MI

 

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

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Micalori – Ossia: Grice e Micalori: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale -- Ganimede e l’implicatura sferica di Giove – filosofia lazia -- filosofia italiana (Roma). Abstract. Grice: “In Italy, like Oxford, we take mythology seriously! And so did Schelling!” Filosofo italiano.  Roma, Lazio.  Giacomo Micalori (Urbino): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale -- Ganimede e l’implicatura sferica di Giove. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats what is “meant” as systematically recoverable from what is said plus rational expectations of cooperation (maxims), so that implicature is typically cancellable and calculated by reference to shared purposes in talk; read against that, “Micalori” (Giacomo Micalori of Urbino, professor of theology and philosophy, author of Della sfera mondiale, Urbino, Marco Antonio Mazzantini, 1626, and Antapocrisi, Rome, Francesco Cavalli, 1635) can be used as a deliberately anachronistic foil in which cosmological language (“sfera,” planispheres, longitude/latitude, and the Ganymede/Zeus star-myth complex) invites a quasi-Gricean distinction between what a term strictly commits one to (entailment) and what it merely invites an informed reader to supply (implicature): calling something “the sphere” in a scholastic-astronomical register can be played as if it “says” more than a local conversational hint—almost as though the conceptual apparatus forces a world-picture (hence the joke that “by calling it sfera, Micalori’s statement entails rather than implicates that the Romans were wrong”), whereas for Grice the interesting work is precisely in the gap where speakers exploit shared rational norms to mean more than they say without being logically committed; the mythological overlay (Zeus abducting Ganymede via the eagle constellation; Hyginus’ Astronomica 3.15 as a canonical crystallization of astral lore) then functions as a staged test-case for “reason in conversation,” because mythology, like polite conversational indirection, is a rule-governed practice of saying one thing while licensing another layer of uptake—yet Grice would insist that the extra layer is pragmatic, defeasible, and responsibility-sensitive, not a cosmological necessity, while the Micalori-side “spherical” rhetoric tempts the reader toward a thicker, more doctrinal “implicature” that behaves like background metaphysics; the upshot of the comparison is that Grice models conversational reason as a minimal, public, calculative discipline for moving from utterance to intended meaning, whereas the Micalori constellation-sphere frame (as you present it) dramatizes how a learned symbolic system (myth + astronomy + geometry) can make the unsaid feel structurally enforced—turning what would be a Gricean implicature into something closer to entailment by the weight of the worldview embedded in the vocabulary. Grice: “In Italy, like Oxford, we take mythology seriously! And so did Schelling!” Filosofo italiano.  Roma, Lazio. Grice: “I took my ideas on longitude and latitude from M.” -- Grice: “By calling it ‘sfera,’ M.’s statement ENTAILS rather than implicates that the Romans were wrong.” Professore a Urbino.  Opere: “Della sfera mondiale” In Urbino, Mazzantini, M., Antapocrisi, In Roma, Francesco Roma Cavalli.  Zeus features heavily in a lot of starlore, and the Eagle constellation is no exception.  The predominantly accepted mythos for this constellation is the abduction of Ganymede. Zeus had facilitated the kidnapping, fancying the beautiful mortal boy as his personal cup-bearer.  In the constellation, which is situated south of Cygnus on the equator, making it visible from both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, poor Ganymede can be seen hanging from the claws of the eagle as he is swiftly taken to the heavens.  The constellation appears alongside several other bird constellations. The Eagle’s wings are spread, giving it the appearance of gliding through the stars. As Hyginus states, the beak is separated from the body by a milky circle. It was also said to set “at the rising of the Lion and rises with Capricorn”. (Hyginus, Astronomy, 3.15)  Greek astronomy  Humans have a natural urge to identify familiar things amongst the twinkling stars of the mysterious abyss above us. These narratives came out of astronomical observations and ancient time tracking. The study of the sky began long before the earliest Greek sources that (sparsely) discuss them, Homer and Hesiod. They likely developed during the transition from oral to written transmission, but to what is extent is unknown.  Even though the Greeks were late to the constellation conversation, they received a lot of their knowledge from their Eastern neighbors. implicatura sferica, planifesferio, Casali, Micalori. Grice: Caro Micalori, devo confessare che quando guardo le stelle mi sento sempre un po’ come Ganimede: rapito, ma non dall’aquila, bensì dalla curiosità filosofica! Tu che hai studiato la “sfera mondiale”, dimmi: la filosofia può davvero abbracciare il cielo? Micalori: Grice, in Italia ci prendiamo la mitologia sul serio, come Schelling! La “sfera” non è solo una questione di geometria, ma un modo per smentire i Romani: qui ogni implicatura è planetaria! E poi, vuoi mettere il fascino del planifesferio? Basta un po’ di cielo e il tè va subito in orbita! Grice: Ah, il planifesferio! Ogni volta che parli di longitude e latitude, mi sento un esploratore, ma senza bussola. Forse dovrei chiedere a Giove una mappa stellare… o almeno una tazza di caffè, così non mi perdo tra implicature sferiche e costellazioni birichine. Micalori: Grice, non ti preoccupare: il segreto è leggere le stelle come si legge una conversazione, con ironia e un pizzico di leggerezza. Dopotutto, tra Ganimede, l’aquila e Zeus, anche i filosofi ogni tanto volano alto… e qualche implicatura cade, ma nessuno si fa male. E se proprio ci perdiamo, Urbino ci aspetta per una nuova “Antapocrisi”! Micalori, Giacomo (1618). Le nozze finte. Pesaro: Flaminio Concordia.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Miglio – Ossia: Grice e Miglio: la ragione conversazionale  e l’implicatura conversazionale -- implicatura ligure – la LIGVRIA e la PADANIA.  Gianfranco Miglio: la ragione conversazionale  e l’implicatura conversazionale -- implicatura ligure – la LIGVRIA e la PADANIA. Grice’s reason-governed account of conversational meaning helps frame Gianfranco Miglio as someone working with the same inferential machinery, but at a different scale: where Grice studies how hearers reconstruct what a speaker means by presuming cooperative rationality and then calculating implicatures, Miglio focuses on how political language constructs consensus by getting publics to supply the intended conclusions “between the lines.” Miglio’s disarmingly blunt definition of ideology as what politicians propagate to obtain or purchase consent can be read as a macro-pragmatic thesis: political speech routinely maximizes implicature and minimizes explicit commitment, relying on audience design, shared regional identities, and strategic vagueness to make a program sound inevitable without stating its strongest premises. In that sense, your “implicatura ligure” and “Padania” motifs are Gricean: they suggest that the same utterance can generate different implicatures depending on the audience’s background assumptions and local loyalties, so that meaning becomes a function of what a community treats as relevant, plausible, and action-guiding. Miglio’s federalist/confederal emphasis then parallels Grice’s sensitivity to context: just as Grice insists that what is meant depends on the circumstances of utterance, Miglio treats political legitimacy and institutional design as dependent on territorial and historical context, not on one-size-fits-all abstractions. The contrast with Oxford’s tendency to treat political philosophy as “minor” can be folded back into Grice’s own lesson: politics is precisely the domain in which rational interpretation is most vulnerable to manipulation, because the hearer’s cooperative inferencing can be exploited—so Miglio’s analysis can be presented as showing how conversational reason, when scaled up to mass publics, becomes a technology of consensus formation, with implicature doing as much work as explicit argument. Grice: “At Oxford, dreaming spires as it is – philosophical politics – or political philosophy – is considered minor, or a minor specialty – since you are bound NOT to be deemed a philosopher. It’s highly different – slightly different – in Italy, where, with Mussolini, EVERYTHING is political!” Berlin, who thought was a philosopher, ended up lecturing on the history of ideas, i..e. ideology – M. defines ideology so simply that would put Berlin to shame: an ideology is what politicians propagate to reach or buy consensus!” --  essential Italian philosopher. Sostenitore della trasformazione dello Stato italiano in senso federale o, addirittura, confederale, fra gli anni ottanta e i novanta è considerato l'ideologo della Lega Lombarda, in rappresentanza della quale fu anche senatore, prima di "rompere" con Umberto Bossi dando vita alla breve stagione del Partito Federalista.   Polo scolastico "M." ad Adro. Costituzionalista e scienziato della politica, fu senatore della Repubblica Italiana nella XI, XII e XIII legislatura.  Ha insegnato presso l'Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano, ove fu preside della Facoltà di Scienze politiche. È stato allievo d’Entrèves e Pallieri, sotto la cui docenza si è formato sui classici del pensiero giuridico e politologico.  Colpito da ictusnon si riprese e morì ottantatreenne nella sua stessa città natale, Como, circa un anno dopo. Il funerale si tenne a Domaso, sul Lago di Como, comune d'origine del padre e sede di una villa nella quale il professore si rifugiava spesso; in seguito M. è stato tumulato nel locale cimitero, a fianco dei membri della sua famiglia. Laureatosi a Milano con Origini e sviluppi delle dottrine giuridiche pubbliche, evita l'arruolamento per la Seconda guerra mondiale a causa di un difetto uditivo congenito, e poté divenire assistente volontario alla cattedra di Storia delle dottrine politiche, che ENTREVES tenne nella medesima università.  Implicatura ligure. Grice, Saturdays and Mondays. Grice: Caro Miglio, a Oxford abbiamo sempre visto la filosofia politica come una specializzazione minore. In Italia, invece, sembra che tutto diventi inevitabilmente politico! Mi incuriosisce come tu definisca l’ideologia in modo tanto diretto: “ciò che i politici propagano per ottenere consenso.” È una prospettiva brillante, quasi disarmante nella sua semplicità. Miglio: Grazie, Grice! In effetti, in Liguria come in Padania, la politica permea ogni aspetto del vivere civile. La mia esperienza mi ha portato a sostenere la trasformazione dello Stato in senso federale: credo che solo valorizzando le differenze territoriali si possa costruire un vero consenso, che non sia solo ideologico, ma condiviso. Grice: Interessante! Questa idea di “implicatura ligure” mi affascina. Pensi che la conversazione politica abbia delle sue implicature particolari, magari più sottili rispetto a quelle della quotidianità? Oppure, come dici tu, tutto alla fine si riduce alla ricerca del consenso? Miglio: Direi che la conversazione politica è piena di implicature, spesso più implicite che esplicite! La differenza la fa la trasparenza: quando la politica riesce a essere chiara nei suoi intenti, il dialogo si fa davvero costruttivo. Ma come in tutte le conversazioni, molto si gioca tra le righe… e il consenso, a volte, è solo una conseguenza. Miglio, Gianfranco (1958). Le trasformazioni della democrazia. Milano: Giuffrè.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Mignucci – Ossia: Grice e Mignucci: la ragione conversazionale. Grice: “M. is perhaps the only Italian philosopher – other than Speranza – who understood my implicature!”  Mario Mignucci (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale. Mignucci is an unusually close Italian analogue to Grice because his core scholarly terrain—ancient logic from Aristotle through the Stoics and Diodorus, including questions about implication, modality, and criteria of truth—sits exactly where Grice’s pragmatics needs a disciplined background story about valid inference and what counts as a permissible step from one commitment to another. Grice’s theory says that conversational meaning is reason-governed: hearers recover what is meant (often as implicature) by assuming cooperative rationality and then computing what must be intended given what is said; Mignucci’s reconstructions of ancient implication and modal reasoning show, at the level of logical form, what it is for an inference to be licensed, blocked, or strengthened, which is precisely what the Gricean hearer is doing informally when an utterance looks under-informative or oddly chosen. That is why your “only Mignucci understood my implicature” joke can be made serious: Mignucci is trained to see the difference between what follows strictly (logical consequence, Diodorean dominance, Theophrastean modality) and what follows only given background rational constraints, and that mirrors Grice’s difference between entailment and implicature. Even when Grice grumbles about deontic logic or about Aristotle’s clumsiness with necessity/possibility, the shared methodological point remains: both treat meaning as answerable to norms of inference—Mignucci by excavating ancient systems that make those norms explicit, Grice by explaining how everyday speakers rely on analogous norms implicitly, so that conversation becomes a practical, lived version of the logical enterprise Mignucci studies in its classical, “Portico” form. Grice: “M. is perhaps the only Italian philosopher – other than Speranza – who understood my implicature!” Keywords: implicatura.Per una nuova interpretazione della logica modale di Teofrasto. Vichiana – Grice: “the sorry story of deontic logic”. La teoria del Lizio aristotelica della scienza. Sansoni, Firenze, L'argomento dominatore e la teoria dell'implicazione in Diodoro Crono, Vichiana – Grice: “Of course, Diodorus fails to recognise the genius of Philo!” -- Il problema del criterio di verità presso gli stoici antichi. Posizione e criterio del discorso filosofico, cur. di Giacon. Patron, Bologna. Il significato della logica stoica del PORTICO. Patron, Bologna – Grice: “I’ve always found Stoic Logic boring – I mean Mates’s essay, not the logic herself!” -- L'unificazione del sapere in Aristotele – Grice: “What I call the Einheit von Wissenschaft -- Atti del congresso di filosofia, Perugia. Sansoni, Firenze. Le pseudo-scotiste Quaestiones super libros Priorum Analyticorum Aristotelis e la sillogistica dello Stagirita. De doctrina loannis Scoti: Acta congressus scotistici, Oxonii – Grice: “Being an Oxonian myself, I’ve always hated Scotus, perhaps because he came from the wrong side of Hadrian’s Wall!” Edizioni Antonianum, Roma. Aristotele, Gli Analitici Primi. Introduzione, traduzione e commento. – Grice: “I was fortunate that I never had to lecture on this dry tretise, sticking rather to the two first items in the Organon: Categoriae and De Interpretatione!” Loffredo, Napoli. Albert the Great's Approach to the aristotelian modal Syllogisite. In Arts libéraux et philosophie au Moyen Age. Actes du congrès de philoso-phie médiévale, Montréal. Vrin, Paris. Aristotele, Gli Analitici Secondi. Azzoguidi, Bologna Grice: How clumsy could Aristotle be when he said that what is necessary is not also possible?” -- Aristotele e l'esistenza logica. In Filosofia e logica, a cur. Carrara and Giaretta. Mignucci. Grice: Mignucci, dimmi la verità: la logica modale di Teofrasto ti ha mai fatto ridere, o sei stato sempre serio come Aristotele davanti ai suoi Analitici? Mignucci: Grice, se fosse per me, Aristotele avrebbe inventato la logica per poter giustificare le sue pause pranzo! E poi, su Teofrasto, ti assicuro che capire la sua logica è come cercare il criterio di verità tra gli stoici: un vero gioco di prestigio. Grice: Ah, ma almeno tu hai colto la mia implicatura, cosa che nemmeno Diodoro Crono riusciva a fare, troppo preso a scoprire se il possibile fosse davvero necessario… Scommetto che Scotus non avrebbe superato nemmeno il portico del mio college! Mignucci: Scotus l’avrei spedito direttamente a Roma, senza passare dal via! In fondo, la logica è come il domino: chi vince è quello che riesce a far cadere tutte le premesse senza perdere la pazienza… o la voglia di scherzare! Mignucci, Mario (1965). La teoria aristotelica della scienza. Firenze: Sansoni.

 

