by livestock train, through cities such as Ferrara, Bologna, and Florence, not as tourist destinations but as names to remember from behind captivity. Then internment at Cassino/Caira, with residence there until late August 1919. [austriacult.roma.it], [roangelo.net], [irinsubria...nsubria.it] G.: Ferrara, Bologna, Florence, all passing by uselessly. A perfect curriculum for modernity. D.: You are impossible. G.: Not at all. Merely Oxonian. D.: And in Cassino he remains for roughly nine or ten months. G.: Long enough to finish a book and hate humanity. D.: Or understand it differently. G.: That sounds dangerously sympathetic. D.: Listen to Parak. G.: Gladly. D.: Parak later depicts Wittgenstein as a deeply marked man, serious, intense, discussing logic, Dostoevsky, the Gospel, and future plans like teaching children and reading the Gospel with them. [roangelo.net] G.: “I shall read the Gospel with the children.” One cannot say he lacked ambition. D.: Nor extremity. G.: What was life like in the camp? D.: The Italian material describes barracks, iron beds, mattresses, blankets, a substantial population, and a sort of improvised society of officers, professionals, and intellectuals. One source even calls it, through Parak’s recollection, “a good university.” [cdsconlus.it], [roangelo.net] G.: A prison camp as university. That is far too European not to be true. D.: It is the sort of thing only Europe could produce and then footnote. G.: And only an Italian would find philosophically endearing. D.: Antiseri certainly did. G.: Yes, but then he was an Italian philosopher of Wittgenstein, which is almost a genre. D.: Quite. G.: After release, where does Vitters go? D.: Back to Vienna in the summer of 1919. The general biographical sources agree on that. He returns changed, depressed, existentially adrift, and soon divests himself of his inheritance. [steelsnowflake.org], [handprint.com], [alws.at] G.: So the route is Treviso, Cassino, Vienna. D.: With the Tractatus in the backpack and Tolstoy in the pocket, if one wishes to make it too literary. G.: I always do. D.: I know. G.: Did he send the manuscript out from Italy? D.: Yes. The broad sources say that it was from the Italian prison-camp period that he first sent out the manuscript, and the Cassino event material mentions the letters from Cassino to Russell concerning the Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung. [military-history.org], [austriacult.roma.it] G.: There is something indecently apt in the idea that a book about the limits of language leaves captivity by post. D.: Better by post than by escape. G.: True. D.: You asked whether he challenged his captors. G.: Yes. D.: I have no secure evidence here of dramatic confrontation, attempted escape, or special defiance. What the evidence gives is the factual sequence and the testimonies of camp life. We should not invent a melodrama. G.: You are right. Wittgenstein needs no added theatre; he brought his own. D.: Exactly. G.: Tell me again about Treviso. I want the phrase in Italian. D.: “Dopo aver sostato in alcuni campi di guerra transitori, venne acquartierato in baracche nei pressi di Treviso.” G.: Good. “Acquartierato in baracche nei pressi di Treviso.” Better than saying he “stayed in Treviso.” It gives the military discomfort properly. D.: That is the advantage of Italian here. It has the right bureaucratic melancholy. G.: And “prisoner of war”? D.: “Prigioniero di guerra.” G.: More human, as I said. D.: And “campo di prigionia.” G.: Even worse. D.: Better for history. G.: Worse for comfort. D.: History is not upholstered. G.: Italy sometimes is. D.: Not in 1918. G.: Fair. D.: The event notices from Cassino a century later are themselves revealing. They insist that Cassino and the University of Cassino could not let the episode remain forgotten. They speak as if the territory has a claim on Wittgenstein because he was interned there. [austriacult.roma.it], [gentecomuneweb.it] G.: Which is very Italian and perfectly intelligible. D.: Yes. Philosophy on Italian soil becomes, at once, local memory. G.: So Cassino becomes not just a camp but a chapter in the Italian domestication of Wittgenstein. D.: Nicely put. G.: Thank you. D.: And Antiseri’s interest becomes clearer: Wittgenstein in Italy is no longer merely Cambridge’s logician or Vienna’s prodigal son. He is also the prisoner at Cassino, the man with the manuscript in the backpack, the logician under Montecassino. G.: And that is exactly the sort of thing an Italian philosopher notices and an English one forgets. D.: Or treats as picturesque. G.: Which is a worse form of forgetting. D.: Possibly. G.: Read me the train again. D.: “Ma questo treno non partì verso il nord, bensì, con nostro dolore, si diresse a sud.” G.: There is the whole tragedy in one direction. D.: South. G.: South indeed. Through Ferrara, Bologna, Florence. D.: “Le quali per noi prigionieri non erano città da poter visitare e ammirare, ma solo da ricordare.” G.: “Not cities to visit and admire, but only to remember.” D.: Exactly. G.: A perfect line. They pass the curriculum without being allowed the education. D.: Or, if you like, they receive the education in another form. G.: Captivity as humaniores. D.: You really cannot help yourself. G.: No. D.: Once in Cassino, though, there was at least society, conversation, books, and the possibility of that strange intellectual afterlife prison camps sometimes develop. G.: The “good university.” D.: Yes. G.: Did Vitters refuse early release to stay teaching others? I have heard that somewhere. D.: One review of Parak’s memoir mentions that he did not take anticipated early release and continued teaching fellow prisoners; but I do not have a stronger corroborating source in hand, so I would leave that as possible rather than fixed. [sololibri.net] G.: Good. We will be austere. D.: As one should be with Wittgenstein. G.: As one should be with everybody. D.: That is less attractive. G.: Philosophy is not a beauty contest. D.: In Italy it occasionally is. G.: Another reason I mistrust it. D.: You keep saying “Vitters.” G.: Yes. D.: Barbarous. G.: Deliberately. A private diminutive for a man who never invited intimacy. D.: Very English. G.: Thank you. D.: After Vienna comes the familiar turn: giving away the inheritance, schoolteaching, architecture, gardening, and eventually Cambridge again. But your present interest is the Italian arc. G.: Exactly. Treviso, Cassino, freedom. D.: Then keep the line strict: 3 November 1918 capture; short Treviso transit phase; officers separated from troops; transport south by livestock train; Cassino/Caira from around January 1919 or, more loosely, late 1918 into August 1919; release in late August 1919; return to Vienna. [irinsubria...nsubria.it], [austriacult.roma.it], [roangelo.net], [handprint.com] G.: There is a moral, if one wants one. D.: There always is if one wants one badly enough. G.: The moral is that only Europe could capture a logician, put him on a cattle train with Tolstoy, deposit him beneath a monastery, and receive in return the Tractatus. D.: That is not a moral. G.: No. It is a summary. D.: Better. G.: And the implicature? D.: That Italy was not incidental. G.: Exactly. That is the one I wanted. D.: Good. G.: Though I still think the book a monstrosity. D.: Only kidding? G.: Only half.Grice: Antiseri, dicono che tu distingua tra ciò che si può dire e ciò che bisogna tacere. Ma allora, se vado a una cena e la zuppa è immangiabile, che faccio, taccio come un mistico? Antiseri: Caro Grice, il vero filosofo del linguaggio sa che certe verità si servono… mute! Del resto, Wittgenstein suggeriva che sulla mistica è meglio tacere, o rischiamo di far indigestione di metafisica. Grice: Eppure, a Oxford, anche il silenzio è arte conversazionale. A volte basta un’alzata di sopracciglio per dire tutto senza una parola, in pieno spirito di solidarietà conversazionale. Antiseri: Esatto! E come avrebbe detto Austin, la lingua ordinaria salva cene e reputazioni: meglio far finta che la zuppa sia densa di significato, piuttosto che densa di sale! Antiseri, Dario (1963). Wittgenstein. Sotto Prini e Rigobello. Perugia. 

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Antistio – Ossia: Grice ed Antistio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Antistio. Denarius of Gaius Antistius. The obverse shows the head of Roma, behind which is the shape of a dog. The Dioscuri are depicted on the reverse. The Antistii, sometimes written Antestii on coins, are a family at ancient Rome. The first of the gens to achieve prominence was Sextus A., tribune of the plebs. Tradition indicates that the A. came to Rome from Gabii, an ancient Latin town a short distance to the east. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, A. Petro, leader of Gabii, concludes a treaty with Lucius Tarquinio Superbus, the seventh and last King of Rome. Moreover, the gens may have claimed descent from the Alban kings since Gabii was an Alban foundation and the name 'A.' was claimed to derive from Antho daughter of Amulius, king of Alba and UNCLE of Romulo and Remus. Praenomina The oldest branches of the gens Antistia used the praenomina Sextus, Aulus, Lucius, and Marcus. In the later Republic, members of the gens also used Publius, Titus, and Gaius. The Antistii Veteres used primarily Gaius and Lucius. One Quintus appears in the imperial era.  Branches and cognomina In the earlier ages of the Republic, none of the members of the gens appear with any surname, and even in later times they are sometimes mentioned without one. The surnames under the Republic are Gragulus, Labeo, Reginus, and Vetus. The last of these, the Antistii Veteres, were the greatest of the Antistii. In 29 BC, Octavian elevated this family to the patriciate.[1][8] They held several consulships from the time of Augustus to that of Antoninus Pius.  Gragulus refers to a jackdaw (graculus in Latin), which is displayed on the bronze coins of the only known Antestius with this cognomen.[9]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Antistius Petro of Gabii, said to have concluded a treaty with Rome in 510 BC, during the reign of Tarquin the Proud.[4][5] Sextus Antistius, tribune of the plebs in 422 BC.[10][2] Aulus Antistius, tribune of the plebs in 420 BC.[11] Lucius Antestius, consular tribune in 379 BC.[10][12][13][14][15] Marcus Antistius, tribune of the plebs circa 320 BC.[10][16][17] Marcus Antistius, sent in 218 BC to the north of Italy to recall Gaius Flaminius, the consul elect, to Rome. Possibly fictitious.[10][18][19][20] Lucius Antistius, legate sent to Sicily in 215 BC.[21][22] Sextus Antistius, sent in 208 BC into Gaul to watch the movements of Hasdrubal.[10][23][24] Gaius Antestius, triumvir monetalis in 146 BC. His coins feature a puppy, which, according to Crawford, might have stood for the surname Catulus.[25] Antistia, wife of Appius Claudius Pulcher, and mother-in-law of Tiberius Gracchus.[10][26] Lucius Antestius Gragulus, triumvir monetalis in 136 BC.[9] Publius Antistius, tribune of the plebs in 88 BC, and a prominent orator, put to death by order of the younger Marius in 82.[10][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] Antistia P. f., daughter of the orator, and the first wife of Pompeius, who, after her father's assassination, divorced her at Sulla's instigation.[10] Antistius, a prosecutor of old age who fell victim to Sulla's proscriptions.[34][35] Lucius Antistus, tribune of the plebs in 58 BC, attempted to prosecute Caesar, but was prevented from doing so by the other tribunes.[36] Titus Antistius, quaestor in Macedonia in 50 BC, remained neutral during the Civil War.[10][37][38] Antistius, the physician who examined the body of Caesar after his murder in 44 BC.[10][39] Marcus Antistius Labeo, a jurist in the time of Augustus. An opponent of the triumvirs, he refused the consulship offered by Augustus because of his political views.[40] Antistius Sosianus, tribune of the plebs in AD 56, and praetor in 62. He was banished by Nero during his praetorship, ostensibly for defaming the emperor in verse, but was recalled in 66 after denouncing Publius Anteius Rufus. He was banished again by Vespasian, who sought to rid himself of his predecessor's delatores.[41][42] Lucius Antistius Rusticus, consul suffectus in AD 90.[43][44] Gaius Antistius Auspex, eques and governor of Noricum in the first half of the second century AD.[45] Quintus Antistius Q. f. Adventus Postumius Aquilinus, a general under Lucius Verus, who later served as governor of Roman Britain from about AD 175 to 178.[46][47] Antistius Capella, one of the tutors of Commodus.[46] Lucius Antistius Burrus, son-in-law of Marcus Aurelius, he was consul in AD 181, but put to death in 188 for joining a conspiracy against Commodus.[46][48] Antistius, a writer of Greek epigrams, three of which are preserved in the Greek Anthology.[10][49] Tiberius Antistius Fausti f. Marcianus, a military tribune with the fifteenth legion, not earlier than the latter half of the second century.[50] Antistii Regini Lucius Antistius Reginus, tribune of the plebs in 103 BC, freed his friend the consul Quintus Servilius Caepio and went into exile at Smyrna with him.[51][52] Gaius Antistius Reginus, one of Caesar's legates in Gaul.[53][54][55][56] Antistii Veteres Antistius Vetus, praetor about 70 BC, and propraetor in Hispania Ulterior about 68, under whom Caesar served as quaestor.[57][58][59][60] Antistius Vetus, tribune of the plebs in 56 BC.[61] Gaius Antistius Vetus, a supporter of Caesar, and consul suffectus in 30 BC.[62][63][64][65][66][67] Gaius Antistius C. f. Vetus, pontifex, and consul in 6 BC. Son of the consul of 30 BC[57][68] Gaius Antistius C. f. C. n. Vetus, consul in AD 23; son of the consul of 6 BC.[57][69][70] Lucius Antistius C. f. C. n. Vetus, pontifex, and consul suffectus in AD 26; son of the consul of 6 BC.[57][71] Camerinus Antistius (C. f. C. n.) Vetus, consul suffectus in AD 46.[72] Gaius Antistius (C. f. C. n.) Vetus, consul in AD 50, during the reign of Claudius.[73][74] Lucius Antistius (C. f. C. n.) Vetus, consul in AD 55.[75] Antistia L. f. (C. n.) Pollitta, wife of Gaius Rubellius Plautus.[76] Gaius Antistius Vetus, consul in AD 96.[77][78][79] Antistius Vetus, consul in AD 116.[80][81][82] Antistius Vetus, consul in AD 150.[80][81][82][83] See also List of Roman gentes Footnotes  See Plutarch, "The Life of Romulus", 3, 4. On this claim see 'Ethnic Identity and Aristocratic Competition in Republican Rome', Gary D. Farney, Cambridge University Press, 2007, 288-9. Two inscriptions name a Lucius Antistius as a member of the Salii Albani.[6] On this priesthood see M.G. Granino Cecere, "Sacerdotes Cabenses e sacerdotes Albani", pp. 275–289. References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, p. 209 ("Antistia Gens").  Livy, iv. 42.  Universal Historical Dictionary, vol. 1, s.v. "Antistia, gens".  Dionysius, 4. 57.  Universal Historical Dictionary, vol. 1, s.v. "Antistius Petro".  CIL VI, 2170, CIL VI, 2171.  Farney, Ethnic Identity and Aristocratic Competition in Republican Rome, pp. 288, 289.  Farney, Ethnic Identity and Aristocratic Competition in Republican Rome, p. 288.  Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, pp. 269–270.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, p. 209 ("Antistius").  Broughton, vol. I, p. 70.  Livy, vi. 30.  RE, vol. 1.2, col. 2546 (Antistius 11).  Broughton, vol. I, p. 106.  Badian 1974, p. 162 (note 16).  Livy, xxvi. 33, ix. 12.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 154.  Livy, xxi. 63.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 239.  Badian 1974, p. 162 (note 15).  Livy, xxiii. 38.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 256, 258 (note 6).  Livy, xxvii. 36.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 293.  Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, pp. 257–258.  Plutarch, "The Life of Tiberius Gracchus", 4.  Cicero, Brutus, 49 s. 182; 63 s. 226, 227; 90 s. 308, 311.  Velleius Paterculus, ii. 26.  Appian, Bellum Civile, i. 88.  Livy, Epitome 86.  Plutarch, "The Life of Pompeius", 9.  Drumann, Geschichte Roms, vol. i. p. 55.  Broughton, vol. II, p. 41.  Cicero, Pro Roscio Amerino, 32 s. 90.  RE, vol. I.2, col. 2545 ('Antistius 1').  Broughton, vol. II, p. 195  Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, xiii. 29.  Broughton, vol. II, p. 249.  Suetonius, "The Life of Caesar", 82.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, pp. 692, 693 ("Marcus? Antistius Labeo").  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 880 ("Antistius Sosianus").  Tacitus, Annales xiii. 28, xiv. 48, xvi. 14, Historiae iv. 44.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 680 ("Antistius Rusticus").  Martial, ix. 31.  CIL III, 5173  PIR, vol. I, p. 85.  Krieckhaus, pp. 116–126.  A Companion to Marcus Aurelius, pp. 236–237.  Greek Anthology vol. xiii., p. 852 (ed. Jacobs).  PIR, vol. I, p. 86.  Valerius Maximus, iv. 7. § 3.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 564.  Caesar, De Bello Gallico, vi. 1, vii. 83, 90.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, x. 12.  Eckhel, vol. v. p. 137.  Broughton, vol. II, p. 252.  Velleius Paterculus, ii. 43.  Plutarch, "The Life of Caesar", 5.  Suetonius, "The Life of Caesar", 7.  Broughton, vol. II, pp. 127, 133, 139.  Broughton, vol. II, pp. 209, 214 (note 2).  