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

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Nicoletti – Ossia: Grice e Nicoletti: la ragione conversazionale -- quadratura ed implicatura conversazionale – la scuola d’Udine -- filosofia friulana Paolo Nicoletti (Udine, Friuli, Veneto): la ragione conversazionale -- quadratura ed implicatura conversazionale – A comparison between Grice and Paolo Nicoletti (Paulus Venetus) shows a deep structural affinity in their respective approaches to meaning as governed by reason, even though they operate in radically different historical and methodological frameworks. Nicoletti’s late‑medieval logic, especially in the Logica parva and related Oxford‑influenced tracts, treats meaningful discourse as something that emerges from formally constrained relations of consequence, signification, and resolution of paradoxes such as the insolubilia; propositions mean what they do because they stand in rule‑governed inferential networks that determine what follows from what, what is asserted, and what is merely emitted as a consequence of saying something. Grice’s theory of conversational meaning relocates this insight from formal logic to ordinary language, arguing that what speakers mean is not exhausted by what they explicitly say, but is rationally recoverable through shared principles governing cooperative conversation, especially via implicature. Where Nicoletti distinguishes dictum, significatum, emissum, and consecutum to keep logical responsibility clear, Grice draws an analogous distinction between what is said and what is implicated, both insisting that interpretive charity and rational order are essential to understanding communicative acts. Nicoletti’s squaring of the square of opposition and his careful classification of terms in the arbor porphyriana anticipate Grice’s insistence that conversational meaning is not arbitrary or psychological, but structured by publicly accessible norms of reason. Thus, Nicoletti offers a rigorously logical, scholastic ancestor to Grice’s modern, pragmatic account: both dissolve confusion by showing that meaning—whether in medieval disputation or ordinary conversation—is governed by rational constraints that regulate how sense can be generated, extended, and responsibly inferred. Grice: “At Oxford, Wykeham is slightly below both White (slightly below) and Waynflete (that reigns supreme). Filosofo friulano – filosofo italiano. Udine, Friuli-Venezia Giulia. – Grice: “His diagramme for ‘arbor porphyriana’ is also brilliant – ending with “Plato,” “Socrates.”” -- Grice: “I especially like his squaring the square of opposition!” -- Grice: “A veritable genius, this Nicoletti.” -- Not under ‘Venezia’! -- paolo di venezia: philosopher, the son of Andrea Nicola, of Venice He was born in Fliuli Venezia Giulia, a hermit of Saint Augustine O.E.S.A., he spent three years as a student at St. John’s, where the order of St. Augustine had a ‘studium generale,’ at Oxford and taught at Padova, where he became a doctor of arts. Paolo also held appointments at the universities of Parma, Siena, and Bologna. Paolo is active in the administration of his order, holding various high offices. He composed ommentaries on several logical, ethical, and physical works of Aristotle. His name is connected especially with his best-selling “Logica parva.” Over 150 manuscripts survive, and more than forty printed editions of it were made, His huge sequel, “Logica magna,” is a flop. These Oxford-influenced tracts contributed to the favourable climate enjoyed by Oxonian semantics in northern Italian universities. Grice: “My favourite of Paul’s tracts is his “Sophismata aurea”how peaceful for a philosopher to die while commentingon Aristotle’s “De anima.”!” His nom de plum is “Paulus Venetus.”— Nicoletti and Grice: Dissolving the Insolubilia ̶ The Dictum, the Implicatum, and the Significatum vis-à-vis the Emissum and the Consecutum By S. R. Read and J. L. Speranza Abstract In ‘Consequence, Signification, and Insolubles in Fourtheenth-Century Logic,’ in Logica Universalis, Paolo da Harborne, and Paolo da Venezia,” Paolo da Harborne, and Paolo da Venezia Anglo-Italiano, Bordighera. quadratura ed implicatura.  Grice: Mi creda, Nicoletti, provo un autentico piacere nel poterla chiamare, semplicemente, Nicoletti! Sa, non sempre ho questa fortuna: basti pensare a Gugliemo d’Occam, dove il nome sembra sfuggire, come direbbe lei, a ogni “quadratura.” Invece qui posso proprio chiamare una zappa, zappa—call a spade a spade, come diremmo in inglese, ma lasci che lo dica in italiano: chiamare le cose con il loro nome! Nicoletti: Caro Grice, le sue parole mi onorano! Nel mio Friuli si dice che “il pane va chiamato pane e il vino, vino.” Anche nella logica, come lei ben sa, preferisco la chiarezza: una proposizione dev’essere distinta e precisa, proprio come un nome ben dato. E la sua franchezza è rara come la quadratura perfetta della “quadratura del quadrato di opposizione”! Grice: Ah, Nicoletti, la sua “arbor porphyriana” è per me fonte di continua ammirazione—mi sembra quasi di vedere Platone e Socrate spuntare tra i rami! E a proposito di precisione, la sua “Logica parva” ha illuminato più di una mia notte insonne a Oxford. Se solo avessimo avuto più spesso questa “conversazione genuina” nelle aule inglesi! Nicoletti: Lei è troppo generoso, caro Grice! Ma vede, anche le sue riflessioni sull’implicatura conversazionale hanno fatto scuola sulle nostre rive… Forse, tra Friuli e Oxford, ci unisce proprio questa ricerca: quella di dire il vero, in modo semplice, senza “insolubilia”. Alla fine, che gioia potersi chiamare, finalmente, col proprio nome! Nicoletti, Paolo (1405). Tractatus summularum logice (Logica parva). Padova.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Nifo – Ossia: Grice e Nifo: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale ludicra – la scuola di Sessa Agostino Nifo (Sessa, Caserta, Campania): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale ludicra – A comparison between Nifo and H. P. Grice on reason-governed conversational meaning reveals an unexpected historical depth to Grice’s modern theory of implicature: both thinkers treat rationality as immanent in discourse rather than externally imposed. Nifo’s Dialectica and Rhetorica ludicra conceive philosophical exchange as governed by an animus intelligendi that operates playfully yet purposively, where intellectual activity, even when couched in wit or apparent frivolity, remains answerable to rational norms tied to the intellectus agens and the shared pursuit of understanding; the “ludic” element is not irrationality but a mode of activating reason through irony, exaggeration, and dialectical tension, especially in disputes over the soul and intellect. Grice’s theory of conversational implicature similarly grounds meaning in reason, but relocates it from metaphysics to pragmatics: what is meant beyond what is said arises from participants’ recognition of a cooperative, rational order governing conversation, articulated through the Cooperative Principle and its maxims. Where Nifo embeds rational governance in the ontology of intellect and soul, Grice reconstructs it in terms of speaker intentions and mutual expectations, yet both reject the idea that meaning is exhausted by literal form and both allow that apparent deviations, jokes, or indirections are intelligible precisely because reason silently regulates them. In this sense, Grice’s modern account of conversational implicature can be read as a secularized, analytic descendant of Nifo’s ludic dialectic, preserving the insight that rational order in conversation often reveals itself most clearly when language appears to be doing something less than strictly serious, or less than strictly literal. When Grice decided to import ‘soul’ into the philosophical vocabulary, he was following Nifo!. animus, anima, soul. Grice: “I like N.; first, because he wrote a treatise he called ‘ludicrous rhetoric;’ second, because he tried to refute Pomponazzi against the mortality of the soul – surely the soul is ‘mortal’ is a category mistake --.” Alla corte di Carlo V (L. Toro, Sessa Aurunca). Studia Padova sotto Vernia. Insegna a Padova, Napoli, Roma e Pisa, guadagnando una fama tale da essere incaricato e pagato da Leone X di difendere l’immortalità dell’animo di Leone X contro gl’attacchi di Pomponazzi e degli alessandristi. Ricompensato con la nomina a conte palatino con il diritto di assumere il cognome del Papa, Medici. La sua prima filosofia si ispira ad Averroè, modifica poi la propria visione giungendo a posizioni più vicine al domma romano. Pubblica un'edizione delle opere di Averroè corredate di un commento compatibile con la sua nuova posizione. Nella grande controversia con gli alessandristi si oppose alla tesi di Pomponazzi per il quale l'animo razionale non e separabile dal corpo materiale e, dunque, la morte di questo porta con sé anche la scomparsa dell'anima. Sostenne, invece, che l'animo di Leone X, quale parte dell'intelletto assoluto, non e distruttibile e alla morte del corpo di Leone X si fonde in un'unità eterna. Tra i suoi allievi, presso Salerno, tra gli altri, ricordiamo, Rosselli, filosofo calabrese autore di un testo molto controverso, Apologeticus adversos cucullatos (Parma), in cui cerca di affermare le sue dottrine che tendono a discostarsi da quello del suo maestro. Lo si ritiene protagonista di un curioso episodio. Pubblica il trattato “De regnandi peritia” ludica, ludicra, intellectus, animo intelligere, nous, intellectus passivus, intellectus activus, intellectus agens, intellectus possibilis, intellectus passibilis, what is so ludicrious about dialectis?