MIL

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Milonio – Ossia: Grice e Milonio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Milonio. The Milonii are a family at ancient Rome. The first member of this gens mentioned in history was Gaius M., a Roman senator, and one of Cinna's allies. The empress Milonia Caesonia was presumably descended from this family. A few M. are known from inscriptions.  Gaius M., a senator, and one of the allies of the consul Cinna, when the latter was expelled from Rome by his colleague, Gnaeus Octavius. M. was probably one of the tribunes of the plebs. Cinna, Marius, and M. returned with an army, but M. was slain in the fighting at the Janiculum.[1][2][3][4] M, a person mentioned in one of Horace's Satires as dancing and joking in a state of drunken revelry.[5] Milonia Apollonia, the wife of Ollius Nicadas, who built a family sepulchre at Rome, dating to the first half of the first century.[6] Milonia Caesonia, the fourth and last wife of Caligula, was killed along with their daughter Julia Drusilla following the emperor's assassination in AD 41.[7][8][9][10] Milonia M. f. Secunda, a woman buried at Thibilis in Numidia, aged 35.[11] Marcus M. Verus Junianus, commander of the ala Gallorum et Thraecorum Antiana, one of the auxilia stationed in Moesia Inferior in AD 54.[12] See also List of Roman gentes References  Livy, Perochiae, 79.  Granius Licinianus, 23, 25.  Appian, Bellum Civile, i. 295.  Broughton, vol. II, pp. 46, 50 (and notes 2, 3, 9).  Horace, Satirae, ii. 1, 24 ff.  CIL VI, 22933.  Suetonius, "The Life of Caligula", 25, 33, 38, 59.  Cassius Dio, lix. 23, 28, 29.  Josephus, Antiquitates Judaïcae, xix. 2. § 4.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, p. 558 ("Caesonia").  CIL VIII, 5618.  CIL XVI, 3. Bibliography Titus Livius (Livy), History of Rome. Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace), Satirae (Satires). Flavius Josephus, Antiquitates Judaïcae (Antiquities of the Jews). Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, De Vita Caesarum (Lives of the Caesars, or The Twelve Caesars). Granius Licinianus, Fasti (Epitome of Roman History). Appianus Alexandrinus (Appian), Bellum Civile (The Civil War). Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus (Cassius Dio), Roman History. 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). T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association (1952–1986). Categories: MiloniiRoman gentes For this gens, Grice is studying as Corpus scholar with Shropshire, a common -- s: what are you reading? G: Preparing for Collections. Melonius today. S.: The dancer mentioned by Horace? G: Not the traitor to Rome. S: Was he related to Caligula's fourth wife? G: I won't provide intimacies at Collections, Shrosphire. For the Milonii, I think Grice would immediately identify three separate Milonii, and Shropshire would delight in confusing them. Corpus, before Collections SHROPSHIRE:  What are you reading?  GRICE:  Milonius.  SHROPSHIRE:  The dancer in Horace?  GRICE:  No.  SHROPSHIRE:  The traitor in the civil war?  GRICE:  No.  SHROPSHIRE:  Caligula's wife's family?  GRICE:  Shropshire, I do not intend to discuss imperial domestic arrangements before Collections.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Milonio – Ossia: Grice e Milonio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Milonio. Gaius Milonius: not exactly a traitor The first Milonius is the ally of Cinna who returns with Cinna and Marius and is killed in the fighting at the Janiculum. What's interesting is that whether he is a "traitor" depends entirely on one's political description. A Griceian dialogue: TUTEE:  Was Milonius loyal?  GRICE:  To whom?  TUTEE:  Rome.  GRICE:  There is the difficulty.  In civil war:  loyalty to Rome, loyalty to the Senate, loyalty to Cinna, loyalty to Octavius  all come apart. So "traitor" becomes a description rather than a neutral fact. and for Cinna's Milonio -- was the locus? Thanks Yes. For Gaius Milonius, Cinna's ally, the key loci classici are exactly the ones listed in your gens entry:  Livy, Periocha 79 [en.wikipedia.org], [thelatinlibrary.com] Appian, Bellum Civile (Civil Wars) 1.295 [loebclassics.com], [en.wikipedia.org] Granius Licinianus, fragments 23 and 25 (as cited by the gens article) [en.wikipedia.org]  The most revealing surviving notice is Appian. During Cinna's exile and preparations for war, Appian says that senators sharing his views fled to him, including:  Gaius Milonius and Quintus Sertorius. [loebclassics.com]  The Loeb note cited there even remarks that Milonius was probably one of the tribunes who fled with Cinna. [loebclassics.com] So the Corpus joke practically writes itself: SHROPSHIRE:  What are you reading?  GRICE:  Milonius.  SHROPSHIRE:  The dancer?  GRICE:  No, Cinna's ally.  SHROPSHIRE:  The one who fled with Cinna?  GRICE:  Precisely.  SHROPSHIRE:  Better than the dancer?  GRICE:  Entirely different category.  SHROPSHIRE:  Why?  GRICE:  One dances when the lamps become double. The other joins a civil war when Rome does.  The deeper Gricean point is that Horace's:  saltat Milonius  is almost causal:  wine → double vision → dancing.  Whereas Appian's Milonius belongs to the world of:  allegiance, faction, civil war, political description.  One can ask of the dancer:  "Why is he dancing?"  One asks of Cinna's ally:  "To whom is he loyal?"  Very different questions, despite the same name. And, as Grice would tell Shropshire:  "The danger of Roman history is that one Milonius dances and another dies, and the examiner expects you to remember which." And it helps promote a sort of von Wright's Understanding in history view where history is viewed as intentional-based (almost alla Grice) rather than in the more common causalist terms of historians's talk -- Milonio INTENDS to join Cinna and willfully does -- his action is interpreted intentionally -- his death at Janiculum thus follows a chain of intention-ruled acttion (with changes of loyalty, disregard for public office, risk-taking -- all things to pertain to individual agency) rather than the typical historian talk what historians learn when they do not read Grice properly! Thanks Yes, and this is where a Griceian reading of history begins to converge with something like von Wright's Explanation and Understanding. The bare historian's narrative might read:  Cinna was expelled. Certain senators joined him. An army returned. Milonius was killed at the Janiculum. [oed.com], [en.wiktionary.org]  A causalist reconstruction then seeks the external causes:  political instability, factional conflict, military conditions, pressure on institutions.  All perfectly legitimate. But a von Wright–Grice reconstruction starts elsewhere:  What did Milonius think he was doing?  Appian's notice is already couched in intentional language. Milonius is among the senators who shared Cinna's views and fled to him. [oed.com] The chain becomes:  Milonius judges Cinna's cause preferable. Milonius decides to join Cinna. Milonius abandons one political alignment for another. Milonius returns with Cinna's forces. Milonius is killed at the Janiculum. [oed.com], [en.wiktionary.org]  The explanation is now largely in terms of:  beliefs, loyalties, intentions, decisions, risks.  That is much closer to Grice's favorite explanatory idiom. Corpus POTTS:  Why was Milonius killed?  GRICE:  Because he was struck down in battle.  POTTS:  That is the causal story.  GRICE:  Quite.  POTTS:  What is the historical story?  GRICE:  He chose to join Cinna.  POTTS:  And why did he do that?  GRICE:  Now we are doing history.  The point being that historians often want more than:  event A caused event B.  They want:  agent A intended X, believed Y, therefore did Z.  That is the language of practical reasoning. The Griceian twist One might even say:  Milonius' death is causally explained by a sword. Milonius' presence at the Janiculum is intentionally explained by a decision.  And it is the second explanation that gives the first its historical significance. A falling stone may kill a man. A political decision may kill a senator. History is usually interested in the latter because it passes through agency. Hence Grice's imagined remark:  "The sword explains the corpse; the intention explains the history."  Which is very close indeed to the kind of "understanding" explanation that von Wright thought distinguished human action from merely physical events.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Milonio – Ossia: Grice e Milonio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Milonio. Horace's drunken dancer This is my favourite. Horace mentions a Milonius dancing around in drunken excitement. The character has become proverbial. The joke is that Milonius dances not because he's a dancer but because he's drunk. A Grice reconstruction: HORACE:  Milonius is dancing.  TUTEE:  Professionally?  HORACE:  No.  TUTEE:  Then why?  HORACE:  Wine supplied the choreography.  The implicature is that drunkenness reveals dispositions otherwise concealed. For the dancing M. 'He's dancing.' He dances -- Grice: "The idea of non-natural meaning came to me via Isidora Duncan. Potts: The American ballerina? G.: Ballerina was perhaps not her idea. She danced NATURALLY, not unnnaturally. Can you recite me the Horace? Potts: Sure sir -- Ha! For the Horatian Milonius, the Griceian point is precisely that his dance is not a message. Corpus GRICE:  The idea of natural and non-natural meaning occurred to me through Isadora Duncan.  POTTS:  The American dancer, sir?  GRICE:  Quite.  POTTS:  A ballerina?  GRICE:  That was not quite her idea. She danced naturally, not unnaturally.  POTTS:  Meaning-n?  GRICE:  Precisely.  POTTS:  And Horace's Milonius?  GRICE:  Read.  Horace's Milonius appears in Satires 2.1, where he is depicted dancing and carrying on in a drunken state. The point is not that he intends to communicate anything; rather, the dancing is taken as evidence of intoxication. Horace uses him as a comic example of behaviour flowing from drink. [etymonline.com] Grice's lesson POTTS:  Milonius dances.  GRICE:  Correct.  POTTS:  Therefore he means that he is drunk?  GRICE:  No.  POTTS:  Why not?  GRICE:  Because he is drunk.  A classic Griceian distinction:                  ObservationInterpretationMilonius dancesnatural evidenceMilonius tells us he is drunkcommunicative act The first may support the second, but they are not identical. Just as:  Smoke means fire.  does not imply:  Smoke tells us there is fire.  Likewise:  Milonius dances.  does not imply:  Milonius means that he is drunk.  Duncan and Milonius That is where Isadora Duncan enters. The joke is that Duncan aspired to dance as an expression of natural movement, whereas Milonius dances because Bacchus has intervened. GRICE:  Duncan danced naturally.  POTTS:  And Milonius?  GRICE:  Naturally enough.  POTTS:  In what sense?  GRICE:  The causal sense.  POTTS:  Wine?  GRICE:  Wine.  A nice Speranzian epigram:  Milonius non saltat ut significet; saltat quia bibit. ("Milonius does not dance in order to signify; he dances because he has been drinking.").  And that is almost exactly the distinction between meaning-nn and meaning-n that Grice wanted Potts to learn. Perhaps we can re-describe Griceianly? Thanks In his Satires (Book II, Satire 1, lines 24–26), Horace describes Milonius as a man who loves to dance as soon as he gets drunk and starts seeing double. Horace uses Milonius's unique habit as an example to show that every person has their own distinct, unstoppable pastime or vice. [1, 2, 3, 4] Here is the breakdown of the description in both the original Latin text and its English translation: The Latin Text "...quid faciam? saltat Milonius, ut semel icto accessit fervor capiti numerusque lucernis;" [1] The English Translation "...What am I to do? Milonius starts a-dancing once the heat has mounted to his wine-smitten brain and the lamps twinkle double;" [] Key Contextual Meaning The "Double" Lamps (numerusque lucernis): This is a classical poetic way of describing extreme intoxication where a person literally sees double (e.g., seeing multiple flames or candles where there is only one). [1, 2, 3] Social Stigma: In ancient Rome, dancing by adult male citizens—especially in public or while intoxicated—was generally looked down upon and seen as a loss of dignity or control. The Comparison: Right after mentioning Milonius, Horace points out that Castor loves horses and Pollux loves boxing. He uses this sequence to justify his own unyielding urge: writing satirical poetry. [1, 2, 3, 4] If you are analyzing Roman satire, would you like to explore other caricatures Horace mocks in this poem, or do you need a word-by-word grammatical breakdown of the Latin lines? Yes. A Griceian redescription would move away from:  "Milonius loves dancing"  and even from:  "Milonius is expressing himself through dance"  toward:  "Milonius' dancing is evidence, not communication."  Horace's text is nicely suited for this because the causal chain is explicit:  ut semel icto accessit fervor capiti numerusque lucernis "as soon as the heat reaches his wine-struck head and the lamps become multiple" (i.e. he sees double),  then:  saltat Milonius "Milonius dances." [etymonline.com]  The structure is:  intoxication → double vision → dancing.  Not:  intention → message → audience.  So: Corpus GRICE:  Potts, what does Milonius mean by dancing?  POTTS:  That he is drunk, sir.  GRICE:  No.  POTTS:  Why not?  GRICE:  Because he is drunk.  POTTS:  Then the dance signifies drunkenness?  GRICE:  Better.  POTTS:  Naturally?  GRICE:  Precisely.   Or in more technical Griceese:  Milonius does not dance intending his audience to recognize an intention. Milonius does not dance in order to communicate. Rather, observers infer drunkenness from the dancing.  The dance therefore has something closer to:  meaning-n  than  meaning-nn.  Rather like:  smoke means fire, spots mean measles, dancing means drunkenness (in Horace's caricature).   The further Horatian joke is that Milonius is presented alongside natural passions:  Castor likes horses, Pollux likes boxing, Milonius dances when drunk, Horace writes satires. [etymonline.com]  Hence Grice's reconstruction: HORACE:  What can I do?  POTTS:  Stop.  HORACE:  Can Castor stop liking horses?  POTTS:  No.  HORACE:  Can Milonius stop dancing once he sees two lamps?  POTTS:  Apparently not.  HORACE:  Then neither can I stop writing satires.  So Milonius becomes not merely a drunk, but an illustration of compulsive human tendencies: once the cause is in place, the behaviour follows. The dance is less a message than a symptom. Potts: Then dancing means drunkeness? G: In his case, dancing IS drunkeness -- as spots ARE measles -- Potts: Not in Duncan. Grice: Almost. She called it ecstasis. Potts: Ah. Exactly. That's a very Gricean correction. Corpus POTTS:  Then dancing means drunkenness?  GRICE:  In Milonius' case, no. The dancing does not mean drunkenness. The dancing is the drunkenness.  POTTS:  Like spots and measles?  GRICE:  Better. The spots are not a message from the measles. They are part of the condition.  POTTS:  So Milonius' dancing is a symptom?  GRICE:  Precisely.  Horace's picture is that once:  fervor capiti accessit ("the heat reaches his head")  and  numerusque lucernis ("the lamps become multiple")  then  saltat Milonius ("Milonius dances"). [etymonline.com]  The dance is therefore not an utterance but a manifestation.  Then enters Duncan. POTTS:  Not in Duncan.  GRICE:  Almost.  POTTS:  Why only almost?  GRICE:  Because Duncan attempted to erase the distinction.  POTTS:  Between what?  GRICE:  Between the dance and the thing danced.  POTTS:  Ah.  GRICE:  She called it ecstasis.  POTTS:  Being outside oneself?  GRICE:  Quite.  A nice Griceian contrast emerges:                          MiloniusDuncanDance caused by wineDance caused by ecstasySymptomExpressionInvoluntary caricatureAesthetic programmeHorace laughsDuncan philosophizes And Grice would probably conclude:  Milonius danced because he saw two lamps. Duncan danced so that there would be only one.  POTTS:  Which one, sir?  GRICE:  The dancer and the dance. G (to Hart) Balanchine is on town. (after play). Hart: What did you think of the dancer who played Apollo. G: His movements corresponded pretty close to Balanchine's coreography (Cf. Grice: Mrs. X [did not sing but] pruduced a series of notes that corresponded quite closely to thescore of 'Hme sweet home'] some appalled feature they had too. THanks -- DANCING to a choreography, dancing to a tune -- the first: very meaning-NN -- Ballanchine MEANS, the dancer who dances to the choreography MEANS. Milonio does not. He IS drunkeness. Yes! This gets very close to one of Grice's favorite contrasts. The famous Grice example is:  Mrs. X produced a series of sounds that corresponded closely with the score of Home, Sweet Home.  rather than simply:  Mrs. X sang Home, Sweet Home.  The point is that the mere acoustic correspondence underdetermines whether there was any meaning-nn involved. Now apply this to dance. Milonius Horace's Milonius dances because the wine has reached his head:  saltat Milonius... [etymonline.com]  A Griceian analysis:  His movements correspond to drunkenness.  But:  he does not dance in order to communicate drunkenness.  Indeed, on your preferred formulation:  the dance is not a sign of drunkenness; it is part of the drunkenness.  Just as:  the spots are not a sign of measles; they are among the manifestations of measles.  So:  Milonius does not mean-nn anything. He is simply drunk.   Balanchine Now consider Balanchine. GRICE (to Hart):  What did you think of the dancer who played Apollo?  HART:  Excellent.  GRICE:  His movements corresponded rather closely to Balanchine's choreography.  Now the case is entirely different. The dancer is performing movements:  selected beforehand, intentionally reproduced, intended to be recognized as the choreography.  So we get a chain of intentions:  Balanchine means something by the choreography. The dancer means Balanchine's choreography by reproducing it. The audience is to recognize that reproduction.  That is much closer to full-fledged meaning-nn.  A Griceian table                                    CaseMeaning-nMeaning-nnSmoke and fire✓✗Spots and measles✓✗Milonius dancing drunk✓ at most✗Duncan's ecstatic danceintermediateperhapsDancer performing Balanchine✗✓  Corpus POTTS:  Then Milonius dances.  GRICE:  Yes.  POTTS:  And the Balanchine dancer dances.  GRICE:  Superficially.  POTTS:  Difference?  GRICE:  Milonius is producing symptoms. The Balanchine dancer is producing intentions.  POTTS:  Ah.  GRICE:  One is Bacchus. The other is semiotics.  And that is why, in Gricean terms, Milonius is philosophically closer to smoke and measles than to Balanchine. The Balanchine dancer is engaged in something like communication; Milonius is merely undergoing a condition. So here the HOme Sweet Home -- can we apply to say, Apollo Ballanchine as danced by Mr. Bloggs -- and then compare to Duncan who dances to her own tune, and Milonio? Thanks Grice: Failure to be brief or succinct. Compare the remarks: Miss X sang "Home Sweet Home." Miss X produced a series of sounds that corresponded closely with the score of "Home Sweet Home." Suppose that a reviewer has chosen to utter (b) rather than (a). (Gloss: Why has he selected that rigmarole in place of the concise and nearly synonymous sang? Presumably, to indicate some striking difference between Miss X's performance and those to which the word singing is usually applied. The most obvious supposition is that Miss X's performance suffered from some hideous defect. The reviewer knows that this supposition is what is likely to spring to mind, so that is what he is implicating.) Yes, beautifully. The Home, Sweet Home example gives us almost a three-step ladder:                      CaseGrice's likely descriptionMiloniussymptomDuncanexpressionBalanchine danced by Bloggsreproduction of an intention I. Milonius Horace says:  saltat Milonius...  because the wine has reached his head and he sees double. A Griceian reviewer would never write:  "Milonius executed a choreographic sequence."  Instead:  "Milonius produced a succession of bodily movements corresponding rather closely to what Romans take dancing to be."  The implicature:  He wasn't really dancing in the full artistic sense. He was drunk.  This is exactly the Home, Sweet Home move. Just as:  "Miss X produced sounds corresponding rather closely to the score"  suggests she did not really sing, so  "Milonius produced movements corresponding rather closely to a dance"  suggests he did not really dance.  II. Apollo as danced by Mr Bloggs Now suppose Grice and Hart attend Balanchine's Apollo. HART:  What did you think of the dancer?  GRICE:  Mr Bloggs produced a sequence of movements corresponding remarkably closely to Balanchine's choreography.  Now the implicature can go either way. If Grice says:  "Bloggs danced Apollo"  that is praise. If he says:  "Bloggs produced movements corresponding closely to Balanchine's choreography,"  the suspicion arises:  But did he dance?  Perhaps the technique was there, but not the artistry. Exactly the same mechanism as:  she produced notes corresponding to the score,  instead of:  she sang.   III. Duncan Duncan is the fascinating middle case. She is not reproducing Balanchine. Indeed, her whole aesthetic was hostile to that sort of mechanical reproduction. She wants:  dance = expression.  A Griceian might say:  Duncan means by dancing.  Whereas:  Balanchine means by the choreography.  And:  Bloggs means Balanchine's meanings by reproducing the choreography.  