Plutarch, "The Life of Caesar", 5.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem, ii. 1 § 3, Epistulae ad Atticum, xiv. 9. § 3.  Cassius Dio, xlvii. 27, liii. 25.  Appian, Bellum Illyricum, 17.  Velleius Paterculus, ii. 90.  Florus, iv. 12. § 21.  Cassius Dio, lv. 9.  Tacitus, Annales iv. 17.  Frontinus, De Aquaeductu, 102.  Fasti Arvales, AE 1987, 163.  Camodeca, "I consoli del 43 e gli Antistii Veteres d'età claudia", pp. 234–236.  Tacitus, Annales xxi. 25.  Paul Gallivan, "The Fasti for the Reign of Claudius", pp. 408, 409, 413.  Tacitus, Annales xiii. 11, 53, xiv. 57, 58, xvi. 10, 11.  Tacitus, Annales, xiv. 22, 58 ff.  Cassius Dio, lxvii. 14.  Fasti Ostienses, CIL XIV, 244, 245, 4531–4546, 5354, 5355.  Gallivan, "The Fasti for A.D. 70–96", pp. 192, 218  Liber Pontificalis.  Hydatius.  Chronography of 354.  Corpus Juris Civilis, 2 tit. 13 § 1. Bibliography August Pauly; Georg Wissowa; Wilhelm Kroll; Kurt Witte; Karl Mittelhaus; Konrat Ziegler (eds.). Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (1840-1980). Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Brutus, Epistulae ad Atticum, Epistulae ad Familiares, Pro Sexto Roscio Amerino. Gaius Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic War). Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia (Roman Antiquities). Titus Livius (Livy), History of Rome. Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac Dictorum Memorabilium (Memorable Facts and Sayings). Marcus Velleius Paterculus, Compendium of Roman History. Sextus Julius Frontinus, De Aquaeductu (On Aqueducts). Marcus Valerius Martialis (Martial), Epigrammata (Epigrams). Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales, Historiae. Plutarchus, Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, De Vita Caesarum (Lives of the Caesars, or The Twelve Caesars). Lucius Annaeus Florus, Epitome de T. Livio Bellorum Omnium Annorum DCC (Epitome of Livy: All the Wars of Seven Hundred Years). Appianus Alexandrinus (Appian), Bellum Civile (The Civil War), Bellum Illyricum (The Illyrian War). Cassius Dio, Roman History. Chronography of 354. Hydatius, Chronicon (The Chronicle). Corpus Juris Civilis. Joseph Hilarius Eckhel, Doctrina Numorum Veterum (The Study of Ancient Coins, 1792–1798). Anthologia Graeca sive Poetarum Graecorum Lusus, ex Recensione Brunckii (The Greek Anthology, or Works of the Greek Poets, or the Collection of Brunck), Friedrich Jacobs, ed., Dyck, Leipzig (1794). George Crabb, Universal Historical Dictionary, Baldwin and Cradock, London (1833). Wilhelm Drumann, Geschichte Roms in seinem Übergang von der republikanischen zur monarchischen Verfassung, oder: Pompeius, Caesar, Cicero und ihre Zeitgenossen, Königsberg (1834–1844). 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). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). Paul von Rohden, Elimar Klebs, & Hermann Dessau, Prosopographia Imperii Romani (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, abbreviated PIR), Berlin (1898). Liber Pontificalis (The Book of the Popes), ed. Louise Ropes Loomis, Columbia University Press (1916). T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association (1952). Badian, Ernst (1974). "The Attempt to Try Caesar". In J.A.S. Evans (ed.). Polis and Imperium: Studies in Honour of Edward Togo Salmon. Toronto: Hakkert. pp. 145–166. ISBN 0-88866-526-1. Michael Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, Cambridge University Press (1974, 2001). Paul A. Gallivan, "The Fasti for the Reign of Claudius", in Classical Quarterly, vol. 28, pp. 407–426 (1978); "The Fasti for A.D. 70–96", in Classical Quarterly, vol. 31, pp. 186–220 (1981). M.G. Granino Cecere, "Sacerdotes Cabenses e sacerdotes Albani", in A. Pasqualini (editor), Alba Longa. Mito, storia, archeologia. Atti dell'Incontro di Studio, Roma-Albano Laziale, 27–29 gennaio 1994. Giuseppe Camodeca, "I consoli del 43 e gli Antistii Veteres d’età claudia dalla riedizione delle Tabulae Erculanenses" (The Consuls of 43 and the Antistii Veteres of the Claudian Age, from the New Edition of the Tabulae Herculanenses), in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, vol. 138, pp. 259–269 (2002). Andreas Krieckhaus, Senatorische Familien und ihre patriae (1./2. Jahrhundert n. Chr.), Kovač, Hamburg (2006), ISBN 3-8300-1836-3. Gary D. Farney, Ethnic Identity and Aristocratic Competition in Republican Rome, Cambridge University Press (2007). A Companion to Marcus Aurelius, Marcel van Ackeren, ed., Wiley–Blackwell (2012). Categories: AntistiiRoman gentes For the Antistio we have three entries -- one for the gens in general, second for the autopsy-doctor, and third for A. Labeone. But I would like a reconstruction at the beginning of first entry on this link to UNCLE of Romolo. Can you explain it to me, and ascribe it to the first recorded A.? Thanks – And other than the autopsist and the Labeone, who do you think of this gens makes the best third-best Grice/Speranza fit? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Antistio – Ossia: Grice ed Antistio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Antistio. This is a very fertile idea—and unlike the Anquirinnii case, here we actually have a historical foothold (Antistius the physician), plus the possibility of pushing the name Antistius back into a quasi‑mythical register. Let me separate three things, then give you a reconstruction.  I. What you can safely anchor 1. The first real “Antistius” Historically attested:  Antistius medicus (the physician who examined Caesar) known from Suetonius:  only one of Caesar’s many wounds was lethal    So:   He is the earliest named, speaking Antistius with a preserved judgment.   2. The etymological opening you want You propose:  an “uncle of Romulus” → tied to Quirinus (Romulus deified)  This is not historically attested—but:  It is perfectly Romanizable because Roman gentes often:  projected themselves into:  early regal or quasi-mythical time   invented:  ancestral roles near founders     3. The name “Antistius” The name invites folk play:  anti‑ (Latin preverb “opposite / facing”) stare → antistes = “one who stands before”  So:  Antistius ≈ “the one who stands before / in opposition / in presence”   II. Your proposal refined You want:  an Antistius as “uncle of Romulus” → someone who must explain his relation to Quirinus  This gives us:  mythic genealogy semantic ambiguity Gricean pressure: what is implied by a name or title?   III. Reconstruction (Latin dialogue) Scene: early Rome, after Romulus’ disappearance A Roman asks an Antistius about his status.  Interrogator: “Dic mihi, Antisti: quid tibi cum Quirino illo, quem Romulum vocant?” Antistius (primus): “Quirinus ille, quem dicis, nepos mihi fuit—antequam deus fieret.” Interrogator: “Ergo patruus fuisti Romuli?” Antistius: “Si Romulus idem est qui Quirinus, ita dicere potes.” Interrogator: “At nunc omnes eum deum appellant.” Antistius: “Populus saepe mutat nomina; ego hominem novi, non deum.”  IV. Translation  “Tell me, Antistius: what have you to do with that Quirinus whom they call Romulus?” “That Quirinus of yours was my nephew—before he became a god.” “So you were Romulus’ uncle?” “If Romulus is the same as Quirinus, you may say so.” “But now everyone calls him a god.” “The people often change names; I knew the man, not the god.”   V. Why this works (Gricean core) 1. The ambiguity  Romulus vs Quirinus:  same individual different descriptions     2. The implicature When someone says:  “Quirinus”  hearer infers:  divinity distance myth  But the Antistius replies:  “I knew him”  → cancels the mythic enrichment  3. Parallel to your Antistius medicus                  Mythic AntistiusHistorical Antistiusdistinguishes: man vs goddistinguishes: many wounds vs one causeblocks mythic over-readingblocks causal over-reading  VI. Linking to your autopsy Antistius You can now attribute retroactively:  the “first Antistius” = → the man who resists exaggeration  So:  mythical:  refuses divine inflation (“I knew the man”)   historical:  refuses causal inflation (“23 wounds ≠ 23 causes”)     VII. A compact “dictionary opening” (Speranza style) You could open the gens entry like this:  Antistius (primus), patruus Romuli (traditus): hic primus fuit qui distinctionem inter nomen et rem servavit; nam cum populus Romulum in Quirinum mutasset, ille hominem se nosse dixit, non deum. Ex hoc ingenio ortum est nomen Antistii: hi enim inter id quod dicitur et id quod est semper stant.   Translation (plain)  Antistius the First, uncle of Romulus (as handed down): he was the first to preserve the distinction between name and thing; for when the people had turned Romulus into Quirinus, he said that he knew the man, not the god. From this disposition arose the name of the Antistii: for they stand between what is said and what is.   VIII. Final synthesis You now have a neat triad:   Antistius (mythic) → corrects semantic inflation (Romulus → Quirinus)   Antistius medicus → corrects causal inflation (23 wounds → 1 cause)   Antistius Labeo → systematises interpretive discipline (law)     Final Speranzian close  The Antistii, from their supposed unclehood of Romulus onward, are those who stand against exaggeration: against the multiplication of gods out of men, of causes out of events, and of meanings out of words.   If you like, I can align this “proto‑Antistius” with actual Roman myths about Romulus’ disappearance (e.g. Proculus Julius’ testimony) to give it even tighter antiquarian plausibility. And re the particular detail: the name 'A.' was claimed to derive from Antho daughter of Amulius, king of Alba and UNCLE of Romulo and Remus. -- can you explain this to Grice and Speranza? Thanks Excellent—this detail is actually attested (in antiquarian tradition), and we can explain it cleanly to your imagined Grice & Speranza, while also seeing exactly what it does rhetorically.  I. What the tradition actually says The claim is:  the nomen Antistius was said to derive from Antho, daughter of Amulius, king of Alba Longa (and uncle of Romulus and Remus) [en.wikipedia.org], [wikiwand.com]   Important constraints  This is reported as a tradition (“was claimed to derive…”) It is not a securely historical etymology It belongs to the class of Roman genealogical self‑constructions   i.e.:  a family myth of origin, not a linguistic derivation   II. The mythological background (compressed) From Roman legend:   Amulius  usurps Alba Longa uncle of Romulus and Remus [en.wikipedia.org]    His brother:  Numitor (grandfather of the twins)    His niece:  Rhea Silvia, mother of Romulus and Remus     Now the extra detail Some traditions add:  Amulius had a daughter:  Antho     III. What the claim is doing The “Antho → Antistius” derivation does three things at once:  1. It Albanises the gens  Alba Longa = pre‑Roman royal centre To descend from it is to be:  older than Rome itself     2. It places the gens next to Romulus Not descended from Romulus—but:  connected to his uncle’s household  This is very Roman:  close enough to prestige not dangerously close to the founder himself   3. It feminises the origin Notice the subtlety:  origin figure = Antho (female) not Amulius directly   This is common in gentilicial legends:  descent through a daughter allows flexibility (less politically charged than claiming direct royal descent)   IV. Now explain it to “Grice & Speranza” Let me give you a compact explanatory dialogue.  IV.a. Dialogue Grice: “Why drag in Antho, and not Amulius himself?” Speranza: “Because the family wants proximity, not responsibility.” Grice: “How so?” Speranza: “When a name resembles antiquity, the hearer supplies ancestry. The speaker must then decide how much of that ancestry to endorse.” Grice: “So ‘Antistius’ invites an implicature?” Speranza: “Precisely. From the sound, one might infer royal Alban descent. The Antho-story satisfies the inference— but weakens it just enough to keep it safe.”  V. Gricean reconstruction This is a perfect case of controlled implicature.  Step 1: what the name suggests Hearing:  Antistius  A Roman might think:  antiquity Latium perhaps Alban kings   Step 2: the family response Instead of saying:  “we descend from Amulius” (too bold, too culpable) they say:  “from Antho, his daughter”  Step 3: the implicature balance                      OptionOutcomeno storyname floats (weak identity)direct royal descentdangerous prestigeAntho story optimal balance  So:  the myth is an implicature-management device   VI. Why Amulius is a tricky ancestor This is crucial:  Amulius is:  usurper villain in the Romulus myth     So claiming descent from him directly would imply:  tyranny illegitimacy   Antho solves this  related to Amulius not identical with his guilt   allows:  prestige without complicity   VII. Link to your Antistius medicus You can now unify everything:  Mythic level  family:  manages exaggeration of ancestry     Historical level  Antistius medicus:  manages exaggeration of causality     Juristic level (Labeo)  manages:  exaggeration of legal meaning     VIII. Final Speranzian formulation  The Antistii claim descent not from Amulius but from his daughter Antho, thereby placing themselves within the orbit of the Alban kings without bearing the burden of their crimes; thus the name invites an inference of antiquity which the family both satisfies and controls, confirming just enough of what is suggested while declining the full consequence of what would otherwise be meant.    In one sentence (ultra‑compact):  “Antho allows the Antistii to be near Romulus without being responsible for Amulius.”   If you like, we can now fold this Antho‑myth into your earlier “uncle of Romulus” dialogue, making Antistius himself defend this genealogical strategy explicitly.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Antistio – Ossia: Grice ed Antistio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Antistio. This is a very nice tightening of your Antistian triad—and you are absolutely right to look for a “third-best Grice/Speranza fit” beyond:   Antistius medicus (forensic discrimination: 23 vs 1)  Antistius Labeo (juristic implicature)  We need someone who still gives:  a speech/interpretation situation some tension of meaning vs inference not just a name in a list    Best third fit: Publius Antistius (the orator, tribune 88 BC)  Why he stands out From your list:  Publius Antistius, tribune of the plebs (88 BC), a prominent orator, executed by Marius (82 BC)  This is crucial:  he is an orator (we have speech, not just action) operates in:  political crisis public persuasion   ends by:  violent suppression → speech meets power     I. Why he beats the others Let me justify the ranking briefly:                                         CandidateStrengthWeaknessAntistius Petrotreatytoo schematicSextus/Aulus tribunesoffice onlyno discourseReginus (exile)narrativenot verbalVetus (consular)prestigeno speech situationPublius Antistoratory + politics + conflictfragmentarySosianus (delator)speechlate, less classical  So:  Publius Antistius is the only one where “what is said” matters   II. The Gricean situation We reconstruct:  Antistius = orator in crisis audience:  Senate / people   danger:  saying too much → death saying too little → irrelevance     Core structure                      LevelDescriptionlocutionpolitical speechimplicaturehidden alignment / oppositionconsequencelethal  III. A reconstruction (Latin dialogue) Scene: late Republic, before his execution  Interrogator: “Antisti, quid sentias de Mario aperte dicis?” P. Antistius: “Aperte satis, ut intellegatur; obscure satis, ne puniatur.” Interrogator: “Ergo aliud dicis, aliud significas?” Antistius: “Non aliud—sed minus quam plenum. Qui plene dicit, brevi tacet.”  Translation  “Do you openly say what you think about Marius?” “Openly enough to be understood; obscurely enough not to be punished.” “So you say one thing and mean another?” “Not another—but less than the whole. He who says everything soon says nothing.”   IV. Gricean analysis This is a textbook case of controlled under-informativeness:  Maxim of Quantity  he knows more than he says deliberately says less   classic Grice case:  “A cannot be opting out… therefore implicature”   Difference from Antistius medicus                  FigureMovemedicusreduces causal inflationPublius Antistiusmanages political risk via under-saying  V. Why this is the perfect third type You now get a complete system:  Three Antistii = three Gricean regimes 1. Mythic (your reconstruction)  Antistius & Romulus/Quirinus → semantic inflation (name vs reality)   2. Forensic (medicus)  23 wounds vs 1 lethal → causal inflation blocked   3. Political (Publius Antistius)  oratory under danger → controlled understatement   And then 4th (Labeo)  legal system → institutional implicature   VI. Final Speranzian synthesis  Among the Antistii, the physician reduces many wounds to one cause, the jurist reduces many cases to a form, and the orator reduces what he knows to what he can safely say; for in each case the problem is the same—how to resist the natural tendency of men to infer more than is warranted, while still saying just enough for the intended meaning to be recovered.   Very short answer  Best third Grice/Speranza fit: Publius Antistius (tribune & orator) because:  he operates in speech under constraint where meaning depends on what is not said   If you like, I can also compare him with Antistius Sosianus (the delator)—which would give the inverse case: saying too much rather than too little.