– la dialettica ludrica”, Dreaming” – Malcolm, “Dreaming. Grice: Carissimo Nifo, confesso che la tua “retorica ludicra” mi ha sempre divertito! Ma dimmi: davvero pensi che l’anima possa essere oggetto di scherzo filosofico, o rischiamo che qualcuno ci accusi di prenderla… troppo alla leggera? Nifo: Ah, Grice, la filosofia senza un po’ di gioco è come l’anima senza corpo: non si regge! E poi, se anche Leone X rideva delle mie dispute, vuol dire che perfino i papi apprezzano il lato burlesco della metafisica! Grice: Vedi, caro Nifo, anch’io ho sempre pensato che l’ironia sia il sale delle conversazioni profonde—un po’ come l’intelletto agente che illumina le nostre notti insonni a Oxford. E poi, chi potrebbe resistere a una buona battuta sull’anima immortale? Nifo: Grice, dicono a Sessa che una risata prolunga la vita… magari, se Pomponazzi avesse sorriso un po’ di più, avrebbe creduto anche lui nell’immortalità dell’anima! Ma ora dimmi: tu, tra un gioco di parole e una disputa, da che parte stai? Nifo, Agostino (1514). De intellectu. Napoli.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Nigidio – Ossia: Grice e Nigidio: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale -- Roma – filosofia italiana  Publio Nigidio Figulo (Roma): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale -- A comparison between H. P. Grice and Publius Nigidius Figulus with respect to reason‑governed conversational meaning highlights a shared conviction that intelligible communication is regulated by rational norms that transcend mere verbal form. Nigidius, especially in his reflections on gesture, grammar, and fate, treats communicative acts as embedded in a broader rational and cosmic order shaped by Pythagorean harmony: gestures, silences, and grammatical deviations signify only insofar as they are integrated into a rationally interpretable practice shared by interlocutors. Meaning, for him, is not exhausted by words but emerges from the coordinated use of signs governed by ratio, where failure of understanding calls for rational repair through explication. Grice’s theory of conversational implicature relocates a structurally similar insight into a modern, secular framework: conversational meaning is generated by the hearer’s rational reconstruction of speaker intentions under the assumption that discourse is cooperative and normatively constrained. While Nigidius grounds conversational rationality in metaphysical, religious, and cosmological principles, and Grice articulates it in terms of practical reason, intentions, and maxims, both converge on the idea that communication is intelligible only because participants implicitly recognize and respond to a rational order that governs not just what is said, but how deviations, gestures, and apparent irregularities count as meaningful within conversation. Grice: “N. is my kind of philosopher. He wrote a little essay on ‘gestures’ which surely inspired me to refute Peirce about gestures NOT being vehicles by which an utterer can ‘signify’. Like my joint seminars with Staal, N. elaborated on ‘grammatical’ questions – and I must say N. had a better ear for grammatical improperties than Staal himself!” -- Filosofo italiano. Friend of Cicerone. N. enjoys a great reputation for learning. However, N. is on the wrong side of the civil war between Pompeo and GIULIO  Cesare, and Cesare sends him into exile – ‘which is worse than death for not a few Roman’ (Grice). N. is particularly interested in Pythagoreanism and is a leading figure in its revival at Rome. ‘Like Witters’ (Grice), N. specialises in the mystical side of Pythagoreanism and is credited with occult powers. N. è una personalità assai notevole. Senatore, pretore e ascoltatissimo consigliere di CICERONE  nel momento critico della congiura di CATILINA . Nella guerra civile, si schiera col partito di POMPEO  e dopo la sconfitta di questo vive in esilio. Nella vita politica occupa sempre posizioni secondarie. Ha fama notevole per l'ampiezza del suo sapere che lo fa ritenere il più dotto dei romani al pari di VARRONE , che però lo supera per ampiezza di cultura. CICERONE  afferma che fa risorgere le credenze della setta di Crotona come dottrina filosofica. Ma effettivamente è riapparso come pitagorismo in Alessandria, tanto è vero che ad esso appartenne Bolos di Mendes, o Bolos Democrito. Quindi l’affermazione di CICERONE  su lui si limita al mondo romano. Raccogge intorno à sè un circolo di 'crotonesi' che permite ai suol nemici personali di parlare di una factio. Il suo sforzo di fondere l'insegnamento della setta di Crotona – nella quale vede la verità su filosofia, astronomia e scienze occulte -- con credenze, oltrechè romane, etrusche. Suscita l'accusa di infedeltà alla 'religione' o culto ufficiale dello stato romano. Publio Nigidio Figulo. GRICEVS: Nigidivs, audivi te de gestibus disserere—an vera est sententia tua, gestus esse signa, quae verba superant? NIGIDIVS: O Gricevs, certissime! Saepe gestus magis valent quam mille verba—Ciceroni ego saepe oculis tantum loquebar, sed Pompeo manibus. Nimis enim arguta lingua Romana est! GRICEVS: Quid, si gestus non intelleguntur? Ego in Oxonia saepe manum levavi, sed discipuli putabant me numerum dare, non sententiam! NIGIDIVS: Gricevs, tunc ratio conversationalis adest: explicandum, non solum gestu, sed etiam verbo! Melius est, si Romae, gestus cum vino misceamus—sic omnes intellegunt, etiam qui verba amittunt. Grice and Speranza have only (and rightly so) only ONE philosopher under the gens Nigidia -- and they assume that therefore it must be one of the most plebeian gentes (Grice uses 'plebeian' comparatively) -- do we have other members of this gens? It surely was't one of the gentes maiores -- which Grice orders as 1 CORNELIA 2 MANLIA 3 EMILIA 4 FABIA 5 VARIA and (he forgets the sixth). This is a lovely case where your and Grice’s instinct is mostly right, but needs a small archaeological complication: the gens Nigidia is not non‑existent — just extremely thin, late, and socially undistinguished.  1. Is Nigidius Figulus alone? Not quite — but almost, if you restrict yourself to literary, Republican Rome.  In the Republican literary record, essentially the only prominent bearer is:  Publius Nigidius Figulus [en.wikipedia.org]    There is no evidence of:  consular fasti entries long aristocratic stemma repeated magistracies across generations  So Grice’s instinct that the gens is “low” in the hierarchy is well grounded.  2. But epigraphy complicates the picture When you go to inscriptions (especially Pompeii), you do find a few other Nigidii:  Marcus Nigidius Vaccula (likely a merchant; inscription evidence) Numerius Nasennius Nigidius Vaccula (appearing in auction documents) Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius (a man born Nigidius but adopted into the gens Alleia) [pompeii.ia...rginia.edu]  Two important consequences follow.  3. What this shows about the gens (a) It exists — but at a low social resolution The name Nigidius:  occurs in non-elite, practical contexts (trade, municipal life) appears outside Rome proper (Campania, Pompeii)  This strongly suggests:  not a noble Roman “house,” but a small, possibly regional Italic gens.   (b) It lacks historical “amplification” Compare with:  Cornelii, Fabii, Aemilii → repeated magistracies even middling gentes → multiple senators, inscriptions, branches  For Nigidia:  no dense network no known early ancestry no major political lineage  So it fails what we might call the Roman amplification test.  (c) It is compatible with Oscan / Italic origin The form Nigidius:  looks like a typical Italic nomen (-idius ending is often Oscan) fits the pattern of local names absorbed into Roman citizenship  So the gens may be:  recently Romanized or socially peripheral even within Rome   4. Plebeian? Yes — but in a strong sense You are right to stress Grice’s “comparative” plebeian. We can sharpen it:  not patrician not even one of the “great plebeian” gentes but closer to what we might call:   “sub-elite” or municipal plebeian  That is:  capable of producing a senator (Nigidius himself) but without deep aristocratic backing  And that is precisely why he is interesting.  5. Philosophical punchline (very Gricean) Nigidius Figulus is a perfect counterexample to a naive sociology of philosophy:  intellectual prominence ≠ gentile prominence  In fact:  Varro (non-aristocratic, but rising) Nigidius (thin gens)  → both compete intellectually with the old elites So the “implicature”:  “important thinker → important gens”  is false, and cancellable.  6. Final dry Oxonian classification  The gens Nigidia exists, but barely. It is not one of the gentes maiores (your list is essentially right; the canonical six usually include Cornelii, Aemilii, Fabii, Manlii, Valerii, Claudii). It appears mostly in minor epigraphic traces.  So Grice’s filing:  one philosopher under Nigidia  is not ignorance — it is, in effect, a correct sociological summary of the evidence.  If you like, we can compare Nigidius with someone like Varro to see how far intellectual prestige can detach from gens-structure in the late Republic.Nigidio Figulo, Publio (a. u. c. DCCIX). De fato. Roma: s.n.