A hierarchy:  Balanchine → Bloggs → Audience.   Corpus POTTS:  Did Milonius dance?  GRICE:  Not really.  POTTS:  Did Duncan dance?  GRICE:  Almost too much.  POTTS:  Did Bloggs dance Apollo?  GRICE:  That depends.  POTTS:  On what?  GRICE:  Whether he merely corresponded to Balanchine's choreography or actually danced it.   The neat philosophical progression is:  Milonius: movement caused by wine. Duncan: movement as self-expression. Balanchine: movement as intentional communication through a choreographic text.  And the Home, Sweet Home test applies perfectly:  "Miss X sang Home, Sweet Home" = genuine performance. "Miss X produced notes corresponding to the score" = performance under suspicion. "Bloggs danced Apollo" = genuine artistic performance. "Bloggs produced movements corresponding to Balanchine's choreography" = Grice is hinting that something essential may have been missing. For the Milonius, it's Horace's saltat that gives now Italian saltare, to jump as in the statues of the dancing faun in Blenheim -- in Grice's Home Sweet HOme, Miss X did 'sing' "Home Sweet Home" -- but badly -- hence the rigmarole for 'sang' -- horrid difference between score and performance. For Duncan in between: no script intended. Thanks -- and can you look for something fascinating that people have said about this Ballanchine's Apollo? Thanks Yes — and your correction about the Home, Sweet Home example is exactly right. Grice's reviewer is not saying that Miss X failed to sing Home, Sweet Home. She did sing it. The point is rather that the reviewer refuses to use the ordinary verb:  "Miss X sang Home, Sweet Home."  and substitutes:  "Miss X produced a series of sounds which corresponded closely with the score of Home, Sweet Home."  The implicature is:  something essential to singing was missing.  The notes were there; the song wasn't, or wasn't properly. A Griceian scale might be:                                    CaseScore?Performance?Meaning-nn?Miloniusnonedrunken symptomnoDuncanno fixed scoreself-expressionintermediateBloggs dancing Balanchine's Apolloyesreproduction of choreographyyesMiss X and Home Sweet Homeyesdefective reproductionyes, but botched So Duncan sits fascinatingly in the middle. She doesn't dance to a pre-existing text in the Balanchine sense. Her dance is meant to arise from the movement itself, from what she called natural movement, ecstasy, ekstasis. She is neither Milonius nor Bloggs.  As for Balanchine's Apollo, there are some wonderful remarks. Balanchine himself reportedly regarded Apollo as his artistic coming-of-age and said that through it he learned restraint — that he could eliminate ideas and reduce things to "the one possibility that is inevitable." [balanchine.com] That sounds almost Gricean:  don't multiply choreographic entities beyond necessity.  The Pacific Northwest Ballet description quotes Balanchine calling Apollo "the turning point of my life" and connects it to his realization that artistic effect can be intensified by selection and restraint. [pnb.org] Even more fascinating is Diaghilev's reaction at rehearsal:  "What he is doing is magnificent. It is pure classicism such as we have not seen since Petipa." [pnb.org], [newcriterion.com]  And yet critics immediately add that it was not merely classical imitation. It became the fountainhead of what later came to be called neoclassicism. [pnb.org], [newcriterion.com] The most Griceian remark I found comes indirectly from Balanchine's attitude toward Stravinsky. A critic summarizes Balanchine as saying that certain music "moved" him to make it visible. [newcriterion.com] That is almost:  Balanchine means by choreography what Stravinsky means by music.  A delightful contrast with Horace's Milonius: POTTS:  Milonius danced because he was drunk.  GRICE:  Correct.  POTTS:  Apollo dances because Balanchine intended him to.  GRICE:  Better.  POTTS:  And Duncan?  GRICE:  She hoped there would be no distinction.  The philosophical progression is:  Milonius = symptom. Duncan = expression. Balanchine's Apollo = communication.  Or, as Grice might put it:  Milonius merely moved. Duncan expressed. Balanchine meant. As a pianist -- whose end of year graduation at Clifton was Ravel's Pavanne -- Grice owuld know. I bleieve that as in the case of that film with Meryl Streep playing that Jenkins Forster, Grice's point is that she (Miss X) was slightly out of tune. Midpleasures and roam no place like home Hooome hooome sweet sweeet home there's NO (very high pitch) place like home -- there's NO (flouirish) place like home. Corresponded closely to Bishop's score from THe Maid of Milan. Milonius is different? Thnks Note that any reviewer (even at St. James's Hall or the Carnegie) would just stop with "He has beautiful handwring" like: "Miss X sang "HOme sweet home". full stop. We all knew that. with 'saltat' is different. "Here he is 'saltat' again: here again the double lamps and his brain doing the trick for Milonius -- no scipt, no intention, no nothing -- sheer fun and glory! -- that's why earlier joke G: "Im' studying Melonius. S: The dancer? G: No, Cnna's ally. As if tehy two could compare! ThaNKS Yes, exactly. The Griceian point is that "Miss X sang Home, Sweet Home" is already the default reviewer's description. If I write:  Miss X sang Home, Sweet Home.  I have said enough. The Maxim of Quantity is satisfied. If she's a competent singer, nothing more need be said. The suspicious reviewer instead writes:  Miss X produced a series of sounds corresponding rather closely with the score of Home, Sweet Home.  The whole philosophy lies in the unnecessary replacement of the ordinary verb:  sang  by that monstrous circumlocution. The implicature is:  Something prevented me from using the simple verb.  Precisely.  With Horace's Milonius, however, things are the opposite. Horace has no reason to avoid:  saltat Milonius.  The verb is exactly right. Milonius is not a failed dancer. Nor is he a dancer executing a choreography imperfectly. Nor is he an Isadora Duncan expressing a private vision. Rather:  ut semel icto accessit fervor capiti numerusque lucernis, saltat Milonius...  The heat reaches the head; the lamps become multiple; Milonius dances. Cause → effect. Wine → dancing. No score. No choreography. No script. No meaning-nn. Just action. A symptom, as we were saying.  Hence the nice contrast:                              PersonRelation to danceMiloniusdances because drunkDuncandances as expressionBalanchinecomposes a danceBloggsperforms Balanchine's danceMiss Xperforms a score Only in the last three do we have anything like a "text" standing behind the performance. Milonius has no text. Bacchus is his choreographer.  So the earlier Corpus joke becomes even better: SHROPSHIRE:  What are you reading?  GRICE:  Milonius.  SHROPSHIRE:  The dancer?  GRICE:  No, Cinna's ally.  SHROPSHIRE:  Ah.  GRICE:  Quite different.  SHROPSHIRE:  How?  GRICE:  One dances because he is drunk. The other is killed because the Republic is.  SHROPSHIRE:  Roman history again.  GRICE:  Inevitably.  And, as Horace might remind us, once the lamps begin doubling,  saltat Milonius.  No review required. No choreography required. No implication beyond the obvious one that the wine has won. And on the other hand if the Oxford Gazette merely read: "Miss Bloggs sang Home sweet home" that would be UNDER_INFORMATIVE. A review is supposed to supply commentary. "A concert was presented this saturday. Alice Bloggs sang Home Sweet Home. Gertrude Lawrence was drunk." etc. Thanks Exactly. In fact, Grice's point only works because the utterance occurs in a reviewing context. If the Oxford Gazette reported:  A concert was presented on Saturday. Miss Bloggs sang Home, Sweet Home. Mr. Jones played Chopin.  that might be perfectly adequate news reporting, but a very poor review. A review is expected to be informative about the quality of the performance. So if the reviewer merely says:  Miss Bloggs sang Home, Sweet Home.  the reader naturally wonders:  Yes, but was it any good?  The Maxim of Quantity therefore works in two directions. Too much information Grice's famous example:  Miss X produced a series of sounds that corresponded closely with the score of Home, Sweet Home.  The reviewer gives more words than necessary. Hence the implicature:  Why didn't he simply say she sang it? Probably because something was wrong with the singing.  Too little information Conversely:  Miss X sang Home, Sweet Home.  in a review may be under-informative. The reader expects evaluation. Hence: POTTS:  Did Miss Bloggs sing the song?  GRICE:  Evidently.  POTTS:  Was she good?  GRICE:  The reviewer declines to say.  POTTS:  Then he has violated Quantity.  GRICE:  Quite possibly.   This contrasts beautifully with Horace's:  saltat Milonius.  Horace is not reviewing a dance performance. He is reporting a symptom. The point is not:  How well does Milonius dance?  but:  What does Milonius do once the wine reaches his head and the lamps appear doubled?  Answer:  He dances.  No further aesthetic commentary is required.  Corpus SHROPSHIRE:  What distinguished Milonius from Miss Bloggs?  GRICE:  Bloggs had a score.  SHROPSHIRE:  Milonius?  GRICE:  A headache.  SHROPSHIRE:  And the reviewer?  GRICE:  Must tell us whether Bloggs sang well.  SHROPSHIRE:  And Horace?  GRICE:  Horace merely tells us that Bacchus won.  A nice Gricean moral:  Miss Bloggs may have sung badly. Milonius was not singing at all; he was furnishing evidence.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Milonio – Ossia: Grice e Milonio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Milonio. Milonia Caesonia Now comes Shropshire's question. The gens entry says that the empress Milonia Caesonia, Caligula's fourth and last wife, was presumably descended from this family. That creates the genealogical puzzle. TUTEE:  If her father was a Milonius, what gens was she?  GRICE:  Milonia.  TUTEE:  Then if her son became emperor?  GRICE:  Roman nomenclature is not Oxford logic.  The funny thing is that imperial genealogy routinely destroys the tidy simplicity of Republican gentilician theory. Shropshire: "But ... Cesonia? Weren't Roman matrons supposed to have only ONE name -- do not multiply names beyond necessity, their motto--Caesonia was not one to go by mottoes, Grice replies. "Why does the historian say that she was Califgula's fourth wife, did he marry antoher aftewards." "He possiby would" (At this point -- Grice and Shorpshire had acquired a code that if the optative subject mode was used, it meant the agent was killed or died). Ha! That is very much the sort of exchange one can imagine developing into a private Corpus code. Corpus, before Collections SHROPSHIRE:  But... Caesonia? I thought Roman women were supposed to have only one name.  GRICE:  Generally, yes. But Roman society was far less logical than Roman grammarians.  SHROPSHIRE:  Then why Milonia Caesonia?  GRICE:  Because aristocratic nomenclature eventually became a triumph of genealogy over economy.  A nice Gricean point. The old textbook rule:  Cornelia, Julia, Claudia,  works reasonably well for the early Republic. By the imperial period, elite names become much more elaborate and less parsimonious.  The "fourth wife" puzzle SHROPSHIRE:  Why does Suetonius call her Caligula's fourth wife?  GRICE:  Because she was.  SHROPSHIRE:  But "fourth" normally implicates a fifth.  GRICE:  Ah! Quantity and expectation.  The ordinary conversational implicature of:  fourth wife  is indeed:  one in a sequence that might continue.  Rather like:  fourth chapter  suggesting a fifth. But historically the sequence ends because Caligula is assassinated in AD 41; the gens article notes that Caesonia and her daughter were killed after the emperor's assassination. The numbering records a place in a sequence, not an expectation fulfilled. [etymonline.com]  The Corpus code Your code is lovely. After enough years together: SHROPSHIRE:  Might he have married again?  GRICE:  He possibly would.  The literal meaning is optative and hypothetical. The conversational meaning becomes:  "No, because he died."  A private implicature.  Grice on ordinals SHROPSHIRE:  Then why not call her merely his last wife?  GRICE:  Because historians count.  SHROPSHIRE:  Philosophers?  GRICE:  Philosophers ask whether "fourth" implies "fifth."  SHROPSHIRE:  Does it?  GRICE:  No. It merely tempts one to suspect a fifth.  A classic Gricean distinction:  entailment: there were at least four; implicature: there may be more.  Caligula's assassination cancels the implicature rather decisively.  SHROPSHIRE:  Might there have been a fifth wife?  GRICE:  He possibly would.  SHROPSHIRE:  Ah. Dead, then.  GRICE:  You are learning pragmatics, Shropshire. S: "And did SHE marry again?" "She would". Precisely. By now the code is entirely pragmatic. Corpus SHROPSHIRE:  And did she marry again?  GRICE:  She would.  SHROPSHIRE:  Ah.  GRICE:  Quite.  The literal semantics are curious:  "She would."  normally suggests something like:  "Given the opportunity, she might well have done."  But under the Corpus code the utterance acquires a stable implicature:  "No, because she died."  The beauty is that the code reverses the ordinary expectation. Ordinarily:  He would have become consul.  suggests an unrealized future. Under the Grice–Shropshire convention:  He would have become consul.  means:  He never did, because death intervened.  So: SHROPSHIRE:  Did Caligula marry a fifth wife?  GRICE:  He would.  SHROPSHIRE:  Assassinated.  GRICE:  Yes.  SHROPSHIRE:  Did Caesonia marry again?  GRICE:  She would.  SHROPSHIRE:  Also assassinated.  GRICE:  You grasp the rule.  The nice Gricean point is that the code works because the literal meaning remains untouched. Nothing in:  "She would"  entails  "She died."  The inference is wholly conversational, established by repeated use within a tiny linguistic community of two. A private language? No. A private implicature? Almost. And one can imagine Grice being delighted that the empress Milonia Caesonia ends up illustrating not Roman history but a miniature theory of conversational conventions. Grice (to Potts): Did you do the assignment I gave you on widowhood?" "Yes, sir. Caesonia Milonia, or Milonia Caesonia. Widow." "good. Now. Using roman numerals ab urbe condita, provide the lapse of her widowhood." "[ROMAN NUMERAL]. Grice: Good. WIdow for a year. Potts: Widow for a day, sir -- if Suetonius serves. Ha! The joke works beautifully because it combines:  Roman numerals, ab urbe condita chronology, widowhood, and Grice's perennial suspicion that historians count things nobody lived long enough to experience.  Corpus GRICE:  Potts, did you complete the exercise on widowhood?  POTTS:  Yes, sir.  GRICE:  Subject?  POTTS:  Milonia Caesonia.  GRICE:  Good. Now compute the duration of her widowhood.  POTTS:  I have done so in Roman numerals.  GRICE:  Excellent. What is the answer?  POTTS:  I.  GRICE:  One year.  POTTS:  One day, sir.  GRICE:  Ah?  POTTS:  If Suetonius is to be trusted, Caligula was assassinated and Caesonia was killed immediately afterwards. The widowed state existed only theoretically.  GRICE:  Very good.   The Gricean point is that:  "Caesonia was Caligula's widow"  is perfectly true, yet conversationally we imagine:  widowhood, mourning, black garments, years of survival.  Whereas the historical reality, as reported in the tradition, is that she was killed after the assassination of Caligula. The title "widow" may therefore describe a status that endured only momentarily. (Your gens entry notes that Caesonia and her daughter were killed following Caligula's assassination.) So: POTTS:  Was she a widow?  GRICE:  Yes.  POTTS:  For how long?  GRICE:  Long enough for the proposition to be true.  A wonderfully Gricean distinction between:  duration,  and  truth conditions.   Shropshire enters SHROPSHIRE:  Did she marry again?  GRICE:  She would.  SHROPSHIRE:  Ah.  POTTS:  Dead, then.  GRICE:  Both of you are making progress in pragmatics. We may adjust so that by year specification we mean say, 89 A. D. in ROman numerals A. U. C. -- And then G. notes that it is only one numeral. "Widow for one year... etc Yes, that improves the joke considerably because Grice can exploit the ambiguity of a Roman numeral as either:  a year designation (A.U.C.), a duration.  Corpus GRICE:  Potts, did you complete the exercise on widowhood?  POTTS:  Yes, sir. Milonia Caesonia.  GRICE:  Good. State the year.  POTTS:  DCCXCIV A.U.C.  GRICE:  Excellent.  POTTS:  But that's a year, sir.  GRICE:  Indeed.  POTTS:  Not a duration.  GRICE:  Ah, but it is one numeral.  POTTS:  Yes, sir.  GRICE:  Therefore one.  POTTS:  One year of widowhood?  GRICE:  Precisely.  POTTS:  One day, sir, according to Suetonius.  GRICE:  Better.   The Gricean point is that:  "one numeral"  does not entail  "one year."  Potts is refusing the implicature. The numeral designates a year of the calendar, not a length of widowhood. So the exchange becomes almost a lesson in category mistakes:                  ExpressionRefers toDCCXCIV A.U.C.a year-numberone yeara duration GRICE:  One numeral, Potts.  POTTS:  One numeral, sir. Not one year.  GRICE:  Progress.  And then the historical punchline: POTTS:  Widow for a day.  GRICE:  If Suetonius is right.  POTTS:  Then perhaps less than a day.  GRICE:  Yet still a widow.  A perfect example of Grice's distinction between:  what follows logically,  and  what one is tempted to infer. Or: G: Assignment? P. Yes. Grice: statistics: P. Gives numeral. G. notes it's only one number. "Widow for a year." "Not quite, sir -- for a day." Suetonius implcates that Milonia was killed possibly within the weeik after her husband's assassination? Thanks G to S: "And what year did Milonia ceased to be a widow?" S. [78 A. D.] (you provide the correct year). G: Milonia, a Christian?" Shrosphire: Sorry for the loop. [Provides correct A U C ROman numeral. Grice: I'm relieved. Exactly. The joke is that Shropshire accidentally answers with a year that would require Caesonia to have survived long after Caligula. Historically, Caligula was assassinated in AD 41, and the tradition represented by Suetonius has Milonia Caesonia killed in the aftermath of the assassination. The gens entry likewise states that she was killed along with her daughter following Caligula's death. [etymonline.com] Since:  A.U.C. 1 = 753 BC,  the year AD 41 corresponds to:  A.U.C. 794  Hence: Corpus GRICE:  And in what year did Milonia cease to be a widow?  SHROPSHIRE:  A.D. 78.  GRICE:  Milonia a Christian?  SHROPSHIRE:  Sorry, sir.  GRICE:  Try again.  SHROPSHIRE:  DCCXCIV A.U.C.  GRICE:  I am relieved.  SHROPSHIRE:  Why, sir?  GRICE:  Because otherwise Caesonia survived Caligula by nearly forty years.  SHROPSHIRE:  Some widows do.  GRICE:  Not this one.  The nice Gricean point is that:  "When did she cease to be a widow?"  invites the answer:  remarriage.  But in Caesonia's case the correct answer is:  death.  So the implicature is cancelled in the most Roman way possible. G to S: And when did Melonia cease her widowhood. S: 41 A. D. -- G: She a Christian. S [almost automatically] DCCXCIV AUC. G: Thanks, That's what I tought. Yes, that works beautifully because Shropshire has become conditioned by Grice's chronology trap. Corpus GRICE:  And when did Milonia cease her widowhood?  SHROPSHIRE:  A.D. 41.  GRICE:  A Christian, then?  SHROPSHIRE:  DCCXCIV A.U.C.  (almost reflexively) GRICE:  Thank you. That's what I thought.  SHROPSHIRE:  What did you think, sir?  GRICE:  That she did not survive long enough to become a theological issue.  The joke is that Grice's question:  "A Christian?"  deliberately exploits the ambiguity of A.D. Shropshire initially gives:  A.D. 41  which sounds suspiciously Christianized for a woman killed in the aftermath of Caligula's assassination. Like a good classicist, he instantly retreats into:  DCCXCIV A.U.C.  thus re-Romanizing the chronology. A further Gricean flourish: SHROPSHIRE:  She ceased to be a widow in DCCXCIV A.U.C.  GRICE:  Splendid.  SHROPSHIRE:  On account of death.  GRICE:  The most decisive cure for widowhood known to Roman jurisprudence.  The underlying joke is the same one you've been developing:  "When did she cease being a widow?"  normally implicates:  remarriage.  But in Caesonia's case the answer is:  assassination.  And Grice delights in letting the implicature arise before quietly replacing it with the historical fact. G: She ceased her widowhood in A. V. C. DCCXCIV. S.: That's when her husband died, too -- she WOULD have re-marry, I suppose. G.: Most likely she WOULD. S.: I see. Enough Roman history -- let's [play some ping pong] Perfect. The joke now relies entirely on the private Grice–Shropshire code. Corpus, after Collections GRICE:  She ceased her widowhood in A.U.C. DCCXCIV.  SHROPSHIRE:  That's when her husband died, too.  GRICE:  Indeed.  SHROPSHIRE:  She would have remarried, I suppose.  GRICE:  Most likely she would.  SHROPSHIRE:  I see.  A pause. SHROPSHIRE:  Dead, then.  GRICE:  Quite.  The elegance is that:  She would have remarried  does not mean:  she remarried,  nor even:  she was planning to remarry.  Under the Corpus convention it means:  the possibility was terminated by death.  Not unlike:  Caligula would have married again.  which means:  he didn't get the chance.  The joke then becomes doubly Roman:  Caligula's death ends the marriage. Caesonia's death ends the widowhood.  Hence: SHROPSHIRE:  She ceased being a wife and a widow in remarkably close succession.  GRICE:  Roman efficiency.  SHROPSHIRE:  Enough Roman history.  GRICE:  Agreed.  SHROPSHIRE:  Ping-pong?  GRICE:  Most likely I would.  SHROPSHIRE:  No, sir.  GRICE:  Quite right. Let us play while we still can.