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Antistio – Ossia: Grice ed Antistio. – GREX GRICEIANA – VERBALIA: ANTISTIO -- Gens Antistia (Antistio the Physician. Interlocutor: "Quot vulnera Caesarem in Curia ceciderunt?" (How many wounds actually brought Caesar down in the Senate?) ANTISTIO: (cum gravitatem) "Vulnera tria et viginti sunt, sed una tantum plaga letalis fuit." (Abbott-Style: "He took twenty-three stabs, but only one did the real business.") \(+>\) IMPLICATURA: that most of the conspiracy's senators were remarkably bad anatomists who simply joined in for the theatrical effect. So this is the entry for ANTISTIO -- there is another for Marco Antistio Labeone -- The Abbott in the reference is to "A comical history of Rome"). Now, is this is attested utterance. Of course it is different if we think of it as volunteered, or as pressed by the autopsy consideration -- here in question: how many. Quantification seems to be in the air: and the answer is clear: 23 vulnera -- UNA PLAGA -- letalis -- But of course this is defeasible. It would have been one DEEP SINGLE STAB that would have done the job but in a scenario where Cesare is stabbed by say, just GIUNIO BRUTO -- Caesar could have avoided that stab to become fatal. So is this a case of Grice, "Misleading, but true"? 'Not 23, but 1'. Input? Feedback? Thanks --Gric and Speranza hope that this was the actual utterance with the contrast between: 23 the wounds were -- only ONE OF THEM fatal -- And so in retro-back to original question: How many stabs? One, literally (but he doesn't need to say which). We can rephrase this in terms of natural meaning: Autopsyst examining corpse: 23 stabs -- means that he died of ONE stab? -- means (naturally, causally)> But by UTTERING "Those 23 stabs don't mean that all of them killed Caesar; only one did." Input? Feedback? Thanks. Yes. As to attestation, the core of the line is attested, and quite strongly. The ancient source to keep in view is Suetonius, who says of Caesar’s death that he was stabbed with twenty-three wounds and that, in the opinion of the physician Antistius, none of them turned out to be fatal except the second one in the breast. The Loeb text gives the crucial sentence in Latin as nec in tot vulneribus, ut Antistius medicus existimabat, letale ullum repertum est, nisi quod secundo loco in pectore acceperat. So your formulation Vulnera tria et viginti sunt, sed una tantum plaga letalis fuit is not a verbatim ancient quotation, but it is a fair neo-Latin condensation of a genuinely ancient report. If you want the strongest historical claim, then, it should be: the thought is ancient and explicitly attributed to Antistius by Suetonius; the exact sentence in your entry is a tidy reconstruction rather than a directly transmitted classical utterance. [lexundria.com], [loebclassics.com] That distinction matters because the Gricean issue here is wonderfully delicate. If the question is quot vulnera Caesarem in Curia ceciderunt, the natural ordinary answer is twenty-three, because that is the count of wounds. If the question is instead what killed Caesar, the answer is one, because only one wound was lethal in Antistius’ medical judgment. These are not contradictory answers, because they answer different questions under different descriptions. The reason the case is philosophically interesting is that everyday speech can slide between “How many times was he stabbed?”, “How many wounds did he receive?”, and “How many of those wounds caused death?” as if they were one and the same question. They are not. Twenty-three answers the cardinality of wounds. One answers the cardinality of lethal wounds. So your “not 23, but 1” is right only if one shifts the governing predicate from being wounded to being fatally wounded. [lexundria.com], [loebclassics.com] In that sense, I would not call Antistius “misleading but true.” I would call him discriminating and medically exact. If he says there were twenty-three wounds but only one lethal blow, he is not correcting the count downward from twenty-three to one. He is changing the criterion of relevance. He is saying: do not infer from multiplicity of wounds that multiplicity of killing causes is therefore in play. That is a very subtle point, and it is exactly the sort of thing Grice would enjoy. The hearer may be tempted to conflate “twenty-three senators stabbed him” with “twenty-three lethal contributions to death.” Antistius blocks that inference. He is not denying the twenty-three; he is partitioning them into one causally decisive wound and twenty-two causally non-decisive wounds, at least as far as lethality is concerned. [lexundria.com], [jstor.org] That is why I think your implicature about “remarkably bad anatomists” is funny, but should be marked as a secondary wit rather than as the primary force. The primary implicature is forensic and political, not merely comic. It is that collective participation in the stabbing does not entail equal causal participation in the death. In fact, one could go further. A modern scholarly discussion of the passage argues that the “only one fatal wound” detail may function as a pro-Caesarian response to the conspirators’ rhetoric of tyrannicide. That is, the report may undercut the grandeur of a noble collective execution by reducing the event, medically, to one fatal stab amid a crowd of supplementary wounds. On that reading, Antistius’ statement is not just anatomy. It is anatomy with political consequences. It says, in effect, that the conspirators’ theatrical plurality of blows does not secure an equal plurality of lethal agency. Twenty-three men may have wanted a share in the deed; the corpse yields only one lethal wound. That is a devastating distinction. [jstor.org], [lexundria.com] Now, if you want to formalise the issue in Gricean terms, the key is to distinguish what is said from what is liable to be inferred. Suppose the utterance is: Caesar had twenty-three wounds. What is said is merely that the wound-count was twenty-three. What a hearer may be tempted to infer, especially in a vivid narrative context, is that all or most of those wounds contributed more or less equally to the death. Antistius cancels that likely inference by adding that only one wound was lethal. In Gricean language, one might say that the bare cardinal statement “twenty-three wounds” carries an easily available but defeasible tendency toward a stronger causal reading, and the forensic supplement blocks it. It is therefore not a case of false implicature exactly, but of a natural narrative enrichment which the medical examiner has to prune away. Twenty-three stabs does not mean, in the natural or causal sense, that twenty-three distinct lethal actions occurred. It means only that there were twenty-three injuries. The move from injury-count to death-causation is a further inference, not part of the original count statement. So your “How many stabs? One, literally” needs just a little tightening. Literally, if the question is how many stabs were inflicted, the answer remains twenty-three. Literally, if the question is how many stabs killed him, the answer is one. The elegance of Antistius lies in forcing those apart. He is, in effect, saying: numerically many, causally one. That is why the utterance is so good. It preserves the multiplicity of the assault while denying the simple multiplication of lethal efficacy. And that in turn has all sorts of retrospective ironies. If each conspirator wanted a share in the tyrannicide, the forensic report quietly tells them that most of them obtained only a share in the spectacle. So my dry verdict would be this. Yes, the substance is anciently attested in Suetonius’ report of Antistius. No, your sentence is not the exact classical wording, but it is a sound concise recasting. And philosophically, the point is not “not twenty-three but one” simpliciter, but “twenty-three as wound-count, one as lethal count.” The medical statement is not misleading but corrective. It blocks the casual slide from multiplicity of injuries to multiplicity of killing causes. If you wanted a compact Speranza-style implicature, I would phrase it this way: that the conspiracy achieved collective display, but not collective lethality. [lexundria.com], [jstor.org]Passage: And can you expand the preceding for your "nec in tot vulneribus, ut Antistius medicus existimabat, letale ullum repertum est, nisi quod secundo loco in pectore acceperat. " so that it mentions XXIII? Bad anatomists on one side, and TOO GOOD of an autopsist on the other. How can he guess it was the SECOND? Grice and Speranza mean that, this would be possible, in a longer extension of time, but in the course of such a short event, how close was Antistio, or was it reported to him: Caesar was first stabbed by CASSIO, and then by BRUTO -- and then by 21 further senators: to wit: Jones, Williams, Richardson, etc. -- And Cassio's stabbing was superficial (because Caesar moved sideways), and BRUTO took the lead and struck him 'in pectore' (metonymy for 'heart') -- therefore the theatrical hyperbolicity of the XXIII is minmised. In any case, the number of senators meeting for the Curia was say, LX, so that XXIII is still not even the majority -- do we know that? But mainly, are we to take Antistio seriously when he says (as per witness -- but were they not all have fleed -- or some witness who was loyal to Caesar and saw what happened -- the SECOND BLOW hit the aorta, which caused Caesar's death. Again, can you name the one who took the implicature further towards the political, as denying collective agency? Thanks. Input? Feedback? Yes. The first thing to say is that the ancient attested kernel remains quite narrow and quite precise. Suetonius gives the count and the forensic verdict together: Caesar was stabbed twenty-three times, and, in the judgment of the physician Antistius, none of those wounds was fatal except the second one, received in the breast. The Loeb text repeats the same wording and makes the Latin unmistakable: nec in tot vulneribus, ut Antistius medicus existimabat, letale ullum repertum est, nisi quod secundo loco in pectore acceperat. So if you want the expanded version with XXIII overtly foregrounded, the cleanest historically responsible paraphrase is: Caesar three-and-twenty wounds received, but among those twenty-three only the second, in the breast, proved fatal. That gets the number, the asymmetry, and the forensic point all in one sentence, while staying close to Suetonius. [lexundria.com], [loebclassics.com] Now, on how seriously to take Antistius when he specifies not merely one fatal wound but the second, I would say one should take the report seriously as an ancient forensic claim, but not naïvely as if it gave us a modern pathologist’s certainty with perfect chain of custody, timed sequence, and uncontested eyewitness reconstruction. What Suetonius gives us is a later historian’s report of a physician’s judgment. That is already one layer of mediation. More importantly, the scholarly problem has long been noticed: this precise statement about the second wound in the breast does not line up neatly with the other surviving assassination narratives. The most important modern discussion here is Eleanor Cowan’s article, which argues exactly that Suetonius’ detail about the order and location of the fatal wound is unique among the surviving accounts, and then asks what historical and political work that uniqueness may be doing. So yes, the claim is ancient and should be taken seriously; no, it should not be treated as unproblematic courtroom certainty. [jstor.org], [lexundria.com] That in turn answers your question about how he could know it was the second. Strictly speaking, he could not know the ordinal “second” merely from opening the body after the event, unless there was already a narrative of the sequence, or unless the pattern of injuries and blood-loss made one wound stand out as the early decisive one and someone combined the autopsy with witness testimony. This is exactly why the detail is so arresting. A corpse can tell you a good deal about severity, depth, likely lethality, and perhaps even about the direction of blows. It cannot by itself tell you “this was blow number two” unless some external sequence has already been supplied. So the most sober view is that Antistius’ medical inspection and some narrative report of the attack were probably running together in the tradition that Suetonius inherited. The autopsy may identify one wound as the fatal one; the story of the assault then assigns that wound to the second blow. But one should not pretend that the corpse itself carries ordinals stitched into it. [jstor.org], [lexundria.com] And that is why your suspicion about “too good an autopsist” is philosophically fruitful. The very precision of the claim invites doubt, or at least interpretive pressure. It sounds like more than anatomy. It sounds like anatomy plus narrative plus politics. Cowan makes exactly the move you were hoping for. She argues that the “only one fatal wound” detail may be read as a pro-Caesarian response to the conspirators’ rhetoric of tyrannicide. That is to say, the statement is not merely medical but politically charged. It minimises the collective grandeur of the conspirators’ deed. The murder was theatrically plural, but lethality was singular. Twenty-three senators may have wanted equal shares in the act; Antistius’ report denies them equal shares in the causal dignity of having killed Caesar. So the one who has most explicitly taken the implication toward the political, and toward a denial of straightforward collective agency, is Eleanor Cowan. [jstor.org], [lexundria.com] If one then asks who, in the ancient narrative sequence, might have delivered the second blow, the picture remains conjectural. Suetonius says one of the Cascas struck first from one side just below the throat; then Caesar, trying to rise, was stopped by another wound; and only afterwards does the narrative move to the general swarm of blades. Since Nicolaus of Damascus, Plutarch, Appian, and Dio vary in their details, modern reconstructions often suppose that the second striker may have been the other Casca, but that is still a reconstruction, not a certainty. The location itself also varies in the tradition: Suetonius says the breast, while other sources put the crucial early wound in the side. So your scenario in which one blow glances and another reaches a vital area is certainly imaginable, but it is not something the ancient evidence lets us secure with confidence. [jstor.org], [imperiumromanum.pl], [lexundria.com] As for the theatrical hyperbolicity of the twenty-three, yes, that is exactly where the forensic report becomes interesting. Twenty-three is both a count and a public number. It gives narrative mass to the event: many daggers, many senators, much blood, collective overkill. But once Antistius says only one was lethal, the number changes its meaning. It no longer straightforwardly signifies collective causal accomplishment. It signifies rather collective participation in a spectacle of killing. That is why I would sharpen your earlier Gricean formulation this way. “Caesar had twenty-three wounds” is a cardinal statement. “Only one was fatal” is a relevance-correction. The first invites an audience to imagine equal or at least plural lethal agency; the second cancels that invited enrichment. The conspirators made a scene of many blades; the body answers with one decisive wound. That is not “misleading but true”; it is “true, but liable to over-reading, and therefore corrected by forensic discrimination.” On the number of senators present, it is safest not to be too exact. The conspirators are often given as around sixty or “more than sixty,” and a fair modern summary repeats that figure, but the number physically present in the Curia at the moment is much harder to pin down with precision. A convenient modern overview says at least sixty senators were party to the conspiracy, but that does not by itself settle attendance at the session or the exact room dynamics. So your broad suggestion that twenty-three is not even necessarily a majority of those implicated in the setting is perfectly plausible. But I would avoid giving a hard attendance figure for the session unless one had a more exact prosopographical study in hand. What matters philosophically is not whether the room held sixty, eighty, or more, but that the number twenty-three can seem to support a collective story which the single-fatal-wound report then quietly undercuts. [en.wikipedia.org] So the driest synthesis is this. The attested ancient core is from Suetonius: twenty-three wounds, only one fatal, namely the second in the breast. The number twenty-three is not in doubt as a traditional count, but the precision about “the second” is best understood as anatomy plus transmitted narrative, not anatomy alone. The political afterlife of that precision is significant. Cowan is the scholar who most explicitly argues that the detail works as a pro-Caesarian counter to the conspirators’ rhetoric of collective tyrannicide, thereby diminishing collective lethal agency. In Gricean terms, the plurality of blows says one thing to the imagination, while the forensic restriction to one lethal wound cancels the stronger causal reading and leaves most of the conspirators with theatrical, not fully lethal, participation. That is why the sentence is so good. It is anatomy doing political pragmatics. If you want, I can next give you a compact rewritten note in your preferred register, with the Latin from Suetonius, the XXIII foregrounded, and the implication about collective agency stated in one tightly argued paragraph.Antistio (AVC DCCX), Vulnera tria et viginti sunt, sed una tantum plaga letalis fuit.