 

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Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Nimifidio – Ossia: Grice e Nimfidio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Nimifidio. The gens Nymphidia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are not mentioned until imperial times, and none of them are known to have obtained any of the higher offices of the Roman state, although one of them, Gaius Nymphidius Sabinus, attempted to seize the throne following the death of the emperor Nero.[1]  Praenomina As with other families of imperial times, the Nymphidii known to history used only a few praenomina, Gaius and Publius occurring in ancient writers and inscriptions. Tryphon, a Greek name appearing in the name of Tryphon Nymphidius Philocalus, was never a praenomen, although he may have used it in place of one; although unusual, it was not unheard of for freedmen to continue using their original names in place of praenomina, even after obtaining Roman nomina. Since the inscription mentioning him suggests that he was wealthy, it also seems possible that Tryphon was part of a longer name, perhaps the surname of one of his ancestors.[2]  Origin The nomen Nymphidius is clearly not of Roman origin, being derived from the Greek name Nymphis, presumably borne by an ancestor of the Nymphidii. The nomen falls within a class of gentilicia formed using the suffix -idius, although in this case because the stem of Nymphis is Nymphid-, rather than because it ended in -idus.[3]  Branches and cognomina There is no evidence that the Nymphidii were ever divided into distinct branches, but several surnames appear among those members of the family found in ancient writers and inscriptions. Sabinus, belonging to the most famous of the Nymphidii, and probably one of the earliest, refers to a Sabine, suggesting another possible origin for the gens;[4] Lupus means "wolf", Valens means "strong" or "powerful".[5] Ogulnianus signifies that its bearer was either adopted from the Ogulnia gens into some family of the Nymphidii, or that he was descended from the Ogulnii through the female line; Fuscanius appears to be a nomen gentilicium built on the cognomen Fuscus, "dark", and probably entered the family through the female line.[4][6] Chresimus and Philocalus are Greek names, and probably belonged to freedmen of the Nymphidia gens, who may have passed them to their descendants as surnames.[4]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Nymphidia, the daughter of Gaius Julius Callistus, was a courtesan at the imperial court in the time of Caligula. She was the mother of Gaius Nymphidius Sabinus.[7][1][8] Gaius Nymphidius Sabinus, one of the commanders of the Praetorian Guard during the reign of Nero. He helped suppress the Pisonian conspiracy in AD 66, and was rewarded with the consular insignia. After Nero's death, Nymphidius, claiming to be the son of Caligula, hoped to succeed the late emperor, but he was killed by the associates of Galba.[9][7][1][10] Nymphidius Lupus, a friend of Pliny the Younger, with whom he had served in the Roman army. He was the primus pilus, or senior centurion, of his legion. Pliny recommended Nymphidius' son to the emperor Trajan.[11][12][13] Gaius Nymphidius Chresimus, listed in a century of soldiers stationed at Rome in AD 70.[14] Nymphidius Lupus, son of Pliny's friend, was prefect of his cohort, in a legion commanded by Julius Ferox and Fuscus Salinator.[11][12][13] Nymphidius, presented a question to the jurist Julius Paulus, to which Paulus' answer appears in the Digest.[15][13] Tryphon Nymphidius Philocalus, the patron of Gaius Messius Eunomius Senior, buried at Rome, aged ninety.[2] Nymphidia, the daughter of Nymphidius, buried at Rome, aged two years, five months.[16] Publius Nymphidius P. f. Fuscanius, a veteran of the fourth cohort, buried at Ostia with his wife, Cornelia Felis.[17] Nymphidia, the mother of Publius Nymphidius Valens.[18] Publius Nymphidius P. f. Valens, a member of the council of Nicopolis ad Istrum in Moesia Inferior, where he was buried, aged thirty.[18] Gaius Nymphidius Ogulnianus, together with Gaius Annius Proculus, erected a monument to their mother, Julia Apollonia, at Portus in Latium.[19] See also List of Roman gentes References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 1217 ("Nymphidius Sabinus").  CIL VI, 9679.  Chase, pp. 121, 122.  Chase, p. 114.  New College Latin & English Dictionary, s. v. lupus, valens.  New College Latin & English Dictionary, s. v. fuscus.  Plutarch, "The Life of Galba", 8–15.  PIR, vol. II, p. 423.  Tacitus, Annales, xv. 72, Historiae, i. 5, 25, 37.  PIR, vol. II, pp. 422, 423.  Pliny the Younger, Epistulae, x. 19.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 1217 ("Nymphidius Lupus").  PIR, vol. II, p. 422.  CIL VI, 200, AE 2000, 156.  Digesta, 35. 1. 81.  CIL VI, 23179.  CIL XIV, 221.  AE 2004, 1308.  IPOstie, A-146, 147. Bibliography Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Pliny the Younger), Epistulae (Letters). Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales, Historiae Plutarchus, Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. Digesta seu Pandectae (The Digest). 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). Hilding Thylander, Inscriptions du port d'Ostie (Inscriptions from the Port of Ostia, abbreviated IPOstie), Acta Instituti Romani Regni Sueciae, Lund (1952). John C. Traupman, The New College Latin & English Dictionary, Bantam Books, New York (1995). Categories: NymphidiiRoman gentes and which would be your favourite from this gens for a Grice/Speranza vignette? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Nimifidio – Ossia: Grice e Nimfidio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Nimifidio. For me, the clear winner is Gaius Nymphidius Sabinus. Not because he almost became emperor, but because he creates a nearly perfect Gricean problem about speaker meaning, authority, and uptake. The family dossier explicitly identifies him as a Praetorian commander who, after Nero's death, claimed descent from Caligula and hoped to succeed Nero, only to be killed when the troops and Galba's associates refused the move. [GREXv2 | Word] The question is:  When does saying "I am your emperor" make you emperor?  Austin would immediately see a performative problem. Grice would immediately ask: under what assumptions are the hearers supposed to recognize the intention? A reconstruction might begin: Nymphidius: Imperator ero. Praetorian: Imperator an sperator? ("Will you be emperor, or merely a hopeful?")  Nymphidius: Neronem amisimus. Quem exspectatis? ("We have lost Nero. Whom are you waiting for?")  Praetorian: Non satis est te nominare. ("It is not enough to name yourself.")  Nymphidius: Caligulae filius sum. ("I am the son of Caligula.")  Praetorian: Hoc dicis; aliud probandum est. ("That you say; something else must be proved.")  +> The issue is not meaning, but uptake.   The Grice/Speranza point would be that Nymphidius discovers a painful truth:  Speaker meaning alone does not create political reality.  He intends to be understood as emperor. His audience understands perfectly well what he intends. The failure occurs at the next stage. They refuse to ratify the intended status. The communication succeeds; the political act fails. By contrast, Sabinus gives Speranza a wonderful dramatic formula:  Naevius asks whether a noble family can monopolize office. Nymphidius asks whether a man can talk himself into being emperor.  The first concerns the implicatures of aristocratic power. The second concerns the limits of speaker meaning itself. A dry Speranzian closing might be:  Naevius learned that saying too much may get a poet exiled. Nymphidius learned that meaning too much does not make one emperor. In both cases, the audience had the last word. [GREXv2 | Word]