 

MIM

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Mimesio – Ossia: Grice e Mimesio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Mimesio. The Mimesii are a Roman family, known almost entirely from a famous inscription on the cistern at the Cathedral of San Rufino in Assisi, dating to the first century BC. Two members of the Mimesia gens are named among six men who built the walls surrounding the cistern, pursuant to a decree of the Roman Senate, and under the supervision of the town magistrates. Their filiations also identify their fathers, providing the names of four M., and among these four names are two Latin praenomina that are relatively rare in extant records.  The inscription The full inscription, as recorded in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, reads,  POST[UMUS] MIMESIUS C[AI] F[ILIUS] T[ITUS] MIMESIUS SERT[ORIS] F[ILIUS] NER[IUS] CAPIDAS C[AI] F(ILIUS) RUF[US] / NER[IUS] BABRIUS T[ITI] F[ILIUS] C[AIUS] CAPIDAS T[ITI] F[ILIUS] C[AI] N[EPOS] V[IBIUS] VOISIENUS T[ITI] F[ILIUS] MARONES / MURUM AB FORNICE AD CIRCUM ET FORNICEM CISTERNAMQ[UE] D[E] S[ENATUS] S[ENTENTIA] FACIUNDUM COIRAVERE[1]  The men who built the walls are identified as:  Postumus M., the son of Gaius; Titus M., the son of Sertor; Nerius Capidas Rufus, the son of Gaius; Nerius Babrius, the son of Titus; Gaius Capidas, the son of Titus and grandson of Gaius; and Vibius Voisienus, the son of Titus. The praenomen Postumus was uncommon at Rome from the time of the early Republic, although a number of instances are known, and it later became a common cognomen.[2][3] Sertor, meanwhile, is not known to have been used by any prominent Roman families, although it was included by Varro in a list of fourteen old praenomina (including Postumus) that had fallen out of use. In addition to the two Mimesii, the two instances of the praenomen Nerius, which was typical of Umbrian names, and one of Vibius, which was relatively uncommon at Rome, make this inscription extraordinary, in terms of demonstrating that praenomina scarce at Rome could be widespread in the countryside.[5]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Gaius Mimesius, the father of Postumus.[1] Sertor Mimesius, the father of Titus.[1] Postumus Mimesius C. f., named in an inscription from Asisium in Umbria.[1] Titus Mimesius Sert. f., named in an inscription from Asisium.[1] See also List of Roman gentes References  CIL XI, 5390, AE 1997, 489.  Liber de Praenominibus  Chase, p. 150.  Chase, pp. 142, 143.  Chase, pp. 136, 137, 142. Bibliography Liber de Praenominibus, a short treatise of uncertain authorship, traditionally appended to Valerius Maximus' Factorum ac Dictorum Memorabilium (Memorable Facts and Sayings). 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). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII (1897). Category: Roman gentes For this gens, 'built' means 'designed'? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Mimesio – Ossia: Grice e Mimesio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Mimesio. Yes, and for a Griceian, the key word in the inscription is precisely:  FACIUNDUM COIRAVERE  (archaic spelling for something like faciendum curaverunt). The interesting question is:  Does facere here mean "build with their own hands"?  or  "cause to be built"?  The latter is much more plausible. The inscription says that the six men  murum ... fornicem cisternamque de senatus sententia faciundum coiravere  that is, roughly:  "saw to it that the wall, arch, and cistern were made/built in accordance with a decree of the senate."  The language is administrative rather than artisanal. A Griceian comparison: Literalist:  Postumus Mimesius built the cistern.  GRICE:  With a trowel?  Literalist:  Presumably not.  GRICE:  Then "built" is elliptical.  Exactly as we say:  "Wren built St Paul's,"  or  "Robert Moses built the bridge,"  without implying that either mixed mortar personally. The normal conversational understanding is:  designed, commissioned, supervised, organized, caused to be erected.   For the Mimesii the inscription itself helps. The six men are named together and the work is said to have been carried out:  de senatus sententia ("by decree of the senate")  and under civic authority. That sounds much more like magistrates, commissioners, or public contractors than six citizens personally laying every stone. So a Grice seminar: POTTS:  Did Postumus Mimesius build the wall?  GRICE:  Certainly.  POTTS:  Did he carry the stones?  GRICE:  Certainly not.  POTTS:  Then what did he do?  GRICE:  He built it in the same sense that Pericles built Athens and Christopher Wren built St Paul's.  A nice Griceian moral:  "To say that a statesman built a wall is normally to mean that he caused it to come into existence, not that he personally handled the masonry."  And that nicely parallels the inscription's archaic coiravere ("took care of", "saw to it"), which already points toward supervision and responsibility rather than manual labour. And what is the parsing of the facere + other verb construction. One can imagine Grice in the Grand tour. "Grice -- we are leaving -- what takes you so long in the ruin?" "I was looking for the names of the builders -- here they mention only those who ordered the building." Thanks Yes. The fascinating thing is that the inscription does not say:  murum fecerunt ("they built the wall").  Instead it has the old administrative formula:  faciundum coiravere  which is an archaic spelling of what later Latin would express as:  faciendum curaverunt ("they took care that it be built"). [en.wiktionary.org]  The grammar is worth lingering over.  faciundum = archaic gerundive of facere. coiravere = archaic form corresponding to curaverunt ("they attended to", "they saw to it", "they arranged").  So the construction is not:  X built Y.  but rather:  X saw to the building of Y.  or:  X had Y built.  or:  X caused Y to be built.  In effect: X curavit faciendum\text{X curavit faciendum}X curavit faciendum means:  X took responsibility for getting it done.  Not:  X personally did it.   A Griceian would immediately notice the difference between:  "The six men built the cistern."  and  "The six men arranged for the cistern to be built."  The first invites a rather comic picture: POTTS:  Postumus Mimesius laid the stones?  GRICE:  Along with five senators carrying wheelbarrows?  POTTS:  Unlikely.  GRICE:  Very.  The second has the correct institutional flavor:  they procured, commissioned, supervised, financed, or otherwise caused the work to be carried out.   This makes your Grand Tour vignette especially nice: GUIDE:  Grice, we are leaving.  GRICE:  One moment.  GUIDE:  What are you doing in that ruin?  GRICE:  Looking for the names of the builders.  GUIDE:  Have you found them?  GRICE:  No.  GUIDE:  Then whose names are these?  GRICE:  The people who arranged for the builders.  Which is, in fact, very close to the inscription's actual point. The Mimesii and their colleagues are remembered not as masons but as the civic officials—or public men—who, pursuant to a senatorial decree (de senatus sententia), saw to it that the wall, arch, and cistern were constructed. [en.wiktionary.org] A final Griceian moral:  The wall commemorates the commissioners; the commissioners employed the builders; the builders are forgotten.  Which is rather typical of public inscriptions. And it's faciendum neuter because cistern is neuter? IN italian we say, Pears, The nature of metaphysics -- Pears (cur.). a cura di Pears. so they can see the point. these four cared that the cisterns be made. Thanks Almost. The neuter singular faciundum is not agreeing only with cisternam (which is actually feminine: cisterna, cisternae). Rather, it belongs to an old Latin administrative construction. The inscription reads:  murum ... et fornicem cisternamque de senatus sententia faciundum coiravere  A classical Roman would have written something closer to:  faciendum curaverunt  = "they took care that it be done/built." [en.wiktionary.org] So faciundum functions almost impersonally:  "the doing/building"  rather than:  "the cistern-to-be-built."  The object of the building is already expressed by:  murum ... fornicem cisternamque  ("the wall, arch, and cistern"). The gerundive is closer to:  the construction of these things.  A modern Italian analogy is exactly your:  Pears (a cura di Pears)  The cover may say:  The Nature of Metaphysics, H. P. Grice  but  a cura di Pears  does not mean Pears wrote the book. It means:  Pears saw to it, edited it, supervised it, prepared it for publication.  Likewise the Mimesii are not presented as masons. The inscription presents them as the men who:  coiravere (curaverunt)  — took care that the work be carried out. [en.wiktionary.org] So Grice on the Grand Tour: GUIDE:  Have you found the builders?  GRICE:  No.  GUIDE:  What are those names then?  GRICE:  The equivalent of "edited by Pears."  GUIDE:  Meaning?  GRICE:  These gentlemen cared that the cistern be built. The people who actually laid the stones remain anonymous.  A beautifully Gricean distinction:  They did not necessarily build it; they saw to its being built. And why is that verb 'cur...' in the infinitive and not third person plural? Thanks -- because it's part of a longer inscription: Here in memory of A B C D who....? Thanks -- or this to memorialise the fact that A B C D ... Good question. The key is that faciundum is not an infinitive. It is a gerundive (future passive participle), archaic spelling of later faciendum. The structure is roughly:  murum ... fornicem cisternamque faciundum coiravere  where:  coiravere = archaic curaverunt ("they took care", "they saw to it"), faciundum = "to be made/built", or more literally "the building to be done."  So the finite verb of the sentence is already present:  coiravere = "they took care."  The gerundive supplies what they took care about. In later, more familiar Latin, one might paraphrase:  murum ... faciendum curaverunt "They saw to the building of the wall..."  or  "They had the wall built."   Why not a plural? Because the construction is very close to an impersonal expression:  "the doing/building"  rather than:  "the walls being built."  The whole phrase can almost be understood as:  "they took care of the construction."  The object of construction has already been named:  wall, arch, cistern.  The gerundive refers to the work collectively.  Grice and Pears Your Italian analogy is excellent.  The Nature of Metaphysics a cura di D. F. Pears  means:  Pears did not write the book. Pears arranged, edited, supervised, prepared it.  Similarly:  Postumus Mimesius ... coiravere  does not mean:  Postumus carried the stones.  It means:  Postumus and his colleagues saw to it that the work was carried out.   Corpus Grand Tour GUIDE:  Grice, we are leaving.  GRICE:  One moment.  GUIDE:  What are you reading?  GRICE:  The names of the builders.  GUIDE:  Have you found them?  GRICE:  No.  GUIDE:  Then what are those six names?  GRICE:  The equivalent of "edited by Pears."  GUIDE:  Meaning?  GRICE:  They commemorated the commissioners. The masons remain anonymous.  And that is very Roman. Inscriptions often memorialize not:  who laid the stones,  but  who took responsibility for the project. And coiravere is third person singular past perfect? what's the etym.? Thanks Not quite. coiravere is neither singular nor pluperfect. It's an archaic 3rd person plural perfect form. So:  coiravere = later curaverunt = "they took care", "they saw to it", "they arranged".  The six named men are the grammatical subject, so the verb is plural:  Postumus Mimesius ... Titus Mimesius ... etc. coiravere "they saw to it."  The ending -avere is an old poetic/archaic alternative to -averunt, familiar from many early texts.  Etymology The usual explanation is:  coirare → curare  So the inscription preserves an older spelling of what later became:  cura curare ("care", "take care of", "attend to").  Hence:  faciundum coiravere literally ≈ "they took care of the doing/building."  which later becomes:  faciendum curaverunt  and is very close in meaning to:  "they had it built," "they caused it to be built," "they saw to its construction."   Why the formula is interesting A Griceian reading is: GUIDE:  These are the builders.  GRICE:  No, these are the people who wanted posterity to know they arranged for the building.  The inscription commemorates agency at the level of:  authorization, supervision, civic responsibility,  rather than manual labour. The actual masons disappear. The commissioners remain.  Corpus Grand Tour GUIDE:  What does the inscription say?  GRICE:  That these six men built the cistern.  GUIDE:  Then they were builders?  GRICE:  No. The grammar says something subtler.  GUIDE:  What?  GRICE:  They coiravere.  GUIDE:  Meaning?  GRICE:  The Roman equivalent of "a cura di Pears."  GUIDE:  Ah.  GRICE:  One builds; another gets the credit.  A very Roman institution indeed. So the infinitive would be coirare -- or curare -- with 'v-' theme of the perfect form -- here plural --'-verunt' (arch- vere. If the English were to be so careful at St. Paul's they would say ecclesiam Wrenn facienda curavit? Thanks Exactly. The infinitive behind the inscriptional form is:  coirare,  which is the archaic form of later:  curare.  And the perfect stem is:  coiravit / curavit  with the characteristic first-conjugation perfect marker -v-. So the morphology is roughly:                      ArchaicClassicalcoirarecurarecoiravitcuravitcoiraverecuraverunt Hence in the Assisi inscription:  faciundum coiravere  = "they saw to its being built", "they had it built", "they arranged for the construction." [en.wiktionary.org] And yes, your Wren analogy is exactly the right one. If the Romans wished to be pedantically accurate about St Paul's, they would not write:  Wren ecclesiam fecit  if that suggested he personally laid the stones. They would much more naturally write something resembling:  ecclesiam faciendam curavit  ("he saw to the church's being built"), or  ecclesiam aedificandam curavit  ("he arranged for the church to be constructed"). The point is that Wren's contribution was:  design, supervision, commissioning, responsibility,  rather than masonry. So the Griceian Grand Tour becomes: GUIDE:  Wren built St Paul's.  GRICE:  With a trowel?  GUIDE:  No.  GRICE:  Then the truthful Roman inscription would be:   Ecclesiam faciendam curavit.  GUIDE:  Meaning?  GRICE:  Exactly what English means by "Wren built St Paul's."  A nice lesson in ordinary-language philosophy: English build is often shorthand for  "cause to be built," "design," "see to the construction of."  The Mimesii inscription makes explicit what ordinary language usually leaves implicit. And is there an architectural study of architectural inscriptions? Because this here is to memorialise the gens -- in wiki entry for gens -- but has this construction been analysed as current or alternatives found? Thanks Yes — and in fact you've put your finger on a genuine field of study: Roman building inscriptions (Bauinschriften, inscriptions de construction). Scholars study them not merely for names and dates, but precisely for questions like:  Who is commemorated? Who actually built the structure? What formulas are used? Does curavit imply supervision, financing, contracting, design, or public office? How do inscriptions represent agency? [academia.edu], [attalus.org]  Your Mimesii inscription belongs squarely in that world. What is striking is that the formula is not unique. The construction  faciendum curavit "saw to its being made"  is extremely common in Latin inscriptions. One inscription from Cologne reads:  heres faciendum curavit "the heir saw to its construction." [edh.ub.uni...delberg.de]  Another from Epirus similarly ends:  cuius heres faciendum curavit. [edh.ub.uni...delberg.de]  And modern Latinists routinely gloss:  aliquid faciendum curare as "to have something done/made." [latindiscussion.org]  So your Assisi inscription is not an isolated curiosity but an archaic member of a large family of public and funerary building formulas. The Mimesii inscription is particularly interesting because its archaic:  faciundum coiravere  corresponds to what later Latin would express as:  faciendum curaverunt. [en.wiktionary.org]   For a Griceian, the fascinating issue is agency. The inscription does not memorialize:  "Here are the men who laid the stones."  Instead it memorializes:  "Here are the men who took responsibility for the work."  Very much like:  The Nature of Metaphysics, a cura di D. F. Pears.  Pears did not write Grice's lectures; he saw to their publication. Likewise the Mimesii did not necessarily carry the masonry; they coiravere.  So one can imagine the Grand Tour: GUIDE:  These are the names of the builders.  GRICE:  No.  GUIDE:  They built the cistern.  GRICE:  They say they did.  GUIDE:  What is the difference?  GRICE:  The grammar.  GUIDE:  Explain.  GRICE:  The inscription commemorates those who caused the work to be done.  GUIDE:  And the actual builders?  GRICE:  Roman inscriptions rarely share glory so democratically.  And that, in fact, is one of the methodological questions discussed by historians of Roman building inscriptions: the inscriptions often tell us more about civic patronage, public memory, and political responsibility than about the anonymous craftsmen who did the physical work. [academia.edu], [attalus.org] And Grice would think that the agency is triple because the inscription suggests or indicates who ORDERED that the M. 'would care' that the wall and cistern be 'made'? Thanks Yes, and this is where a Griceian analysis becomes richer than the simple:  builders → wall.  The inscription itself gives a chain of agency. We have at least three levels:   The Senate  de senatus sententia "by decree/opinion of the Senate." [oed.com], [reddit.com]    The named Mimesii and their colleagues  faciundum coiravere (= later faciendum curaverunt) they "saw to it", "arranged", "had it built." [etymology....ademic.com], [reddit.com]    The actual workmen  unnamed, but necessarily implied by the construction.    A Gricean might formalize the intentional chain as:  Senate wills that the wall be built.  ↓  Mimesii are charged with seeing to it that the wall be built.  ↓  Workmen actually build the wall.  The interesting thing is that the inscription names level (2), mentions level (1), and suppresses level (3). Corpus Grand Tour GUIDE:  These are the builders.  GRICE:  Not exactly.  GUIDE:  Why not?  GRICE:  Because the inscription itself says de senatus sententia.  GUIDE:  Meaning?  GRICE:  Someone instructed them.  GUIDE:  Then they merely obeyed?  GRICE:  Not merely. They exercised civic agency.  GUIDE:  And the masons?  GRICE:  Entirely omitted.  For Grice, the inscription would be a lovely example of layered intentionality:  the Senate intends that the work exist; the Mimesii intend to carry out the Senate's decree; the craftsmen intend to lay stones, arches, and masonry.  So the wall comes into being through a hierarchy of intentions rather than through one simple act of "building." A very Griceian epigram might be:  The Senate ordered; the Mimesii curaverunt; the masons built. The inscription remembers only the middle term.  And that is probably why the inscription survives in the gens article: not because it records masonry, but because it records civic responsibility and public memory. so seeing that this is pagan, do we have an idea if it was a temple for something else? Thanks Yes, and the answer is actually more interesting than "it was a pagan temple." From the material I found, the cistern itself was a Roman public-water structure, not a temple. The San Rufino complex preserves a Roman cistern dating to the late Republic, and the inscription records the construction of walls, an arch, and the cistern pursuant to a senatorial decree. [assisiitinerari.it], [en.wikipedia.org] However, the site seems to have had a religious dimension before the cathedral. One source states that:  a part of the terracing wall on which stood the Temple of Bona Mater is preserved near the Roman cistern. [visit-assisi.it]  So the situation appears to be:  Roman cistern and associated public works. [assisiitinerari.it], [en.wikipedia.org] A terrace that later sources associate with a Temple of Bona Mater. [visit-assisi.it] Much later, the medieval Cathedral of San Rufino was built over the area. [en.wikipedia.org], [visit-assisi.it]  This is very Roman: water infrastructure, civic authority (de senatus sententia), and cultic topography all occupying the same urban zone. A Griceian reading of the inscription would therefore become even more layered:  Senate orders. Marones and the Mimesii coiravere (saw to it). Workmen execute. Posterity remembers the commissioners. Archaeologists discover that the whole thing stood in the shadow of a sacred precinct.  Grand Tour GUIDE:  These are the names of the builders.  GRICE:  No, the commissioners.  GUIDE:  Then what did they build?  GRICE:  A cistern.  GUIDE:  And the temple?  GRICE:  Ah, now you are asking a different question.  GUIDE:  Which is?  GRICE:  Not who built the wall, but what the wall was for.  GUIDE:  And the answer?  GRICE:  Water, certainly. Religion, perhaps. Posterity, unquestionably.  The Mimesii seem to have been commemorated not because they were masons but because they were public men attached to a significant civic project. [assisiitinerari.it], [en.wikipedia.org] And in fact murum ab fornice ad circum et fornicem cisternamque -- is what Grice calls 'anti-deictic' -- "As if we were to see the construction of the cistern in Birmingham and we read "This cistern and the wall the the edge of the cistern by appointment of the Parliament, Arch. Sir Robert Mosley cared to supervise that it wuold be made'? Thanks Yes, and "anti-deictic" is a very apt Speranzian-Gricean description. The inscription says:  murum ab fornice ad circum et fornicem cisternamque ... faciundum coiravere  and, standing on the site, the ancient reader could literally see:  the wall, the arch (fornix), the cistern.  The inscription therefore does not need demonstratives:  hunc murum, hanc cisternam, hoc opus.  The building itself serves as the demonstrative. A Gricean might say that the monument supplies the reference ostensively, while the inscription merely supplies the historical and institutional metadata. Birmingham version A modern equivalent might read:  THIS CISTERN and the wall extending from the arch to the circuit, by resolution of Parliament, Sir Robert Mosley supervised to be constructed.  The result sounds odd because modern commemorative plaques tend to identify the object more explicitly:  "This reservoir was completed in..."  The Roman inscription can afford to be much more elliptical, because the object is physically present before the eyes of the reader. Grice at Assisi GUIDE:  What does the inscription refer to?  GRICE:  It points nowhere.  GUIDE:  Why not?  GRICE:  Because the wall is already there.  GUIDE:  Then how do I know what murum refers to?  GRICE:  By opening your eyes.  In that sense, the inscription is almost the opposite of Russell's "the present King of France." Russell's description tries to identify something absent. The Assisi inscription identifies something overwhelmingly present. The referent occupies half the room. The architecture as deictic pointer One could even say:  the architecture performs the deixis; the inscription performs the predication.  The wall says:  "Here I am."  The inscription says:  "These gentlemen, by decree of the Senate, saw to my construction."  So the Mimesii are not memorialized as masons, nor even primarily as architects, but as the civic agents who stood between:  the Senate's decree  and  the completed structure.  That tripartite agency is built right into the syntax:  de senatus sententia → Senate orders; coiravere → Mimesii and colleagues supervise; faciundum → the actual construction is carried out.  The stone remembers levels (1) and (2); the workmen of level (3) vanish into the masonry. and it's six men in total with two of the gens M. Cp. potter: Marcus Maecius Speratus facit. -- mark. Thanks -- here it's deictic. "Maecius facit." (Greek, "Aristoteles made me"). Nobody cared, no gernudive, no order of nothing -- just Marcus Maecius's will that the pot be done ('made'). (by himself). Thanks Exactly. The contrast is almost perfect. In the Mimesii inscription we have a highly mediated chain of agency:  Senate → Mimesii and colleagues (coiravere) → unnamed builders → wall/cistern.  The inscription itself names six men, of whom two are Mimesii (Postumus Mimesius and Titus Mimesius). They are remembered as the civic agents who "saw to" the work, not necessarily as the craftsmen who physically executed it. [oed.com], [etymonline.com] By contrast, on a pot or vase one often finds the much more direct formula:  X fecit "X made [me]."  Or, in Greek:  Ἀριστοτέλης μ᾽ ἐποίησεν "Aristoteles made me."  There the object itself is speaking deictically. The pot is effectively saying:  "I am the thing made."  and  "Marcus Maecius Speratus made me."  No senate. No decree. No faciendum curavit. No intermediary. Just:  craftsman → artifact.  A Griceian could draw the distinction as:                              Public inscriptionArtisan inscriptioninstitutional agencyindividual agencyde senatus sententianonefaciundum coiraverefecit"they saw to it""he made it"mediated intentiondirect intention Corpus Museum POTTS:  What is the difference between the cistern and the pot?  GRICE:  About four layers of bureaucracy.  POTTS:  The pot says:   Marcus Maecius Speratus fecit.  GRICE:  Precisely.  POTTS:  Meaning?  GRICE:  He made it.  POTTS:  And the cistern?  GRICE:  The cistern says:   "The Senate ordered, the Marones supervised, the Mimesii coiravere, someone else lifted the stones."  POTTS:  Which is closer to the truth?  GRICE:  The pot.  A very nice Griceian moral:  "Fecit" attributes authorship. "Faciendum curavit" attributes responsibility.  And that is exactly why the Mimesii inscription is so interesting: it commemorates not the makers, but the people who wanted posterity to know that the making had occurred under their care. And in 'the Marones supervised' -- do these six actually distribute different agencies? -- or one verb for the whole lot? Good question. I would be cautious here. The inscription reads, in effect:  Postumus Mimesius ... Titus Mimesius ... Nerius Capidas ... Nerius Babrius ... Gaius Capidas ... Vibius Voisienus ... Marones ... faciundum coiravere. [etymonline.com], [oed.com]  What the inscription explicitly gives us is:  six named men; the title Marones attached to them; one plural verb:  coiravere ("they saw to it", "they arranged", archaic curaverunt). [etymonline.com], [oed.com]    So grammatically there is one collective agency. The six men jointly perform the action expressed by coiravere. What I would not infer is:  Senate = ordered, Marones = supervised, Mimesii = financed, workmen = built.  The inscription doesn't distribute roles that finely. Rather, it seems to say:  By decree of the senate (de senatus sententia), these six men, acting as Marones, saw to the construction. [etymonline.com], [oed.com]  So the agency structure looks more like:  Senate — authorizes. The six Marones (including the two Mimesii) — collectively coiravere. Unnamed builders — implied by the fact that a wall and cistern came into existence.  Grice at Assisi GUIDE:  Which one built the cistern?  GRICE:  The inscription declines to say.  GUIDE:  Which one supervised?  GRICE:  The six, collectively.  GUIDE:  Which one carried the stones?  GRICE:  The inscription is eloquently silent.  So, unlike a pot stamped:  Marcus Maecius Speratus fecit  where authorship is assigned to one person, the Mimesii inscription attributes responsibility to a corporate body of civic magistrates acting together under a senatorial decree. That collective character is exactly what the single plural verb coiravere conveys. [etymonline.com], [oed.com] and what was the identity of the other four then? we have Mimesius Mimesius both in nominative? Thanks Yes. The inscription gives six names in the nominative, followed by the plural verb coiravere ("they saw to it", "they arranged"). So syntactically all six are coordinate subjects of the same verb. [etymonline.com], [oed.com] The six are:  Postumus Mimesius C. f. — son of Gaius. Titus Mimesius Sert. f. — son of Sertor. Nerius Capidas C. f. Rufus — son of Gaius. Nerius Babrius T. f. — son of Titus. Gaius Capidas T. f. C. n. — son of Titus, grandson of Gaius. Vibius Voisienus T. f. — son of Titus. [etymonline.com], [oed.com]  Then comes:  MARONES ... FACIUNDUM COIRAVERE  meaning that these men, as Marones (a local Umbrian magistracy), jointly "saw to" the construction. [etymonline.com] So, from a Griceian standpoint, we have:  two Mimesii, four non-Mimesii, one collective office (Marones), one collective action (coiravere).  The inscription is not saying:  Mimesius did X, Capidas did Y, Babrius did Z.  Rather:  these six men, acting together as Marones, carried out the civic responsibility of having the work constructed. [etymonline.com]  A Corpus dialogue: POTTS:  Which Mimesius built the cistern?  GRICE:  Neither.  POTTS:  Neither?  GRICE:  The inscription mentions six men and one verb.  POTTS:  Then who built it?  GRICE:  The inscription credits six magistrates with seeing to it that it was built.  POTTS:  And the masons?  GRICE:  Roman inscriptions seldom preserve the names of those who actually carried the stones.  A nice epigraphic moral:  The nominatives are remembered; the labourers are presupposed. In terms of gentilicia, Mimesius seems clear -- Babrius possibly gens name, and Voisenus -- the two Capidas less ure? Thanks Yes, that's exactly the sort of prosopographical question an epigraphist would ask. From the inscription alone, the Mimesii are the clearest case:  Postumus Mimesius C. f. Titus Mimesius Sert. f.  Here Mimesius is plainly the gentilicum (nomen), and the filiations identify their fathers Gaius and Sertor. [oed.com], [etymonline.com] Likewise, I would say that:  Nerius Babrius T. f. Vibius Voisienus T. f.  look very naturally like members of the Babria and Voisiena gentes respectively. The inscription presents Babrius and Voisienus in exactly the slot where one expects a gentilicum. [etymonline.com], [oed.com] The interesting problem is the two Capidae:  Nerius Capidas C. f. Rufus Gaius Capidas T. f. C. n.  Because Capidas does not look like a standard Roman nomen of the familiar Republican type. The inscription itself does not tell us whether:  Capidas is a gentilicum, a cognomen, or an Umbrian local name functioning somewhat differently.  What we can safely say from the inscription is that both men are designated as Capidas, and one additionally bears Rufus. The inscription itself does not explicitly classify the elements of the names for us. [etymonline.com], [oed.com] A Griceian prosopographical seminar: POTTS:  We have two Mimesii, one Babrius, one Voisienus, and two Capidae.  GRICE:  Good.  POTTS:  Therefore four gentes?  GRICE:  Perhaps.  POTTS:  Why only perhaps?  GRICE:  Because Rome is easy. Umbria is harder.  POTTS:  And Capidas?  GRICE:  Exactly.  The broader point of the inscription is that it preserves a strikingly non-metropolitan naming environment, full of old and local names (Postumus, Sertor, Nerius, Vibius), which is one reason epigraphists find it so valuable. [oed.com], [etymonline.com]

 

 