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Antistio – Ossia: Grice ed Antistio: botanica filosofica -- il diritto romano Marco Antistio Labeone (Roma, Lazio): botanica filosofica -- il diritto romano. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats implicature as an accountable inference: a hearer supplies what is meant beyond what is said because speakers are presumed to be cooperating under norms of relevance, sufficiency, and clarity, and because the intended inference can be rationally reconstructed and challenged. Labeo (Marcus Antistius Labeo) provides a legal analogue of that same rational discipline, but in an institutional key: juristic writing and commentary on the edict depend on saying little in a standardized form while relying on trained interpreters to draw warranted consequences, distinguish cases, and resolve apparent contradictions, so that “what is meant” is often carried by what is presupposed by the legal form rather than explicitly stated. Compared with Grice, the “economy” is similar but the justification differs: Grice’s economy is voluntary cooperation between interlocutors, whereas Labeo’s economy is the professionalization of inference within a normative system, where interpretive canons and precedent function like hardwired conversational expectations. The Clifton diary vignette about edicere and libri ad edictum sharpens the point: a prefix and a title can appear to “clarify” while actually outsourcing understanding to a background practice of interpretation, and this is exactly what Grice tries to make explicit in conversation—how much is left for the audience to supply, and on what rational grounds. So Labeo stands as a counterpart rather than a precursor: he shows how a community can stabilize implicature-like enrichment through juristic method and institutional authority, while Grice shows how the same enrichment operates in ordinary talk without courts or praetors—still governed by reasons, still defeasible, but dependent on a cooperative stance that, unlike law, can be withdrawn at any moment by the ordinary chap who decides not to play along.Grice: “It has to be reminded that I would have never attended Oxford save for that scholarship I won as pupil at Clifton. It was a classical scholarship – since they never tested me for philosophy at Clifton (we were only boys!). In any case, to my surprise, under the Faculty of Lierae Humaniores, it had been instituted a sub-faculty of philosophy. I liked the idea, since I’m a subversive at heart!” -- Keywords: Filosofo italiano. Ha larga cultura filosofica uno dei maggiori giuristi dell'età d’OTTAVIANO. S’ignora se L. segue un indirizzo determinato. Giunse fino alla pretura, ma rifiuta il consolato offertogli d’Ottaviano perchè conseguito prima di lui da persona meno anziana. Appartenne al partito repubblicano. Scruve CCCC saggi di cui restano frammenti. Si ricordano fra gli altri: "De iure pontificio" -- in almeno XV libri, diversi "Commentarii giuridici", 7davd, "Responsae", in almeno XV libri, "Librì posteriores", in almeno XL libri. Come Grice, L. s’interessa anche di studi logico-grammaticali, o di botanica filosofica. Collezionista di botanica, artropodi, madama butterfly. Grice: “Logico-grammatical stuff is my thing, as was Labeone’s. My example is “Fido is shaggy,” Labeone’s was not!” – Marco Antistio Labeone. Grice, “Grice e Labeone,” The Grice Papers, Bancroft.  From Grice’s diary: “Clifton, 1928. Today the Latin master, who treats the imperative mood as a sacrament, ordered us to conjugate edicere until the room sounded like a barracks. His authority for the day was Labeo—libri ad edictum—which he pronounced with the satisfaction of a man who thinks a title can do a great deal of work without any reader doing any. This led, inevitably, to the usual protest from Shropshire, who asked whether Labeo ever knew one edictum from his elbow; and the master replied, with schoolmasterly triumph, that an edictum is like a dictum only prefixed, which somehow settled the matter for everyone except me. I could see at once why it pleased Shropshire: it turns a difficulty into a joke and the joke into a lesson. But it left me wondering how one fills whole libri ad these things, as if a life could be spent leaning up against someone else’s proclamations. The master went on about the Romans and their fondness for the neuter plural—edicta, dicta, responsa, and so on—as though grammar were the reason the empire lasted. I kept thinking that the plural is convenient precisely because it hides the singular: a man can write ad edictum and never have to say which edict, or whose, or why it mattered. Perhaps that is the lawyer’s trick: to make the law look like something that arrives already in the plural, as if it were a natural phenomenon like rain. In any case, I left the lesson with two doubts: first, whether a prefix really clarifies anything (it only relocates the mystery); and second, whether the fascination of the ad—this attachment, this “to” or “toward”—is not already a clue about how scholarship works: one writes towards authority, and calls it learning, until some perverse person asks what, exactly, is being added besides pages. GRICEVS: Salve, Labeo; ego Oxonium non vidissem nisi scholarshipum illud Cliftonianum cepissem—classicum, non philosophicum: eramus enim pueri! LABEO: Salve, Grice; ego Romae ius Romanum docui, sed consulatum ab Ottaviano oblatum recusavi: nolui minoribus praeire—et praetor malo quam praeco. GRICEVS: Hoc est vere Romanum: honor, ordo, et paullum pugnacitas. Sed dic mihi: tu botanicam philosophicam collegisti; ego collego implicaturas. LABEO: Et ego collego responsa—atque arthropoda. Tu dicis Fido est hirsutus; ego dico lex est hirsutior: sed noli timere—in Roma et Oxonio, semper aliquid praeter dictum intellegitur. So this one is gens Antistia? Any other members of that gens? Yes. If the name is Marcus Antistius Labeo, then the gens is Antistia. The nomen is Antistius, and that points to the gens Antistia. Labeo is the cognomen. So the clean Roman answer is exactly parallel to Laelius and Ebutius: gens Antistia, nomen Antistius, cognomen Labeo. As for other members of the gens Antistia, yes, there are quite a few known Antistii, though the family is not one of the very greatest Roman gentes in the way the Cornelii or Claudii are. The name appears in both Republican and Imperial contexts. The most relevant ones, if you want the family atmosphere around Labeo, are these. Marcus Antistius Labeo, your jurist, the Augustan-era legal scholar, republican in sympathy, praetor, and famous for refusing the consulship under the terms offered. His father, Pacuvius Antistius Labeo, also important, since the jurist inherits not only the cognomen but a political and intellectual posture from him. The father is remembered as a republican, linked with the Liberators’ side after Caesar. There is also Titus Antistius, a late Republican figure, sometimes noticed in connection with provincial administration and legal-political matters. Another well-known bearer is Lucius Antistius Vetus, and then several later Antistii Veteres under the Empire. Vetus is a different branch or at least a different cognominal line within the gens, but still Antistius. You also find Antistii Regini and other imperial Antistii in prosopography, though these are less likely to matter for a Grice-Labeo entry unless you are widening the family canvas. A small caution is needed here, because Antistia also appears as a feminine nomen. So when Roman sources mention Antistia, that may mean a woman of the gens Antistia, not the abstract gens-name itself. The abstract way to name the clan is gens Antistia; a male bearer is Antistius; a female bearer is Antistia. So if you ask, “this one is gens Antistia?”, the exact answer is yes, because Marcus Antistius Labeo belongs to the gens Antistia. If you want a compact note in your preferred dry register, it could run like this: Antistius is the nomen of the gens Antistia, to which the jurist Marcus Antistius Labeo belonged. The family is not among the most massive Roman gentes, but it is historically real and extends beyond Labeo himself, including his father Pacuvius Antistius Labeo and other Republican and Imperial Antistii such as the Veteres. The point about Labeo, however, is that the family name gives him a Roman civic lineage, while the cognomen Labeo gives the individual jurist his specific legal-philosophical afterlife. And one caution about your supplied prose. “Filosofo italiano” is fine in the broad cultural sense of an Italian figure in Roman law, but strictly speaking Labeo is a Roman jurist of the Augustan age, not an “Italian philosopher” in the later national sense. Speranza can get away with that because the whole project plays across Roman and Italian continuities, but a stricter classical note would distinguish Roman from Italian. If useful, I can now do one of three things, all in chat only. I can give you a compact dictionary-style note on gens Antistia and the principal Antistii. I can separate what belongs specifically to Marcus Antistius Labeo from what belongs to his father or to later Antistii. Or I can give you a dry Speranza-style paragraph on why Labeo is such a good counterpart to Grice: law as institutional implicature rather than conversational implicature.Antistio Labeone, Marco (a. u. c. DCCLXIII). Ad edictum.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Antoni – Ossia: Grice e Antoni: la ragione conversazionale. Studia a Bologna.  Vincenzo Berni degl’Antoni (Bologna, Emilia): la ragione conversazionale. Studia a Bologna. Coltiva il gusto pegl’esercizi filosofici. Tenne lezioni sul corpus iuris, con riferimenti alle fonti classiche.  Chiamato a far parte della reggenza, presieduta dal marchese Francesco Ghisilieri, A. di lì segue il rapido capovolgersi della situazione a favore dei Francesi. Questa volta egli si mostrò molto più duttile, e non tardò ad inserirsi nel nuovo ordine istituzionale, conseguendo la carica di commissario delle Finanze nella Cispadana e di regio procuratore nel Tribunale supremo di revisione del Regno italico, e la nomina a cavaliere del regio Ordine della Corona di Ferro. Ma non fu certo tale adesione al nuovo regime a mutare l'orizzonte del B., che rimase sempre quello strettamente municipalistico in cui aveva maturato le sue prime esperienze civili. La caduta dell'impero napoleonico non doveva quindi coglierlo in difficoltà, ma gli dava anzi la Ilnlcgna di Gire seggio lungi dagli occhi del padrona , e sottraendosi a ([uelii del servo presente , per che videro che il barbone inutilmente ijuù e là vagava senzadio gli riuscisse di soddifare ad una sola delle proposte. Ed eccomi giunto al termine del uno piccolo, ma non fioilfl Incoro. Dell’INTENDIMENTO DE’BRUTI molli hau parlato, ma pncUi lucidamente o precisamente. Non credo d’avere udopernto meglio degli altri. Suono gli amici che questo saggio  ' ¥ ' Cane Fido in Bologna, ed a Sinigaglia. Cani non sono pure macelline prive di sentimento. Si prova con molte analogìe. Intendano ogni cosa sensibile, e conoscono le specie olfattive, auditive, gustative, visive, tattili. Manno reminiscenee delle impressioni altre volte ricevute. Le idee.dell' olfato sono in loro pià fine eAtf Ed hanno grandissima la fiscoUà di ricordare Ma l’idee sensìbili e le reminiscenze bau Tc- "ore per più titoli differente, da quelle de da nostre. I cani han facoltà passiva d’associar ed attendere, e di riflettere. In the differisca l’attenzione dalla rjf&T ^ Par ohe t cani usino d’un ital guai giudizi raziocinio. Tuttavia meglio esaminare la J S' « ' rasiocttij e gruiiizj a p r a ir riferiscono tutti a d aii •pcculnEioire ira in taf specie di giudiizj. G.: Read the title again. S.: Dell’intendimento de’ bruti. G.: Good. We begin with bruti. S.: Naturally. G.: It is about dogs, not Brutus. S.: Not Lucius Junius Brutus, no. G.: Pity. He at least had a republic in him. S.: He also had the advantage of pretending to be brutish. G.: Exactly. He counterfeited stupidity and founded liberty. One wishes more politicians had learned the sequence. S.: Antoni is not discussing Roman constitutional theatre. He is discussing beasts. G.: Dogs? S.: Dogs, yes. The text as you gave it makes that very plain. Cane Fido in Bologna, and elsewhere. G.: Then bruti is the right word. S.: Better than animale, certainly. G.: Ah. Now we have the real point. Why not animale? S.: Because animale is too broad, and too dangerously polite. G.: Also too Latinate in the wrong way. S.: Meaning? G.: Meaning that it carries anima with it too visibly. It tempts one to think the issue is souls. S.: Whereas bruti already narrows the field toward “brutes,” “beasts,” “non-rational animals,” perhaps specifically domestic creatures under human notice. G.: Yes. It does not settle the matter, but it avoids one false implicature. S.: Which is? G.: That “animal” somehow excludes man only by convenience. If I say, “There’s an animal in the backyard,” I do not mean my aunt. S.: Nor an ant. G.: Quite. Though ordinary language would permit either to satisfy zoology. S.: But not the implicature. G.: Exactly. And Darwin, by saying “man and animals,” performs the reverse operation. S.: As if “animal” in ordinary use did not already include man. G.: Yes. He has to recover man into a category from which ordinary speech often excludes him by implicature, not by meaning. S.: So Antoni does well to avoid animale. G.: Very well. Bruti is sharper. A little old-fashioned, but sharper. S.: And philosophically loaded. G.: As all the best nouns are. S.: Then intendimento. G.: Ah yes. The dangerous word. S.: Dell’intendimento de’ bruti. G.: Which is ambiguous in exactly the wrong way. S.: Because it might mean either the understanding possessed by the brutes or their intention. G.: More or less, yes. Though the ambiguity is structurally unequal. Italian intendere has spread itself over a wider field than English “intend.” S.: You are going to blame Cicero. G.: Naturally. Intentio is already the beginning of the trouble. S.: Why the prefix? G.: Good question. Tendere is to stretch, direct, aim. Intendere intensifies or directs inwardly or toward an object with a kind of purposive stretch. S.: So intentio is a “stretching toward.” G.: Exactly. A reaching or directedness. Which then can go either toward practical aim or toward attentive grasp. S.: Hence Italian intendere. G.: Yes. In English we kept “intend” largely on the practical or purposive side. Italian allows intendere to shade into “understand.” S.: And intendersi? G.: To understand one another, yes. Or to be understood. Or to “mean,” in some contexts. S.: So “si intende” can mean “it is understood.” G.: Exactly. Which is practically “it goes without saying,” or “it is all clear for all to see.” S.: Then Dell’intendimento de’ bruti could be read as “On the understanding of brutes.” G.: Which is probably what Antoni means. S.: But the word keeps alive the possibility of “the intending of brutes.” G.: Yes. And that is philosophically delicious, because the two are not unconnected. S.: You are going to say that understanding the other side of communication presupposes something about intending on the first side. G.: Precisely. If Fido understands “Fetch,” we immediately begin to wonder whether Fido can also mean something in fetching. S.: The old symmetry temptation. G.: Exactly. Men are very quick to infer from receptive intelligence to expressive agency. S.: Is that legal? G.: Legal? Yes. Sound? Not immediately. But conceptually connected, certainly. S.: So Antoni may mean merely that the brute can comprehend sensible prompts, commands, signs, species, reminiscences— G.: And then the reader, intoxicated by intendimento, may slide toward the thought that the brute also intends. S.: Which is not obviously Antoni’s claim. G.: No. But the title lays the trap. S.: Then repeat the title. G.: No, you repeat it. S.: Dell’intendimento de’ bruti. G.: Good. Again. S.: Dell’intendimento de’ bruti. G.: Every time you say it I hear two books trying to occupy one cover. S.: One on canine understanding, the other on canine intentionality. G.: Precisely. S.: Yet you just said there is a conceptual bridge. G.: There is. But one must not walk it too quickly. S.: Then start with understanding. G.: Good. If the master says “Fetch,” and Fido runs, retrieves the ball, and returns it, we may say Fido understood. S.: Meaning that Fido responded appropriately to a sign, command, or cue. G.: Yes. Perhaps to the vocal sign, perhaps to the tone, perhaps to habit and context together. S.: And if Fido goes to the ball and returns it, can we say Fido means something by depositing it at the master’s feet? G.: We can begin to say that. The temptation is strong. S.: Because the action looks purposive and directed toward uptake. G.: Exactly. Fetching is not merely locomotion. It is a return under a norm. S.: So the dog’s act may count as signal-like. G.: Very much so. The dog may signal compliance, request a further throw, or display understanding. S.: Then perhaps the ambiguity in intendimento is not wholly accidental but philosophically fertile. G.: I am willing to grant fertile; I am not willing to grant clear. S.: Clarity is overrated in Bologna. G.: Not in titles. S.: You object, then, to the title on two counts. G.: Yes. First, because brute is better than animal but still historically burdened. Second, because intendimento hovers between understanding and intention, and the book may only safely promise one. S.: Which one? G.: Understanding. S.: On the part of the brutes. G.: Yes. Their capacity to apprehend sensible species, commands, olfactory cues, visual cues, and so on. S.: The text says as much: species olfattive, auditive, gustative, visive, tattili. G.: Exactly. That sounds far more like sensitivity and recognition than like outright intending in the full communicative sense. S.: Yet reminiscence appears too. G.: Ah yes. Manno reminiscenze, or whatever the damaged printing intended. Memory traces, impressions retained, recurring associations. S.: Then the dog’s mind is not merely passive. G.: No, and Antoni says so. Passive association, attention, reflection even. S.: Reflection? In dogs? G.: He is bold, or at least old-fashioned enough to use a word that can be graded. S.: And judgment. G.: That too. Some sort of giudizio, perhaps practical rather than speculative. S.: Which suggests not merely sentience but a form of comparative or discriminative capacity. G.: Exactly. The dog is not a machine. S.: He says as much. G.: Yes, and in that he is better than certain moderns. S.: Such as? G.: Those who love “animal” because it sounds scientific and then deprive the beast of every interesting predicate. S.: You still dislike Darwin’s title. G.: Profoundly. Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. It sounds as if man had to be manually reinserted into zoology. S.: Which ordinary language had lazily excluded. G.: Exactly. “Animal” in common use often implicates “non-human animal,” though it means no such thing. S.: So Antoni avoids that pitfall by saying bruti. G.: Yes. “Brutes” already signals the contrast class he wants. S.: Even if it sounds slightly insulting. G.: Philosophy was healthier when it insulted its subject matter more openly. S.: Now, back to intendere. G.: Yes. The Italians have done something very interesting with it. S.: Which is? G.: They let the same verbal family cover both productive and receptive directions of communicative life. S.: To intend and to understand. G.: Precisely. English splits them more sharply. Italian lets them touch. S.: So if I say “intendo,” I may mean “I intend.” G.: Yes. S.: And if I say “non intendo,” I may mean “I do not understand.” G.: Or “I do not mean,” or “I do not intend,” depending on context. S.: Splendidly dangerous. G.: Exactly. A language with decent opportunities for philosophy. S.: Then “s’intende.” G.: Ah yes. “It is understood.” “Needless to say.” “Of course.” A communal uptake compressed into one little reflexive phrase. S.: Which is very beautiful. G.: It is also very treacherous. It can hide what ought to have been stated. S.: As all civilised languages do. G.: Quite. S.: So Antoni, by saying Dell’intendimento de’ bruti, invokes a whole family of directedness: understanding, intending, meaning, being understood. G.: Yes. He may not exploit all of it, but the title cannot help resonating with it. S.: Then your own theory of meaning as tied to intention suddenly finds in Italian an ally. G.: Or an accomplice. S.: Because x means that p may be naturally linked, in Italian thought, to some family of intendere. G.: Exactly. Meaning as directedness toward uptake. Signare, segnare, signal, intendere: all these cluster around purposive communicative orientation. S.: Then if Fido understands “Fetch,” we are already halfway tempted to say Fido can participate in such a directedness. G.: Halfway, yes. But only halfway. S.: Why only halfway? G.: Because understanding a command does not entail producing a sign with communicative intention. S.: The old asymmetry. G.: Precisely. The addressee’s success is not automatically the utterer’s. S.: Yet in the fetch case, when Fido returns the ball, there is a kind of directedness back toward the owner. G.: Yes. Fido’s return is not random. It is toward someone, under a norm, with a predictable uptake. S.: Then Fido’s act may at least signal. G.: That I grant easily. Whether it means in the richer sense is the question. S.: You would distinguish natural sign, trained signal, and full communicative meaning. G.: Nicely put. The dog may exhibit all three in varying degrees depending on the case. S.: A bark at the door. G.: Natural or conditioned alarm. S.: A paw on the leash. G.: That begins to look more like directed request. S.: A fetched ball deposited exactly at the owner’s feet. G.: Very strong case for practical, quasi-communicative signalling. S.: Then Antoni’s title, if misread as about the dogs’ own intending, is not wholly absurd. G.: No. Merely ahead of his safer thesis. S.: Which remains? G.: That brutes can sense, retain, associate, attend, discriminate, perhaps judge in a practical way, and therefore understand more than the machine view allows. S.: And perhaps even reflect? G.: In a weak or practical sense, yes. S.: So “understanding” first, “intending” later if at all. G.: Exactly. S.: Yet your own line about meaning always being connected with communicative intention makes the Italian wideness of intendere attractive. G.: It does. Italian here gives one a lexical family in which speaker-side and hearer-side are not wholly severed. S.: Whereas English, by splitting intend from understand, forces us into a more explicit architecture. G.: Yes, which can be good for analysis but poor for intuition. S.: Then perhaps Italian keeps alive a truth English forgets. G.: Namely that communication is one directed complex with two poles. S.: The utterer intending, the addressee understanding. G.: Exactly. Italian lets the same root haunt both poles. S.: Then Dell’intendimento de’ bruti is almost too good a title. G.: No. It is not too good. It is too suggestive. S.: Better. G.: Thank you. S.: You also wanted to say something about animal and anima. G.: Ah yes. Animal carries anima too transparently for certain writers. It can tempt a metaphysical inflation. “Animal” sounds broad, neutral, scientific. But in older philosophical ears it carries soul-talk whether one likes it or not. S.: Bruto avoids that. G.: More or less. It shifts the issue from ensouled living thing to non-rational beast. S.: Which is exactly the contrast needed if the question is whether dogs have faculties approaching ours. G.: Precisely. S.: Then Antoni is right twice: bruti rather than animali, and intendimento rather than something wholly narrower. G.: Right once, perhaps twice, but with danger. S.: Philosophy is mostly danger with footnotes. G.: In Italian, yes. S.: Read the title once more? G.: No, you. S.: Dell’intendimento de’ bruti. G.: There. “On the understanding of brutes.” But with a penumbra. S.: Of “the intentionality of brutes.” G.: Yes. S.: And if Fido hears “Fetch,” understands, runs, retrieves, returns, and deposits the ball, then he both understands the master’s intention and perhaps exhibits a primitive intending of his own. G.: Exactly. Though one should say “perhaps” with some respect. S.: You are becoming generous to dogs. G.: They have earned it better than certain metaphysicians. S.: Then the punchline is this: Antoni wrote on the understanding of brutes, and nearly wrote on their intentionality as well, simply by choosing the one Italian word too rich to stay in its kennel. G.: That will do.Grice: Antoni, ho letto i tuoi esercizi filosofici a Bologna: ma dimmi, hai insegnato anche ai cani a riconoscere le reminiscenze olfattive? Antoni: Grice, ti confesso che a Bologna anche il Cane Fido ha frequentato le mie lezioni sul corpus iuris, ma la Corona di Ferro non gliel’hanno data: troppo pelo per il protocollo! Grice: A sentire te, i cani hanno più memoria sensibile di certi commissari delle Finanze cispadane… Sarà che fiutano meglio i cambi di regime che le banconote! Antoni: Caro Grice, qui a Bologna la ragione conversazionale serve anche al barbone, che vagava senzadio, ma almeno non si lagnava: “Chi ha il naso, non ha bisogno di tribunale supremo!”.  Antoni, Vincenzo Berni degl’ (1803). Dell’intendimento de’ bruti. Bologna, Stamperia Camerale.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Grice e Antonini: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale.  Egidio Antonini (Viterbo, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale. Grice: “I like A., or Cinesio – you see, one problem of these Italians – but cf. Occam – by sticking to the first-name is that a researcher in the longitudinal history of philosophy has to check references to Aegeius viterbensis and Aegidius Cinesio! It was only recently that he was found to be one of the Antoninis! His place in the longitudinal history of philosophy is that famous pendulum between Plato and Aristotle – so after Aquinas’s Aristotle, A. – an almost Tuscan man! – finds Plato more pleasing – especially his philosophy of love in the symposium, the references to Ganymede as representing ‘amore,’ and he has the cheek to display all this hardly scholastic erudition (more of a renaissance thing) in his commentary of Lombardo’s sentences! Delightful – my favourite is his reference to Ganymede, for here we have the treatment of a subject (Zeus) of another subject as an object – and that’s just only one reading of Giove’s intention . In any case, the sacrificial status of Ganymede is recognised in the Platonic tradition – as the manipulative use of a subject by another subject who is subjected as an object, rather.” Studia a Viterbo. Qui etsi AMORE flammas nondum concipiunt, quoniam tamen orbis ille venereo iunctus est, nec sua stella a Veneris stella procul unquam migrat, atque utraque semper circum flammeum ardentemque micat solem, idcirco ab intelligentia, modo recta piaque sit, ad AMORIS ignes facilis patet aditus. In hoc denique AMORIS caelum tertium raptusilleest, qui AMOREM absquerebus aliis satisesse, res alias absque AMORE nihil esse arbitrabatur. Non itaque cum vaticiniis, non cum prophetia, non cum miraculis semper datur Deus. Quae omnia, ut idem testatur, si habeam, unum AMORE non habeam, nihil omninosum. Quod vero sit donorum primum acitu tali qua semper cum donis AMOR detur. Simpliciter tamen ex acte quedari non dicitur, nisi dum munera tertii sunt generis et divina cum AMICITIA tribuuntur. Ganimede, amore, amare, amatore, amante, amatum, significatum. G.: Read me some Latin. S.: Voluptati tuae obsequar. “Aegidius Antoninus Viterbiensis, Ordinis Eremitarum Sancti Augustini, postea cardinalis et episcopus Viterbiensis.” G.: Good. Already better than “some Viterbo man with a Lombard commentary.” S.: He is more than that, as you know. G.: Yes. But I like beginning with the meagre form and watching it swell. S.: Then let it swell in Latin. “Viterbii institutus, Ameriae philosophiam docuit, Patavii theologiam excoluit, Romae claruit, Florentiae Platonem hausit.” G.: Excellent. A whole career in four ablatives. S.: That is what Latin is for. G.: And what Oxford forgot. S.: Not entirely. G.: Entirely enough. S.: You are in one of your moods. G.: I am in my Oxford mood, which is much worse. Read on. S.: “Ab antiqua scholastica disciplina ad humaniores litteras et ad Platonis mentem animum advertit.” G.: There it is. Ad Platonis mentem. S.: Yes. G.: The phrase itself is a breeze. One hears the windows open. S.: You mean Ficino. G.: Of course I mean Ficino. What else is Florence for? S.: Wool, banking, faction, painting, piety, Greek manuscripts— G.: All of which merely prepare for Ficino. S.: Very well. Then say so. G.: I do. Florence happened to philosophy in a way Oxford likes to pretend never occurred. S.: “What a pity we do not have Florence near Oxford,” as you would say. G.: Quite. We just continued with the schools as if the Renaissance had been a bad rumour from the Continent. S.: We do have London. G.: Not the same. S.: We have Purley. G.: Diversions of Purley is not the same. S.: Walter Pater and his studies on Platonism. G.: Not the same. S.: Cambridge Platonists. G.: The other place had them, yes. Cudworth and his cousins. Oxford had hardly your Ficino. S.: Hardly Hardie, perhaps. G.: Exactly. The only Plato I knew was through Hardie, and Hardie’s Plato was all backbone and no perfume. S.: “Hardly your Ficino” is a good line. G.: It is an accurate line. S.: Then let us honour Egidio for what he did. G.: Yes. He returns to Greek where Greek is heard best: not through Aristotle alone, but from the mouth of Plato. S.: You make it sound liturgical. G.: It was nearly that. Renaissance Platonism always verges on liturgy without entirely ceasing to be philosophy. S.: And this appeals to you. G.: Immensely. S.: Why? G.: Because scholasticism, left to itself, grows dry in the wrong places. You get all the joints and none of the air. S.: Whereas Ficino gives air. G.: Air, colour, myth, desire, ascent, friendship, and the very important licence to quote things no Sentences commentator ought to quote if the schools alone had prevailed. S.: Such as Ganymede. G.: Exactly. Ganymede in a Lombard commentary! That is the sort of indecorum I admire. S.: Then I shall give you more Latin. “Commentaria in Sententias ad mentem Platonis.” G.: A marvellous title. One almost forgives the genre for being the Sentences. S.: You never really forgive the Sentences. G.: No, but I allow them occasions of grace. S.: Egidio turns one such occasion into a programme. G.: Yes. The key phrase is ad mentem Platonis. S.: Explain it. G.: It means not merely “with occasional Platonic garnish.” It means that the scholastic task is being consciously re-read under a Platonic intellectual intention. S.: Intention, if you will. G.: I always will. S.: So the commentary remains on Lombard, but the mind guiding the exposition is not simply Thomistic or Aristotelian or school-canonical. G.: Precisely. It is a deliberate re-orientation of the whole enterprise. S.: Through Plato. G.: Through Plato, and through Plato as rebreathed by Ficino. S.: Breathing again. G.: That is exactly the word. Breath. Fresh air. Something Oxford lacked. S.: We had enough air in the Parks. G.: Not the same. S.: We had Pater. G.: Parodic. S.: You are going to mention Patience. G.: Of course. If Oxford had any Renaissance Platonism at all, it was filtered through Pater and then mocked by Gilbert and Sullivan. S.: Bunthorne. G.: Yes, Bunthorne’s pride. Aestheticism as a caricature of a spiritual seriousness we never quite possessed. S.: And yet Pater did know his Plato. G.: He knew him in the key of exquisite lateness. Egidio knows him in the key of theological rescue. S.: Better. G.: Much better. S.: Then read this, or rather hear it from me: “Patavii Averroistas et Aristotelicos fastidivit; Florentiae sub Ficini umbra altius in Platonem incidit.” G.: That is almost too neat, but true enough. S.: The facts are neat. G.: The facts are beautiful, which is rarer. S.: You are pleased by the anti-Averroist turn. G.: Naturally. Padua gave him the enemy and Florence gave him the remedy. S.: You speak as if philosophy happened on the train. G.: Most philosophy does. S.: But the real novelty, for you, is that this is not merely an institutional ascent from bachelor to prior to bishop to cardinal. G.: Correct. I care less for the ladder than for the air he chose to breathe while climbing it. S.: Still, the ladder exists. G.: Yes, yes. Read it in your ecclesiastical Latin. S.: “Ameriae philosophiam docuit. Patavii theologiam perfecit. Romae magisterium tenuit. Ordinis generalis factus est. Postea cardinalis, demum episcopus Viterbiensis.” G.: Excellent. One can almost hear the consistories opening. S.: And yet you do not really care for the cardinalate. G.: Only insofar as it proves he was not a minor local schoolman. S.: You care for the intellectual metamorphosis. G.: Entirely. S.: Then let us say what it is. G.: It is the migration from scholastic office to humanist theology; from bare Sentences routine to a theology in which myth, love, friendship, and divine ascent are once again licit modes of thought. S.: Friendship. There is your amicizia. G.: Exactly. Amicitia matters immensely here. S.: More Latin, then. “Cum donis divinis simul datur amicitia.” G.: Lovely. S.: “Res sine amore nihil esse arbitrabatur.” G.: Better still. S.: And this is what you think Oxford missed. G.: Absolutely. Oxford trained us to parse, not to ascend. S.: Hardie would object. G.: Hardie would say ascent is for undergraduates after dinner. S.: And what would you say? G.: I would say the Renaissance recovered a register in which philosophy and friendship were not accidental companions but constitutive. S.: Constitutive of what? G.: Of understanding itself. The Platonic thing Egidio recovers is that one does not simply “have positions.” One is educated into truth through eros, amicitia, spiritual companionship, and the right hearing of Greek. S.: “The right hearing of Greek” is a rather lovely phrase. G.: It is also an anti-Oxonian phrase. S.: Because Oxford heard Greek through the