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Nimifidio – Ossia: Grice e Nimfidio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Nimifidio. My second choice would actually be the anonymous Nymphidius who asks a question of Julius Paulus and appears in the Digest. The dossier explicitly notes that a Nymphidius submitted a legal question answered by Paulus. [GREXv2 | Word] That is almost irresistibly Gricean because jurisprudence is full of:  what was said, what was intended, what follows, what follows only apparently.  But the sources give us far less personality there.

 

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Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Ninnio – Ossia: Grice e Ninnio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Ninnio. The gens Ninnia was a plebeian family at Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned at Capua during the Second Punic War, and are found at Rome towards the end of the Republic.[1] Several Ninnii held the consulship under the Flavian and Antonine emperors.  Origin The Ninnii appear to have been of Campanian origin. Two brothers of this family hosted Hannibal when he entered the city of Capua in 216 BC, in the aftermath of the Battle of Cannae. Livy identifies them as members of the noble Capuan house of the Ninnii Celeres.[2]  Praenomina The Ninnii Celeres used the Oscan praenomina Sthenius and Pacuvius. A branch of the family at Rome in the first century BC used the Latin praenomen Lucius. In imperial times we find Gaius and Quintus.  Branches and cognomina Two cognomina of the gens are known from Republican times: Celer, which means "swift", belonged to a family of the Ninnii at Capua during the Second Punic War. The surname Quadratus is found amongst the Ninnii at Rome in the time of Cicero.[1] The consular family of imperial times bore the cognomen Hasta, or the derived Hastianus.  Members Sthenius Ninnius Celer, a Capuan nobleman, who hosted Hannibal after he entered the city in 216 BC.[2] Pacuvius Ninnius Celer, brother of Sthenius, and also Hannibal's host; he is sometimes confused with Pacuvius Calavius.[2] Lucius Ninnius Quadratus, tribune of the plebs in 58 BC, a warm friend of Cicero. Ninnius Crassus, said to have translated the Iliad into Latin verse; his name appears in Priscianus, but there is a possibility that it is corrupt.[3][4] Gaius Ninnius Hasta,[i] consul suffectus ex kal. Mai. in AD 88.[5][6] Quintus Ninnius Hasta, consul in AD 114.[7][6] Quintus Ninnius Hastianus, consul suffectus in the final months of AD 160.[8] See also List of Roman gentes Footnotes  Gaius in the Fasti Ostienses, but Quintus in the Fasti Potentini. References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 1203 ("Ninnia Gens").  Livy, xxiii. 8.  Priscian, ix. p. 866, ed. Putschius.  Wernsdorf, Poëtae Latini Minores, vol. iv, p. 569.  Fasti Ostienses, CIL XIV, 244.  Fasti Potentini, AE 1949, 23.  CIL XI, 4347  AE 1999, 1190. Bibliography Titus Livius (Livy), History of Rome. Priscianus Caesariensis (Priscian), Institutiones Grammaticae (Institutes of Grammar). Johann Christian Wernsdorf, Poëtae Latini Minores (Minor Latin Poets), Altenburg, Helmstedt (1780–1799). 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). Categories: Roman gentesNinnii And from THIS gens? thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Ninnio – Ossia: Grice e Ninnio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Ninnio. For the Ninnii, my favourite is overwhelmingly Sthenius Ninnius Celer and his brother Pacuvius Ninnius Celer, for one reason:  They hosted Hannibal.  That is already a conversational situation before it is a political one. The dossier explicitly notes that the two Capuan brothers hosted Hannibal after his entry into Capua following Cannae. [GREXv2 | Word] A Grice/Speranza vignette almost writes itself around the question:  What does hospitality mean in wartime?  Because receiving a guest is never merely receiving a guest.  The Gricean problem Suppose Hannibal arrives. The brothers say:  "Our house is yours."  Literally, hospitality. But every Roman, every Capuan, and Hannibal himself knows that more is being communicated. The question becomes:  Is the dinner an utterance?   Reconstruction Hannibal: Hospitesne an socii estis? ("Are you hosts or allies?")  Sthenius: Hospites. ("Hosts.")  Hannibal: Cur ergo me recipitis? ("Then why do you receive me?")  Pacuvius: Mos Campanus est. ("It is Campanian custom.")  Hannibal: Mos saepe plus dicit quam verba. ("Custom often says more than words.")  +> Hospitality may implicate political support.   Speranza's gloss The brothers never need say:  "We support Carthage."  Nor:  "Rome is finished."  Nor:  "We join Hannibal."  Yet their actions naturally invite those conclusions. The beauty of the case is that the explicit act is innocent:  hosting a guest.  The implicated act is political:  receiving the conqueror.   Why I prefer this to the later consuls The consuls are historically respectable, but conversationally thin. The Hannibal episode gives:  hospitality, loyalty, ambiguity, political signalling, double audiences.  Above all, it gives the distinction between:  what an act is,  and  what an act is taken to mean.  That is pure Grice.  A dry Speranzian ending might be:  The Ninnii did not send Hannibal a treaty. They offered him dinner. Rome nevertheless understood the message. [GREXv2 | Word]  And that, for Grice, is usually where things become interesting. and we can imagine a four-conversationalist conversation in Latin, each N. and their two wives. Wife: "What language does Hannibal speak? -- all in latin, with eng. tr. in brackets -- and eventual +> implicature in Eng, only -- what langauge? what would be his favourite food? Table for how many? etc -- and did the invitation proceeded and Hannibal entered Capua? End of story? Thanks Yes. For a Speranza vignette, I would not make the scene political at first. I would make it domestic. The wives understand perfectly well that "hosting Hannibal" is not merely a catering problem, and the husbands pretend that it is. Historically, Livy's account only gives us the basic fact that the Ninnii brothers were among the Capuan nobles who received Hannibal after his entry into Capua following Cannae. It does not record conversations, wives, menu choices, language discussions, or table arrangements. The following is therefore an imaginative Speranza-style reconstruction built around that historical situation. [GREXv2 | Word]  Ante adventum Hannibalis Sthenius Ninnius Celer: Hannibal hodie domum nostram visitabit. ("Hannibal will visit our house today.") Uxor Sthenii: Visitabitne an habitabit? ("Will he visit or reside?") +> A conqueror rarely stays merely for dinner.  Pacuvius Ninnius Celer: Hospes erit. ("He will be a guest.") Uxor Pacuvii: Hospes cum exercitu? ("A guest with an army?") +> The category 'guest' seems suspiciously inadequate.  Uxor Sthenii: Quam linguam loquitur? ("What language does he speak?") Pacuvius: Poenice, opinor. ("Punic, I suppose.") Sthenius: Et Graece. ("And Greek.") Uxor Pacuvii: Latine? ("Latin?") Sthenius: Si opus erit. ("If necessary.") +> The wives are really asking whether communication is possible; the husbands are pretending this is a linguistic question rather than a political one.  Uxor Pacuvii: Quid cenare amat? ("What does he like to eat?") Pacuvius: Non scio. ("I do not know.") Uxor Sthenii: Romanos fortasse. ("Romans, perhaps.") +> A perfectly domestic question receives a perfectly political answer.  Uxor Sthenii: Quot parare debemus locos? ("For how many should we prepare places at table?") Sthenius: Pro Hannibale et paucis amicis. ("For Hannibal and a few friends.") Uxor Pacuvii: Et quot milia amicorum habet? ("And how many thousands of friends does he have?") +> "Friends" now means soldiers.  Adventus Hannibalis Hannibal: Salvete, Campani. ("Greetings, Campanians.") Sthenius: Domus nostra tua est. ("Our house is yours.") Hannibal: Gratias ago. ("I thank you.") Uxor Sthenii (submissa voce): Nimium tua erit. ("It will be yours rather too much.") +> Hospitality is beginning to look like surrender.  Post cenam Pacuvius: Bene processit. ("It went well.") Uxor Pacuvii: Ita. ("Indeed.") Pacuvius: Cur tristis es? ("Why are you sad?") Uxor Pacuvii: Quia hodie Hannibal hospes fuit. ("Because today Hannibal was a guest.") Pacuvius: Et quid tum? ("And what of it?") Uxor Pacuvii: Timeo ne cras dominus sit. ("I fear that tomorrow he will be master.") +> The dinner has been interpreted politically.  A Grice/Speranza note would almost certainly be:  The husbands continually describe Hannibal under the heading hospes. The wives continually interpret him under the heading victor. The conversational tension lies in the fact that both descriptions are literally true, while only one predicts the future. The hospitality is the dictum; the transfer of allegiance is the implicature. Rome, hearing of the dinner, would have had little difficulty understanding which meaning mattered more. [GREXv2 | Word] Yes — and here the evidence is unusually good. What exactly does the inscription say? The Gaius Nipius Ascanius ingots preserve essentially the name alone. On the Carmel ingot the published reading is:  G(ai) Nipi Ascani  which the editors translate as:  "(Product) of Gaius Nipius Ascanius." [etymonline.com]  So yes, Nipi Ascani is genitival in form: effectively "of Gaius Nipius Ascanius". It functions rather like a maker's mark, ownership mark, or mining-lease identification. [etymonline.com], [goong.com]  When was the Bossington ingot found? The British Museum record explicitly says:  "Found around 1783." [goong.com]  The same record also notes that newer archival evidence preserved in the Hampshire Record Office gives a more precise findspot and refers to a note describing the lead as found:  "...about the year 1788." [goong.com]  So the Museum record preserves both traditions:  found "around 1783", and an old manuscript note saying "about the year 1788". [goong.com]  The British Museum does not reconcile the discrepancy in the published record.  Is it in the British Museum? Yes. The Bossington ingot is British Museum object:  1861,0218.1 [goong.com]  and the Museum record explicitly identifies it as a Romano-British lead ingot. [goong.com]  Does the British Museum give provenance? Yes, quite a lot. The record states that the ingot was found in England near:  Stockbridge, Hampshire. [goong.com]  The Museum further notes archival evidence locating the findspot on an estate near a river bank. The record includes the preserved statement:  "This Piece of Lead was found on this Estate..." [goong.com]  The object history also records:  previous owner: Rev. J. Chapman, purchased from G. R. Elwes, British Museum registration number 1861,0218.1. [goong.com]   The Grice connection Your Clifton observation is wonderfully Speranzian. One should be cautious: the sources do not say anything about H. P. Grice, Clifton, or geographical proximity. But as a literary coincidence it is attractive that a lead ingot bearing:  G. Nipi Ascani  was found in southern England and ended up in London, while the mythical name "Ascanius"—which ought to belong to Troy and Latium—has somehow migrated all the way to Roman Britain. [goong.com], [etymonline.com] A dry epigram almost writes itself:  Ascanius Britanniam non vidit; plumbum eius vidit. "Ascanius never saw Britain; his lead did."  or more Gricean still:  Nomen venit longius quam homo. "The name travelled farther than the man." But Grice would warn that 'cognomen' is anything like 'Herbert' or 'Paul' 'whereas 'Grice' was not my given name -- but my surname.' Here Nipius. What did the gens say about origin of this gens -- or was it all nipped in the bud? Thanks -- yes, marker -- less fancy than 'Wedgewood' for porcelain -- this is Nipius the miner -- very appropriate for North Wales if not Sotckwell, Hants. Thanks Quite so — and Grice would almost certainly object if we became too romantic about Ascanius. For Grice, one must keep distinct:  praenomen (roughly like "Herbert" or "Paul"), nomen (Nipius), cognomen (Ascanius).  A Roman hearing  Gaius Nipius Ascanius  would not hear "Ascanius" as the primary family identity. The family identity is Nipius. Ascanius individualizes the man. In Gricean terms, the conversational weight for genealogy lies first with the nomen, not the cognomen. And this leads to the amusing disappointment of the gens itself. The dossier explicitly says:  "The Nipia gens was an obscure family at ancient Rome." [etymonline.com]  and, unlike many other gentes in your catalogue, there is no elaborate origin-story attached to them. No Trojan ancestor. No Sabine migration. No foster-mother of Romulus. No heroic founder. The entries simply record scattered individuals. [etymonline.com] So, to answer your question:  What did the gens itself say about its origin?  As far as the material cited here goes:  we do not know.  Indeed, the whole gens seems almost to have been, to use your phrase, "nipped in the bud." That is part of its charm.  Which is why I rather like Nipius Ascanius. His contemporaries would likely have heard:  Ascanius!  and perhaps thought of Troy, Iulus, Aeneas, the Julii, and imperial mythology. Yet what survives is:  a mark on a lead ingot.  Not Virgil. Not Augustus. Not the Aeneid. Lead. The British lead industry has a man whose name sounds heroic and whose surviving activity is administrative and commercial. [etymonline.com], [goong.com] A Speranzian contrast might be:                      WedgewoodNipiusporcelainleadluxury tablewaremining outputbrand prestigeownership mark Of course the comparison is only playful, but it captures something. The inscription  G. Nipi Ascani  functions very much like a maker's or owner's mark. [etymonline.com], [goong.com] Thus one might imagine: G.: What remains of Ascanius? S.: A name. G.: And of Nipius? S.: A business. G.: And what business? S.: Lead. Which is wonderfully unheroic, wonderfully Roman, and wonderfully British at the same time. The Trojan cognomen reaches Britain; the nomen earns its living there. a good thing is that while tons of lead may have reached Rome (colonial?) -- a few kilos remained in Stockwell, if unused? Thanks Yes — and I think Speranza would enjoy precisely that irony. The imperial intention was presumably that the lead should move. Roman Britain was producing lead for use elsewhere in the Empire, and the Bossington and Carmel ingots are evidence of a commercial and administrative system, not of antiquarian sentiment. The ingots bear the mark of Gaius Nipius Ascanius, suggesting his connection with the lead operation. [etymonline.com], [goong.com] But what makes the surviving Bossington ingot philosophically charming is that at least one such mass did not reach Rome. Instead, it remained in Britain long enough to be lost, buried, and eventually rediscovered centuries later. The British Museum record states that the Bossington ingot was found in England around the late eighteenth century and is now in the British Museum. [goong.com] A Speranzian gloss might be:  G.: What was the purpose of the lead? S.: To travel. G.: And did it? S.: Not sufficiently.  Or:  Rome wanted the lead. Britain kept the evidence.  The lead itself is almost disappointingly prosaic. What survived is not an epic, a speech, or a law, but a commodity. Yet because it stayed behind, it preserved the name:  G. Nipi Ascani.  