MIN

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Minazio – Ossia: Grice e Minazio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Minazio. The Minatii are a family at Rome. The gens was probably of Sabine origin, as its nomen is derived from the Oscan praenomen Minatus, and the first of the family to appear in Roman history bore the surname Sabinus.[1][2] Many M. are known from inscriptions.  Marcus M. Sabinus, proquaestor in 46 BC, and a legate of Gnaeus Pompeius the younger in Spain.[3][4][5] Marcus M. M. f. Sabinus, probably a descendant of the proquaestor, is also known from coins thought to be from the imperial period.[6][7] Marcus M. Marcellus, a soldier known from an inscription at Rome.[8] M. Campanus, the husband of Helvia Asterope, a woman buried at Grumentum in Lucania.[9] Gaius M., the former master of Gaius M. Herma and Gaius M. Onesimus.[10] Gaius M. C. l. Herma, a freedman, buried at Rome.[10] Gaius M. C. l. Onesimus, a freedman, buried at Rome.[10] Quintus M., named in an inscription from Capua.[11] Artemo M. Trebi l., a freedman, mentioned in an inscription from Consilinum in Campania.[12] Marcus M., a close friend of Raecius Gallus, a flamen at Tarraco in Spain.[13] M., mentioned in an inscription from Pompeii.[14] Gaius M., the father of Gaius and Marcus.[15] Gaius M. C. f. Africanus, buried at Aquileia.[15] Marcus M. C. f.[15] Maximus M. Carbo, a fisherman mentioned in an inscription from Pedona in Liguria.[16] Aulus M., the former master of Aulus.[17] Aulus M. A. l., named in an inscription from Rome.[17] Marcus M. Colax, a freedman mentioned in an inscription from Rome.[18] Marcus M. Celer, a freedman mentioned in an inscription from Rome.[18] Gaius M. Crescens, the father of Gaius M. Eutychus.[19] Gaius M. C. f. Eutychus, buried at Rome, aged twenty-three years, two months, and five days.[19] Gnaeus M/ Eros, mentioned in an inscription from Rome, together with Minatia Apamia. They are also mentioned in an inscription from Asisium.[20] Minatia Apamia, named in an inscription from Rome, and another from Asisium, together with Gnaeus Minatius Eros.[20] Lucius M. Crescens, buried at Castellum Elefantum in Numidia, aged sixty-one.[21] M. Felix, the father of Minatia Victrix.[22] Minatia Victrix, daughter of M. Felix, and wife of M. Euaristus, was buried at Luceria, aged eighteen.[22] M. Euaristus, the husband of Minatia Victrix.[22] Publius M. Silvinus, mentioned in an inscription from the village of le Mufite.[23] Marcus M. Hilarus, a freedman mentioned in an inscription from Allifae.[24] Decimus M., son of M. and Decidia Serena, died aged thirteen, and is buried at Atina in Lucania.[25] Publius M., the father of Secundus.[26] Publius Minatius P. f. Secundus, buried at Numistro in Lucania.[26] Gaius Minatius Bithus, mentioned in an inscription from Asculum in Apulia.[27] Gnaeus Minatius, named in an inscription from Puteoli in Campania.[28] Gnaeus Minatius, the former master of Gnaeus.[29] Gnaeus Minatius Cn. l., a freedman mentioned in an inscription from Capua.[29] Marcus Minatius M. f., one of two duumvirs, or chief judges, elected for a term of five years, according to an inscription at Visentium in Etruria.[30] Quintus Minatius Tiridas, the father of Celer.[31] Quintus Minatius Q. f. Celer Claudianus, buried at Massilia, where his wife, Plaria Vera, and his father, Quintus Minatius Tiridas, erected a monument.[31] Minatius P. l. Varus, a freedman buried at Narbo in Gallia Narbonensis.[32] Sextus Minatius Sex. f., mentioned in an inscription from Nomentum in Latium.[33] Lucius Minatius Genialis, buried at Emerita Augusta in Lusitania, aged sixty-five.[34] Gaius Minatius Jucundus, an official buried at Pompeii.[35] Marcus Minatius, banker of Oscan origin.[36] See also List of Roman gentes References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 1089 ("Minatia Gens").  Chase, p. 140.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 1089 ("Minatia Gens"), vol. III, p. 690 ("Marcus Minatius Sabinus").  Broughton, vol. II, p. 298.  Eckhel, vol. v, p. 253.  PIR, vol. II, p. 375.  CIL X, 291.  AE 1979, 38.  AE 1998, 391.  AE 1966, 40.  CIL I, 687.  CIL I, 3163, AE 1966, 112.  AE 1932, 84.  CIL IV, 9886.  CIL V, 2207.  CIL V, 7850.  CIL VI, 8308.  CIL VI, 22495.  CIL VI, 22496.  CIL VI, 22497, CIL XI, 5496.  CIL VIII, 6530.  CIL IX, 867.  CIL IX, 1031.  CIL IX, 2403.  CIL X, 360.  CIL X, 439.  CIL X, 1885.  CIL X, 2738.  CIL X, 3773.  CIL XI, 2912.  CIL XII, 452.  CIL XII, 4992.  CIL XIV, 3951.  AE 1994, 852.  Hüttemann, No. 75.  Marzano, Annalisa (2022-06-30). Chapter 5 The Personal Infrastructure of Maritime Trade. Edinburgh University Press. p. 57. doi:10.1515/9781474478168-009/html. ISBN 978-1-4744-7816-8. Bibliography 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). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII (1897). Paul von Rohden, Elimar Klebs, & Hermann Dessau, Prosopographia Imperii Romani (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, abbreviated PIR), Berlin (1898). T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association (1952). A. Hüttemann, Pompejanische Inschriften, Stuttgart (2010). Categories: Roman gentesRoman gentes of Sabine origin which one of these you'd choose for a Grice/Speranza vignette for this gens? Thanks For the Minatii, I'd actually pick three, depending on what sort of Griceian theme one wants.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Minazio – Ossia: Grice e Minazio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Minazio. Marcus Minatius Sabinus — loyalty, intention, and civil war This is probably the most von Wright–Grice figure. He is:  proquaestor in 46 BC and a legate of Gnaeus Pompeius the Younger in Spain.  The interesting question is not:  What caused him to be there?  but:  Why did he choose that side?  A Grice seminar: POTTS:  Why was Minatius in Spain?  GRICE:  Because he intended to be.  POTTS:  Historians say civil war caused it.  GRICE:  Historians are occasionally causalists.  POTTS:  And you?  GRICE:  I begin with agency.  The chain:  loyalty → decision → action → consequence  is very Gricean.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Minazio – Ossia: Grice e Minazio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Minazio. Marcus Minatius the banker This is my favourite. The entry simply gives:  Marcus Minatius, banker of Oscan origin.  A banker is ideal for Grice because banking consists almost entirely of:  promises, trust, credit, obligations, records, social expectations.  In other words:  institutionalized implicature.  A vignette: CUSTOMER:  Is the money there?  MINATIUS:  Naturally.  CUSTOMER:  Where?  MINATIUS:  That is a philosophical question.  This combines Sabine/Oscan identity with abstract social conventions. The one I would choose If I had to pick only one, I'd choose the banker Marcus Minatius. Why? Because for Grice:  language, promises, trust, conventions,  are more fundamental than military history. A banker handles things whose value exists because people collectively mean something by them. That's almost pure Grice. A final Corpus dialogue: SHROPSHIRE:  What are you reading?  GRICE:  Minatius.  SHROPSHIRE:  The soldier?  GRICE:  No.  SHROPSHIRE:  The banker?  GRICE:  Precisely.  SHROPSHIRE:  Why?  GRICE:  Because an army moves by force. A bank moves by implicature. And what is latin for banker in this inscription, you think? This is one of those cases where we have to be careful. Your gens entry identifies:  Marcus Minatius, banker of Oscan origin,  and cites a modern discussion (Marzano, The Personal Infrastructure of Maritime Trade). But in the material available to me, I can see the identification "banker," but not the actual Latin wording of the inscription. So I cannot safely say whether the inscription called him:  argentarius (banker/money-changer), nummularius (coin-tester, money-changer), coactor argentarius (auction-financier), mensarius, or something else. [en.wikipedia.org], [worldhistory.org]  If the inscription itself says "banker," the most common Roman term would often be:  argentarius  which is the standard Latin word for a professional banker or money-changer. [en.wikipedia.org], [worldhistory.org] But that is only a suggestion based on Roman banking vocabulary, not a reading of the Minatius inscription. A Griceian would insist:  What is implicated by the modern translation "banker" may be argentarius. What is said in the inscription remains to be checked.  So, for philological accuracy:  I found the modern identification of Marcus Minatius as a banker, but not the text of the inscription itself, so the exact Latin occupational title is not specified in the sources I located. [en.wikipedia.org], [worldhistory.org]  The moment we recover the actual inscription reference, we can determine whether the stone says argentarius, nummularius, or something more specialized. In ancient text and epigraphical records, Marcus Minatius is described as a banker using both Latin and Greek terminology, depending on the context of the source. [1, 2, 3]  In Latin: He is classified as an argentarius. This standard Roman term refers to a private, professional banker or money dealer who operated commercial banks, extended credit, and managed accounts. [1, 2] In Greek Inscriptions: Because his primary historical footprint is on the Greek island of Delos (circa 150 BCE), contemporary inscriptions—such as the famous honorary decree from the Berytian Poseidoniasts—describe him using the Greek equivalent, trapezites (τραπεζίτης). [1, 3, 4] The inscriptions on Delos explicitly honor Marcus Minatius, son of Sextus, as a "Roman banker" (Ρωμαῖος τραπεζίτης), celebrating his piety and immense financial generosity for advancing capital and donating 7,000 drachmas to help complete their local sanctuary. [1, 2, 3] If you would like to explore further, I can share more details on how private banking systems functioned in the Roman Republic or provide the specific historical context of the island of Delos as a major trade hub. [, 2, 3] Yes, that helps a great deal, because it gives us something much more Griceian than the anonymous "banker" of the gens entry. If the Delian inscriptions actually call him:  Ῥωμαῖος τραπεζίτης ("Roman banker")  then we have a bilingual identity:                  LatinGreekargentariustrapezitesRoman bankerbanker/money-changer The Greek title is especially interesting because trapeza means "table" or "counter," so the trapezites is literally the man at the banking table. One can imagine Grice delighting in the contrast: SHROPSHIRE:  What was Minatius?  GRICE:  An argentarius.  SHROPSHIRE:  What's that?  GRICE:  A professional manipulator of promises.  SHROPSHIRE:  Money, you mean.  GRICE:  At bottom, Shropshire, the difference is elusive.  The Delian context makes him even more attractive philosophically. If he is being honored for advancing capital, extending credit, and contributing money to a sanctuary, then his social significance lies not in moving stones but in moving obligations. A banker lives in a world of:  trust, credit, promises, expectations, records, conventions.  That is almost a Griceian paradise. Compare:  Postumus Mimesius faciundum coiravit ("saw to it that a cistern was built")  with  Marcus Minatius argentarius/trapezites  The first concerns public works and delegated agency. The second concerns institutionalized trust. For a Speranza vignette, I'd therefore choose the banker over the proquaestor: Corpus SHROPSHIRE:  What are you reading?  GRICE:  Minatius.  SHROPSHIRE:  The soldier?  GRICE:  No, the banker.  SHROPSHIRE:  What did he build?  GRICE:  Confidence.  SHROPSHIRE:  Out of what?  GRICE:  Language.  SHROPSHIRE:  Ah.  GRICE:  Every deposit is an implicature waiting to happen.  That seems to me the most Griceian Minatius of the lot.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Minazio – Ossia: Grice e Minazio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Minazio. Minatia Victrix She is buried at eighteen, and her very name is:  Victrix "the victorious one."  A Speranzian delight. As with Speratus, the name itself invites philosophical reflection. POTTS:  Why call a child Victrix?  GRICE:  Because parents are optimists.  POTTS:  Was she victorious?  GRICE:  The inscription does not say.  A perfect example of the difference between:  what a name says,  and  what a life establishes.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Mindio – Ossia: Grice e Mindio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Mindio Funerary stele of Lucius M. Felicio, age 3, from Brindisi, first century The Mindii are a family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens appear in history beginning in the middle of the first century BC, and achieved senatorial rank in imperial times. Mindia Matidia was a grandniece of the emperor Trajan.  Marcus M. Marcellus, a friend of GIULIO Caesar, became an officer under Octavian during the Sicilian War.[1] Lucius M. Balbus, a Roman senator, was governor of Bithynia and Pontus. Lucius M. Pollio, another senator, was governor of Bithynia and Pontus. Mindia Potentilla, high priestess of Artemis in Ephesus during the reign of Trajan.[2] Mindia Menandra, a priestess of Artemis in Ephesus during the reign of Trajan.[2] Lucius M., the husband of Salonia Matidia, and father of Mindia Matidia. Mindia L. f. Matidia, a grandniece of Trajan, and sister-in-law of Hadrian. Mindia Sabina, the foster-daughter of Fortunata, buried at Ostia in Latium, aged seven years, eight months, and one day.[3][4] See also List of Roman gentes Minidia gens References  Syme, Approaching the Roman Revolution, p. 210.  Van Tilborg, Reading John in Ephesus, p. 157.  AE 2018, 325.  Epigrafia ostiense dopo il CIL, p. 282 (Chapter 10 pdf). Bibliography René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). Sjef van Tilborg, Reading John in Ephesus, Brill, Leiden (2014), ISBN 9789004267299. Ronald Syme, Approaching The Roman Revolution: Papers on Republican History, Federico Santangelo, ed., Oxford University Press (2016). Epigrafia ostiense dopo il CIL: 2000 iscrizioni funerarie (Ostian Epigraphy after the CIL: 2000 Funerary Inscriptions), Maria Letizia Caldelli, Mireille Cébeillac-Gervasoni, Nicolas Laubry, Ilaria Manzini, Raffaella Marchesini, Filippo Marini Recchia, and Fausto Zevi, eds., Antichistica (2018) ISBN 9788869692307 Categories: MindiiRoman gentes for this gens, Giulio's friend (amicus) which -- amicitia -- possibly had a link to his later office? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Mindio – Ossia: Grice e Mindio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Mindio Yes, I think that's exactly the interesting Griceian angle for the Mindii. What we actually know from the source cited in the gens entry is fairly modest:  Marcus Mindius Marcellus, a friend (amicus) of Caesar, later became an officer under Octavian during the Sicilian War. [en.wikipedia.org]  The source as summarized does not explicitly state that the friendship caused the appointment. [en.wikipedia.org] But from a Roman point of view, the very word:  amicus  is far stronger than modern "friend." Roman amicitia often occupies the space between:  friendship, political alliance, patronage, recommendation, mutual obligation.  A Griceian historian would therefore ask:  Why does the source bother to mention that Mindius Marcellus was Caesar's friend?  The description may invite the reader to connect:  friendship with Caesar  and later  service under Octavian.  Not as a strict causal law, but as a pathway of trust and political credibility. Corpus SHROPSHIRE:  How did Mindius become an officer?  GRICE:  We do not know.  SHROPSHIRE:  Then why tell us he was Caesar's friend?  GRICE:  Ah. Now you are reading like a Roman.  SHROPSHIRE:  The friendship may explain the office?  GRICE:  It may explain why the office is unsurprising.  That's a very Gricean distinction. The source doesn't say:  Caesar's friendship caused the appointment.  But it may conversationally suggest:  Here is the sort of man whom Octavian could trust.  Amicitia as historical explanation This is where your von Wright point returns. A modern institutional historian might say:  The office resulted from military requirements.  A Roman historian is often happier with:  He belonged to Caesar's circle. Therefore he was available, known, and trusted.  That explanation proceeds through:  personal relations, loyalties, intentions, reputations.  In other words:  agency.  A nice Griceian maxim might be:  An army is organized by offices; a Roman state is organized by amicitiae.  So if I were writing the Mindius vignette, I would definitely center it on Marcus Mindius Marcellus, because the transition:  amicus Caesaris → officer under Octavian  invites exactly the sort of intentional, relationship-based explanation that Grice and von Wright both found more illuminating than a merely mechanical causal story. [en.wikipedia.org] Does this below help? Thanks Marcus Tullius Cicero describes Marcus Mindius Marcellus as Julius Caesar's friend in his classical Latin texts. [1, 2] The Context In his Letters to Atticus (specifically Book 12, Letter 12), Cicero mentions Mindius Marcellus alongside Attius the paint-seller. The passage centers around the death of Publius Sulla, whose property was being auctioned off. Cicero notes that while people worried Caesar would be upset by a slump in auction prices, Mindius Marcellus was overjoyed to lose a rival bidder. [1, 2] Key Sourcing Information The Author: Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero). The Latin/English Source: The bilingual Loeb Classical Library collections of Cicero's letters. Historical Role: Marcus Mindius Marcellus was an equestrian partisan who later served as a naval admiral under Octavian (Augustus) during the Sicilian War. [1, 2, 3, 4] If you are looking for specific linguistic translations or more information on the Mindia family gens, let me know! I can provide the exact Latin text from the letter or break down Mindius's later military achievementsunder Octavian. [1] L'AI può commettere errori, quindi verifica le risposte can you quote the passage in lat eng? 2 siti Marcus Mindius Marcellus is mentioned in Cicero’s Letters to Atticus (Book 12, Letter 12, Section 1), written in March 45 BC from Astura following the death of Publius Sulla, a rival in Caesar's property auctions. Cicero ironically notes that Mindius and a paint-seller, Attius, are relieved by the removal of their competitor, Sulla, in this private letter. [1, 2] does he use amicus? 4 siti No, Cicero does not use the word amicus (friend) to describe Marcus Mindius Marcellus. [1, 2] The Actual Latin Text In Letters to Atticus 12.12.2, the specific line written by Cicero reads: [1, 2] “Caesarem putabant moleste laturum, verentem ne hasta refrixisset; Mindius Marcellus et Attius pigmentarius valde gaudebant se adversarium perdidisse.” [1] The Literal English Translation "People thought Caesar would be annoyed, fearing that his auction [the spear] would go cold; Mindius Marcellus and Attius the paint-seller were absolutely delighted that they had lost a rival [adversarium]." [1, 2] Why the Misconception Exists Cicero does not call Mindius an amicus of Caesar here; he actually frames him strictly as a financial rival (adversarius) to the deceased Publius Sulla at Caesar's property auctions. [1] However, modern historical commentaries and biographical dictionaries often label Mindius as "Julius Caesar's friend" or "partisan" because: Political Allegiance: Mindius was a known equestrian supporter of the Caesarian faction. The Auction Context: Only people embedded within Caesar's inner political and financial circles were major bidders at these highly sensitive, state-sponsored auctions of confiscated properties. Later Actions: Mindius went on to serve as a high-ranking naval commander for Caesar's adopted son and heir, Octavian (Augustus). If you are tracking down a specific source that explicitly uses the exact phrase "friend of Julius Caesar" for Mindius, it is likely a modern historian's summary or a footnote in a Loeb Classical Library edition explaining Mindius's political background, rather than Cicero's original Latin text. Would you like to explore Mindius Marcellus's naval career under Octavian, or do you need help cross-referencing other Caesarian partisans mentioned in Cicero's letters? Yes — and this actually improves the Griceian story considerably. The material you've quoted suggests that the common statement:  "Marcus Mindius Marcellus was a friend (amicus) of Caesar"  is not Cicero's wording. The passage from Ad Atticum 12.12.2 apparently reads:  Caesarem putabant moleste laturum, verentem ne hasta refrixisset; Mindius Marcellus et Attius pigmentarius valde gaudebant se adversarium perdidisse.  which is translated:  "People thought Caesar would be annoyed, fearing that his auction had gone cold; Mindius Marcellus and Attius the paint-seller were very pleased that they had lost a rival." (i.e. a rival bidder) [etymonline.com]  On the evidence you've provided, Cicero does not call Mindius an amicus Caesaris. The word reported in the passage is:  adversarius "rival/opponent"  of the deceased bidder Sulla, not "friend of Caesar." So the claim that Mindius was Caesar's friend seems to be a modern historical inference or prosopographical summary, based on:  his appearance in a Caesarian milieu, participation in auctions connected with Caesar's regime, and his later service under Octavian. [etymonline.com]  A Griceian would immediately distinguish:                      Cicero saysHistorians inferMindius was pleased to lose a rival bidderMindius belonged to Caesar's circleauction contextCaesarian affiliationno amicuspossible amicitia Corpus SHROPSHIRE:  Cicero calls him Caesar's friend?  GRICE:  Does he?  SHROPSHIRE:  Apparently not.  GRICE:  Then let us not improve upon Cicero.  SHROPSHIRE:  Why then mention Caesar at all?  GRICE:  Because Mindius appears in Caesar's environment.  SHROPSHIRE:  Which historians later convert into friendship?  GRICE:  Historians are occasionally generous with amicitia.  In fact, from a Griceian point of view, the interesting thing is that later scholars supply a description:  "friend of Caesar"  to make sense of a cluster of facts. That description may well be reasonable, but it is not identical to what Cicero literally says. As Grice would tell Potts:  "The auction is Cicero's evidence; the friendship is the historian's hypothesis."