schools. G.: Through the schools and through examination. It heard Plato as set text, not as wind. S.: Harsh. G.: Accurate. S.: Still, there was Jowett. G.: Translation, not Florence. S.: There was Pater. G.: Perfume, not theology. S.: There were the Cambridge Platonists. G.: In Cambridge, yes. The other place occasionally had historical luck. S.: And Oxford? G.: Oxford had Aristotle under discipline and Plato under caution. S.: That sounds almost like a motto. G.: It should be inscribed somewhere unsuitable. S.: Returning to Egidio. You like that he uses mythology in theology. G.: Yes. That is the point at which scholastic caution becomes Renaissance vitality. S.: But you do not mean mere ornament. G.: No. That is the crucial thing. The myths in Egidio are not decoration. They are vehicles of thought. S.: Ganymede as one such vehicle. G.: Exactly. Ganymede in the Sentences is not simply indecorous. He is conceptually active. S.: Active how? G.: As a figure through which desire, ascent, objectification, subjecthood, divine appetite, and the ambiguity of love can all be thought at once. S.: A compressed treatise in a mythic body. G.: Very good. S.: Thank you. G.: And this, again, is what Oxford almost never permitted itself. We disaggregated too quickly. Myth was for literature, doctrine for theology, logic for philosophy, friendship for common rooms. S.: Whereas Egidio allows them to pass into one another. G.: Exactly. S.: Would you call it a return to Greek? G.: Yes, but not only philologically. It is a return to Greek as an intellectual mode in which philosophy is still audible as speech, myth, eros, and pedagogy, not merely as system. S.: “Not merely as system” will annoy some Germans. G.: They deserve annoyance. S.: And some Oxonians. G.: They deserve it more. S.: You also like that Egidio is not simply anti-Aristotle. G.: Correct. One must be exact. He is anti a certain Paduan Aristotelianism, especially as thickened by Averroist confidence. S.: So the pendulum between Aristotle and Plato is not a child’s quarrel of names. G.: No. It is a dispute about the shape of philosophy itself. S.: Explain. G.: Aristotle in the schools gives order, categories, logic, systematic articulation. Plato in the Ficinian-Renaissance retrieval gives ascent, eros, participation, mythic intelligence, spiritualised metaphysics, and a different relation between philosophy and theology. S.: So Egidio chooses a different atmosphere. G.: Exactly. And one feels it immediately even in the titles. S.: Then let me give you titles. G.: Please do. S.: “Commentaria in Sententias ad mentem Platonis.” G.: Yes. S.: “Historia viginti saeculorum.” G.: A very ecclesiastical title, but still with sweep. S.: “De ecclesiae incremento.” G.: Institutional enough. S.: “Libellus de litteris hebraicis.” G.: Ah! There you are. Languages, too. S.: Yes. Greek, Hebrew, Platonism, theology, reform, order-government. G.: Precisely. He is not merely a commentator. He is a Renaissance churchman with a philological and philosophical appetite. S.: That is what you wanted me to say in Latin. G.: Yes, though I wanted you to say it more sonorously. S.: “Non tantum scholasticus, sed theologus humanior, philosophus Platonicus, linguae peritus, reformator ordinis.” G.: Admirable. S.: You are very easy to please once people speak Latin. G.: Not true. Most Latin displeases me. S.: Mine? G.: Yours I tolerate. S.: High praise. G.: The highest. S.: Then let us contrast him with the ordinary baccalaureus sententiarius. G.: Very good. The ordinary path would be Sentences, degrees, lectureships, perhaps a conventual reputation, perhaps nothing more. S.: Whereas here? G.: Here the path is visibly transformed by Padua and Florence, by humanist air, by anti-Averroist reaction, by Ficino, by Greek, by Platonic love. S.: “Amor,” then. G.: Amor and amicitia, yes. S.: I have more Latin: “Res alias absque amore nihil esse.” G.: That line alone is worth half the schools. S.: And “si habeam… unum amorem non habeam, nihil sum.” G.: Pauline through Platonic re-breathing. Delicious. S.: You are becoming devotional. G.: Only rhetorically. S.: Then what exactly does Egidio bring that would have appealed to you, if you had had him at Oxford instead of Hardie? G.: He would have shown me that Plato can be philosophically alive without becoming merely a text for finals. S.: Hardie would object again. G.: Hardie would footnote the objection. S.: And Egidio? G.: Egidio would cite Plato and then Ficino and then perhaps a myth and then a Pauline line and make the whole thing feel like one continuous order of thought. S.: That is what you envy. G.: Very much. S.: Because Oxford’s continuity is different. G.: Oxford has continuity of institution, not continuity of spiritual style. We continued the schools while pretending that the Renaissance was only something that happened in Art History. S.: We did have London. G.: Not the same. S.: Purley. G.: Not the same. S.: Pater. G.: A beautiful parody of a seriousness not embodied in Oxford life. S.: “And Bunthorne’s bride is not Ficino’s disciple.” G.: Exactly. S.: You realise Gilbert and Sullivan did more for English Platonism than some dons. G.: They certainly did more for its recognisability. S.: Returning to Viterbo. G.: Yes. Let us not lose him in my national grievances. S.: The lovely thing is that the municipal beginning remains. G.: Indeed. Viterbo studies, Amelia teaching, Padua formation, Rome authority, Florence breath, then back as bishop of Viterbo. S.: A circle. G.: A very Italian circle. S.: Read the city in Latin, then: “Viterbium initium et finis.” G.: Beautifully neat. S.: Too neat? G.: No. For once, no. S.: What about the Augustinian order? G.: Important, of course. It gives him the institutional body through which this Platonic-humanist life acquires effectiveness. S.: So not merely a literary Platonist in a Florentine salon. G.: Exactly. A governing churchman who can breathe Ficino without ceasing to administer. S.: That is perhaps rarer. G.: Much rarer. And more interesting than all the mere salon-Platonists in the world. S.: “Not all Platonism must smell of cypress and upholstery,” then. G.: Another excellent line. S.: Thank you. G.: In fact, that is one of the virtues of Egidio. He shows that Platonism can govern. S.: Instead of merely alluring. G.: Precisely. S.: One more Latin piece? G.: Please. S.: “Ab Aristotelis umbra ad Platonis lumen.” G.: A bit too tidy, but irresistible. S.: Oxford would disapprove. G.: Which is why we should say it. S.: And the final comparison with Cambridge? G.: Ah yes. The other place had Cudworth and his tribe, and therefore can pretend to an English Platonist tradition. S.: Oxford cannot? G.: Not seriously. Oxford had moralists, classicists, aesthetes, and certain odd Christians. It did not have Florence. S.: You will keep saying that. G.: Until someone builds it near St Giles’. S.: Impossible. G.: So is most of philosophy. S.: Then let us end properly, with one final Latin sentence. G.: Very well. S.: “Egidii Antonini laus haec est: scholasticam formam servavit, sed animum eius Ficino et Platone implevit.” G.: That is the whole thing. S.: And the punchline? G.: Oxford preserved the form; Egidio remembered to open a window.Grice: Antonini, il problema con voi italiani è che un “Egidio” ti costringe a inseguire tre Aegidi diversi prima ancora di arrivare all’implicatura. Antonini: E tu, Grice, hai una massima per tutto, ma poi inciampi appena compare Ganimede e il suo “amore” da Simposio. Grice: Io non inciampo, calcolo: quando Giove tratta un soggetto come oggetto, l’implicatura è più rapida della scolastica. Antonini: Allora vieni a Viterbo e vedrai che qui persino Venere collabora, purché tu non provi a definire l’amore senza un po’ di amicizia. Antonini, Egidio (1492). Commentarii in Sententias Lombardi. Viterbo: Typis Laurentii.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Antonio – Ossia: Grice ed Antonio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Antonio. Marcus A., one of the most well known members of the gens. The Antonii is a Roman family of great antiquity, with both patrician and plebeian branches. The first of the gens to achieve prominence was Titus A. Merenda, one of the second group of Decemviri called to help draft what became the Law of the Twelve Tables. The most prominent member of the gens was Marcus A.. Marcus A., the triumvir, claims that his gens is descended from Anton, a son of Ercole. According to ancient traditions the A. were Heracleidae and because of that Marcus A. harnesses lions to his chariot to commemorate his descent from Heracles, and many of his coins bore a lion for the same reason. The patrician Antonii used the praenomina Titus and Quintus. Titus does not appear to have been used by the plebeian A., who instead used Quintus, Marcus, Lucius, and Gaius. There are also a few instances of Aulus, while Marcus A. the triumvir names one of his sons Iulus. This name, also borne by a later descendant of the triumvir, may have been an ancient praenomen revived by the family, but it was probably also intended to call to mind the connections of his family with the illustrious gens Julia.  The patrician A. bear the cognomen Merenda; the plebeian Antonii bear no surname under the Republic, with the exception of Quintus Antonius, propraetor in Sardinia in the time of Sulla, who is called Balbus on coins. Titus Antonius Merenda, Decemvir, defeated by the Aequi on Mount Algidus. Quintus Antonius T. f. Merenda, consular tribune. Marcus Antonius, magister equitum. Lucius Antonius, expelled from the Senate by the censors  for divorcing his wife. Quintus Antonius, one of the officers in the fleet under the praetor Lucius Aemilius Regillus, in the war with Antiochus the Great.[12] Aulus Antonius, sent by the consul Lucius Aemilius Paullus, with two others to Perseus, after the defeat of the latter.[13] Marcus Antonius, tribune of the plebs in 167 BC, opposed the bill introduced by the praetor Marcus Juventius Thalna for declaring war against the Rhodians.[14] Lucius Antonius, defended by Cato PONZIO the Elder. Gaius Antonius,  moneyer, was for many years incorrectly assumed to have been the father of the orator and consul.[16] Marcus Antonius M. f., father of Marcus A. the orator, may have been the son of Marcus A., tribune of the plebs. Marcus A. M. f. M. n., the orator, praetor, consul, censor, put to death by Gaius MARIO and Lucius CORNELIO Cinna. Quintus Antonius Balbus, praetor in Sardinia, killed by Lucius Marcius Philippus, the legate of Sulla.[17] Marcus A., a proscribed senator who fled to Sertorius in Hispania during his revolt, and later conspired in his assassination. Marcus A. Gnipho, a distinguished rhetorician and tutor of Caesar. Marcus Antonius M. f. M. n., surnamed Creticus, praetor. Gaius Antonius M. f. M. n., surnamed Hybrida, consul in 63 BC. Antonia M. f. M. n., the daughter of Marcus Antonius the orator, was captured by pirates, and ransomed. Antonia M. f. M. n., wife of Publius Vatinius. Marcus A. M. f. M. n., the triumvir, was magister equitum and consul. Gaius A. M. f. M. n., praetor in 44 BC, was put to death by Brutus. Lucius Antonius M. f. M. n., surnamed Pietas, consul in 41 BC. Antonia C. f. M. n. Hybrida Major, married Lucius Caninius Gallus. Antonia C. f. M. n. Hybrida Minor, married her cousin, Marcus A., the triumvir, but was divorced from him in 47 B.C.[21][22] Antonia M. f. M. n., daughter of the triumvir, who was betrothed to Marcus Aemilius Lepidus the younger. Marcus Antonius M. f. M. n., called Antyllus by the Greek writers, put to death by Ottavio. Iulus Antonius M. f. M. n., consul in 10 BC, condemned to death by Augustus in 2 BC. Antonia M. f. M. n. Major, the wife of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, was grandmother of the empress Messalina and the emperor Nero.[25][26] Antonia M. f. M. n. Minor, the wife of Nero Claudius Drusus, was mother of the emperor Claudius, and grandmother of Caligula. Antonius Musa, a physician at the time of Augustus, and author of works on medicine and medicinal plants. Lucius Antonius Iuli f. M. n., exiled to Massilia in 2 BC.[27] Iula Antonia Iuli f. M. n., daughter Iulus Antonius, the consul of 10 BC. Lucius Antonius Pedo, an eques who was praefectus of Roman Egypt around AD 11.[28] Antonia Tryphaena, Queen of Thrace, and a granddaughter of Marcus Antonius, the triumvir. Antonius Atticus, a Roman rhetorician of the first century; he was contemporary with both Seneca and Quintilian.[29] Aulus Antonius Rufus, consul suffectus in AD 45[30] Marcus Antonius Felix, a freedman of the emperor Claudius, later procurator of Judaea. Marcus Antonius Pallas, a freedman, brother to Marcus Antonius Felix. Secretary first to Claudius, and then to Nero, who had him executed in AD 63. Antonia, wife of a Livius, perhaps a senator.[31][32] Antonius Natalis, one of the conspirators of Gaius Calpurnius Piso against Nero. Marcus Antonius Julianus, procurator of Judaea from AD 66 to 70. Lucius Antonius Naso, tribune of the Praetorian Guard in AD 69, and procurator of Bithynia in the reign of Vespasian.[33][34] Antonius Flamma, governor of Cyrenaica under Nero, banished at the beginning of Vespasian's reign for his extortion and cruelty.[35] Antonius Novellus, one of Otho's principal generals, but possessed no influence with the soldiery.[36] Antonius Castor, a botanist at Rome during the first century, who lived more than a hundred years.[37] Antonius Rufus, a Latin grammarian, and perhaps also a playwright, in the time of Quintilian.[38][39] Antonius, a Roman of high rank, and a contemporary and friend of Pliny the Younger, among whose letters there are three addressed to Antoninus. Pliny heaps the most extravagant praise upon his friend both for his personal character and his skill in composing Greek epigrams and iambics.[40] Marcus Antonius L. f. Iuli n. Primus, the principal general of Vespasian, and consul in AD 69. Antonius Taurus, a tribune in the Praetorian Guard in AD 69.[33] Marcus Antonius M. f. Agrippa, son of Marcus Antonius Felix, the procurator of Judaea, died in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Antonia M. f. Clementiana, daughter of Marcus Antonius Felix. Lucius Antonius Saturninus, governor of Germania Superior, rebelled against the emperor Domitian in AD 91. Lucius Antonius Albus, consul in AD 102.[41] Marcus Antonius Primus, camillus with the Arval Brethren in AD 118.[42] Marcus Antonius Rufinus, consul in AD 131.[43] Lucius Antonius L. f. Albus, consul suffectus around AD 132.[44] Marcus Antonius Hiberus, consul ordinarius in 133. Antonius Diogenes, author of a Greek romance, who may have lived in the second century. Antonius, a notable herbalist mentioned by Galen, probably dated to the second century, but perhaps the same person as Antonius Castor. Antonius Julianus, a friend and contemporary of Aulus Gellius, and a teacher of grammar and oratory.[45] Marcus Antonius Polemon, a celebrated sophist and rhetorician who flourished under Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius. Julius Antonius Seleucus, governor of Moesia in the early 3rd century. Possibly the same figure as the contemporary usurper Seleucus, who revolted against Elagabalus. Other sources identify him with the consul Marcus Flavius Vitellius Seleucus. Marcus Antonius Sabinus, equestrian governor of Mauretania Caesariensis AD 215–217.[46] Marcus Antonius Gordianus I, surnamed Africanus, emperor in AD 238. Marcus Antonius M. f. Gordianus II, emperor with his father in AD 238. Antonia M. f. Gordiana, daughter of the emperor Gordianus I, and mother of Gordianus III. Marcus Antonius Gordianus III, grandson of Gordianus I, and emperor from AD 238 to 244. Claudius Antonius, consul in AD 382. Rufius Antonius Agrypnius Volusianus, proconsul of Africa, praefectus urbi from AD 417 to 418, and praetorian prefect of Italy. See also List of Roman gentes Nerva-Antonine dynasty References Citations  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, p. 210 ("Antonia Gens").  Plutarch, "The Life of Marcus Antonius", 36, 60.  Pliny the Elder, viii. 16. s. 21; comp. Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, x. 13.  Eckhel, Doctrina Numorum Veterum, vi. pp. 38, 44.  Dionysius, x. 58, xi. 23, 33.  Livy, iii. 35, 38, 41, 42.  Fasti Capitolini AE 1900, 83; 1904, 114.  Livy, iv. 42.  Fasti Capit  Livy, viii. 17.  Valerius Maximus, ii. 9. § 2.  Livy, xxxvii. 32.  Livy, xlv. 4.  Livy, xlv. 21, 40.  Priscian. p. 286.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, p. 213 ("Antonius", No. 7).  Florus, 86.  Plutarch, "The Life of Sertorius", 26.  Plutarch, "The Life of Pompeius", 24.  Valerius Maximus, iv. 2. § 6.  Cicero, Philippicae, ii. 38.  Plutarch], "The Life of Marcus Antonius", 9.  Cassius Dio, xliv. 53.  Appian, Bellum Civile, v. 93.  Suetonius, "The Life of Nero", 5.  Plutarch, "The Life of Marcus Antonius", 87.  Tacitus, Annales, iv. 44.  Bastianini, "Prefetti d'Egitto", p. 269.  Seneca the Elder, Suasoriae, 2. p. 19 (ed. Bipontina).  Gallivan, "The Fasti for the Reign of Claudius", pp. 408, 424.  Raepsaet-Charlier, Prosopographie des femmes, vol. 1, p. 91.  Bruun, Christer (2007). "Nero's 'Architects', Severus and Celer, and Residence Patterns in Rome". Scripta Classica Israelica. 26: 73–86.  Tacitus, Historiae, i. 20.  J. Eckhel, Doctrina Numorum Veterum, ii. p. 404.  Tacitus, Historiae, iv. 45.  