And thus, two thousand years later, we know something about a rather obscure Nipius whom Rome itself may scarcely have remembered. [etymonline.com], [goong.com] The Gricean moral is almost irresistible:  The intended destination was Rome. The actual communicative destination was posterity.  The lead failed slightly as cargo and succeeded magnificently as evidence. Corpus: Hardie: Did you do your work on Latin inscription, Grice? G: Yes. Nip. Ascani, Stockwell -- buried underground. Apparently he was a small manufacturer involved with lead -- why would he wanted his name inscribed there -- this is "MY" lead? -- can we see if his 'company' reappers in inscriptions that eventually did reached the peninsula? Thanks That is a very good Speranza/Grice question, because the inscription itself almost invites a theory of ownership and meaning. The two things we can say with confidence from the evidence are:  The ingots bear the name   G(ai) Nipi Ascani  ("of Gaius Nipius Ascanius"). [etymonline.com], [goong.com]  The published commentary explicitly treats this as a maker's mark or lessee/operator identification connected with mining activity in Roman Britain. The RIB commentary even discusses Gaius Nipius Ascanius as a mining lessee or operator. [etymonline.com]  So your reconstructed dialogue is very plausible: Hardie: Num inscriptiones Latinas umquam tractavisti, Grice? ("Did you ever work on Latin inscriptions, Grice?") G.: Ita. "G. Nipi Ascani". In plumbo Britannico apud Bossington repertum. ("Yes. 'G. Nipi Ascani'. On British lead found near Bossington.") Hardie: Cur nomen suum inscribi voluit? ("Why did he want his name inscribed?") G.: Quia plumbum suum esse volebat intellegi. ("Because he wanted it understood to be his lead.") +> Ownership is being communicated. Hardie: Quid est "suum"? ("What does 'his' mean?") G.: Hoc est quaestio philosophica. ("That is the philosophical question.")  And that is exactly where Grice would become interested. The inscription does not say:  Hoc plumbum meum est.  ("This lead is mine.") It merely gives a name. The hearer supplies:  owner, lessee, producer, contractor, responsible party.  The name functions almost as an implicature-generating device.  As to whether Nipius's "company" reappears in Italy or elsewhere in the Empire: From the material currently before us, the answer is unfortunately:  not so far as we can presently prove.  The RIB search results show two British ingots carrying the name of Gaius Nipius Ascanius, one from Bossington and one from Carmel. [etymonline.com], [wisdomlib.org] The commentary also notes that the nomen Nipius is rare and cites a small number of other occurrences, including an inscription at Rome. [etymonline.com] But I have not found evidence in the sources we examined that:  a mining company called "Nipius" is attested in Italy, ingots marked G. Nipi Ascani have been found on the peninsula, or that his lead can be traced all the way to Rome.  The evidence lets us say:  his name appears on British lead ingots.  It does not presently let us trace a distribution network into Italy.  A very Speranzian ending might be: Hardie: Romamne pervenit plumbum? ("Did the lead reach Rome?") G.: Fortasse. ("Perhaps.") Hardie: Et Ascanius? ("And Ascanius?") G.: Non. Nomen eius pervenit. ("No. His name did.") For the lead may or may not have reached Rome; the inscription certainly reached us. And, from a Gricean point of view, that turned out to be the more important destination. [etymonline.com], [goong.com] does this help? Recall that at Corpus Christi, English only is ok -- not latin -- it seems 'nero' graces the stage. And those N. hills -- mentioned, seem closer to Grice's alma mater Clifton -- the Solent piece is interesting. Clifton was indeed in the Avon -- is in the avon, hence the bridge -- the hills of somerset etc seems to be Nipius's interests -- and it was only LATER he 'typically', romaed the rome further up to almost Anglesey, thanks That is a very good Speranza/Grice question, because the inscription itself almost invites a theory of ownership and meaning. The two things we can say with confidence from the evidence are: The ingots bear the name G(ai) Nipi Ascani ("of Gaius Nipius Ascanius"). [etymonline.com], [goong.com] The published commentary explicitly treats this as a maker's mark or lessee/operator identification connected with mining activity in Roman Britain. The RIB commentary even discusses Gaius Nipius Ascanius as a mining lessee or operator. [etymonline.com] So your reconstructed dialogue is very plausible: Hardie: Num inscriptiones Latinas umquam tractavisti, Grice? ("Did you ever work on Latin inscriptions, Grice?") G.: Ita. "G. Nipi Ascani". In plumbo Britannico apud Bossington repertum. ("Yes. 'G. Nipi Ascani'. On British lead found near Bossington.") Hardie: Cur nomen suum inscribi voluit? ("Why did he want his name inscribed?") G.: Quia plumbum suum esse volebat intellegi. ("Because he wanted it understood to be his lead.") +> Ownership is being communicated. Hardie: Quid est "suum"? ("What does 'his' mean?") G.: Hoc est quaestio philosophica. ("That is the philosophical question.") And that is exactly where Grice would become interested. The inscription does not say: Hoc plumbum meum est. ("This lead is mine.") It merely gives a name. The hearer supplies: owner, lessee, producer, contractor, responsible party. The name functions almost as an implicature-generating device. As to whether Nipius's "company" reappears in Italy or elsewhere in the Empire: From the material currently before us, the answer is unfortunately: not so far as we can presently prove. The RIB search results show two British ingots carrying the name of Gaius Nipius Ascanius, one from Bossington and one from Carmel. [etymonline.com], [wisdomlib.org] The commentary also notes that the nomen Nipius is rare and cites a small number of other occurrences, including an inscription at Rome. [etymonline.com] But I have not found evidence in the sources we examined that: a mining company called "Nipius" is attested in Italy, ingots marked G. Nipi Ascani have been found on the peninsula, or that his lead can be traced all the way to Rome. The evidence lets us say: his name appears on British lead ingots. It does not presently let us trace a distribution network into Italy. A very Speranzian ending might be: Hardie: Romamne pervenit plumbum? ("Did the lead reach Rome?") G.: Fortasse. ("Perhaps.") Hardie: Et Ascanius? ("And Ascanius?") G.: Non. Nomen eius pervenit. ("No. His name did.") For the lead may or may not have reached Rome; the inscription certainly reached us. And, from a Gricean point of view, that turned out to be the more important destination. [etymonline.com], [goong.com] Yes, I think it helps, but less as hard evidence about Gaius Nipius Ascanius and more as a Speranzian geographical irony. What we can actually document is fairly modest:  One inscribed lead ingot was found at Bossington and is now in the British Museum. The Museum record identifies Gaius Nipius Ascanius in the inscription and associates the object with Roman-British lead production. Another inscribed ingot was found at Carmel, near Holywell in North Wales, and is now in the National Museum Cardiff. The British Museum ingot also bears Neronian dating formulas, so Nero is indeed present on the object, not merely in the background history.  What I would not claim is that we can trace Ascanius's personal movements from Somerset to Flintshire or beyond. The sources you have assembled do not establish that. What they do establish is that his name appears on ingots connected with mining districts in southern Britain and North Wales. For Speranza, that is enough. One might imagine at Corpus: Hardie: Did you ever do inscriptions, Grice? G.: Only enough to discover that a man called Ascanius spent his life worrying about lead. Hardie: The Trojan Ascanius? G.: No. The British one. Hardie: And what did he leave behind? G.: Not an epic. Seventy kilos of lead. The joke is that Ascanius sounds Virgilian, Julian, imperial, almost destined for the Aeneid. Yet the surviving evidence is commercial and administrative. The cognomen invites epic uptake; the object itself stubbornly remains industrial. And the Clifton connection, while accidental, is rather pretty. The Bossington find belongs to the broad landscape of southern England, while the Carmel piece comes from North Wales; together they give Ascanius a footprint stretching across much of Roman Britain. Clifton, Avon, the bridge, the Somerset hills, the Severn approaches, North Wales—these are not facts about Ascanius himself, but they make a charming setting for Speranza's observation that:  Rome remembers emperors. Archaeology remembers suppliers.  Or perhaps, more Gricean:  Nero appears on the inscription because he had power. Ascanius appears because somebody wanted people handling the lead to know whose lead it was.  That last point may be the deepest one. The inscription is almost pure communicative economy. It does not say:  "This lead belongs to me."  It simply says:  G. Nipi Ascani.  The rest is supplied by the reader. Which is exactly the kind of thing Grice liked. I was thinking of the Mendip hills -- below -- does THIS help? Thanks t looks like you are thinking of Stockbridge in Hampshire rather than Stockwell. [1] Gaius Nipius Ascanius was a prominent Roman businessman and mining contractor whose name is stamped on a famous 75.3 kg Roman lead ingot (or "pig") found in Stockbridge. He was involved with this location because it sat along a major Roman transport and trade route. [1, 2] The Purpose of the Ingot The lead ingot was stamped with the name of the reigning Emperor Nero and dated to the second half of AD 60. Ascanius acted as an imperial agent or private lessee managing the lucrative "lead-silver works" (ex argentariis). [1, 2, 3] Why Stockbridge? Transport Logistics: The lead was mined in the Mendip Hills (Somerset). [1, 2] The Route: To export the heavy metal across the Roman Empire, it was hauled along the Roman road from the mines toward the Solent coast. [1] The River Crossing: Stockbridge was the vital point where this Roman road crossed the River Test. [1] The Accident: The heavy ingot was likely lost or dropped in transit at this river crossing, where it sat buried until its rediscovery in 1857. It is now housed in the British Museum. [1, 2] Later in his career, Ascanius moved his operations north to take up private mining leases in Flintshire, North Wales. [1] Are you looking into the Roman mining trade in Britain, or would you like to know more about the inscriptions on this specific ingot? [1, 2] Yes, this helps a great deal — though I'd still separate what seems well-supported from what is a scholarly reconstruction. The really attractive feature is the Mendip–Solent axis. If the lead originated in the Mendip Hills of Somerset and was moving eastward toward the Solent export system, then Gaius Nipius Ascanius ceases to be merely "a name on lead" and becomes part of a logistical story. The British Museum ingot bearing his name was found near Stockbridge, a crossing-point on the River Test. The Museum record explicitly associates the object with Roman lead transport and preserves Ascanius's name. For a Speranza vignette, the geography is irresistible. One can imagine Grice at Corpus saying:  "Everybody notices 'Ascanius'. Nobody notices the lead."  And Speranza replying:  "The lead is the point."  Because unlike Virgil's Ascanius, this Ascanius is not remembered for founding cities; he is remembered for moving very heavy objects from one place to another.  The Mendip connection is especially attractive literary-wise. You have:  Mendip lead, Somerset, western Britain, eventual movement toward southern ports, and then centuries later an ingot found near Stockbridge.  The whole thing sits in roughly the same broad West Country landscape which later generations would associate with:  Bath, Bristol, Clifton, Avon, the Severn approaches.  Not because Ascanius had anything to do with Clifton, of course, but because the physical object lived in that geography far longer than it ever lived in Roman commerce.  What I particularly like is the ownership question. The inscription reads essentially:  G. Nipi Ascani  and not:  Hoc plumbum meum est.  The inscription is astonishingly economical. Just a name. Yet everybody handling the ingot would understand:  owner, lessee, operator, contractor, responsible party.  The whole commercial relationship is implicated rather than stated. A wonderfully Gricean document.  And there is an even prettier irony. Suppose everything had worked perfectly. Then the ingot would have reached its destination. It would have been:  smelted, reused, recast, forgotten.  Instead, something failed. Perhaps it was dropped. Perhaps lost. Perhaps abandoned. What survives is almost an accident in the logistics chain. Thus:  Rome wanted the lead. Archaeology got the inscription.  Or, more Speranzian:  Ascanius intended to move metal. He accidentally communicated his name to posterity.  That is a much better fate than most mining contractors receive. and a landscape that would have been familiar to H. P. Grice (1925-1929) as boarder at Clifton? Thanks Mrs. Smith: "Where is your child?" Mrs. Grice: "Oh, up in the hills of the west country -- a boarder at Clifton" Yes, in a broad and rather appealing sense. What we can safely say is that H. P. Grice was educated at Clifton College, and that Clifton sits above the Avon Gorge in the West Country landscape associated with Bristol. The Roman lead of Gaius Nipius Ascanius seems to have originated in the Mendip mining region of Somerset and moved through the transport network of southern Britain; the Bossington/Stockbridge findspot is also in southern England. The sources support the connection between Ascanius, the lead industry, Mendip lead, and transport through southern Britain. What we cannot prove is that Grice ever visited the specific places connected with Ascanius's lead. The sources do not say that. But as Speranzian atmospheric history, it works beautifully:  The hills that produced the lead would not have been entirely alien, geographically speaking, to the world of the schoolboy Grice.  One can easily imagine the Corpus dialogue: Hardie: Did you ever study inscriptions, Grice? G.: Only enough to discover a man named Ascanius whose chief surviving achievement was dropping lead in England. Hardie: Where? G.: In a landscape not entirely remote from where I spent my schooldays. And your domestic reconstruction is exactly the sort of thing Speranza likes: Mrs. Smith: Where is your child? Mrs. Grice: Oh, up in the hills of the West Country—a boarder at Clifton. The humour lies in the understatement. To the uninformed hearer, it sounds pastoral and harmless. To those who know Clifton, it implies:  separation from home, schooling, discipline, Latin, Greek, eventually Oxford.  The explicit content is geographical; the implicature is educational destiny. Rather like Ascanius:  Explicitly: a name on a lead ingot. Implicitly: mines, transport, imperial administration, Roman Britain, and eventually a conversation at Corpus Christi two millennia later.  Speranza would probably add that neither Grice nor Ascanius intended posterity to make that connection. The lead was supposed to move; the schoolboy was supposed merely to be educated. Yet both left traces in the same broad western landscape of Avon, Somerset, and the approaches to Wales. That is not evidence, but it is very good conversational geography.