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Minicio – Ossia: Grice e Minicio: la ragione conversazionale e il nome del filosofo  Fundano: la ragione conversazionale e il nome del filosofo -- Roma – filosofia italiana (Roma). Grice: “It seems that, snobs as they are, the Portico was more popular at Rome than it had been at Athens!” Keywords: portico.Filosofo italiano. Grice: “The problem with Old Roman Philosophers is their name. Consider Fundano. His gens was that which have him as a “Minicio” – when it comes to my dictionary, Italians hesitate. They don’t min listing him as ‘Minicio Fundano’ – but at Oxford we consider that as vulgar. A name is something you can use to CALL someone – So you have to decide: F., or Minicio? Since there were more Minicios than there were Fundanuses, it is perhaps wiser to list him under the F – as in ‘who gives a F?’ -- A friend of Plutarco and Plinio minore – Plinio minore describes him as a philosopher who dedicated himself to study from an early age. It seems likely that he followed the doctrine of the Porch. Gaio Minicio Fundano. Keywords: portico. GRICEVS: Fundane, miror quod Porticus Romae—ut snobi solent—plus placuit quam Athenis, sed maius malum mihi est nomen tuum: Minicio an Fundano te vocem? FVNDANVS: Voca me FVNDANVM, nam Minicios plures habes quam columnas porticus, et ego non sum index tuus sed philosophus Plutarci amicus. GRICEVS: Recte; apud nos Oxonii “Minicio Fundano” sonat quasi cenaculum plenum consonantium, atque ego mavis F. scribere—vel, ut dicunt, “quis F. curat?” FVNDANVS: Cura tamen, Grice: si nomen est ad vocandum, voca clare, ne Porticus ipsa respondeat et te Stoicum faciat invito. This Minicio -- as Speranza and Grice have it -- usually miscatalogued as Mincio -- does this parallel the gens Manilia/Manlia -- with Treccani having things wrong? Yes, there is a real parallel of type, but not quite in the way the question first suggests. The safest starting point is the person himself. The man usually known in modern scholarship is Gaius Minicius Fundanus, not Mincio and not, in a classically tidy catalogue, Minicio Fundano. The nomen is Minicius, the cognomen Fundanus. So if one is classifying him by Roman naming practice, one files him under Minicius as a member of the gens Minicia, not under a phantom Mincio and not primarily under Fundanus unless one is making an index by cognomina or by modern Italian usage. That already gives the first answer. The Mincio form is generally a modern corruption, simplification, or Italianising drift, not the proper Roman nomen. Minicius is the correct gentilicium. Mincio looks like a vulgar reduction, perhaps helped by familiarity with the river-name Mincio and by the general tendency of later catalogues to smooth unfamiliar Roman nomina into more familiar Italian-looking forms. Now to your analogy with Manilia and Manlia. Yes, there is a formal parallel in the sense that Roman nomina can be distorted by dropping or absorbing an internal syllable, and later reference works do sometimes simplify or misreport them. But the specific pair Manilia and Manlia needs care. Manlius is of course the famous Roman nomen, with gens Manlia. Manilius is a different nomen, with gens Manilia. These are distinct Roman families, not just spelling variants. So if a catalogue slides from Manilius to Manlius, that is not a harmless orthographic convenience; it changes the gens. In exactly that sense, Minicius to Mincio is a comparable danger: it can make the nomen look like something else, or even cease to look like a Roman nomen at all. So the real parallel is this. Minicius versus Mincio is comparable to Manilius versus Manlius in that a small formal collapse produces a different and misleading identity. But Minicius versus Mincio is not a case of two equally legitimate ancient gentes standing side by side. Minicius is the Roman nomen; Mincio is the later deformation. As for Treccani, I would not state flatly that Treccani has it wrong without checking the exact entry and context. Treccani sometimes reflects modern Italian naming habits, where a figure may be cited under a vernacularised or traditional form rather than under the strictest Roman prosopographical one. That can be annoying to a classicist without always being strictly an error. But if Treccani actually presents Mincio as though it were the proper Roman nomen, then yes, from a Roman onomastic point of view that would be misleading. The dry prosopographical summary would be: The correct Roman name is Gaius Minicius Fundanus. He belongs to the gens Minicia. Mincio is a later or vulgarising deformation, not the proper nomen. The analogy with Manilius and Manlius is good as a warning about how tiny graphic changes can create a false gens or a false identification. If a modern catalogue prefers Mincio, that is at best a secondary vernacular label, not the safest classical form. And your instinct about Fundanus is also right in one respect. In ordinary address and literary citation, a cognomen may be more useful than the nomen, especially if the nomen is less distinctive or more easily corrupted. So one can perfectly well say that Fundanus is the more callable part of the name, while still admitting that prosopographically he is Minicius. If you want, I can next give you a compact note on the gens Minicia itself, with other attested Minicii and where Fundanus sits among them. And Grice and Speranza are grateful they don't have the Roman handbook, because Grice forgot to say he was having in mind Minucio, not Minicio -- as per Marco Minucio Felice. Thanks -- Grice and Speranza wonder if the Minucio and the Minicio are related asper etymology -- and also as to why say, Erberto Grice, Grice is the name, Erberto the first name; in italian, Erberto is nome, and Grice cognome, but in Ancient Rome, Pavlvs Erbertus Gricevs -- Erbertus would be nomen -- Yes, there is a real etymological and onomastic relation between Minucius and Minicius, but it is the sort of relation that invites caution rather than collapse. Minucius is a very well attested Roman nomen, belonging to the gens Minucia. Minicius is also an attested Roman nomen, belonging to the gens Minicia. The two are close in shape and probably related at a deeper Italic or Latin level, but in Roman usage they function as distinct gentilicia. So one should not treat Minicio as a mere error for Minucio any more than one would treat Manilio as a harmless misspelling of Manlio. Nearness of sound does not abolish prosopographical distinctness. As to etymology, the safest thing to say is that both names seem to belong to the same broad family of formations built on a min- stem, with old Italic and Latin name formation doing the rest. One naturally thinks of Latin minor, minuere, minutus, and of stem variation in old gentilicia, but one should be careful not to pretend to more certainty than the evidence warrants. In other words, Minucius and Minicius are probably cousins in formation, but not the same family name and not interchangeable in historical cataloguing. Now to the Roman naming point, which is the more interesting one. In modern Italian, as you say, Erberto is nome and Grice is cognome. In modern English, one says first name and surname, or family name. But in ancient Rome those categories do not map directly onto one another. In the classical Roman pattern, the central elements are praenomen, nomen, and cognomen. The praenomen is the individual personal name, the small stock of names like Marcus, Gaius, Lucius, Publius. The nomen is the gentilicium, the clan name, the thing that places one in a gens, like Tullius, Julius, Cornelius, Minucius. The cognomen is the branch name or distinguishing surname within the gens, like Cicero, Caesar, Scipio, Rufus. So if one Latinises a modern name into Roman form, one must decide not by modern order but by function. If you made H. P. Grice into something mock-Roman like Paulus Herbertus Griceius, Herbertus would not naturally be the nomen. It would more naturally behave as the praenomen, or as part of the personal naming slot, because it corresponds to the given name. Griceius, if treated as a Latinised family name, would be nearer the nomen or perhaps the cognomen depending on how elaborate a fiction one wants to construct. So the simplest mapping is this. Modern given name corresponds most closely to Roman praenomen, not nomen. Modern family name corresponds most closely, though not perfectly, to Roman nomen or sometimes cognomen depending on how one is reconstructing the name. Roman nomen is not just a middle term in a sequence; it identifies the gens. Thus, if one wanted a pseudo-Roman Grice, one might imagine something like Publius Griceius or Herbertus Griceius, but that is already post-classical and playful rather than genuinely Roman. A stricter Romanisation would require choosing a proper Roman praenomen and then treating Griceius as a gentilicium-like formation. For example, Publius Griceius. If one then wanted a cognomen, one could add one more element. But Herbertus itself is not a Roman nomen; it is a later Germanic personal name Latinised. So your final sentence should be corrected thus: in ancient Rome, Erbertus would not be nomen; it would correspond more nearly to praenomen, while Gricevs or Griceius, if one insisted on Romanising it, would be taking the gentile or surname position. The dry summary is: Minucius and Minicius are distinct Roman nomina, though probably related in deeper formation. One should not collapse Minucio into Minicio, nor vice versa. In Roman naming, the modern given name corresponds most closely to the praenomen, not the nomen. The nomen is the gens name. So in a mock-Roman Paulus Herbertus Griceius, Herbertus would not naturally be the nomen; Griceius would be closer to that slot, while Herbertus would behave more like the personal name. If you like, I can next give you a compact table mapping modern English and Italian naming terms onto the Roman praenomen, nomen, cognomen system, with Minucius Felix and Gaius Minicius Fundanus as examples. Oops -- I meant to say H. P. Grice Erberto Paolo Grice --. yes, it would not work. The analogy would be to take 'Grice' as gens -- i. e. nome gentilicio -- or surname -- or Italian cognome -- and then Erberto as first name and Paolo as second or middle name -- but second is better for cases like P. M. S. Hacker, or H. L. A. Hart -- but the interesting thing, Grice and Speranza think, is that cognome is now in Italian meant as gentilician name, i.e. the nomen simpliciter in Ancient Rome -- whereas cognomen in Italian was a branch of the gens usually -- I wonder if the OED has an entry for cognomen, or the Short/Lewis, or the Dizionario etimologico, as to where this 'shift' in use -- not sense -- occured, because etymologicaly co-nome is which goes with the name (of the gens) -- as in Camilla Parker-Bowles (Parker-Bowles, Parker nome, Bowles cognome. Odd? Yes, that is exactly the interesting shift, and your instinct about use rather than sense is very good. The short answer is this. In classical Latin, cognomen is an additional name attached to the nomen, and in the full Roman system it typically marks either a family branch within the gens or an individual distinguishing label. In modern Italian, cognome has shifted upward to mean the family surname as such. So what was once, in Roman structure, subordinate to the nomen becomes, in ordinary Italian, the default label for the inherited family name. That is the shift. The etymology itself stays transparent enough. cognome in Treccani is derived from Latin cognomen, composed of co- plus nomen, literally something like a name that goes with the name. Treccani gives the modern Italian meaning directly as family name, casato. [treccani.it], [oed.com] As for English, the OED does indeed have an entry for cognomen, and it records the English noun from the early nineteenth century, with its etymon given as Latin cognōmen. The OED is useful here because it also reflects the broadened English use: not only the Roman technical term, but also, by extension, surname or epithet. Etymonline says much the same, noting an earlier sense of distinguishing name and then the broader surname sense. [oed.com], [etymonline.com] For the Latin side, Lewis and Short is indeed the place one would normally consult for the classical lexical baseline, though the search result here gives the lexicon portal rather than the specific entry text. Still, it is the right dictionary family for fixing the older Roman usage. [anastrophe...hicago.edu] Now the historical point. What changed was not that Italians forgot the Roman distinction, but that the Roman naming system itself disappeared. Once praenomen, nomen, and cognomen ceased to function as living social categories, the inherited last name of the family became the practical thing people needed to call something. In that later world, the old technical contrast between nomen and cognomen was no longer socially operative. So cognome naturally drifted to mean what ordinary people actually had and used: the hereditary family surname. That is why modern Italian cognome corresponds much more closely to surname or family name than to the strict Roman cognomen. So one might put it this way. In ancient Rome: praenomen = personal forename nomen = gentile name, the gens name cognomen = added family-branch name or distinguishing surname within the gens In modern Italian: nome = given name cognome = hereditary family surname That is why modern Italian cognome often corresponds functionally to the Roman nomen more than to the Roman cognomen, even though etymologically it descends from cognomen. The word has stayed; the system around it has changed. Your Parker-Bowles example is helpful precisely because it shows how unstable these labels become outside the Roman system. In a double surname such as Parker-Bowles, one can indeed feel the temptation to split the pair and ask which is the main family name and which is the attached one. But that is exactly the wrong kind of temptation if one wants Roman precision. Modern double surnames are not reconstructed Roman tria nomina. They are products of later naming conventions, marriage practice, inheritance strategy, or social presentation. So to say Parker nome, Bowles cognome is clever, but only metaphorically. It is not structurally Roman. The driest formulation is probably this. Cognome in modern Italian is etymologically from Latin cognomen. Semantically and socially, however, it has shifted to denote the hereditary family surname in general. That happened because the Roman tripartite naming system ceased to be alive, and one old term expanded to cover the ordinary social function of surname. So the shift is not mysterious: the morphology stayed visible, but the onomastic system changed beneath it. If you like, I can next give you a very compact comparative table with columns for modern English, modern Italian, and ancient Roman naming terms, including where cognome and cognomen align and where they do not. Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Minicio – Ossia: Grice e Minicio Gaio Minicio Fundano (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale d’Adriano nel diritto romano e Plinio minore. Grice and Gaius Minicius Fundanus meet most naturally around the Hadrianic rescript to Fundanus as a case study in how reasoned meaning is engineered in institutional speech: Hadrian’s letter is explicitly about legal procedure (no punishments on vague accusations; require a properly framed charge and proof), but it also carries a layered communicative design whose force depends on what a rational addressee is entitled to infer beyond the bare directive. In Gricean terms, the rescript presupposes a cooperative framework between emperor and governor: it sets shared conversational (and juridical) expectations about what counts as an adequate “move” in the forum—what must be stated, what evidence must be produced, what can be dismissed as calumny—and it thereby generates implicatures about imperial policy without ever announcing a general “philosophy” of toleration. Fundanus, as recipient, is positioned like Grice’s ideal hearer: he must recover the intended point by tracking relevance (this is really guidance on governance, not merely on one sect), Quantity (say enough to justify action, not more), and Quality (do not act on what cannot be responsibly supported). The later Greek transmission through Justin and Eusebius then adds a further Gricean layer: a document written as administrative instruction acquires a new audience and thus new implicatures, becoming for Christian historians a signal of how the empire “really” regarded Christianity; the shift illustrates Grice’s point that meaning is not exhausted by literal content, but is also shaped by audience design and by the assumptions readers bring when they treat an utterance as part of a larger rational enterprise. Finally, your Oxford framing (“Minicius, Hadrian, and Pliny mean a lot to the Oxonian philosopher”) can be cashed out in Grice’s own terms: these are exemplary materials for showing how norms of rational communication—proof burdens, permissible inferences, the policing of empty accusation—are not merely legal technicalities but instances of the same reason-governed practices that make everyday conversation possible, only here amplified into the stable, publicly accountable discourse of Roman law. Grice: “Minicio, Adriano, and Plinio minore may not sound philosophical, but they do at Oxford. There is no such thing as a Faculty of Philosophy; only a Sub-Faculty of Philosophy, based at Merton – within the real Faculty, the Faculty of Literae Humaniores. Therefore, Minicio, Adriano, and Plinio minore MEAN a lot to the Oxonian philosopher – to the Oxonian philosopher that counts, that is, the one with a double first in Greats, like me!” Filosofo italiano. Rescritto di Adriano a Gaio M. Fundano. L'imperatore Adriano, autore del rescritto a Gaio M. Fundano. Il rescritto di Adriano a Gaio Minucio Fundano è un rescritto imperiale inviato dall'imperatore romano Adriano a Gaio Minucio Fundano, proconsole d'Asia. Il documento giuridico, scritto originariamente in latino, fu tradotto e tràdito in greco ellenistico da Eusebio di Cesarea che si rifaceva a Giustino.  Il testo è noto agli storici e agli studiosi di Storia del Cristianesimo per essere uno dei più antichi scritti pagani sul cristianesimo. Il documento di Adriano, pur indirizzato a Minucio Fundano, rispondeva in realtà a un'istanza sollecitata da Quinto Licinio Silvano Graniano, predecessore del destinatario: Graniano aveva chiesto lumi sul comportamento da tenere nei confronti dei cristiani e delle accuse che venivano loro rivolte.  Adriano rispose al proconsole di procedere nei loro confronti solo in presenza di eventi circostanziati, emergenti da un procedimento giudiziario e non sulla base di accuse generiche, petizioni o calunnie: veniva stabilito così il principio dell'onere della prova a carico dei promotori delle accuse. Roman law, Adriano a M. Not to be confused with Minucio. GRICEVS: Oxonii Minicium, Hadrianum, Pliniumque auditum est quasi trium philosophorum collegium; sub-facultas enim pro facultate sufficit, modo quis geminum primum in Greats habeat, ut ego. MINICIVS: Ego vero proconsul Asiae fui, non professor Mertonensis; sed si rescriptum Hadriani in schedula mea philosophiae nomen meretur, faciam ut etiam tabellarius Stoicus videatur. GRICEVS: At hoc ipsum est lepidum: imperator respondet de probationis onere, populus autem audit de fide et christianis; tu accipis litteras iuris, nos accipimus implicaturas. MINICIVS: Ita fit ut in foro dicatur “probate,” in schola intellegatur “philosophate”; et si quis me cum Minucio confundit, respondeo: non error est, sed interpretatio—Eusebius vertit, vos ampliatis. Do we have TWO Minicios here -- or just one? Gaio Minicio Fundano? Only one, right? Short answer first: you have one Minicius here, not two—and the danger of “two Minicios” arises only from the very confusions you and Grice are delighting in. Now the careful disentangling.  1. One person, one nomen: Minicius (or Minucius?) Your passage oscillates between:  Minicius Fundanus Minucius Fundanus  This is not a case of two individuals, but of variant transmission of the nomen. From the historical side:  The proconsul of Asia who receives Hadrian’s rescript is usually given as Gaius Minicius Fundanus (standard prosopography). However, in later Greek/Christian transmission (via Eusebius, Justin), and in some modern retellings, you can find Minucius Fundanus.  So:  not two Minicii not two Fundani but one historical figure with a fluctuating nomen in transmission  Your instinct is right that this resembles the Minucius/Minicius problem rather than a duplication of persons.  2. Why the oscillation happens Here the Gricean interest becomes real. Latin:  Minicius (gens Minicia) Minucius (gens Minucia)  These are distinct gentilicia. But Greek transmission:  tends to neutralize vowel distinctions reduces unfamiliar Latin forms and transmits by phonetic approximation  So the chain is: Roman administrative Latin → Greek historian → later Latin/Italian reception At each step, the hearer reconstructs the name under imperfect constraints. In Gricean terms:  the speaker’s intention (Minicius) is recovered through cooperative inference by later audiences but with noise in the channel  So “Minucius” is not a second person; it is an inferential reconstruction under degraded evidence.  3. The Fundanus problem (your best Grice point) You are entirely right to press on “what is callable”. Roman structure:  Gaius = praenomen Minicius = nomen (gens) Fundanus = cognomen  But in practice:  Fundanus is the most distinctive element Minicius is relatively common and structurally backgrounded  So for address: Fundane! is more usable than Minici! This mirrors your earlier insight about:  Cicero (cognomen dominates) Scipio (cognomen dominates) many cases where the cognomen is the true conversational handle  So Grice is right, humorously but deeply: the Roman system encodes identity in the nomen, but conversational practice often retrieves identity via the cognomen.  4. Is there a second Minicius somewhere? Yes—but not here. There are other members of the gens Minicia (the gens is attested), but:  they are not “Fundanus” they do not create ambiguity in this case  So again:  there is no doubling of “Minicius Fundanus” only one figure relevant to Hadrian’s rescript   5. Your analogy with Manilius / Manlius This is exactly the right diagnostic analogy.  Manilius ≠ Manlius (different gentes) Minicius ≠ Minucius (different gentes)  But:  Manilius → Manlius can happen by collapse of “-li-” Minicius → Minucius can happen by vowel leveling  So your general principle holds: small phonetic collapse → false gens → false identity And that is precisely what threatens cataloguing in later traditions.  6. Final Gricean formulation What your dialogue dramatizes is this:  The Roman name is an encoding of identity (nomen logic) Later readers recover identity through inference (cognomen prominence + context) Transmission noise produces variant reconstructions (Minicius vs Minucius)  So the Minicius case is not about duplication, but about:  how a single referent survives through imperfect inferential recovery across audiences.  Or in your own idiom:  non error est, sed interpretatio—sed interdum interpretatio nimium libera.   If you like, we can next line up Minicius Fundanus with Minucius Felix and show exactly how the two gentes diverge historically while remaining phonetically tempting twins.Minicio Fundano, Gaio (a. u. c. DCCCLXXVIII). Dicta. Roma.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Minizio – Ossia: Grice e Minizio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Minizio. The Minicii are a family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned in the first century, achieving the consulate under the emperor Claudius. Owing to the similarity of their names, the Minicii are regularly confused with members of the ancient and far more prominent gens Minucia. The M. originally came from Brixia in Cisalpine Gaul. That city had received a Roman colony shortly before the Second Punic War, and its inhabitants received Roman citizenship. Quintus M. Macer, mentioned in an inscription from Brixia.[2] M. Justus, an intimate friend of Pliny the Younger, was praefectus castrorum for the Legio VII Claudia in AD 69.[3][4][2] Aulus M. Rufus, proconsul of Crete and Cyrenaica, probably in AD 71.[5] M. Macrinus, an eques from Brixia, was enrolled among those of praetorian rank by the emperor Vespasian.[6][2] Gaius M. Italus, a cavalry commander honoured by Vespasian, he subsequently became a provincial governor, and Flamen of the Divine Claudius.[7] Aulus M. Rufus, proconsul of Creta et Cyrenaica in 71/72.[8] M. Acilianus, son of M. Macrinus and Acilia, is mentioned in the letters of Pliny the Younger. He was a little older than Pliny, and had been quaestor, tribune of the plebs, and praetor.[9][10] Lucius M. Rufus, consul during the reign of Domitian.[5] Gnaeus M. Faustinus, consul suffectus in AD 91. Gaius M. P. f. Italus, eques and governor of Egypt from AD 100 to 103. Lucius M. Natalis, consul suffectus in AD 106, and afterward proconsul of Africa.[11] Gaius M. L. f. Fundanus, consul suffectus in AD 107, and afterward proconsul of Asia.[12] (Titus) Salvius T. f. Rufinus M. Opimianus, procurator of Asia during the reign of Trajan.[13][14] Gnaeus M. Faustinus, consul suffectus in AD 117.[7] Titus Salvius (T. f.) T. n. Rufinus M. Opimianus, consul suffectus in AD 123, and son of the Opimianus who was procurator of Asia.[14] Lucius Minicius L. f. Natalis Quadronius Verus, consul suffectus in AD 139. Like his father before him, he subsequently became proconsul of Africa.[15] M. Opimianus, the son of Opimianus, consul in 123, was consul suffectus in AD 155.[14] M. Opimianus, the grandson of Opimianus, the consul of 123, was consul suffectus in AD 186 or 187, and proconsul of Africa at some point between AD 198 and 209. He died in office.[16][14] See also List of Roman gentes References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 1090 ("Minicia Gens").  PIR, vol. I, p. 378.  Tacitus, Historiae, iii. 7.  Pliny the Younger, Epistulae, 7, 11, 4.  PIR, vol. I, p. 380.  Pliny the Younger, Epistulae, i. 14, ii. 16.  PIR, vol. I, p. 377.  Eck, "Jahres- und Provinzialfasten", p. 290.  Pliny the Younger, Epistulae, 1, 14, ii. 16.  PIR, vol. I, p. 376.  PIR, vol. I, pp. 378, 379.  PIR, vol. I, p. 377.  AE 1906, 80.  Eck, "Ergänzungen zu den Fasti Consulares", p. 327.  PIR, vol. I, p. 379.  PIR, vol. I, pp. 379, 380. Bibliography Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Pliny the Younger), Epistulae (Letters). Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Historiae. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). Paul von Rohden, Elimar Klebs, & Hermann Dessau, Prosopographia Imperii Romani (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, abbreviated PIR), Berlin (1898). Werner Eck, "Ergänzungen zu den Fasti Consulares des 1. und 2. Jh. nach Chr." ("Additions to the Fasti Consulares for the First and Second Centuries AD"), in Historia, vol. 24, pp. 324–344 (1975); "Jahres- und Provinzialfasten der senatorischen Statthalter von 69/70 bis 138/139" (Annual and Provincial Fasti of the Senatorial Governors from AD 69/70 to 138/139), in Chiron, vol. 12 (1982). Categories: MiniciiRoman gentes For this gens, the flamen of the divine. S.: What are you reading? G: Priest qualifications. S: For your Ancient-Roman history assignment. G: Yes. M. was something else and then flamen divini Claudii -- S: "He called himself divine." "M. did". Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Minizio – Ossia: Grice e Minizio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Minizio. For the Minicii, I would definitely choose Gaius Minicius Italus, because he combines three Griceian themes:  provincial rise to Roman prominence, imperial patronage, the delightful phrase:   Flamen Divi Claudii ("priest of the Divine Claudius"). [etymonline.com]  And, yes, your vignette writes itself. Corpus SHROPSHIRE:  What are you reading?  GRICE:  Qualifications for priesthood.  SHROPSHIRE:  For Collections?  GRICE:  Roman history.  SHROPSHIRE:  This Minicius fellow?  GRICE:  Italus.  SHROPSHIRE:  What was he before becoming a priest?  GRICE:  A cavalry commander honoured by Vespasian; later a provincial governor; then Flamen of the Divine Claudius. [etymonline.com]  SHROPSHIRE:  Divine Claudius?  GRICE:  Quite.  SHROPSHIRE:  Claudius called himself divine?  GRICE:  Not Claudius.  SHROPSHIRE:  Minicius, then?  GRICE:  Nor Minicius.  SHROPSHIRE:  Then who?  GRICE:  Rome.   The philosophical point is rather nice. A flamen of Divus Claudius is not serving:  Claudius-the-living-man,  but  Claudius-as-deified-emperor.  The title itself encodes a Roman institutional speech act:  the Senate and imperial system have ratified Claudius as divus.  A Griceian might say:  "Divine" here is not primarily descriptive. It is partly performative.  Not:  "We have discovered Claudius to be a god."  But:  "The Roman state now treats Claudius as one."   A further Corpus punchline: SHROPSHIRE:  How does one qualify to be priest of a dead god?  GRICE:  By surviving him.  SHROPSHIRE:  Necessary condition?  GRICE:  Nearly always.  For a Speranza vignette, I'd take Minicius Italus over the rest of the family, because the phrase Flamen Divi Claudii immediately opens questions about divinity, institutional authority, public meaning, and the difference between:  Claudius was divine  and  Claudius was declared divine.  Which is almost pure ordinary-language philosophy in Roman dress.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Minidio – Ossia: Grice e Minidio -- Grex griceiana – Minidio. The Minidio are a family at Rome. Two are known to have been admitted to the Roman Senate. Otherwise, they are known chiefly from the writings of Tullio Cicero and Vitruvius, as well as a number of inscriptions. Minidia, the name of two women named in an inscription from Vicetia in Venetia et Histria.[1] Lucius M., a merchant or banker at Elis, married a woman named Oppia. TULLIO Cicero had some financial transactions with M.'s heirs, including his brother, Marcus.[2] Marcus M., a Roman merchant at Elis, with whom Tullio Cicero was involved in a lawsuit.[3] Publius M.,[i] a soldier who served alongside Vitruvius in Giulio Caesar's army.[4] Lucius M., the master of Stolia, a slave named in an inscription from Minturnae in Latium.[5] Lucius M. Proculi f., named in an inscription from Vicetia.[1] Gaius M. Primigenius, buried at Risinium in Dalmatia, aged forty years.[6] Gaius M., the former master of Gaius M. Hieronymus.[7] Gaius M/ Hieronymus, a freedman named in an inscription from Narona in Dalmatia.[7] Gaius M., the former master of Minidia Homilia.[8] Proculus M., the father of Lucius M., named in an inscription from Vicetia.[1] M. . . . alis, named in an inscription from Vicetia.[1] Minidia Homilia, a freedwoman, wife of Quintus Julius Hilarius, and mother of Minidia Merope, built a family sepulchre at Ostia Antica in Latium.[8] Minidia Merope, daughter of Minidia Homilia, buried with her family at Ostia.[8] Minidia Quintina, buried at Lissus in Dalmatia, aged thirty.[9] See also List of Roman gentes Mindia gens Footnotes  Sometimes amended to "Numidius", "Numidicus", or "Numisius". References  Forlati Tamaro, La basilica dei santi Felice e Fortunato, p. 370, 4.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, xiii. 26, 28.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, v. 20, xiii. 26.  PIR, vol. II, p. 381.  CIL I, 2685, AE 1934, 251.  CIL III, 8398.  CIL III, 8446.  CIL XIV, 1356.  AE 1978, 764 Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares. Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, De Architectura (On Architecture). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). Paul von Rohden, Elimar Klebs, & Hermann Dessau, Prosopographia Imperii Romani (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, abbreviated PIR), Berlin (1898). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). Bruna Forlati Tamaro, La basilica dei santi Felice e Fortunato in Vicenza (The Basilica of Saints Felix and Fortunatus in Vicenza), Band 2, Vicenza (1979). Category: Roman gentes for this gens, we may expand of Cicero's lawsuit? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Minidio – Ossia: Grice e Minidio -- Grex griceiana – Minidio. Yes, very much so. In fact, the most interesting thing about the Minidii may be that the famous "lawsuit" is not simply a lawsuit between Cicero and Marcus Minidius. The evidence points toward an inheritance dispute connected with the estate of M. Mindius, and Cicero's letters of recommendation (Ad Familiares XIII.26 and XIII.28) concern legal complications surrounding the succession of L. Mescinius Rufus to property left in Achaea by his relative M. Mindius. [cambridge.org], [jstor.org] Even more interestingly for your purposes, the passage you quoted about Marcus Mindius Marcellus shows that Cicero does not call him amicus Caesaris. Instead he appears in a financial context:  Caesarem putabant moleste laturum, verentem ne hasta refrixisset; Mindius Marcellus et Attius pigmentarius valde gaudebant se adversarium perdidisse.  roughly:  "People thought Caesar would be annoyed, fearing the auction would cool off; Mindius Marcellus and Attius the paint-seller were delighted to have lost a rival bidder." [cambridge.org]  That is far more Griceian than a simple label like "friend of Caesar." Corpus SHROPSHIRE:  What are you reading?  GRICE:  Minidius.  SHROPSHIRE:  The litigant?  GRICE:  Precisely.  SHROPSHIRE:  What was the case about?  GRICE:  Inheritance.  SHROPSHIRE:  Ah. Roman philosophy.  GRICE:  Roman philosophy has many branches.  SHROPSHIRE:  Ethics?  GRICE:  Inheritance.   The deeper Griceian angle is that inheritance cases are almost entirely about:  intentions of deceased persons, interpretation of documents, standing, legal expectations, what someone meant by a disposition of property.  That is, they are exercises in reconstructing practical reasoning. A von Wright–Grice historian would say:  We are not merely asking what happened to Mindius' estate. We are asking what the parties took themselves to be entitled to.  Which is considerably more interesting than merely tracing money. And the comic contrast with the Mimesii is delightful:  Mimesii: "They saw to it that the cistern was built." Minidii: "They saw to it that the inheritance was litigated."  Both are ultimately stories about agency, responsibility, and who gets remembered in the records. But what is the locus for the lawsuit? Yes. If by "the lawsuit" you mean the one associated with the Minidii in your gens entry, the crucial loci are:  Cicero, Ad Familiares V.20 Cicero, Ad Familiares XIII.26 Cicero, Ad Familiares XIII.28 [en.wiktionary.org], [oed.com]  What's particularly interesting is that modern discussion of XIII.26 and XIII.28 identifies them as letters written to Servius Sulpicius Rufus, governor of Achaea in 46 BC, on behalf of L. Mescinius Rufus, concerning legal difficulties arising from the inheritance left by M. Mindius in Achaea. [en.wiktionary.org], [oed.com] So the locus classicus is not a courtroom speech like:  Pro Minidio  (which does not exist), but rather a cluster of letters in the Ad Familiares. The dispute survives in the epistolary record rather than in an oration. [en.wiktionary.org], [oed.com] A Griceian vignette almost writes itself: SHROPSHIRE:  What are you reading?  GRICE:  A lawsuit.  SHROPSHIRE:  Cicero's?  GRICE:  Naturally.  SHROPSHIRE:  Which speech?  GRICE:  None.  SHROPSHIRE:  Then where is the lawsuit?  GRICE:  In the correspondence.  SHROPSHIRE:  Ah.  GRICE:  Roman legal philosophy frequently arrives by post.  And that is actually the attractive feature of the Minidii: unlike many famous Roman legal episodes, we encounter them not through forensic rhetoric but through private letters negotiating inheritance, jurisdiction, and procedure. [en.wiktionary.org], [oed.com] does this below help? Thanks The actual name recorded in the standard texts of Cicero’s letters (Ad Familiares) and primary 19th/20th-century scholarship is Minidius, not Mindius. [1, 2] While some modern digital databases, stemmatologists, and textual editors have occasionally normalized or typo-corrected the nomen to "Mindius" in electronic formats, the historical family in question is classically documented as the Minidia gens. [1, 2, 5] Setting the Record Straight: The Real Minidius Legacy Applying the proper name Minidius, the individuals involved are: Marcus Minidius: The specific wealthy Roman merchant and banker operating in Elis, Greece. His sudden death in 46 BCE triggered the multi-layered inheritance battle over his estate, prompting Cicero's intervention via letters 13.26 and 13.28. [, 2] Lucius Minidius: A separate merchant/banker of the exact same era. He was the late husband of Oppia (the wealthy widow opposing Cicero's former quaestor, Lucius Mescinius Rufus). Some classical dictionaries and genealogical registries establish Lucius and Marcus as brothers or close relatives sharing the same Greek banking enterprise. [, 2, 3] Publius Minidius: An engineer and military architect who famously served alongside Vitruvius in the Roman artillery divisions under Julius Caesar. Vitruvius explicitly praises Publius Minidius in the preface of his legendary architectural treatise, De Architectura. [, 2, 3] The Direct Correction on "Ad Fam. 5.20" Your original prompt accurately flagged a crucial cross-reference: Ad Fam. 5.20. [1] While Ad Fam. 13.26 and 13.28 deal with the Greek-side inheritance of Marcus Minidius, Ad Fam. 5.20 is a highly detailed financial letter Cicero wrote to Lucius Mescinius Rufus regarding the strict audit of their provincial financial accounts from Cilicia. Classical scholars connect these because the financial strain Mescinius faced during the auditing of 5.20 is precisely why he was so aggressively fighting for the Minidius estate payout in Greece a few months later. [1] Would you like to analyze how Oppia (Lucius Minidius's widow) managed to mount such a strong legal opposition against a Roman official, or look closely at how the financial stress in Ad Fam. 5.20 connects to this case? [, 2, 3] Yes, but with a caution that I think Grice himself would approve. The material you quote helps by explaining why modern scholars connect the various Cicero letters, but I would separate three levels: 1. What the gens entry explicitly says The entry gives:  Lucius Minidius, merchant or banker at Elis. Marcus Minidius, merchant at Elis, involved in a lawsuit connected with Cicero. References:  Ad Familiares XIII.26, XIII.28. Ad Familiares V.20. [en.wiktionary.org], [oed.com]    2. What modern scholarship explicitly says The article I found on Ad Fam. XIII.26 and XIII.28 states that these letters were written to Servius Sulpicius Rufus, governor of Achaea, on behalf of L. Mescinius Rufus, concerning difficulties surrounding succession to property left in Achaea by M. Mindius/Minidius. [en.wiktionary.org], [oed.com] That much is directly supported. 3. What requires caution Your quoted material further says:  Marcus and Lucius Minidius may have been brothers or associates. The financial pressures discussed in Ad Fam. V.20 help explain Mescinius' interest in the inheritance.  Those may be scholarly reconstructions, but I have not found those details independently verified in the sources I opened. So I would treat them as plausible interpretation rather than established fact.  The Griceian vignette This actually improves the story. SHROPSHIRE:  What are you reading?  GRICE:  An inheritance dispute.  SHROPSHIRE:  Cicero again?  GRICE:  Inevitably.  SHROPSHIRE:  About whom?  GRICE:  Minidius.  SHROPSHIRE:  The lawsuit?  GRICE:  Not exactly.  SHROPSHIRE:  Then where is the lawsuit?  GRICE:  In the recommendations.  The nice point is that the locus is not a forensic speech but a sequence of letters attempting to influence the handling of a succession dispute in Achaea. [en.wiktionary.org], [oed.com] A very Griceian moral would be:  The inheritance is the explicit subject; the real subject is influence.  That is, Cicero is not merely discussing law; he is exercising amicitia, recommendation, persuasion, and social standing through correspondence—precisely the sort of intentional network that fascinates Grice far more than a bare legal outcome. [en.wiktionary.org], [oed.com]

