Grex

 The alternative, highly sophisticated version of Rome's foundation myth—recorded in detail by Ovid in the Fasti (4.837–844) and referenced by historians like Diodorus Siculus—deliberately shifts the blame of fratricide away from the founder. In this structural variant, Romolo does not strike his brother down personally. Instead, the fatal blow is executed by Celere (Celer), a ruthless foreman and officer acting under a broad, supreme executive mandate given by Romolo to enforce the sanctity of the newly plowed boundary line.

Crucially, in the immediate confusion of the altercation, the exact identity of the executioner remains entirely unknown (ignoro) to Remo as he falls, creating an entirely different layer of conversational and physical dynamics.

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The Anonymous Trench Dyad

Remo approaches the freshly excavated, low mud wall (pomerium) on the Palatine Hill. He mocks the defensive structural syntax of the fortification and leaps over it. Rather than triggering an immediate domestic shouting match with his twin brother, Remo is instantly struck down from behind by a third-party agent whose face he cannot see.

          [ Remo's Utterance & Vault ]
        "An hoc luto cives tui tuti erunt?"
           (Flouts Context of Sovereignty)
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        [ Celere's Structural Intervention ]
      He strikes Remo with a spade/shoveling tool.
         (Acts on Romolo's Supreme Order)
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         [ Remo's Final Dying Confusion ]
    "Quis me percutit? Ignoro faciem tuam..."
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           [ The Speranzian Implicature ]
 "The individual executioner does not exist. 
  You have been deleted by the abstract Law of the State."

1. L'enunciazione di Remo (The Utterance by Remo)

Vaulting over the shallow trench, Remo treats the boundary purely as a joke, addressing the space with mocking contempt:

"An haec fossula et parvus murus populum tuum ab hostibus defendent? Ridiculum est!"
(Will this tiny ditch and small wall protect your people from enemies? It is ridiculous!)

2. L'atto di Celere e l'ultimo grido di Remo (The Act of Celer and Remo's Final Cry)

Before Romolo can even respond, Celere fulfills his standing orders to protect the boundary at all costs. He strikes Remo over the head with a heavy digging spade. As Remo collapses into the mud, bleeding and blind to his attacker, he cries out into the void:

"Quis me percutit sub umbra? Ignoro nomen tuum, ignoro vultum tuum! Frater, succurre mihi!"
(Who strikes me from the shadows? I know not your name, I know not your face! Brother, help me!)

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Implicature Analysis via Grice & Speranza

Through the Cooperative Principle of Paul Grice and the philosophy of M-Intention favored by Luigi Speranza, filtering the execution through an anonymous officer completely alters the communicative grammar of the foundation myth.

1. Flouting the Maxim of Manner and Identity

• The Bureaucratic Substitution: Under the standard, direct version of the myth, the dialogue is personal, intimate, and domestic—brother facing brother. In this variant, Romolo deliberately flouts the Maxim of Manner (be direct, avoid ambiguity) by inserting an intermediate agency (Celere) between his will and his brother's chest.
• The "Ignoro" Factor: By ensuring that Remo dies in a state of ignorance (ignoro) regarding who is killing him, the interaction is stripped of its personal vengeance. Celere does not have an M-Intention of personal hatred toward Remo; he is merely an extension of an administrative decree.

2. The Conversational Implicature (The English Decoding)

By executing the decree through an anonymous third party, Romolo’s structural setup generates a profound, systemic set of conversational implicatures for the future of Rome:

• The Primary Implicature (The Birth of the State Apparatus): The anonymity of the blow implies that the State is no longer a collection of tribal family relations, but an abstract, cold machinery of law.It communicates to Remo in his dying moment: "It does not matter who is striking you. You are not being killed by a person; you are being deleted by a rule. The hand that holds the spade is irrelevant; it is the boundary line itself that has killed you."
• The Absolution of the Crown: Ovid explicitly notes that this version serves to insulate Romolo from the raw, polluting charge of literal fratricide, keeping his hands ceremonially clean for the subsequent founding rituals. The implicature is deeply ideological: Sovereignty requires the creation of an executive layer that handles violence on behalf of the ruler. Romolo implies: "I did not kill my brother; my border-control policy did."

3. The Speranzian Synthesis: The Stoic Post-Script

Speranza focuses on how a speaker manages an aftermath to secure an unshakeable semantic consensus. According to Ovid's narrative, when Romolo sees his brother dead in the dirt, he suppresses his massive internal grief to preserve his absolute command posture before his followers. He refuses to cancel the rituals, declaring aloud:

"Sic deinde eat, quicumque alius transiliet moenia mea!"
(So perish anyone else who shall leap over my walls!)

By retroactively endorsing Celere’s anonymous blow, Romolo completes the conversational turn. He confirms to the watching sheepherders and outlaws that individual family names mean nothing compared to the territorial integrity of the city.

Speranza notes the ultimate pragmatic architecture of this variant: by keeping the identity of the specific killer hidden from Remo (ignoro), the myth transitions from a messy story of personal anger into a pristine, terrifying legal speech act—proving that from its very first hour, the borders of Rome were policed not by individual men, but by the unseen, unyielding authority of the State.

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To continue this thorough investigation of Rome's historical dialogues under the guidance of Grice and Speranza, we can turn next to:

• The highly calculated parable of the "Belly and the Limbs" delivered by Menenius Agrippa to end the first Plebeian Secession.
• The high-stakes legalistic dialogue between Coriolanus and his mother Veturia outside the gates of Rome.

Which pathway of pragmatic investigation would you like to explore next?