 

NIP

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Nipio – Ossia: Grice e Nipio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Nipio. The Nipia gens was an obscure family in ancient Rome.  Members Gaius Nipius Ascanius, mentioned on two ingots in Roman Britain, one from Bossington and the other from Carmel.[1][2][3] His cognomen, Ascanius, is rare and only otherwise attested as a name belonging to a freedman in Verona, perhaps indicating that Nipius Ascanius was himself also once a slave. Regardless of his background, he eventually acquired a position within a Roman mining operation in Britain.[4] Gaius Nipius Flavianus, mentioned as a procurator on an inscription from Rome.[5] Gaius Nipius M. f, mentioned on an inscription from Aquinum.[6] Lucius Nipius, an ancient Roman freedman. He erected a stone in the 1st-century CE.[7] Nipia Secunda, mentioned on an inscription dated to the 2nd-century CE.[8] See also List of Roman gentes References  Whittick 1982, p. 120.  RIB 2404.38.  RIB 2404.3  Kolbeck 2018, p. 8.  CIL VI, 611  EDCS-07000238  CIL IX, 2988  CIL IX, 02989 Bibliography Kolbeck, Ben (2018-10-12). "A Foot in Both Camps: The Civilian Suppliers of the Army in Roman Britain". Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal. 1 (1). doi:10.16995/traj.355. ISSN 2515-2289. Whittick, G. Clement (1982). "The Earliest Roman Lead-Mining on Mendip and in North Wales: A Reappraisal". Britannia. 13: 113–123. doi:10.2307/526491. ISSN 1753-5352. Category: Roman gentes and from THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Nipio – Ossia: Grice e Nipio -- Grex griceiana – verbalia: Nipio. For the Nipii, I would not choose the obscure procurator nor the freedman. I would choose Gaius Nipius Ascanius, precisely because he appears on lead ingots in Roman Britain and seems to stand at the intersection of three things Speranza likes:  names, status, transmission.  From the material you provide, Gaius Nipius Ascanius is attested on lead ingots found in Britain, and the cognomen Ascanius is noted as rare and otherwise associated with a freedman at Verona; the discussion also notes that regardless of his origins he attained a position connected with Roman mining in Britain. citeFile>GREXv2.docx What fascinates me is the cognomen Ascanius. For a Roman, Ascanius is not just a name. It inevitably recalls:  Ascanius/Iulus, Aeneas, Trojan origins, the Julian myth.  And yet here the name appears attached not to an emperor, not to a noble, not to a poet, but to a man associated with lead production in Britain. That is almost too good for Speranza.  A Grice/Speranza vignette G.: Ascanius? ("Ascanius?") Nipius Ascanius: Ita. ("Yes.")  G.: Troianus es? ("Are you a Trojan?")  Ascanius: Britannicum plumbum vendo. ("I sell British lead.")  G.: Hoc non respondit. ("That was not an answer.") +> The name invites genealogy; the answer supplies occupation.  Ascanius: Nomina saepe longius iter faciunt quam homines. ("Names often travel farther than people.") +> The Trojan myth has travelled farther than its original bearers.  Why this is Gricean Because the name threatens an implicature. When someone is called Ascanius, a Roman hearer may immediately think:  Trojan descent, Julian associations, heroic ancestry.  Yet the facts available may support none of these. The hearer infers more than the speaker intended. A perfect Gricean problem. The name says one thing. The audience gathers another.  A dry Speranzian observation Naevius taught us that a family name may stand for a political class. The Nipii suggest the opposite movement. A grand mythological name has become detached from grand politics and now appears in the world of mines, commerce, and provincial administration. The interesting question is not:  "Who was Ascanius?"  but  "What does a Roman hear when he hears the name Ascanius?"  That is a problem of uptake rather than genealogy. And uptake, as Speranza would say, is usually where the conversation begins. and what is an ingot in Latin. H. P. Grice of coruse was born in Harborne, studied Clifton, and spent the rest of his life in England at Oxford -- anywhere 'And did those feet.... of Ascanius?" thanks For the Latin of "ingot", there is unfortunately no single elegant classical word exactly equivalent to the modern industrial term. The Romans typically spoke more concretely:  massa plumbi — "a mass of lead" massa — a lump, mass, bar of metal plumbum — lead itself, when context made the form obvious occasionally regula for a cast metal bar or strip in technical contexts  So for Gaius Nipius Ascanius's lead ingots from Britain, a good Speranzian Latin would be:  massae plumbeae Ascanii "Ascanius's lead ingots"  or  plumbum Britannicum Ascanii "Ascanius's British lead." citeFile>GREXv2.docx   As for the Blake-like joke:  "And did those feet ... ?"  Speranza would find it irresistible. Blake asks:  "And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England's mountains green?"  about Christ. With Gaius Nipius Ascanius, one gets a Roman-British version:  Et pedes Ascanii Britanniam attigerunt? "And did the feet of Ascanius reach Britain?"  The dry answer is:  Not the Trojan Ascanius. But the name did.  That is the Gricean point. The historical Ascanius, son of Aeneas, is part of myth; the Britannic Gaius Nipius Ascanius appears on lead ingots connected with Roman Britain. citeFile>GREXv2.docx Thus:  Ascanius Britanniam non visitavit; nomen eius visitavit. "Ascanius did not visit Britain; his name did."  And Speranza would probably compare him, mischievously, with Grice himself. For H. P. Grice spent virtually all of his formative and academic life within England—Harborne, Clifton, Oxford being the landmarks usually associated with the familiar story. The irony is that the mythical Trojan name travels farther than the philosopher. Ascanius reaches Britain not by sailing there, but by becoming a cognomen attached to a man involved with British mining. The name wanders; the person need not. A final Speranzian epigram might be:  *Aeneas Italiam petivit; Ascanius Britanniam attigit; sed tantum per nomen.* "Aeneas sought Italy; Ascanius reached Britain; but only through a name." and the inscription was found in England and is now in the British Museum? Where in England was it found? Thanks Yes, and here the story becomes even more delightful for a Speranza-style vignette. For Gaius Nipius Ascanius, we are actually dealing with two lead ingots, one from Bossington and one from Carmel in Britain. The inscription is simply:  G(ai) Nipi Ascani "(Product) of Gaius Nipius Ascanius." [romaninscr...ritain.org], [romaninscr...ritain.org]  Where were they found? The two known finds are:                  SiteModern locationBossingtonEngland (Somerset/Hampshire-related RIB site record) [romaninscr...ritain.org], [britishmuseum.org]CarmelClwyd, North Wales, near Holywell. [romaninscr...ritain.org] The Carmel ingot was found in 1950 while foundations were being dug for a school near Carmel, and is now in the National Museum Cardiff. [romaninscr...ritain.org] The Bossington ingot is the one now in the British Museum. The Museum object record explicitly preserves Ascanius's name:  EX ARGENT G NPI ASCA... "... by agency of Gaius Nipius Ascanius ..." [britishmuseum.org]  and the British Museum records the object as having been found in England near Stockbridge/Bossington. [britishmuseum.org] The Grice/Speranza joke The fascinating thing is that we do not have:  Ascanius in Britain.  We have:  the name Ascanius stamped onto British lead.  A Roman standing before the ingot might read:  G. Nipi Ascani  and immediately hear:  Ascanius, Aeneas, Iulus, Troy, the Julii.  What he actually has in front of him is seventy kilograms of lead. [britishmuseum.org] Hence: G.: Ascanius Britanniam attigit? ("Did Ascanius reach Britain?") S.: Non ille Troianus; nomen eius. ("Not the Trojan; his name.") +> Myth travels farther than persons. And that is probably more Gricean than any imperial genealogy. The inscription says only:  Gaius Nipius Ascanius.  The hearer supplies:  Troy, Aeneas, empire, Roman destiny.  An excellent example of how a proper name can generate more implicature than information. and do we know when the Bossington one was found -- so the inscription just reads the name in the genitive? Bossington, Somerset would be close to Cliford, Somerset -- Grice's school -- thanks does the British museum info has card on procedence? Thanks Yes — and here the evidence is unusually good. What exactly does the inscription say? The Gaius Nipius Ascanius ingots preserve essentially the name alone. On the Carmel ingot the published reading is:  G(ai) Nipi Ascani  which the editors translate as:  "(Product) of Gaius Nipius Ascanius." [etymonline.com]  So yes, Nipi Ascani is genitival in form: effectively "of Gaius Nipius Ascanius". It functions rather like a maker's mark, ownership mark, or mining-lease identification. [etymonline.com], [goong.com]  When was the Bossington ingot found? The British Museum record explicitly says:  "Found around 1783." [goong.com]  The same record also notes that newer archival evidence preserved in the Hampshire Record Office gives a more precise findspot and refers to a note describing the lead as found:  "...about the year 1788." [goong.com]  So the Museum record preserves both traditions:  found "around 1783", and an old manuscript note saying "about the year 1788". [goong.com]  The British Museum does not reconcile the discrepancy in the published record.  Is it in the British Museum? Yes. The Bossington ingot is British Museum object:  1861,0218.1 [goong.com]  and the Museum record explicitly identifies it as a Romano-British lead ingot. [goong.com]  Does the British Museum give provenance? Yes, quite a lot. The record states that the ingot was found in England near:  Stockbridge, Hampshire. [goong.com]  The Museum further notes archival evidence locating the findspot on an estate near a river bank. The record includes the preserved statement:  "This Piece of Lead was found on this Estate..." [goong.com]  The object history also records:  previous owner: Rev. J. Chapman, purchased from G. R. Elwes, British Museum registration number 1861,0218.1. [goong.com]   The Grice connection Your Clifton observation is wonderfully Speranzian. One should be cautious: the sources do not say anything about H. P. Grice, Clifton, or geographical proximity. But as a literary coincidence it is attractive that a lead ingot bearing:  G. Nipi Ascani  was found in southern England and ended up in London, while the mythical name "Ascanius"—which ought to belong to Troy and Latium—has somehow migrated all the way to Roman Britain. [goong.com], [etymonline.com] A dry epigram almost writes itself:  Ascanius Britanniam non vidit; plumbum eius vidit. "Ascanius never saw Britain; his lead did."  or more Gricean still:  Nomen venit longius quam homo. "The name travelled farther than the man." But Grice would warn that 'cognomen' is anything like 'Herbert' or 'Paul' 'whereas 'Grice' was not my given name -- but my surname.' Here Nipius. What did the gens say about origin of this gens -- or was it all nipped in the bud? Thanks -- yes, marker -- less fancy than 'Wedgewood' for porcelain -- this is Nipius the miner -- very appropriate for North Wales if not Sotckwell, Hants. Thanks Quite so — and Grice would almost certainly object if we became too romantic about Ascanius. For Grice, one must keep distinct:  praenomen (roughly like "Herbert" or "Paul"), nomen (Nipius), cognomen (Ascanius).  A Roman hearing  Gaius Nipius Ascanius  would not hear "Ascanius" as the primary family identity. The family identity is Nipius. Ascanius individualizes the man. In Gricean terms, the conversational weight for genealogy lies first with the nomen, not the cognomen. And this leads to the amusing disappointment of the gens itself. The dossier explicitly says:  "The Nipia gens was an obscure family at ancient Rome." [etymonline.com]  and, unlike many other gentes in your catalogue, there is no elaborate origin-story attached to them. No Trojan ancestor. No Sabine migration. No foster-mother of Romulus. No heroic founder. The entries simply record scattered individuals. [etymonline.com] So, to answer your question:  What did the gens itself say about its origin?  As far as the material cited here goes:  we do not know.  Indeed, the whole gens seems almost to have been, to use your phrase, "nipped in the bud." That is part of its charm.  Which is why I rather like Nipius Ascanius. His contemporaries would likely have heard:  Ascanius!  and perhaps thought of Troy, Iulus, Aeneas, the Julii, and imperial mythology. Yet what survives is:  a mark on a lead ingot.  Not Virgil. Not Augustus. Not the Aeneid. Lead. The British lead industry has a man whose name sounds heroic and whose surviving activity is administrative and commercial. [etymonline.com], [goong.com] A Speranzian contrast might be:                      WedgewoodNipiusporcelainleadluxury tablewaremining outputbrand prestigeownership mark Of course the comparison is only playful, but it captures something. The inscription  G. Nipi Ascani  functions very much like a maker's or owner's mark. [etymonline.com], [goong.com] Thus one might imagine: G.: What remains of Ascanius? S.: A name. G.: And of Nipius? S.: A business. G.: And what business? S.: Lead. Which is wonderfully unheroic, wonderfully Roman, and wonderfully British at the same time. The Trojan cognomen reaches Britain; the nomen earns its living there. a good thing is that while tons of lead may have reached Rome (colonial?) -- a few kilos remained in Stockwell, if unused? Thanks Yes — and I think Speranza would enjoy precisely that irony. The imperial intention was presumably that the lead should move. Roman Britain was producing lead for use elsewhere in the Empire, and the Bossington and Carmel ingots are evidence of a commercial and administrative system, not of antiquarian sentiment. The ingots bear the mark of Gaius Nipius Ascanius, suggesting his connection with the lead operation. [etymonline.com], [goong.com] But what makes the surviving Bossington ingot philosophically charming is that at least one such mass did not reach Rome. Instead, it remained in Britain long enough to be lost, buried, and eventually rediscovered centuries later. The British Museum record states that the Bossington ingot was found in England around the late eighteenth century and is now in the British Museum. [goong.com] A Speranzian gloss might be:  G.: What was the purpose of the lead? S.: To travel. G.: And did it? S.: Not sufficiently.  Or:  Rome wanted the lead. Britain kept the evidence.  The lead itself is almost disappointingly prosaic. What survived is not an epic, a speech, or a law, but a commodity. Yet because it stayed behind, it preserved the name:  G. Nipi Ascani.  And thus, two thousand years later, we know something about a rather obscure Nipius whom Rome itself may scarcely have remembered. [etymonline.com], [goong.com] The Gricean moral is almost irresistible:  The intended destination was Rome. The actual communicative destination was posterity.  