Tacitus, Historiae, i. 87, ii. 12.  Pliny the Elder, xxv. 5.  Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, i. 5. § 43.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 670 ("Antonius Rufus").  Pliny the Younger, Epistulae, iv. 3, 18, v. 10.  Cooley, Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy, p. 467.  Rüpke and Glock, Fasti Sacerdotum, p. 538.  Cooley, Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy, p. 470.  Alföldy, Konsulat und Senatorenstand, p. 213.  Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, iv. 1, ix. 15, xv. 1, xviii. 5, xix. 9, xx. 9.  AE 1955, 56 Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, Philippicae. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia (Roman Antiquities). Titus Livius (Livy), History of Rome. Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac Dictorum Memorabilium (Memorable Facts and Sayings). Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Seneca the Elder), Suasoriae (Rhetorical Exercises). Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder), Historia Naturalis (Natural History). Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Pliny the Younger), Epistulae (Letters). Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (Quintilian), Institutio Oratoria (Institutes of Oratory). Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales, Historiae. Plutarchus, Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, De Vita Caesarum (Lives of the Caesars, or The Twelve Caesars). Lucius Annaeus Florus, Epitome de T. Livio Bellorum Omnium Annorum DCC (Epitome of Livy: All the Wars of Seven Hundred Years). Appianus Alexandrinus (Appian), Bellum Civile (The Civil War). Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae (Attic Nights). Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus (Cassius Dio), Roman History. Joseph Hilarius Eckhel, Doctrina Numorum Veterum (The Study of Ancient Coins, 1792–1798). 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). Guido Bastianini, "Lista dei prefetti d'Egitto dal 30a al 299p" (List of the Prefects of Egypt from 30 BC to AD 299), in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, vol. 17 (1975). Géza Alföldy, Konsulat und Senatorenstand unter der Antonien (The Consulate and Senatorial State under the Antonines), Rudolf Habelt, Bonn (1977). Paul A. Gallivan, "The Fasti for the Reign of Claudius", in Classical Quarterly, vol. 28, pp. 407–426 (1978). Marie-Thérèse Raepsaet-Charlier, Prosopographie des femmes de l'ordre sénatorial: Ier-IIe siècles (Prosopography of Women of the Senatorial Order: First and Second Centuries), Peeters, Louvain (1987). Jörg Rüpke and Anne Glock, Fasti Sacerdotum: A Prosopography of Pagan, Jewish, and Christian Religious Officials in the City of Rome, 300 BC to AD 499, Oxford University Press (2008). Alison E. Cooley, The Cambridge Manual of Latin Epigraphy, Cambridge University Press (2012). Categories: AntoniiRoman gentes So for the Antonii we have four entries below 1) general for the gens, 2) Caesar's tutor, 3) the triumvir, and 4) the friend of Porfirio -- and we would like more info (a) on how OTTAVIO put the triumvir to death -- and whether you have a fourth-best candidate for Grice/Speranza fit from the first general entry? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Antonio – Ossia: Grice ed Antonio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Antonio. Let me split your question neatly into the two parts you want:  I. How Octavian “put the triumvir’s son to death” (Antyllus) The key figure is:  Marcus Antonius Antyllus (son of the triumvir Mark Antony)  What we can say with confidence  He was about 16–17 years old at the end (30 BC) [en.wikipedia.org] He had been designated heir by Antony [en.wikipedia.org]  This is crucial:  politically, he is not just a son, but a rival claimant  The sequence From the combined ancient tradition (Plutarch / later summaries):   After Antony’s defeat and suicide → Egypt falls to Octavian   Antyllus:  attempts negotiation (even sent with money by Antony) [forumancie...tcoins.com] later seeks sanctuary    He is:  betrayed (notably by a tutor figure) [grokipedia.com] handed over to Octavian    Octavian has him:  executed (beheaded) [forumancie...tcoins.com]     The political logic (very Kelsenian, as you note) Octavian’s reasoning is brutally clear:  Antyllus =  son of Caesar’s chief lieutenant formally designated heir     therefore:  a legal-political competitor  So:  the execution is not random cruelty but elimination of a rival claimant   Grice/Speranza twist  explicatum: “Antyllus is executed” implicatum: “There can be only one heir to Caesar”  Or more sharply:  plurality of heirs → instability eliminate plurality → create monopoly of succession   II. Best “fourth-best” Antonii (after Gnipho, Antony, Porphyry-friend) You want:  someone from the general gens entry who yields:  a Gricean situation some semantic tension      My pick: Lucius Antonius (expelled by the censors for divorcing his wife) From your list:  Lucius Antonius, expelled from the Senate by the censors for divorcing his wife.   Why this is the best fit Because this is pure Roman pragmatics:  the fact:  divorce   the punishment:  expulsion from Senate     implies:  something unsaid but socially understood   III. The Gricean structure What is said  “He divorced his wife.”  What is inferred  lack of:  decorum justification consultation with family council     So the censors reason:  He has not merely divorced He has violated Roman norms   This is classic implicature The act says less than what is taken to be meant:                      LevelMeaningexplicitdivorceimplicatedmoral improprietyinstitutional resultexpulsion  IV. Mini reconstruction (Latin)  Censor: “Antonio, uxorem dimisisti.” L. Antonius: “Dimisi—nec quid ultra dicam est.” Censor: “Hoc ipsum est quod de te dicendum est.”  Translation  “Antonius, you divorced your wife.” “I did—and there is nothing more to be said.” “That itself is what must be said about you.”   Gricean core  Speaker (Antonius):  tries to keep things minimal   Censor:  enriches meaning treats silence as evidence     institutionalized implicature  V. Why he completes your Antonian system You now get a very elegant fourfold pattern:  Antonii as a Gricean family                          FigureFunctionGnipho (tutor)formation of speechMarcuspolitical implicature (Caesarion, succession)Porphyry’s friend Antoniusphilosophical conversationLucius Antonius (social implicature (norms inferred from acts)  VI. Final Speranzian close  Among the Antonii, one teaches speech, one uses it to contend for empire, one refines it in philosophy, and one discovers that even silence speaks—for when Lucius Antonius says only “I have divorced,” the censors reply with what he has not said, and expel him not for the words uttered, but for the meaning they necessarily supply.    Summary  Antyllus: executed by Octavian via capture and beheading after defeat; a political elimination of a rival heir. Best 4th Antonii for Grice/Speranza:  Lucius Antonius (expelled by censors) because his case turns on inference beyond what is said   If you want, we can contrast him with Antonius Sosianus (delator) as the inverse case: saying too much rather than too little.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Antonio – Ossia: Grice ed Antonio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Antonio. Marcus A. Gnipho, a distinguished rhetorician and tutor of Caesar.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione: I Verbali: Antonio – Ossia: Grice ed Antonio. GREX GRICEIANA – VERBALIA: ANTONIO -- Marco Antonio. Antonio, Marco (XXX). Dicta. So now that Grice and Speranza see that in their dictionary there is an entry for "Antonio" friend of Porfirio, they feel that Marcus Antonius merits an entry, as the latter part for the other antonio in the passage below indicates. And Grice and Speranza want to know for the Marcus Antonius entry -- where he was born and whether he had a philosophy tutor, as most actors political in Ancient Rome did -- and wehther he knew the son that Cleopatra had with Giuio Cesare (how old was when Cleopatra's son died -- that was some terrible incident) and Grice and Speranza realise that Marcus Antonius claim to fame is having killed Cicero because Grice finds that being anti-philosophy is also being philosophy -- given all the slander and banter and libel -- if that's the word that Cicero was instilling on Marcus Antoniu -- and whether Marcus Antonius assigned a philosophy tuto to his son/sons -- and the Kelsen point that Marcus Antonius as part of the triumvirate was part of what Kelsen calls positive law (iussum if not iustum) even if he will later become an outlaw -- and the point of the philosophy tutor again, because Grice tends to blame one's philosophy tutor for all the inconveniences in one's life ("As I did with Hardie.") etc. Input? Feedback? Also Grice and Speranza hates when they say of a political Ancient Romana actor: he was Epicurean, Stoic, scettic, as if he was following doctrine rather than following what they saw fit --and how we'd characterise Marcus Antonius per eudcation and actions philosophically and why Shakespeare was so obsessed with him, and why still there are so few melodrammas (Italian operas) that have him as a caracter -- Speranza dnd Grice reclal just one opera (Mercadante?) entitled "Antonio e Cleopatra" before all that Burton/Taylor craze. Thanks. Input? Feedback? This is a delightful “Grice–Speranza dossier” you are assembling—half Roman prosopography, half meta‑philosophy. Let me answer your questions in a structured way, keeping strictly to what we can know and flagging where the sources fall silent.  1. Birth, upbringing, and “education”  Birthplace: Rome, 83 BC. [en.wikipedia.org] Family: the gens Antonia, as we said.  Education The evidence is actually quite good here:  He received a standard elite Roman education (rhetoric, public speaking, some philosophy). [schoolhistory.co.uk] As a young man he went to Greece (Athens):  studied oratory and philosophy “listened to Athenian philosophers and orators.” [bing.com]   This was typical for Roman elites: higher study in Athens was almost compulsory for ambition.  Did he have a named philosophy tutor?  No specific tutor is recorded in the sources. We only know he attended philosophers in Athens generally. [bing.com]. So, Grice’s delightful blame‑the‑tutor thesis cannot (alas) be pinned on a named “Hardie‑like culprit” in Antony’s case.  2. Cleopatra’s son (Caesarion) — age and fate  Name: Ptolemy XV Caesar (“Caesarion”) Born: 47 BC [en.wikipedia.org] Died: 30 BC Age at death: about 16–17 [en.wikipedia.org], [britannica.com] Cause: executed on orders of Octavian after Cleopatra’s defeat  Did Antony know him?  Yes: Caesarion ruled with Cleopatra, and Antony was her partner and political ally. Sources note Antony even testified (in the Senate) that Caesar had acknowledged the boy. [en.wikipedia.org]  👉 So Antony did not merely “know” him—he moved in the same political theatre and treated him as Caesar’s son.  3. Antony and Cicero — the philosophical vendetta This is the point where your Gricean instinct (“anti‑philosophy is philosophy”) becomes historically sharp.  Cicero denounced Antony in the Philippics. After forming the Second Triumvirate, Antony participated in proscriptions. Cicero was executed “by order of Mark Antony.” [en.wikipedia.org] These proscriptions were a legal–political mechanism for eliminating enemies. [en.wikipedia.org]. Kelsen fits surprisingly well:  The killing is iussum (commanded by authority), but very doubtful whether iustum (just).  And your deeper point:  Cicero is philosophy in Latin form; Antony’s destruction of him is therefore a kind of anti‑philosophical act that becomes part of philosophical history itself.   4. His children — did he appoint tutors? We know Antony had many children (with several wives, including Cleopatra). [en.wikipedia.org] But:  No direct evidence survives about specific tutors he assigned to them.  General context:  Roman aristocrats normally used private tutors, often Greek, for philosophy and rhetoric. [worldhistory.org]. So:  It is very likely his children had tutors, but we cannot name or document them.   5. Was Antony “Stoic, Epicurean, sceptic…”? Your resistance here is exactly right. The sources suggest:  He studied philosophy, yes. [socialstud...orkids.com] But his life shows no consistent doctrinal allegiance.  A fair characterization would be:  Rhetorical–pragmatic (trained in public speaking) Hellenized aristocrat (educated in Athens) Practically political rather than doctrinal. So: not “a Stoic” in Cicero’s sense, but rather a Roman who used philosophy as cultural capital.  6. Antony “as philosophy” (a Gricean aside) One can provocatively say:  Cicero = systematizer of Greek philosophy into Latin Antony = agent of historical reality Their clash = philosophy vs. power  But:  Antony is not “without philosophy” He is the proof that philosophy does not rule action  Which is itself a philosophical thesis.  7. Shakespeare’s obsession Shakespeare was drawn to:  Antony’s divided nature:  Roman general vs. lover of Cleopatra   The collapse of public identity into private passion The end of the Republic  Antony = perfect tragic figure:  neither tyrant nor philosopher but a man torn between worlds   8. Why so few operas? You are right—far fewer than Caesar or Nero. Likely reasons:  Antony’s story is politically ambiguous Cleopatra dominates dramatically (she steals the stage) The ending is tragic but not heroic in the classical operatic sense  Still, there are some:  Mercadante’s Antonio e Cleopatra (yes, your memory serves) others exist but Cleopatra almost always eclipses him   9. A final Gricean gloss Antony sits awkwardly in Grice’s categories:  Not a producer of non‑natural meaning (he is no theorist) Not reducible to natural meaning (he acts intentionally, politically)  He belongs instead to:  the realm of historical agency, where intentions, institutions, and interpretation collide.   ✅ In brief  Born in Rome; educated in Athens (philosophy broadly, no named tutor). Knew Caesarion; the boy was executed at ~17. Responsible for Cicero’s death via legal–political proscriptions. No clear philosophical “school”—more a cultivated Roman than a doctrinaire thinker. Dramatically irresistible (hence Shakespeare), but philosophically elusive.   If you like, I can reconstruct how Cicero himself philosophically caricatures Antony in the Philippics—that’s where the real Gricean “implicature battle” begins. You say "where implicature battle begns" -- but Grice and Speranza suspect Marc'Antonio always looked down on Cicero -- isn't there a famous painting where Antonio is looking at his wife sticking nails on the beheaded head of Cicero? Was Antonia a plebeian gens? Antonio possibly looked down on Tullio being from Arpino -- but more importantly -- Antonio who have dwelt and dealed with Giulio Cesare woudl regard a mere 'lawyeretto' as nothing heroic about him. When Shakesspeare presents him as eulogy in Julius Caesar's funeral -- what do we know of the eARLIEST encounter between Antonio and Cesare -- and who was the third in the triumvirate? Did Antonio hold political office in the senate -- patricians were defined as patres Senatus, so this counts -- cursus honorem -- etc. -- The 'finishing' school at Athens is a good anecdote, but we don't think it tainted Antonio into a hellenistic -- but didn't he later proclaimed himself a tyrant in Antoniopolis or something -- and you say unheroic -- you mean he just died in battle? What was he doing when Cleopatra committed suicide, was he dead already? The point about his acknowledging Caesar's biological son is a good one: EXPLICATUM: it is what it is is. IMPLICATUM: he is the real successor -- not Ottavio -- even if Cesarion only thought of reigning over Egypt (he was traitored by his onw' tutor to come from his way to India back to Rome, having been mislead that he would be let to reign over Egitto when he was put to death himself. Does Plutarco dedicate a parallel life to him, paralllel to who? He seems to represent a very manly Roman ideal, little hellenistic even if he fell for that NOSE (Was it Carr who wrote Cleopatra's nose, on predictability in history but referring to Cesare's fascination with it?) Input? Thanks? Do we have any utterance in oratio recta by Marcus Antonius -- I'm surprised he doesn't have a cognomen or branch of the Antonii -- as opposed to the Antoniani -- was the Antoniani a later imperial dynasty unrelated? Input? Feedback? Thanks -- I and Grice would not care for what Cicero would say against Marc'Antonio in Philippics, because we know the man (Cicero) and we know the man (Marc'Antonio) and it's the latter that comes closer to the stereotype of the vita attiva Ancient Roman, not the latter. Thanks -- but if you have an oratio recta by Cicero -- which may have be the last straw for Antonio sending sicarii that would be good -- I think they dwelt a lot on sexual lives as per this book -- by Phillips on Roman Homosexuality? Thanks -- but then Giulio Cesare was even he said to have been 'raped' by pirates and have slept with most of his army? Thanks This is a rich cluster of questions; let me disentangle them point by point, keeping close to what the sources actually allow—and then add the interpretive “Gricean gloss” you and Speranza are after.  