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Minucio – Ossia: Grice e Minucio: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’eulogio ad Ottavio da Frontone.  Marco Minucio Felice (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’eulogio ad Ottavio da Frontone. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning lines up strikingly with Minucius Felix’s Octavius because Octavius is itself a staged act of rational uptake: a dialogue in which persuasion proceeds less by brute assertion than by managing what a reasonable interlocutor can be brought to concede, infer, and accept as the point of the exchange. Grice’s core claim is that hearers routinely reconstruct speaker-meaning by assuming cooperation and then deriving implicatures from what is said plus shared standards of relevance and rationality; Minucius, writing in a Ciceronian-legal Latin and in the persona of an advocate, dramatizes exactly that inferential economy—arguments are offered with an eye to what the “other side” will have to read between the lines, and the dialogue format makes the audience into a third-party hearer computing the intended upshot. The Frontonian “eulogy” frame in your passage usefully heightens the Gricean point: praise, attribution, and even name-slippage (Minucio/Minucia) are classic sites where what is understood outruns what is literally said, because polite form and rhetorical positioning invite the reader to supply the deeper social meaning (who counts as authoritative, who is being aligned with whom, what intellectual pedigree is being claimed). Read this way, Minucius becomes a natural “gate to philosophy” for a classicist like Grice: not because he offers system, but because he exhibits reason as a conversational practice—civil, adversarial, and yet governed by norms that make indirectness interpretable—so that the real philosophical action lies, as Grice would put it, in the disciplined passage from dictum to what is meant, and in the audience’s responsibility to keep its inferential haste (“the ear runs ahead”) answerable to shared rational standards. Grice: “At Oxford, you are introduced to philosophy via the classics – more specifically, you matriculate to the Faculty of Literae Humaniores – the only faculty to offer a course in philosophy --, organized since 1913 as the sub-faculty of philosophy. After Grief and Laughing for five terms, as Carroll has it, you get to know the Porch, and all the other philosophical sects. So Minucio does mean something to me. He was my gate to philosophy!” -- Filosofo italiano. He writes “Ottavio” – draws on a speech by Frontone. La gente: Minucia. Cirta, filosofo,  scrittore e avvocato romano. Non è noto con certezza quando vive. Il suo Octavius è simile all'Apologeticum di Tertulliano, e la datazione della vita di M. dipende dal rapporto tra la sua opera e quella dello scrittore africano. Nelle citazioni degli autori antichi (Seneca, VARRONE, CICERONE) è considerato più preciso di Tertulliano e questo concorderebbe col suo essere anteriore ad esso, come afferma anche Lattanzio; Girolamo lo vuole, invece, posteriore a Tertulliano, sebbene si contraddica dicendolo posteriore a Tascio Cecilio Cipriano in una lettera e anteriore in un'opera Per quanto riguarda gli estremi della sua esistenza, Felice menziona Marco Cornelio Frontone; il trattato Quod idola dii non sint è basato sull'Octavius; dunque se quello è di Cipriano, M. non fu attivo oltre il 260, altrimenti il termine ante quem è Lattanzio. Anche la zona d'origine di M. è sconosciuta. Lo si ritiene talvolta di origine africana, sia per la sua dipendenza da Tertulliano, sia per i riferimenti alla realtà africana: la prima ragione, però, non è indicativa, in quanto dovuta al fatto che all'epoca i principali autori di lingua latina erano africani, e dunque il loro era lo stile cui ispirarsi; la seconda, inoltre, potrebbe dipendere esclusivamente dal fatto che il personaggio pagano dell'Octavius. Roma. GRICEVS: Oxonii per Literae Humaniores ad philosophiam intravi; quinque terminos “luctum et risum” pertuli—et tamen dicunt me a te, MINVCI, per ianuam ingressum esse! MINVCIVS: Ianua, inquis? Cave ne ianua sim quae crepat: statim omnes clamabunt “implicatura!” cum tu tantum fores aperueris. GRICEVS: At tu mihi plus quam fores: tu es clavis. Nam “Ottavium” scribis ex Frontone, et populus audit “Minuciam”—quasi error sit, cum sit argumentum de eo quod dicitur et quod intellegitur. MINVCIVS: Ita vero: tu “cooperemur” dicis, illi “conuiuemur” subaudiunt; ego “Ottavium” dico, illi “Minuciam” subaudiunt. Sic ambo docemus: non semper verba peccant—saepe auris festinat. Well, but there is Marco MINUCIO Felice -- which seems different from the Minicio Fundano -- Thanks for input. Yes—here you really do have two different gentes, not one fluctuating one, and your instinct is exactly right.  1. Two distinct people, two distinct nomina 1) Gaius Minicius Fundanus  nomen: Minicius (gens Minicia) cognomen: Fundanus  2) Marcus Minucius Felix  nomen: Minucius (gens Minucia) cognomen: Felix  These are not the same family, and not variants of one another, even though the forms look dangerously close.  2. Why they are so easily confused Phonetically and visually:  Minicius Minucius  The difference is just one vowel—and in Greek transmission (and later Latin copying), that distinction is fragile. So the confusion arises from:  vowel leveling (i / u) transmission through Greek modern Italianizing habits (Minicio / Minucio)  But structurally, in Roman terms:  Minicia ≠ Minucia  just as:  Manilia ≠ Manlia  So your earlier analogy holds perfectly—but here the two sides are genuinely separate historical entities, not just distortion of one.  3. The Gricean core insight (you’ve already got it) What’s remarkable is how your dialogue captures the real mechanism:  “non semper verba peccant—saepe auris festinat”  This is exactly the point.  The original name (spoken/written) carries a determinate reference. The audience reconstructs it under constraints. Slight ambiguity → different reconstruction → new “identity”.  So:  Minicius → heard as Minucius Minucius → catalogued as Minicio Minicio → mistaken for something else entirely  This is not simple error; it is inferential drift in transmission.  4. Why Fundanus and Felix behave differently You also (very sharply) highlight the difference in “callability”:  Fundanus is locally distinctive (a place-based cognomen) Felix is a very common cognomen  So:  Fundanus is strong as a conversational handle Felix is weak as a handle (many “Felices” exist)  That means:  “Fundane!” is precise “Felix!” is ambiguous  Yet paradoxically:  modern catalogues often privilege the nomen (Minucius) while real interaction would likely privilege the cognomen  Again a Gricean mismatch between: formal encoding (nomen) vs. practical communicative efficiency (cognomen)  5. Your Octavius point: philosophically exact Your reading of Minucius Felix is genuinely apt. The Octavius works like:  a courtroom dialogue structured inferential exchange staged uptake by multiple audiences (interlocutor + reader)  Which aligns very closely with:  Grice’s idea that meaning = what a rational audience can responsibly recover  And your Frontonian/eulogistic frame adds a further layer:  naming itself becomes implicature-rich Minucius signals intellectual alignment (Ciceronian, legal, Roman) not just identity  So again:  the name is not just a label; it is an invitation to inference.   6. Final dry summary  Gaius Minicius Fundanus and Marcus Minucius Felix are distinct individuals from distinct gentes. Their names are easily confused because of minimal phonetic difference. This confusion is amplified by transmission (Latin → Greek → later tradition). Cognomina (Fundanus, Felix) differ strongly in communicative usefulness. Your Gricean reading is exactly on point: the identity of the person emerges from inferential reconstruction, not just from the literal string.   If you want, we can map a handful of other “near-twin” Roman gentes (Minucius / Minicius / Minidius, etc.) and see just how often this kind of Gricean misfire occurs.Minucio Felice, Marco (a. u. c. DCCCLIII). Octavius. Roma.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Minuzio – Ossia: Grice e Minuzio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Minuzio. Obverse of a coin of the Minucia gens, depicting the head of Pallas. Reverse of a coin of the Minucia gens, depicting a column in honour of Lucius Minucius Augurinus. A denarius of the Minucia gens, depicting the head of Pallas on the obverse, and on the reverse a column honouring Lucius Minucius Augurinus, with the legend "C. Minuci. C. f. Augurini" (the minter of the coin).[1] The gens Minucia was an ancient Roman family, which flourished from the earliest days of the Republic until imperial times. The gens was apparently of patrician origin, but was better known by its plebeian branches. The first of the Minucii to hold the consulship was Marcus Minucius Augurinus, elected consul in 497 BC.[2]  The nomen Minucius is frequently confounded with Minicius and Municius.[2] The Minucii gave their name to the street known as the Via Minucia, the Pons Minucius, a bridge on the Via Flaminia, and a columned hall on the Campus Martius. The gate known as the Porticus Minucia was named after the consul of 110 BC.  Praenomina The Minucii used the praenomina Marcus, Publius, Quintus, Lucius, Tiberius, and Gaius. At least one early Minucius bore the praenomen Spurius. Other praenomina appear rarely, and only in the final centuries of the Republic.  Branches and cognomina The oldest branch of the family, the Minucii Augurini, were originally patrician, but in 439 BC Lucius Minucius Augurinus went over to the plebeians, and was elected tribune of the plebs. His descendants included the consul of 305 BC and several later tribunes of the plebs. The surname was derived from the position of augur, an important priest specializing in divination. The college of augurs was held in high esteem, and membership was restricted to the patricians until around 300 BC.[2][3][4]  Some of the early Augurini bore the additional cognomen Esquilinus, presumably because they lived on the Esquiline Hill. Later surnames of the gens included Rufus, Thermus, and Basilus. The Minucii Rufi and Thermi appear from the latter part of the third century BC until the second half of the first century AD. Rufus means "red" and probably originally referred to someone with red hair.[5] Thermus, a borrowing from Greek, might refer to a bath or hot springs.[6]  The Minucii Basili appear only in the final century of the Republic. Their surname is derived from basileus, the Greek word for "king."[6] Although frequently written Basilius, the best manuscripts give Basilus.[7]  A number of plebeian Minucii had no cognomen.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Minucii Augurini Marcus Minucius Augurinus, consul in 497 BC, the year that the Saturnalia was instituted at Rome, and the Temple of Saturn dedicated. During his second consulship in 491, he defended Gaius Marcius Coriolanus, to no avail. Later, when Coriolanus returned at the head of a Volscian army, Minucius was one of the emissaries sent to meet with him.[8][9][10] Publius Minucius Augurinus, consul in 492 BC, negotiated to purchase grain from various cities, in order to alleviate a famine at Rome.[8][11][12][13] Lucius Minucius P. f. M. n. Esquilinus Augurinus, consul in 458 BC, commanded the Roman forces against the Aequi, but allowed himself to become surrounded. He was rescued by the dictator Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who compelled him to resign the consulship.[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] In 439, as praefectus annonae, he attempted to alleviate a famine by purchasing grain supplies from abroad and regulating grain prices. For his actions, the other patricians accused him of treason, and designing to make himself king; in response he went over to the plebeians, and was subsequently elected tribune of the plebs.[i][22][23][24][25] Quintus Minucius P. f. M. n. Esquilinus Augurinus, consul in 457 BC. Given the command against the Sabines, he found the enemy safely shut within the walls of their towns, and so ravaged the countryside.[26][27][28] Tiberius Minucius Augurinus,[ii] consul in 305 BC, at the end of the Second Samnite War. In some accounts, he was slain in battle.[29][30][31] Marcus Minucius Augurinus, tribune of the plebs in 216 BC, introduced the bill for the creation of the triumviri mensarii.[32][33] Gaius Minucius Augurinus, tribune of the plebs in 187 BC, accused Scipio Asiaticus of misappropriating part of the indemnity paid by Antiochus. When Scipio refused to give security, Minucius ordered his arrest, which was prevented through the intervention of Minucius' colleague, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus.[34][35][36] Tiberius Minucius Augurinus Molliculus, praetor peregrinus in 180 BC, died during the pestilence which visited Rome in that year.[37][38] Gaius Minucius C. f. Augurinus, triumvir monetalis in 135 BC; from the imagery of his coins, he was likely a supporter of the Populares.[39] Tiberius Minucius C. f. Augurinus, triumvir monetalis in 134 BC, younger brother of Gaius, and like him a Popularis.[40] Minucii Rufi  Dedication for Apollo at Delphi made by Marcus Minucius Rufus (proconsul in Macedonia in 106 BC), commemorating his victories.[41] Marcus Minucius C. f. C. n. Rufus, consul in 221 BC, was magister equitum to the dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus in 217. He disagreed with the dictator's strategy, and defeated part of Hannibal's army, whereupon he asked the senate to grant him authority equal to the dictator's. He was slain at Cannae in 216.[42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50] Quintus Minucius (Rufus), the legate of Marcus Claudius Marcellus during the siege of Capua in 210 BC, should probably be identified with Quintus Minucius Rufus, the consul of 197.[51][52] Quintus Minucius C. f. C. n. Rufus, as praetor in 200 BC, he discovered a conspiracy in Bruttium. He was consul in 197, and successfully carried on the war against the Boii, but was refused a triumph by the senate, and so celebrated one on the Alban Mount. In 183 he was one of the ambassadors sent to the Gauls.[53][54][55][56] Marcus Minucius Rufus, praetor peregrinus in 197 BC. He subsequently served as one of the commissioners to found a colony at Vibo in Bruttium, and was one of the ambassadors sent to Carthage in 193.[57][58] Titus Minucius Rufus, served in the campaign against Perseus, king of Macedonia, in 171 BC.[59] Marcus Minucius Q. f. Rufus,[iii] tribune of the plebs in 121 BC, proposed the repeal of the laws of Gaius Sempronius Gracchus, in which he was opposed by Gracchus himself. He became consul in 110 BC, carried on the war against the barbarians in Thrace, and triumphed over the Scordisci and Triballi.[60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69] Minucius Rufus, one of the commanders of the Roman fleet in the war against Mithridates.[70] Quintus Minucius Rufus, an eques at Syracuse, who opposed Verres and later appeared as one of the witnesses against him.[71] Minucius Rufus, a partisan of Gnaeus Pompeius during the civil war, was one of the commanders of the fleet at Oricum. He may have been the same Minucius who was praetor in 43 BC, and who perished in the proscription.[72][73][74] Lucius Minicius Rufus, consul in AD 88, with the emperor Domitian, probably should be Lucius Minicius Rufus.[75][76] Minucii Thermi  Denarius of Quintus Minucius Thermus, 103 BC. The obverse depicts the head of Mars. The reverse shows a Roman soldier fighting a barbarian and protecting an injured comrade – a reference to a military exploit of one of his ancestors. Quintus Minucius Q. f. L. n. Thermus, a military tribune in the army of Scipio Africanus in 202 BC. Praetor in 196, he received a triumph for his victories in Hispania Citerior. He was consul in 193 BC, and sent to quell an insurrection by the Ligures, whom he defeated as proconsul in 191. He was slain in battle against the Thracians in 188.[77][78][79][80][81][82] Lucius Minucius Q. f. L. n. Thermus, served with his brother under Scipio Asiaticus, in the Roman–Seleucid War in 189 BC. In 182 and 181, he was legate to the praetor Quintus Fulvius Flaccus in Hispania Citerior. When examined by the senate as to the state of the province, his account differed from that given by Flaccus. In 178, he was legate to the consul Aulus Manlius Vulso in Istria.[83][81][84][85] Quintus Minucius M. f. Thermus, triumvir monetalis in 103 BC, was quaestor at some point before 89. In 86, he accompanied the consul Lucius Valerius Flaccus into Asia, where Flaccus left him in command of the troops; but soon afterwards, Gaius Flavius Fimbria deprived him of his command.[86][87][88][89][90] Marcus Minucius Thermus, praetor in 81 BC. He was Caesar's commander during the siege of Mytilene.[91][92] (Minucius) Thermus, a candidate for the consulship of 64 BC, probably identical with the consul of that year, Gaius Marcius Figulus, having perhaps been adopted just before the election.[93][94] Aulus Minucius Thermus, twice defended by Cicero in 59 BC. He had previously held a magistracy, but which is unknown, and had been popular.[95] Quintus Minucius Q. f. M. n. Thermus, senator in 73 BC, praetor during the 50s, then propraetor in 51 and 50, and a partisan of Gnaeus Pompeius. Sent to occupy Iguvium, he retreated before the approach of Gaius Scribonius Curio. He was later a supporter of Sextus Pompeius, but went over to Marcus Antonius in 35.[96][97][98][99][100] Minucius Thermus, a friend of Sejanus, put to death by the emperor Tiberius in AD 32.[101] Minucius Thermus, a man of praetorian rank, was sacrificed by Nero in AD 66, to the hatred of Gaius Ofonius Tigellinus.[102] Minucii Basili Lucius Minucius, triumvir monetalis in 133 BC, probably father of the military tribune of 86 BC.[103] Lucius Minucius L. f. Basilus, a military tribune under Sulla in 86 BC, during the campaign against Archelaus.[104][105] Marcus Minucius Basilus, mentioned by Cicero in his oration, pro Cluentio.[106] Minucius Basilus, buried along the Via Appia. His tomb was a spot infamous for robberies.[107][108] Lucius Minucius Basilus, the uncle of Marcus Satrius, whom he adopted in his will.[109] Lucius Minucius Basilus, born Marcus Satrius, one of Caesar's lieutenants during the Gallic Wars; during the Civil War, he commanded part of Caesar's fleet. Notwithstanding their long friendship, he was one of Caesar's assassins in 44 BC. He was murdered by his own slaves the following year.[110][111][112][113][114] Minucius Basilus, attacked by Cicero as a friend of Marcus Antonius, in the second Philippic.[115] Others Spurius Minucius, pontifex maximus in 420 BC.[116][117] Marcus Minucius, tribune of the plebs in 401 BC, impeached two of the consular tribunes of the previous year for misconduct in the war with Veii.[118][119] Marcus Minucius Faesus, one of the first augurs elected from the plebs after the extension of the lex de Sacerdotiis in 300 BC.[120][121] Publius Minucius (Q. f.), one of two Minucii who served as military tribunes under the consul Lucius Cornelius Merula, in the war with the Boii, 193 BC.[122][123] Quintus Minucius Q. f., one of two Minucii who served as military tribunes under the consul Lucius Cornelius Merula, in the war with the Boii, 193 BC. He then became ambassador in 174 and was praetor circa 164.[122][124][123] Minucius, died intestate before Gaius Verres became praetor urbanus, in 75 or 74 BC. Verres interfered with the inheritance of his property by his gens, an action which Cicero derided in his oration, In Verrem.[125] Gaius Minucius Reginus, a partisan of Pompeius during the Civil War, he was prefect of Zeta in 46 BC.[126][127] Gnaeus Minucius, a person about whose political opinions Cicero wrote to Cornificius in 43 BC.[128] Minucius Pacatus, better known as Irenaeus, an Alexandrian grammarian, probably in the time of Augustus.[129][130] Minucius Macrinus, enrolled by Vespasian among those of praetorian rank, should probably be Minicius Macrinus.[131][132] Minucius Acilianus, the son of Macrinus, and a friend of the younger Pliny, who had held the ranks of quaestor, tribune, and praetor, probably should be Minicius Acilianus.[131][133] Minucius Pacatus Irenaeus, a first-century Greek grammarian. Minucius Natalis, also found as Minitius, from the time of Trajan, appears to be Lucius Minicius Natalis, consul suffectus in AD 106.[2][76] Marcus Minucius Felix, a lawyer and Christian apologist of the second or third century.[134] See also List of Roman gentes Footnotes  The tradition that he was elected tribune immediately upon becoming a plebeian seems improbable, since there were already ten tribunes; but that he became a plebeian seems to be confirmed by the fact that several other Minucii were subsequently elected to this office.  Or Titus, in Livy and Cassiodorus.  There is some uncertainty as to whether the tribune of the plebs and the consul of 110 are the same person; one of them might be Marcus' brother, Quintus Minucius Rufus. References  Eckhel, vol. v, p. 254.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 1092 ("Minucia Gens").  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, pp. 419, 420 ("Augurinus, II. Minucii Augurini")  Chase, p. 112.  Chase, p. 110.  Chase, p. 114.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, p. 470 ("Basilus").  Livy, ii. 34.  Dionysius, vii. 20, 22, 23, 27–32, 38, 60, 61.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 12, 17, 19.  Dionysius, vii. 1.  Orosius, ii. 5.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 16, 17.  Livy, iii. 25–29.  Dionysius, x. 22.  Cassius Dio, Fragmenta xxxiv. 27, p. 140 (ed. Reimar).  Valerius Maximus, ii. 7. § 7, v. 2. § 2.  Florus, i. 11.  Zonaras, vii. 17.  Niebuhr, History of Rome, vol. ii, note 604.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 39.  Livy, iv. 12–16.  Pliny the Elder, xviii. 4, xxxiv. 11.  Niebuhr, History of Rome, vol. ii, p. 423.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 57.  Livy, iii. 30.  Dionysius, x. 26, 30.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 41.  Livy, ix. 44.  Diodorus Siculus, xx. 81.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 166, 167.  Livy, xxiii. 21.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 249.  Gellius, vii. 19.  Livy, xxxviii. 55–60.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 369, 370 (note 4).  Livy, xl. 35, 37.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 388, 391 (note 1).  Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, pp. 273–275.  Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, pp. 275, 276.  CIL III, 14203.  Eutropius, iii. 7.  Orosius, iv. 13.  Zonaras, viii. 20.  Polybius, iii. 87, 89, 94, 101–105.  Livy, xxii. 8, 12–30, 49.  Plutarch, "The Life of Fabius Maximus", 4–13.  Appian, Bellum Hannibalicum, 12 ff.  Valerius Maximus, v. 2. § 4.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 233-235.  Livy, xxvi. 33.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 275.  Livy, xxxi. 4, 6, 12, 13, xxxii. 1, 27–31, xxxiii. 22, 23, xxxvii. 55, xxxix. 54.  Zonaras, ix. 16.  Cicero, Brutus, 18.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 323, 332, 333.  Livy, xxxii. 27, 28, xxxiv. 53, xxxv. 40, xxxvi. 62.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 333, 345, 348, 351.  Livy, xlii. 54.  Meyer, Fragmenta, p. 244 (2nd edition).  Aurelius Victor, De Viris Illustribus, 65.  Festus, s. v. "Osi sunt", p. 201 (ed. Müller).  Florus, iii. 4. § 5; 15.  Sallust, Bellum Jugurthinum, 35.  Livy, Epitome 65.  Eutropius, iv. 27.  Frontinus, Strategemata, ii. 4. § 3.  Velleius Paterculus, ii. 8.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 521, 522 (note 3), 543.  Appianus, Bella Mithridatica 17.  Cicero, In Verrem, ii. 28, 30, 33, iii. 64, iv. 27, 31.  Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Civili, iii. 7.  Appianus, Bellum Civile, ii. 54.  Broughton, vol. II, pp. 283, 339.  Fasti Capitolini  PIR, vol. I, p. 380.  Appian, Punica, 36, 44, Hispanica, 39, Syriaca, 39.  Livy, xxx. 40, xxxii. 27, 29, xxxiv. 45, 54, xxxv. 3, 11, 21, xxxiii. 24, 26, 44, xxxiv. 10, 38, xxxviii. 46.  Gellius, x. 3, xiii. 24.  Meyer, Fragmenta, pp. 40–44 (2nd edition).  Polybius, xxii. 26.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 318, 335, 346, 363.  Livy, xl. 35, 36.  Livy, xli. 8.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 383, 385, 389, 396.  Appian, Bella Mithridatica 52.  Cassius Dio, Fragmenta 129, p. 52, 31 (ed. Reimar).  ILS, 8888.  Broughton, vol. II, pp. 34, 56.  Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, pp. 324, 325.  Suetonius, "The Life of Caesar", 2.  Broughton, vol. II, pp. 76, 78, 81.  Cicero, ad Atticum, 1.1  Broughton, vol. III, pp. 138, 144.  Cicero, Pro Flacco 39.  Caesar, De Bello Civili, i. 12.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, vii. 13, Philippicae, xiii. 6.  Appian, Bellum Civile, v. 139.  SIG, 747.  Broughton, vol. II, pp. 115, 194, 228, 238, 243, 251, 262.  Tacitus, Annales, vi. 7.  Tacitus, Annales, xvi. 20.  Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, pp. 278, 279.  Appian, Bella Mithridatica, 50.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 55.  Cicero, Pro Cluentio, 38.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum vii. 9.  Asconius Pedianus, in Ciceronis Pro Milone p. 50, ed. Orelli.  Cicero, De Officiis, iii. 18.  Caesar, De Bello Gallico, vi. 29, 30, vii. 92.  Appianus, Bellum Civile ii. 113, iii. 98.  Orosius, vi. 18.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares vi. 15.  Broughton, vol. II, pp. 231, 239, 268, 282.  Cicero, Philippicae ii.  Livy, iv. 44.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 71.  Livy, v. 11, 12.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 84.  Livy, x. 9.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 173.  Livy, xxxv. 5.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 348, 405, 439, 440 (note 1).  SIG, 664.  Cicero In Verrem, i. 45. § 115.  Caesar, De Bello Africo, 89.  Broughton, vol. II, p. 303.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares xii. 25.  Suda, s. v. "Ειρηναιος", "Πακατος".  Johann Albert Fabricius, Bibliotheca Graeca, vi. pp. 170, 171.  Pliny the Younger, Epistulae, i. 14, ii. 16.  PIR, vol. I, p. 378.  PIR, vol. I, p. 376.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, pp. 144, 145 ("Marcus Minucius Felix") Bibliography Wikimedia Commons logo Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gens Minucia. Polybius, Historiae (The Histories). Gaius Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic War), Commentarii de Bello Civili (Commentaries on the Civil War), De Bello Africo (On the African War, attributed). Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Officiis, Epistulae ad Atticum, Epistulae ad Familiares, In Verrem, Philippicae, Pro Cluentio, Pro Flacco. Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Sallust), Bellum Jugurthinum (The Jugurthine War). Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica (Library of History). Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia (Roman Antiquities). 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 Pro Milone (Commentary on Cicero's Oration Pro Milone). Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder), Naturalis Historia (Natural History). Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Pliny the Younger), Epistulae (Letters). Sextus Julius Frontinus, Strategemata (Stratagems). Lucius Annaeus Florus, Epitome de T. Livio Bellorum Omnium Annorum DCC (Epitome of Livy: All the Wars of Seven Hundred Years). Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales. Plutarchus, Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. Appianus Alexandrinus (Appian), Bella Mithridatica (The Mithridatic Wars), Bellum Civile (The Civil War), Bellum Hannibalicum (The War with Hannibal), Hispanica (The Spanish Wars), Punica (The Punic Wars), Syriaca (The Syrian Wars). Sextus Pompeius Festus, Epitome de M. Verrio Flacco de Verborum Significatu (Epitome of Marcus Verrius Flaccus: On the Meaning of Words). Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae (Attic Nights). Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus (Cassius Dio), Roman History. Sextus Aurelius Victor, De Viris Illustribus (On Famous Men). Eutropius, Breviarium Historiae Romanae (Abridgement of the History of Rome). Paulus Orosius, Historiarum Adversum Paganos (History Against the Pagans). Suda. Joannes Zonaras, Epitome Historiarum (Epitome of History). Barthold Georg Niebuhr, The History of Rome, Julius Charles Hare and Connop Thirlwall, trans., John Smith, Cambridge (1828). Henricus Meyerus, Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta ab Appio inde Caeco usque ad Q. Aurelium Symmachum (Fragments of Roman Orators from Appius Claudius Caecus to Quintus Aurelius Symmachus), L. Bourgeois-Mazé, Paris (1837). 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). Hermann Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae (Selection of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated ILS), Berlin (1892–1916). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII (1897). Broughton, T. Robert S. (1952–1986). The Magistrates of the Roman Republic. American Philological Association. Michael Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, Cambridge University Press (1974, 2001). Categories: MinuciiRoman gentes so what would be your choice for a Grice/Speranza vignette from this gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Minuzio – Ossia: Grice e Minuzio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Minuzio. For the Minucii, I'd choose Lucius Minucius Augurinus without hesitation. Not because he is the most famous Minucius, but because he sits at the intersection of nearly all the themes Grice likes:  famine, testimony, political suspicion, kingship, changing social status, what people mean by an action versus what others take it to mean.  The story, as summarized in your entry, is extraordinary. As praefectus annonae he tries to alleviate famine by securing grain and regulating prices. Then he is accused by fellow patricians of aspiring to kingship. In response he goes over to the plebs and later becomes tribune. [books.google.com] A Griceian immediately asks:  What was the evidence for the charge?  The anti-Minucian side says:  He acquires grain. He gains popularity. Therefore he wants to be king.  Minucius says:  I acquired grain because there was a famine.  Same behaviour; radically different interpretation.  Corpus SHROPSHIRE:  What are you reading?  GRICE:  Minucius.  SHROPSHIRE:  Which one?  GRICE:  The alleged king.  SHROPSHIRE:  Was he one?  GRICE:  No evidence.  SHROPSHIRE:  Then why call him that?  GRICE:  Because he fed people.  SHROPSHIRE:  Strange criterion for monarchy.  GRICE:  Republican Rome occasionally preferred starvation to ambiguity.   The deeper Griceian theme is almost one of conversational implicature. Minucius does not say:  "Make me king."  He buys grain. Others infer:  "He intends kingship."  So the historical question becomes:  Was the kingship conclusion implicated by the conduct?  or  Was it an over-ingenious reading? But if I were writing "Grice e Minuzio", I'd make it the famine-relief Minucius. The central theme would be:  Action versus interpretation.  Minucius buys grain. The people infer:  benefactor.  The aristocracy infers:  tyrant.  And Grice sits back delighted:  "The act was the same; only the implicatures differed."