The lead failed slightly as cargo and succeeded magnificently as evidence. Corpus: Hardie: Did you do your work on Latin inscription, Grice? G: Yes. Nip. Ascani, Stockwell -- buried underground. Apparently he was a small manufacturer involved with lead -- why would he wanted his name inscribed there -- this is "MY" lead? -- can we see if his 'company' reappers in inscriptions that eventually did reached the peninsula? Thanks That is a very good Speranza/Grice question, because the inscription itself almost invites a theory of ownership and meaning. The two things we can say with confidence from the evidence are:  The ingots bear the name   G(ai) Nipi Ascani  ("of Gaius Nipius Ascanius"). [etymonline.com], [goong.com]  The published commentary explicitly treats this as a maker's mark or lessee/operator identification connected with mining activity in Roman Britain. The RIB commentary even discusses Gaius Nipius Ascanius as a mining lessee or operator. [etymonline.com]  So your reconstructed dialogue is very plausible: Hardie: Num inscriptiones Latinas umquam tractavisti, Grice? ("Did you ever work on Latin inscriptions, Grice?") G.: Ita. "G. Nipi Ascani". In plumbo Britannico apud Bossington repertum. ("Yes. 'G. Nipi Ascani'. On British lead found near Bossington.") Hardie: Cur nomen suum inscribi voluit? ("Why did he want his name inscribed?") G.: Quia plumbum suum esse volebat intellegi. ("Because he wanted it understood to be his lead.") +> Ownership is being communicated. Hardie: Quid est "suum"? ("What does 'his' mean?") G.: Hoc est quaestio philosophica. ("That is the philosophical question.")  And that is exactly where Grice would become interested. The inscription does not say:  Hoc plumbum meum est.  ("This lead is mine.") It merely gives a name. The hearer supplies:  owner, lessee, producer, contractor, responsible party.  The name functions almost as an implicature-generating device.  As to whether Nipius's "company" reappears in Italy or elsewhere in the Empire: From the material currently before us, the answer is unfortunately:  not so far as we can presently prove.  The RIB search results show two British ingots carrying the name of Gaius Nipius Ascanius, one from Bossington and one from Carmel. [etymonline.com], [wisdomlib.org] The commentary also notes that the nomen Nipius is rare and cites a small number of other occurrences, including an inscription at Rome. [etymonline.com] But I have not found evidence in the sources we examined that:  a mining company called "Nipius" is attested in Italy, ingots marked G. Nipi Ascani have been found on the peninsula, or that his lead can be traced all the way to Rome.  The evidence lets us say:  his name appears on British lead ingots.  It does not presently let us trace a distribution network into Italy.  A very Speranzian ending might be: Hardie: Romamne pervenit plumbum? ("Did the lead reach Rome?") G.: Fortasse. ("Perhaps.") Hardie: Et Ascanius? ("And Ascanius?") G.: Non. Nomen eius pervenit. ("No. His name did.") For the lead may or may not have reached Rome; the inscription certainly reached us. And, from a Gricean point of view, that turned out to be the more important destination. [etymonline.com], [goong.com] does this help? Recall that at Corpus Christi, English only is ok -- not latin -- it seems 'nero' graces the stage. And those N. hills -- mentioned, seem closer to Grice's alma mater Clifton -- the Solent piece is interesting. Clifton was indeed in the Avon -- is in the avon, hence the bridge -- the hills of somerset etc seems to be Nipius's interests -- and it was only LATER he 'typically', romaed the rome further up to almost Anglesey, thanks That is a very good Speranza/Grice question, because the inscription itself almost invites a theory of ownership and meaning. The two things we can say with confidence from the evidence are: The ingots bear the name G(ai) Nipi Ascani ("of Gaius Nipius Ascanius"). [etymonline.com], [goong.com] The published commentary explicitly treats this as a maker's mark or lessee/operator identification connected with mining activity in Roman Britain. The RIB commentary even discusses Gaius Nipius Ascanius as a mining lessee or operator. [etymonline.com] So your reconstructed dialogue is very plausible: Hardie: Num inscriptiones Latinas umquam tractavisti, Grice? ("Did you ever work on Latin inscriptions, Grice?") G.: Ita. "G. Nipi Ascani". In plumbo Britannico apud Bossington repertum. ("Yes. 'G. Nipi Ascani'. On British lead found near Bossington.") Hardie: Cur nomen suum inscribi voluit? ("Why did he want his name inscribed?") G.: Quia plumbum suum esse volebat intellegi. ("Because he wanted it understood to be his lead.") +> Ownership is being communicated. Hardie: Quid est "suum"? ("What does 'his' mean?") G.: Hoc est quaestio philosophica. ("That is the philosophical question.") And that is exactly where Grice would become interested. The inscription does not say: Hoc plumbum meum est. ("This lead is mine.") It merely gives a name. The hearer supplies: owner, lessee, producer, contractor, responsible party. The name functions almost as an implicature-generating device. As to whether Nipius's "company" reappears in Italy or elsewhere in the Empire: From the material currently before us, the answer is unfortunately: not so far as we can presently prove. The RIB search results show two British ingots carrying the name of Gaius Nipius Ascanius, one from Bossington and one from Carmel. [etymonline.com], [wisdomlib.org] The commentary also notes that the nomen Nipius is rare and cites a small number of other occurrences, including an inscription at Rome. [etymonline.com] But I have not found evidence in the sources we examined that: a mining company called "Nipius" is attested in Italy, ingots marked G. Nipi Ascani have been found on the peninsula, or that his lead can be traced all the way to Rome. The evidence lets us say: his name appears on British lead ingots. It does not presently let us trace a distribution network into Italy. A very Speranzian ending might be: Hardie: Romamne pervenit plumbum? ("Did the lead reach Rome?") G.: Fortasse. ("Perhaps.") Hardie: Et Ascanius? ("And Ascanius?") G.: Non. Nomen eius pervenit. ("No. His name did.") For the lead may or may not have reached Rome; the inscription certainly reached us. And, from a Gricean point of view, that turned out to be the more important destination. [etymonline.com], [goong.com] Yes, I think it helps, but less as hard evidence about Gaius Nipius Ascanius and more as a Speranzian geographical irony. What we can actually document is fairly modest:  One inscribed lead ingot was found at Bossington and is now in the British Museum. The Museum record identifies Gaius Nipius Ascanius in the inscription and associates the object with Roman-British lead production. Another inscribed ingot was found at Carmel, near Holywell in North Wales, and is now in the National Museum Cardiff. The British Museum ingot also bears Neronian dating formulas, so Nero is indeed present on the object, not merely in the background history.  What I would not claim is that we can trace Ascanius's personal movements from Somerset to Flintshire or beyond. The sources you have assembled do not establish that. What they do establish is that his name appears on ingots connected with mining districts in southern Britain and North Wales. For Speranza, that is enough. One might imagine at Corpus: Hardie: Did you ever do inscriptions, Grice? G.: Only enough to discover that a man called Ascanius spent his life worrying about lead. Hardie: The Trojan Ascanius? G.: No. The British one. Hardie: And what did he leave behind? G.: Not an epic. Seventy kilos of lead. The joke is that Ascanius sounds Virgilian, Julian, imperial, almost destined for the Aeneid. Yet the surviving evidence is commercial and administrative. The cognomen invites epic uptake; the object itself stubbornly remains industrial. And the Clifton connection, while accidental, is rather pretty. The Bossington find belongs to the broad landscape of southern England, while the Carmel piece comes from North Wales; together they give Ascanius a footprint stretching across much of Roman Britain. Clifton, Avon, the bridge, the Somerset hills, the Severn approaches, North Wales—these are not facts about Ascanius himself, but they make a charming setting for Speranza's observation that:  Rome remembers emperors. Archaeology remembers suppliers.  Or perhaps, more Gricean:  Nero appears on the inscription because he had power. Ascanius appears because somebody wanted people handling the lead to know whose lead it was.  That last point may be the deepest one. The inscription is almost pure communicative economy. It does not say:  "This lead belongs to me."  It simply says:  G. Nipi Ascani.  The rest is supplied by the reader. Which is exactly the kind of thing Grice liked. docx GREXv2 You said:    I was thinking of the Mendip hills -- below -- does THIS help? Thanks t looks like you are thinking of Stockbridge in Hampshire rather than Stockwell. [1]  Gaius Nipius Ascanius was a prominent Roman businessman and mining contractor whose name is stamped on a famous 75.3 kg Roman lead ingot (or "pig") found in Stockbridge. He was involved with this location because it sat along a major Roman transport and trade route. [1, 2] The Purpose of the Ingot The lead ingot was stamped with the name of the reigning Emperor Nero and dated to the second half of AD 60. Ascanius acted as an imperial agent or private lessee managing the lucrative "lead-silver works" (ex argentariis). [1, 2, 3] Why Stockbridge? Transport Logistics: The lead was mined in the Mendip Hills (Somerset). [1, 2] The Route: To export the heavy metal across the Roman Empire, it was hauled along the Roman road from the mines toward the Solent coast. [1] The River Crossing: Stockbridge was the vital point where this Roman road crossed the River Test. [1] The Accident: The heavy ingot was likely lost or dropped in transit at this river crossing, where it sat buried until its rediscovery in 1857. It is now housed in the British Museum. [1, 2] Later in his career, Ascanius moved his operations north to take up private mining leases in Flintshire, North Wales. [1] Are you looking into the Roman mining trade in Britain, or would you like to know more about the inscriptions on this specific ingot? [1, 2] Yes, this helps a great deal — though I'd still separate what seems well-supported from what is a scholarly reconstruction. The really attractive feature is the Mendip–Solent axis. If the lead originated in the Mendip Hills of Somerset and was moving eastward toward the Solent export system, then Gaius Nipius Ascanius ceases to be merely "a name on lead" and becomes part of a logistical story. The British Museum ingot bearing his name was found near Stockbridge, a crossing-point on the River Test. The Museum record explicitly associates the object with Roman lead transport and preserves Ascanius's name. For a Speranza vignette, the geography is irresistible. One can imagine Grice at Corpus saying:  "Everybody notices 'Ascanius'. Nobody notices the lead."  And Speranza replying:  "The lead is the point."  Because unlike Virgil's Ascanius, this Ascanius is not remembered for founding cities; he is remembered for moving very heavy objects from one place to another.  The Mendip connection is especially attractive literary-wise. You have:  Mendip lead, Somerset, western Britain, eventual movement toward southern ports, and then centuries later an ingot found near Stockbridge.  The whole thing sits in roughly the same broad West Country landscape which later generations would associate with:  Bath, Bristol, Clifton, Avon, the Severn approaches.  Not because Ascanius had anything to do with Clifton, of course, but because the physical object lived in that geography far longer than it ever lived in Roman commerce.  What I particularly like is the ownership question. The inscription reads essentially:  G. Nipi Ascani  and not:  Hoc plumbum meum est.  The inscription is astonishingly economical. Just a name. Yet everybody handling the ingot would understand:  owner, lessee, operator, contractor, responsible party.  The whole commercial relationship is implicated rather than stated. A wonderfully Gricean document.  And there is an even prettier irony. Suppose everything had worked perfectly. Then the ingot would have reached its destination. It would have been:  smelted, reused, recast, forgotten.  Instead, something failed. Perhaps it was dropped. Perhaps lost. Perhaps abandoned. What survives is almost an accident in the logistics chain. Thus:  Rome wanted the lead. Archaeology got the inscription.  Or, more Speranzian:  Ascanius intended to move metal. He accidentally communicated his name to posterity.  That is a much better fate than most mining contractors receive. and a landscape that would have been familiar to H. P. Grice (1925-1929) as boarder at Clifton? Thanks Mrs. Smith: "Where is your child?" Mrs. Grice: "Oh, up in the hills of the west country -- a boarder at Clifton" Yes, in a broad and rather appealing sense. What we can safely say is that H. P. Grice was educated at Clifton College, and that Clifton sits above the Avon Gorge in the West Country landscape associated with Bristol. The Roman lead of Gaius Nipius Ascanius seems to have originated in the Mendip mining region of Somerset and moved through the transport network of southern Britain; the Bossington/Stockbridge findspot is also in southern England. The sources support the connection between Ascanius, the lead industry, Mendip lead, and transport through southern Britain. What we cannot prove is that Grice ever visited the specific places connected with Ascanius's lead. The sources do not say that. But as Speranzian atmospheric history, it works beautifully:  The hills that produced the lead would not have been entirely alien, geographically speaking, to the world of the schoolboy Grice.  One can easily imagine the Corpus dialogue: Hardie: Did you ever study inscriptions, Grice? G.: Only enough to discover a man named Ascanius whose chief surviving achievement was dropping lead in England. Hardie: Where? G.: In a landscape not entirely remote from where I spent my schooldays. And your domestic reconstruction is exactly the sort of thing Speranza likes: Mrs. Smith: Where is your child? Mrs. Grice: Oh, up in the hills of the West Country—a boarder at Clifton. The humour lies in the understatement. To the uninformed hearer, it sounds pastoral and harmless. To those who know Clifton, it implies:  separation from home, schooling, discipline, Latin, Greek, eventually Oxford.  The explicit content is geographical; the implicature is educational destiny. Rather like Ascanius:  Explicitly: a name on a lead ingot. Implicitly: mines, transport, imperial administration, Roman Britain, and eventually a conversation at Corpus Christi two millennia later.  Speranza would probably add that neither Grice nor Ascanius intended posterity to make that connection. The lead was supposed to move; the schoolboy was supposed merely to be educated. Yet both left traces in the same broad western landscape of Avon, Somerset, and the approaches to Wales. That is not evidence, but it is very good conversational geography.