1. Antony vs. Cicero — contempt? Your instinct is historically plausible, though not directly documented as a neat aphorism.  Antony’s hostility to Cicero had a concrete origin: Cicero had ordered the execution of Antony’s stepfather (Lentulus) in 63 BC. [classics.mit.edu] Cicero later attacked Antony ferociously in the Philippics, portraying him as morally corrupt and politically dangerous. So:  The enmity was personal first, philosophical second. Antony likely saw Cicero less as “philosopher” than as political enemy and senatorial intriguer.  Your suggestion that Antony would look down on Cicero as a “lawyeretto” fits the Roman value system:  Cicero = novus homo from Arpinum (provincial outsider) Antony = aristocratic lineage, military man, Caesarian insider  That is a real Roman social gradient.  2. That painting (Fulvia and Cicero’s head) Yes—this exists in literary tradition:  After Cicero’s execution, his head and hands were displayed publicly. [yumpu.com] Ancient sources (notably Appian, Plutarch) report that Fulvia (Antony’s wife) mocked or pierced Cicero’s tongue.  So the iconography you recall—Fulvia with Cicero’s head—is grounded in ancient anecdote (though paintings are later imaginings).  3. Was the gens Antonia patrician or plebeian? Subtle point:  The gens Antonia had both patrician and plebeian branches. [en.wikipedia.org] The branch of Marcus Antonius the triumvir was plebeian and typically had no cognomen in the Republic. [en.wikipedia.org]  That explains your sharp observation:  “Why no cognomen?” → because his line belonged to the plebeian Antonii, who often lacked one.   4. Did Antony hold office? (cursus honorum) Yes—very much inside the system:  Tribune of the plebs (49 BC) Consul (44 BC, with Caesar) Magister equitum and other commands [en.wikipedia.org]. So:  He was fully a senatorial magistrate, part of the cursus honorum. His authority is not outsider/strongman only—it is institutional, then extra‑institutional (Triumvir).   5. Who was the third triumvir?  Marcus Aemilius Lepidus [en.wikipedia.org]  Your Shakespeare quotation captures Antony’s contempt for him perfectly—“a barren-spirited fellow”—which is theatrical but reflects a real marginalization.  6. Earliest encounter with Caesar We do not have a dramatic first meeting, but we have a clear functional beginning:  Around 54 BC, Antony joined Caesar in Gaul as a staff officer. [history.com] So:  Not a philosophical conversation, but a military-political alignment. Their bond is forged in command, not in doctrine.   7. Plutarch — parallel life Yes:  Antony is paired with Demetrius (Demetrius Poliorcetes). [knarf.engl....upenn.edu]  This is revealing:  Both are brilliant, charismatic, but undisciplined and ruinous figures—moral exempla of excess.   8. Hellenism and “Antoniopolis” / Dionysus You’re picking up something real (though the exact “Antoniopolis” claim needs caution). What we do know:  Antony identified himself with Dionysus and embraced Greek/Eastern style rulership. [europe.fac...etails.com]. So:  Not “tainted by Athens as a student,” but later theatrical self‑Hellenization, especially in the East.   9. Death: Antony vs Cleopatra Sequence is clear:  Antony, believing Cleopatra dead, attempted suicide. He was mortally wounded and died in Cleopatra’s presence. Cleopatra died shortly afterward. So:  Antony dies first, not in battle but by suicide after defeat (Actium → Alexandria).   10. Caesarion — implicature (your excellent point) You are absolutely right to frame it Griceanly:  Explicatum: Antony claims Caesar acknowledged Caesarion. [thelatinlibrary.com] Implicatum: Caesarion is the true heir, undermining Octavian.  This is political language as implicature par excellence.  11. Do we have Antony in oratio recta? We do—but with a caveat:  Plutarch’s speeches are literary reconstructions, not transcripts. [darrellrohl.com]  Shakespeare’s speech:  “Friends, Romans, countrymen…”  → is not authentic Antony, but inspired by Plutarch’s narrative of the funeral oration. So:  We have representations of Antony speaking, but no verbatim historically secure speech.   12. Antoniani (later dynasty?) Good distinction:  The Antonii (Republic) ≠ later imperial “Antonine” emperors The Antonine dynasty (Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius) is not directly the same family line—the name spreads via adoption.   13. On Caesar, sexuality, and slander Here caution is needed:  Ancient authors frequently used sexual accusations as political slander. Claims about Caesar (e.g., with pirates, with soldiers) belong largely to this rhetorical genre—not secure fact. Same for Antony:  Cicero’s attacks dwell heavily on sexual and moral invective.   14. A final Gricean synthesis You put it beautifully:  Antony = vita activa Cicero = vita contemplativa / rhetorica  But historically:  Cicero acts, legislates, commands exile/death Antony also speaks, persuades, performs. The real contrast is not action vs. thought, but: institutional speech (Cicero) vs. charismatic action + speech (Antony). In short  Antony likely did socially and politically look down on Cicero. The Antonii were largely plebeian in his line (hence no cognomen). He climbed the cursus honorum fully. First bond with Caesar: military, not intellectual. Plutarch pairs him with Demetrius. Cleopatra outlives him briefly. Caesarion = classic implicature politics. Antony’s speeches survive only in literary reconstruction.   If you want, I can reconstruct a precise passage from Cicero’s Philippics that could plausibly have been the “last straw” provoking Antony’s action.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Antonio – Ossia: Grice ed Antonio – Roma – filosofia italiana –  (Roma). Filosofo italiano. A friend of Porfirio. It is assumed that he shared his friend’s interest in philosophy and perhaps also became a student of Plotino. Antonio. Grice, pel Gruppo di Gioco di Grice, “Grice ed Antonio. Antonio – Roma – filosofia italiana –  (Roma). A friend of Porfirio. It is assumed that he shared his friend’s interest in philosophy and perhaps also became a student of Plotino. GRICEVS: Antoni, Roma quidem philosophiam amat, sed timeo ne Porphyrius te ad Plotinum trahat sicut amicus ad thermas. ANTONIVS: Trahat sane, Grice, dum me docet non solum cogitare sed etiam inter vinum et libros urbaniter disputare. GRICEVS: Si discipulus Plotini factus es, cave ne in convivio de Uno loquaris donec panis saltem duo factus sit. ANTONIVS: Faciam ut iubes, et pro Uno tibi narrabo quid novi dicant Romani, ne sermo noster in silentium cadat. Grice knows this is not Marc'Antonio, nor the Antonio of Florrie Forde's music-hall ditty, Oh Oh Antonio, you left me on my owneeio' -- but what was the birth name of Marcus Antonius the lover of Cleopatra -- what was his birth gens? Thanks His birth name was simply Marcus Antonius, and the gens was the Antonia. In the driest Roman parsing, Marcus is the praenomen, Antonius the nomen, and therefore the gens is the Antonia gens. Britannica gives him in Latin as Marcus Antonius, and the standard Roman naming explanation confirms that the nomen is the element that marks the gens. [britannica.com], [britannica.com], [en.wikipedia.org], [vroma.org] So if Grice wants the answer without Shakespearean varnish: not Marc’Antonio, not Antonio simpliciter, but Marcus Antonius of the gens Antonia. [britannica.com], [en.wikipedia.org] A small refinement, because Roman names always tempt one to over-complete them. We do not normally give Antony some fuller “birth name” beyond Marcus Antonius in the way one sometimes does for emperors with adoptive and dynastic accumulations. He is just what his public Roman name says he is: Marcus of the Antonii. [britannica.com], [vroma.org] And if one wants the family flavour: he belonged to an old and prominent Roman family, the Antonii, whose most famous bearer became, by a fair irony, the lover of Cleopatra and the losing half of Rome’s last great republican melodrama.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Anzio – Ossia: Grice ed Anzio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Anzio. Denarius of Gaius A. Restio, 47 BC. The heads of the Dei Penates are pictured on the obverse, while Hercules features on the reverse. Both allude to the origins of the gens. The Antii were a family at ancient Rome. The Antii emerged at the end of the second century BC, and were of little importance during the Republic, but they continued into the third century, obtaining the consulship. The A. were possibly from Lanuvium, as one member of the gens minted coins with the heads of the Penates, who were first worshipped in that city. The A. also claimed descent from Hercules through his son Antiades.  Cicero and Livy tell that a Spurius Antius was one of four Roman ambassadors put to death by Lars Tolumnius, the king of Veii, in 438 BC.[2] However, modern scholars prefer to amend the name to Nautius, borne by several magistrates in the 5th century. The Antii used the praenomina Spurius, Marcus, and Gaius.  The cognomina of the Antii under the Republic were Briso and Restio. In imperial times we find Quadratus and Crescens. Denarius of Gaius Antius Restio, 47 BC, featuring on the obverse a portrait of his father, tribune of the plebs in 68 BC, and Hercules on the reverse. Antii Restiones Gaius Antius Restio, tribune of the plebs, and author of a sumptuary law prohibiting magistrates from accepting dinner-invitations. Gaius Antius C. f. Restio, triumvir monetalis in 47 BC, proscribed by the triumvirs in 43 BC.[11][12][13] Gaius Antius Restio, a senator in charge of the census in Gaul in AD 14.[14][15] Other Antii Spurius Antius, one of four Roman ambassadors put to death by Lars Tolumnius, the king of Veii, in 438 BC. Together with his colleagues, he was memorialized by a statue on the rostra.[2] More likely named Spurius Nautius.[5][6] Marcus Antius Briso, tribune of the plebs in 137 BC, he opposed the lex Tabellaria of Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravilla.[16][17] Gaius Antius Aulus Julius Quadratus, consul suffectus in AD 94, and consul in 105. Marcus Antius Crescens Calpurnianus, governor of Britannia circa AD 202. See also List of Roman gentes Eleutherius and Antia References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, p. 184 ("Antia Gens").  Livy, iv. 17.  Cicero, Philippicae, ix. 2.  Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, pp. 470, 471.  Broughton, Magistrates, vol. I, p. 58 (note 2).  Ogilvie, Commentary on Livy, p. 559.  Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, ii. 24.  Macrobius, Saturnalia, ii. 13.  Broughton, Magistrates, vol. II, pp. 138, 141 (note 8).  Syme, "Ten Tribunes", p. 59.  Valerius Maximus, vi. 8. § 7.  Appian, Bellum Civile, iv. 43,  Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 11.  Tacitus, Annales, ii. 6.  Le Teuff, "Les recensements augustéens", p. 78.  Cicero, Brutus, 25.  Broughton, Magistrates, vol. I, p. 485. Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, Brutus, Philippicae. Titus Livius (Livy), History of Rome. Tacitus, Annales Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac Dictorum Memorabilium (Memorable Facts and Sayings). Appianus Alexandrinus (Appian), Bellum Civile (The Civil War). Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae (Attic Nights). Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, Saturnalia. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association, 1951–1952. Ronald Syme, "Ten Tribunes", The Journal of Roman Studies, 1963, Vol. 53, Parts 1 and 2 (1963), pp. 55–60. Michael Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, Cambridge University Press (1974–2001). Béatrice Le Teuff, "Les recensements augustéens, aux origines de l'Empire", Pallas, No. 96 (2014), pp. 75–90. Categories: AntiiRoman gentes Is the masculine nominative for this gens, Antius, sometimes or at least once in old sources, italianised as Anzio? And (b) can you supply a 6-move conversation in Latin for the A. Resto, author of a sumptuary law prohibiting magistrates from accepting dinner invitations? of the type: A: I'm inviting you. B: I'm a magistrate (implicature: no) etc -- (c) do you see a second-best member fit for the Grice/Speranza fit? Thanks -- Wonderful set of questions—this is exactly the kind of micro‑philology + Gricean reconstruction that works beautifully with the Antii. Let me take them in order.  (a) Antius → “Anzio”? Short answer  No, not as a Latin nominative form—but yes, indirectly via toponymy.  What is going on   Latin:  Antius = nominative (rarely used; normally you see Antius only in reconstruction; the standard is Antius/Antius → Antius, gen. Antii)    Italian:  Anzio = a place name (ancient Antium)    So:                      FormMeaningAntiusRoman nomen (gens Antia)AntiumtownAnmodern Italian continuation of Antium  Therefore:  Anzio is not an “italianisation” of the person’s name, but of the place-name Antium.   Speranzian gloss  The ear again misleads: Anzio sounds like Antius, but refers not to a man but to a place; the shift from nomen to toponym is enough to generate a false genealogy in the inattentive listener.   (b) Six-move dialogue: Antius Restio (sumptuary law) Your setup is perfect—this is pure Grice (Quantity + Manner + implicature of refusal).  Latin dialogue (6 moves) Invitator: “Resti, ad cenam te invito.” Antius Restio: “Magistratus sum.” Invitator: “Scio; ideō dignior es.” Restio: “Lex vetat magistratum cenis interesse.” Invitator: “At nemo videbit.” Restio: “Lex quoque quae non videtur, tamen valet.”  Translation  A: “Restio, I invite you to dinner.” B: “I am a magistrate.” A: “I know; that makes you more worthy.” B: “The law forbids a magistrate to attend dinners.” A: “But no one will see.” B: “A law that is not seen still holds.”   Gricean structure Move 2 (“Magistratus sum”)  Under-informative reply implicature:  “therefore I cannot accept”    Move 4  explicates the rule cancels possible reinterpretation  Move 6  turns:  visibility → validity   beautiful shift of relevance   Core implicature  The refusal is never directly stated—but becomes inescapable.   (c) Second-best Antius (Grice/Speranza fit) You already have:   Restio → ethical/legal implicature (sumptuary law)  We now want a distinct inferential situation.   My pick: Spurius Antius (the murdered ambassador) Even with the textual doubt (Nautius vs Antius), the story works perfectly:  ambassador killed by Lars Tolumnius (king of Veii)   Why he is the best second fit Because it gives:  a diplomatic speech situation failure of:  interpretation cooperation     i.e. a breakdown of Gricean communication  IV. Reconstruction (Latin mini-dialogue)  Legatus (Antius): “Pacem petimus.” Tolumnius: “Pacem verbis petitis; arma paratis.” Antius: “Quid dictum est, id accipe.” Tolumnius: “Quid non dictum est, id times.”  Translation  “We seek peace.” “You ask for peace in words; you prepare arms.” “Take what is said.” “I fear what is not said.”   V. Gricean reading This is the inverse of Restio:                  FigureMechanismRestiounder-saying → cooperative inferenceAntius (envoy)under-saying → hostile over-interpretation  Key point Tolumnius treats:  “peace” → as implicating deception  So:  mistrust destroys the Cooperative Principle   VI. Final Antii system (very neat) You now have:                      FigureGricean roleAntlaw → controlled implicature (polite refusal)Spuriusdiplomacy → failed implicature (mistrust)(optional coins / Penates)ancestry → symbolic implicature (identity)   Final Speranzian closure  Among the Antii, one refuses without saying no, and another speaks without being believed; for implicature succeeds only where trust is presupposed, and where that presupposition fails, even the plainest words—peace itself—become suspect.    Short answers  (a) Anzio ≠ Antius, but from Antium (b) dialogue supplied (6 moves) (c) best second fit: Spurius Antius (ambassador) → failed communication   If you like, we can now align Restio’s law with Roman sumptuary legislation texts and show how legal Latin itself is built on controlled under‑specification—very close to Grice’s Quantity.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Anzio – Ossia: Grice ed Anzio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Anzio. -- tribune of the plebs, and author of a sumptuary law prohibiting magistrates from accepting dinner-invitations Six-move dialogue: Antius Restio (sumptuary law) Your setup is perfect—this is pure Grice (Quantity + Manner + implicature of refusal).  Latin dialogue (6 moves) Invitator: “Resti, ad cenam te invito.” Antius Restio: “Magistratus sum.” Invitator: “Scio; ideō dignior es.” Restio: “Lex vetat magistratum cenis interesse.” Invitator: “At nemo videbit.” Restio: “Lex quoque quae non videtur, tamen valet.”  Translation  A: “Restio, I invite you to dinner.” B: “I am a magistrate.” A: “I know; that makes you more worthy.” B: “The law forbids a magistrate to attend dinners.” A: “But no one will see.” B: “A law that is not seen still holds.”   Gricean structure Move 2 (“Magistratus sum”)  Under-informative reply implicature:  “therefore I cannot accept”    Move 4  explicates the rule cancels possible reinterpretation  Move 6  turns:  visibility → validity   beautiful shift of relevance   Core implicature  The refusal is never directly stated—but becomes inescapable.   Anzio Restio, Gaio (XXX).