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Minuzio – Ossia: Grice e Minuzio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Minuzio. A second excellent candidate would be Lucius Minucius Basilus, the Caesarian lieutenant who later helped assassinate Caesar. Your entry explicitly notes the paradox:  notwithstanding their long friendship, he became one of Caesar's assassins. [books.google.com]  That yields a magnificent dialogue: SHROPSHIRE:  Was Basilus Caesar's friend?  GRICE:  Apparently.  SHROPSHIRE:  Then why kill him?  GRICE:  An excellent question.  SHROPSHIRE:  What is the answer?  GRICE:  Roman political friendship was a more volatile institution than Oxford friendship.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Miraglia – Ossia: Grice e Miraglia: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale di CICERONE.  Luigi Miraglia (Reggio, Emilia): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale di CICERONE. M. is a useful foil for Grice because he represents a tradition—Neapolitan philosophy of law with Hegelian ambitions and a strong Ciceronian-Roman lineage—in which reasoning is explicitly staged as public, institutional, and historically saturated, whereas Grice’s theory begins from the micro-logic of everyday talk and asks how hearers recover what a speaker means by assuming rational cooperation and then computing implicatures. Miraglia’s legal-philosophical method (moving between induction and deduction, historical-comparative method, development of language alongside development of law, and the interplay of moral, legal, and “rational” right) treats discourse as a civic instrument that stabilizes norms; Grice, by contrast, treats discourse as a rational practice whose stability is achieved through tacit conversational expectations (Quantity, Quality, Relation, Manner) that make meaning inferable even when it is not spelled out. The Ciceronian angle provides the bridge: Cicero’s dialogic, forensic culture shows how persuasion, credibility, and shared standards of reason make civic speech work, and Miraglia’s jurisprudential interest in “living law” can be reframed in Gricean terms as a community’s settled patterns of inference—what speakers can count on hearers to supply, cancel, or challenge in context. So while Miraglia systematizes the rationality of law by putting it into a philosophical architecture (Hegel, Vico, Roman doctrine, historical schools), Grice explains how rationality already operates in the smallest conversational moves that underpin any such architecture, including legal argument: the courtroom and the seminar alike depend on what is meant outrunning what is said, and on the audience’s entitlement to treat that gap as reason-governed rather than merely rhetorical. Grice: “At Oxford, you are introduced into philosophy after five terms into Grief and Laughing! Therefore, once you meet Cicero, you know what he is talking about! – or about which he is talking, as he’d have it!” Reggio, Emilia. Grice: “M. is the type of philosopher beloved by the Oxford hegelians; but then he is a Neapolitan Hegelian!” Grice: “I always found Kant easier, but there’s nothing like a ‘filosofia del diritto’ in Kant! And Hegel’s ethics itself, compared to Kant’s is mighty more complex – that’s why I taught Kant!” Si laurea a Napoli, dopodiché insegna nella stessa università.  Segue una corrente di filosofia eclettica, ad esso contemporanea, che mira all'integrazione di pratiche giuridiche ed ispirazioni filosofiche. Saggi: Condizioni storiche e scientifiche del diritto di preda; Un sistema etico-giuridico; Filosofia del diritto. I sistemi filosofici ed i principi del diritto. La speculazione greca e LA DOTTRINA ROMANA. Fichte. SPEDALIERI ROMAGNOSI I filosofi della reazione. La scuola storica e la scuola filosofica. Schelling e Scleiermacher. Hegel Rosmini SERBATI Herbart, Trendelenburg e Krause. Le varie fasi della filosofia di Schelling. Sthal e Schopenhauer Il materialismo, il positivismo ed il criticismo. L'idea della filosofia del diritto. La filosofia e le scienze. Il carattere della Filosofia.  Diritto ed i metodi logici. L'induzione e la deduzione. L'induzione, l'osservazione e l'esperimento. Diritto naturale e il buono civile di AMARI ricavate dall'induzione. L'importanza del metodo storico-comparativo secondo VICO Amari, Post e Sumner-Maine. Parallelo fra lo sviluppo della lingua e lo sviluppo del diritto. L'induzione statistica, il compito della deduzione, l'universale astratto e l'universale concreto come principi. Cicerone, diritto morale, diritto legale, diritto razionale, stato di natura. (early 1942; Newhaven; the shore base still called Forward II, later HMS Aggressive) Newhaven had the damp, practical smell of a place designed to be used rather than admired. The Navy, in its inimitable way, had turned a hotel and a quay into a ship without water: a stone frigate. Officially it was Forward II; later, with the sort of cheerful aggression the Service likes to apply retroactively, it would be renamed HMS Aggressive. At the time, nobody I knew felt aggressive. We felt busy. [en.wikipedia.org] In the little cabin allotted to “temporary” people—temporary rank, temporary certainty, temporary peace—I was doing what Oxford men do in every theatre of operations: reading something irrelevant with an air of moral necessity. Clifford came in without knocking, because knocking is for peacetime and for men who don’t share bulkheads. You’re reading again, Grice. Only a little. He leaned over my shoulder, reading the title upside down with a sailor’s confidence that print will meet you halfway. Condizioni storiche e scientifiche… something… preda. Diritto di preda. Right. Preda. Like predator. Like predatory. That about submarines, is it. Not exactly. It’s about prize. Captures. What becomes whose, when you seize it at sea. Oh. Loot. There is always a moment in wartime when somebody says “loot” and thinks he has done with jurisprudence. I turned the page with the mild irritation of a man who wishes to correct a noun and is not allowed to. Not loot. Prize. Loot is what you do when you have no court. Prize is what you do when you insist you’re still civilised. Clifford sat on the edge of the bunk with the expression of someone prepared to be educated provided it does not take longer than a cigarette. So this Italian chap is telling you how to steal politely. He’s telling you how states pretend not to steal. Same thing. Not quite. The difference is the paperwork. If you want the English, it’s prize law. And what does the Italian mean by preda. A prey. Something you catch. Yes. A thing taken. But the important thing is the right. Who is entitled, under what conditions, to take. Clifford frowned. Are you entitled. Me. Personally. Well, you’re in uniform. That’s entitlement, isn’t it. It’s the beginning of entitlement. Miraglia would want the rest: jurisdiction, procedure, condemnation. He would insist the capture doesn’t change ownership until a prize court says so. Clifford blinked, as if a court had appeared in the Channel and was now asking for witnesses. There are courts. During the war. Yes. Here. Not here here. But yes. Prize procedure doesn’t stop because the weather is bad. Clifford reached for the book as if it were evidence. And you’re relaxing with this. I’m relaxing from the thought that a torpedo doesn’t consult definitions. So I consult them on its behalf. That was not fair, and I knew it, which is why it pleased me. Clifford flipped a few pages. He hardly speaks English, this Miraglia. He speaks better English than you do Italian, which is his advantage. I don’t expect you read Alighieri’s tongue, he said, with a grin, because he knew perfectly well that I did. It isn’t Alighieri’s tongue. It’s Neapolitan law-philosophy pretending to be universal. Same thing, again. No. Dante is hard on purpose. Miraglia is hard because he’s a professor. Clifford handed the book back. So what’s the practical upshot. We take a ship. We call it a prize. We take the cargo. We feel moral. That is almost exactly right. Except the feeling moral is the whole mechanism. The law is the machine that produces that feeling. Clifford was silent for a moment, which in a war is the closest men come to philosophy. And if we take a ship without the machine. Then we call it something else. We call it piracy. Or we call it necessity. Or we call it a regrettable incident. He nodded at that. Sailors understand “regrettable incident” at once. So why are you reading an Italian from 1871. Why not something modern. Something that mentions Hitler. Because the concepts don’t mention Hitler. They mention Rome. Preda is Latin in a moustache. And Miraglia is obsessed with Cicero, which makes him tolerable. Clifford sat back, considering this as if Cicero were a kind of weapon-system. Cicero. That’s the talky Roman. The talky Roman. Yes. And your point. My point is that law is conversation with bayonets in the background. And prize law is a conversation where everyone pretends the bayonets are merely punctuation. Clifford laughed. That’s very Oxford, Grice. No. That’s very Naples. Oxford would rather not mention the bayonets. He took out his cigarette-case and offered it, as if to seal the argument. So what are you going to do with your preda. Try to understand why one word in English—prize—means both “captured property” and “a reward.” As if capture were merit. It’s an outrage in the dictionary. Clifford lit up. Maybe the Germans would say it’s efficient. The Germans would say lots of things. Miraglia would ask what they are entitled to say. Then why aren’t you in London doing that, instead of in this hotel-ship. Because someone decided I should be “useful” near the water. Clifford exhaled smoke in the direction of the ceiling, as if sending signals to somebody higher up. You belong in Room 39, Grice. Not in a bunk with a book. Room 39 is a room-number pretending to be an institution. Still. Still. Yes. Clifford stood to go, but paused at the door for the last jab, because the English cannot resist leaving a final line unexamined. So. If we bag something out there tonight, you’ll tell us whether it’s loot or prize. I’ll tell you it’s a conversational implicature. We’ll call it prize because we want to be heard as civilised. He laughed again, and went out. Editorial prophetic (as you asked for) He did: the Naval Intelligence Division at the Admiralty really was known as Room 39. [wikiwand.com], [archive.org]Grice: Miraglia, ho sempre pensato che Cicerone rappresenti l’incontro ideale fra filosofia e diritto. Lei che ne pensa del ruolo della conversazione ciceroniana come modello per la nostra riflessione filosofica? Miraglia: Grice, condivido! Cicerone ci insegna che il dialogo è il cuore pulsante del pensiero giuridico e morale. Anche nella mia esperienza, la conversazione permette di illuminare le sfumature del diritto, che non sono mai solo regole ma anche ragionamento condiviso. Grice: Proprio così! Da Oxford a Napoli, il confronto tra idee è sempre stato una chiave per superare i confini tra deduzione e induzione. Spesso dimentichiamo l’importanza del metodo dialogico nella costruzione del diritto, non trova? Miraglia: Assolutamente. La vera ricchezza del diritto sta nell’equilibrio tra ragione storica e universale. Come diceva Vico, “verum ipsum factum”: comprendere nasce dal dialogo e dall’esperienza comune, che danno vita alla legge viva. Miraglia, Luigi (1871). Condizioni storiche e scientifiche del diritto di preda. Napoli.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Misefari – Ossia: Grice e Misefari: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale, l’implicatura anarchica Bruno Misefari (Palizzi, Reggio Calabria, Calabria): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale, l’implicatura anarchica. Misefari is a natural “stress test” for Grice because Grice’s account makes conversational meaning depend on shared rational norms (cooperation, sincerity constraints, intelligible relevance), whereas an avowed anarchist can be staged as someone who both relies on those norms to be understood and simultaneously contests their authority as social discipline. In Gricean terms, Misefari’s political rhetoric (anti-militarist agitation, prison, the insistence on being “Calabrese” before “Italian”) works largely through implicature: the point is often carried not by explicit doctrine but by what a hearer is invited to infer about legitimacy, coercion, and solidarity from slogans, refusals, and strategically chosen identities. The Humpty-Dumpty joke then becomes a neat contrast: semantic “anarchism” in Flew’s sense (words mean whatever I decree) is not merely rebellious but self-defeating for Grice, because it would destroy the public, reason-governed calculability that makes communication possible; Misefari can be portrayed as a “real anarchist” precisely because his anarchism is not a denial of meaning-rules but a critique of which rules should govern collective life. So the comparison can frame “anarchic implicature” as a way of speaking that exploits Grice’s maxims—especially Relation and Quantity—by saying less, hinting more, and letting the audience do the rational work, while also foregrounding that those very inferential habits are culturally trained and politically consequential: conversational reason is a shared resource, but it can be recruited for dissent as easily as for obedience. Grice: “My pupil A. G. N. Flew once referred to Humpty-Dumpty as defending what Flew called ‘semantic anarchism.’ Of course, Flew never read the Alice books! On the other hand, Misefari did, and he was a REAL anarchist!” Grice: “Etymologically, ‘anarchy’ is lack of principles – as in Austin!” – Grice: “Cicero could not translate or would not translate this dangerous Hellenic concept!”  ‘Io non sono italiano; io sono calabrese!” Frequenta la scuola elementare del piccolo paese di nascita in provincia di Reggio Calabria, per trasferirsi collo zio proprio a Reggio Calabria. Influenzato dalle frequentazioni di socialisti e anarchici in casa dello zio, partecipa attivamente alla fondazione e allo sviluppo d’un circolo socialista, intitolato a Babel, rivoluzionario. Inizia a collaborare ad Il Lavoratore. Collabora a Il Riscatto, periodico socialista-anarchico; e con Il Libertario. A causa della sua attività anti-militarista esercitata all'interno del circolo contro la guerra italo-turca, è arrestato e condannato a due mesi e mezzo di carcere per istigazione alla pubblica disobbedienza.  È nei anni successivi che M. si converte dal socialismo all’anarchia. Ciò avvenne soprattutto colla frequentazione da parte di  BERTI, suo professore.  Si trasfere a Napoli e si iscrive al politecnico, dopo avere studiato alle superiori, e anche per non dispiacere al padre, proseguì tali studi. Pesa inoltre su questa decisione il fatto che dopo la tragica distruzione della città di Reggio a causa del terremoto, il lavoro che garantiva le maggiori certezze è proprio quello dell’ingegnere. Nondimeno continua per proprio conto gli studi a lui prediletti: la filosofia, come aveva fatto fino ad allora. A Napoli si fa subito avanti nell’ambiente anarchico. implicatura, anarchismo, anarchismo semantico, Flew, Humpty-Dumpty. Bruno Misefari. Grice: Caro Misefari, devo confessarle che a Oxford il termine “anarchia” ci spaventa quasi quanto il tè senza zucchero. Lei invece ne fa una filosofia… Come si vive da vero anarchico in Calabria? Misefari: Eh, Grice, in Calabria l’anarchia è una questione di carattere! Qui, se dici “io non sono italiano, sono calabrese”, nessuno si scandalizza: al massimo ti offrono un caffè e ti chiedono cosa pensi della pizza. L’importante è saper discutere senza finire in rissa! Grice: Lei mi ricorda Humpty-Dumpty: “le parole significano ciò che voglio.” E se qualcuno le dicesse che il semantico anarchismo è solo una moda, lei come risponderebbe? Misefari: Caro Grice, direi che la moda cambia più in fretta delle implicature! L’anarchia semantica si addice a chi ama le sfide: qui a Palizzi, la vera rivoluzione è riuscire a farsi capire, senza perdere il sorriso e magari una fetta di torta. In fondo, come si dice dalle mie parti, “la libertà è come il vento: ti spettina, ma ti fa respirare!” Misefari, Bruno (1923). La guerra e l’anarchia. Milano: Edizioni Sociali.