 

NIS

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Nisio – Ossia: Grice e Nisio: la ragione conversazionale e il portico romano -- Roma Nisio (Samnium, Bojano, Campobasso, Molise): la ragione conversazionale e il portico romano -- Roma – In Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning, conversation is structured by rational expectations shared by interlocutors, formalized in the Cooperative Principle and its maxims, which allow hearers to infer intended meaning beyond what is explicitly said through calculable implicatures grounded in mutual recognition of communicative purpose and practical reason; the Oxonian emphasis on tutelage and intellectual lineage mirrors this model’s focus on individual agents who generate and interpret meaning by assuming rational cooperation. By contrast, the figure of Nisio, presented as a pupil of Panaetius operating within the Roman portico tradition, embodies a more socially embedded and reciprocal conception of conversational rationality: dialogue is not primarily a matter of individual inferential calculation governed by abstract maxims, but a shared ethical practice in which speaking and listening are equally formative, authority is porous, and meaning emerges through lived interaction within a community. Where Grice analyzes conversation as a rule-governed activity explainable by rational reconstruction, Nisio’s Stoic-inflected perspective treats reason as immanent in the conversational setting itself, cultivated through mutual illumination rather than derived from theoretical principles, so that rationality is not imposed on conversation from without but grows organically through dialogic participation, making conversational meaning less a product of strategic inference than of shared moral and social orientation. Grice: “At Oxford, it’s all about ‘the pupil of’ as any reader of the Who’s Who will agree. I was myself Hardie’s tutor – Hardie being a Scots who at times I felt like he should have been tutoring pupils at St. Andrews, rather – and I was the tutor to Strawson. On the other hand, Nisio was the pupil of Panezio --, but Cicero is silent about who TUTORED Panezio, or whether Nisio did tutor any other than his son!” -- A pupil of Panezio. GRICEVS: Nisivs, dic mihi: in Oxonia omnes curiosi sunt de discipulis et magistris, quasi lex omnium philosophorum sit: “quis cuius discipulus?” Sed tu, discipulus Panezii, porticum Romanum elegisti, non atrium Oxoniense! Nisio: Gricevs, ad porticum Romanum venimus ut rationem conversandi discamus: hic, discipulus Panezii, magister non solum docet, sed etiam audit. In Samnio, dialogus est via sapientiae—magister et discipulus saepe sedent in eodem banco, ut pane et vino communi fruuntur. Gricevs: Quam pulchrum, Nisivs! In Oxonia, saepe disputamus utrum magister debet semper dux esse, an discipulus etiam possit invenire viam suam. Sed fortasse, Roma docet nos: philosophia vera fit ubi omnes partes audiri possunt, et porticus fit locus in quo veritas crescere potest. Nisio: Haec est vera sapientia, Gricevs: magistri et discipuli mutuo se illuminant, sicut lumen porticus Romanorum. Ego Panezii discipulus, sed filius et pater simul, et in dialogo nos omnes crescimus. Conversatione genuina, nomen nostrum fit clarum, et ratio fit communis. Nisio (a. u. c. CCXL). Dicta. Roma

 

NIZ

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Nizolio – Ossia: Grice e Nizolio: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale – la scuola di Brescello -- filosofia emiliana Mario Alberto Nizolio (Brescello, Emilia): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale – In Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning, communication is explained through the rational coordination of speakers and hearers who rely on shared expectations of cooperation, articulated in the Cooperative Principle and its maxims, to derive conversational implicatures that go beyond literal sentence meaning; meaning is thus not located in inherited vocabularies but in the reasoned recognition of intentions within ordinary linguistic practice. Mario Alberto Nizolio, by contrast, anticipates a complementary but historically deeper stance: for him, conversational reason and implicature are not grounded primarily in the vernacular as spontaneous usage, but in the disciplined recovery of Cicero’s linguistic rationality, where philosophical meaning emerges from the grammar, lexical choices, and coinages of a paradigmatic language already shaped by communal reasoning. Where Grice reconstructs implicature as a calculable product of rational inference in dialogue, Nizolio treats it as something already sedimented in language itself, especially in Ciceronian Latin, whose terms such as quantity or intention crystallize patterns of thought prior to any explicit theory of pragmatics; thus Grice offers an abstract, analytic account of how interlocutors generate meaning by reasoning about one another, while Nizolio offers a humanist and anti-scholastic account in which reason-governed conversation is sustained by historically exemplified linguistic practices that keep philosophy concrete, dialogical, and resistant to empty abstraction. Grice: “I am surprised that Austin, a double first in literae humaniores, like me, would complain of philosophical jargon like ‘volition’ or ‘intention.’ Cicero had to COIN those terms, and not even Marcus Anthony opposed!” N. considers that the start fo philosophical inquiry is not so much the vernacular, as Grice calls it, but Cicerone’s vnacular. His ‘thesaurus ciceronianus’ is meant to provide context for some of Cicerone’s most brilliant coinages – some of them used by Kant, etc. – like ‘quantity’ and such! Filosofo italiano. Brescello, Reggio Emilia, Emilia Romagna. Grice: “I read Nizolio and it’s like reading myself!” – Insegna a Brescia e Parma. Pubblica il lessico Observationes in M. Tullium CICERONE, Brescia, il Thesaurus CICERONE, Venezia, Facciolati, e il lexicon CICERONE, Venezia, Facciolati. Ha una lunga polemica con MAIORAGIO per una critica portata da quest'ultimo a CICERONE che, iniziata con la Epistola ad M. A. Majoragium, prosegue con l'antapologia e si conclude con i De veris principiis et vera ratione philosophandi contra pseudo-philosophos, Parma, scritto contro gli scholastici, che interessarono Leibniz al punto che questi li fa ristampare premettendogli il titolo Anti-barbarus Philosophicus, sive philosophia scholasticorum impugnata, con una prefazione ed una lettera a Thomasius sulla dottrina del LIZIO, Francofurti, Roma, Bocca. E chiamato da Gonzaga a Sabbioneta. Contemporaneamente alle critiche di Ramo alla logica dei lizii, anche per lui occorre sostituire all'astrattezza di quella logica un pensiero che sia concretamente legato al reale, e a questo scopo la strada maestra sta nel ritrovare i processi del pensiero direttamente nella struttura grammaticale dell’italiano. Individua cinque principi per fare della buona filosofia. Cicerone, lexicon ciceronianus, Antonino, Leibniz’s ‘anti-barbaro’. il thesaurus ciceronianus. Grice: Caro Nizolio, ogni volta che leggo il tuo "Thesaurus Ciceronianus" mi sembra di riscoprire il cuore pulsante della filosofia: la chiarezza della lingua, la ricchezza delle idee. In Inghilterra spesso ci lamentiamo dei termini filosofici, ma tu ci insegni che la vera filosofia nasce proprio dal linguaggio di Cicerone! Nizolio: Grice, mi lusinga sentirlo da uno studioso raffinato come te! La mia battaglia contro i "pseudo-philosophos" è proprio questa: restituire alla filosofia la sua concretezza, togliendole l'astrattezza dei barbari e riportandola all'autenticità del pensiero ciceroniano. Grice: E la tua polemica con Maioragio è un esempio magistrale di come la conversazione filosofica debba essere vivace e fondata sulla grammatica e sul reale. Da noi, a Oxford, si dice che "il pane va chiamato pane"—proprio come tu insegni! Nizolio: Grice, la filosofia è dialogo, e la verità si trova nell’incontro tra pensiero e parola. Se riuscissimo sempre a "chiamare le cose col loro nome", forse avremmo meno "insolubilia" e più chiarezza. Grazie per questo scambio genuino: come direbbe Cicerone, "parlare è pensare insieme"! Nizolio, Mario Alberto (1535). Observationes in Ciceronem. Ex Prato Albuini