TA

 

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

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tadio – Ossia: Grice e Tadio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tadio. The gens Tadia was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned in the time of Cicero, but few achieved any great distinction in the Roman state.[1]  Origin The nomen Tadius seems to be of Sabine origin. Some of the Tadii known from inscriptions came from Sabinum, and Chase classifies the name among those gentilicia that were evidently not Latin, but came from Sabinum, Umbria, or other parts of central and southern Italy.[2]  Praenomina The Tadii seem to have used a variety of common praenomina, including Publius, Quintus, Titus, Sextus, and Marcus. One inscription shows that they also used the Sabine praenomen Attius.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Titus Tadius At. f. Drusus, buried at Amiternum in Sabinum, along with his wife, Rutilia Rufa.[3][4] Tadius, sought the advice of Titus Pomponius Atticus with regard to some property that he held. The property was legally owned by an unmarried girl, for whom a guardian had been appointed; but Atticus informed Tadius that the property was his by virtue of prescription. Cicero wrote to remind Atticus that no right of usucaption could exist in the case of such a ward, and was relieved to hear back that Atticus had settled the matter out of court, to Tadius' satisfaction.[5] Publius Tadius, a negotiator, or money-lender, at Athens, who was employed as an agent of Verres in Sicily. Cicero contrasts his integrity with the low character of his employer. He may have been the brother of Quintus Tadius, whom Verres also employed.[6][7] Quintus Tadius, a maternal relative of Verres, who gave evidence of the latter's unabashed avarice, both through his testimony and his account-books, which Cicero planned to present in his second action against Verres. As Verres abandoned his defense and fled into exile, the speech was never delivered.[8][9] Publius Tadius Chilo, one of the first duumvirs at Caesar's colony at Corinth, together with Gaius Julius Nicephorus. He may have been the son, or perhaps less likely the freedman, of the negotiator Publius Tadius, who lived at Athens.[10] Tadius M. f. Rufus, named in an inscription from a building in Hispania.[11] Spurius Tadius, a painter of landscape murals during the time of Augustus. The reading of his name is uncertain; it may instead be Studius, or even Ludius. Sextus Tadius Sex. f. Lusius Nepos Paullinus, in a long and productive career under the Flavians or the Antonines, was decemvir stlitibus judicandis, a military tribune in the Legio IV Flavia Felix, quaestor in Bithynia and Pontus, curule aedile, governor of Macedonia and Asia, praefectus frumenti dandi,[i], and proconsul of Africa and Crete and Cyrenaica. His wife was Mulvia Placida, and they were buried at Trebula Mutusca in Sabinum.[12][13][14] Notes  The prefect in charge of distributing the grain dole. See also List of Roman gentes References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 972 ("Tadius").  Chase, pp. 128, 129.  CIL IX, 4487.  PW, Tadius 3.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, i. 5, 8.  Cicero, In Verrem, actio II, i. 39 s. 100; ii. 20 s. 49; v. 25.  PW, Tadius 1.  Cicero, In Verrem, actio II, i. 49, 50 s. 128–130; iv. 13 s. 31.  PW, Tadius 2.  PW, Tadius 4.  PW, Tadius 5.  CIL IX, 4119.  PW, Tadius 6.  PIR, T. 2. Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, In Verrem. 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). August Pauly, Georg Wissowa, et alii, Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Scientific Encyclopedia of the Knowledge of Classical Antiquities, abbreviated or PW), J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart (1894–1980). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII, pp. 103–184 (1897). Paul von Rohden, Elimar Klebs, & Hermann Dessau, Prosopographia Imperii Romani (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, abbreviated PIR), Berlin (1898). Category: Roman gentes And for this gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tadio – Ossia: Grice e Tadio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tadio. For Tadius, the first-best Grice-Speranza vignette is not the grand senator Sextus Tadius Lusius Nepos Paullinus, though his career is respectable enough to put a prosopographer in a good mood. The better choice is the otherwise minor Tadius in Cicero’s correspondence with Atticus, precisely because the whole episode turns on property, guardianship, prescription, advice, correction, and the quiet rescue of a legal implicature from going wrong. The point is beautifully Gricean. Tadius asks Atticus about property legally owned by an unmarried girl under guardianship. Atticus first advises that Tadius has acquired it by usucapio, prescription. Cicero then intervenes to remind Atticus that no such right can arise against a ward in that position. Atticus later settles the matter out of court, to Tadius’s satisfaction. This gives Speranza a miniature of conversational jurisprudence: one adviser says, in effect, “you may keep it”; another says, “not under that description.” The facts are not the only issue. The legal description under which the facts are to be heard is the thing. That is why Tadius is better than Publius Tadius the honest negotiator in the Verrines, or Quintus Tadius the damning relative of Verres, or even Spurius Tadius the possible landscape painter, charming though he is. The Atticus-Cicero-Tadius case is made of exactly the sort of material Grice likes: a practical inference is drawn, an exception blocks it, and the initial advice has to be conversationally repaired. “The property is his by prescription” sounds like a conclusion. Cicero’s correction shows that it was a conclusion drawn under a suppressed premise that fails in the case of a ward. The implicature of regular possession is cancelled by institutional protection. A Speranzian vignette could stage Tadius as the man who discovers that ownership is not merely possession plus time. Roman law, like conversation, depends on what one is entitled to take for granted. Atticus treats the case under the ordinary rule; Cicero notices the protected exception. Tadius, sensibly, wants the property, not a seminar. But the seminar arrives, as seminars do, in the form of a letter. The result is not litigation but settlement, which is another reason the case is so good: the conversational correction prevents the forensic catastrophe. The dry formulation might be this. Tadius is philosophically useful because he owned, or thought he owned, something in just the way many speakers mean, or think they mean, something: until a competent party points out that the background conditions have not been satisfied. Atticus supplies the helpful but over-hasty inference; Cicero supplies the cancellation; Tadius receives, one hopes, the diminished but safer benefit. In Gricean terms, the case is not about land alone. It is about the conditions under which an apparent entitlement may be reasonably inferred, and the conditions under which that inference must be withdrawn. So my choice is the unnamed Tadius of Cicero and Atticus. He is minor, but his very minor-ness helps. He gives Speranza not a monument, but a move: a small Roman episode in which advice, legal description, and conversational repair intersect. Tadius asks whether the thing is his. Atticus says yes. Cicero says, not so fast. And Roman civilisation, briefly and rather attractively, consists in settling the matter before everyone has to become public.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tagliabue – Ossia: Grice e Tagliabue: la ragione conversazionale del Remo, o le strutture del trascendentale – il concetto di gusto nell’estetica italiana. Note sul contributo al Convegno.  Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Guido Morpurgo Tagliabue Remo (Milano, Lombardia): la ragione conversazionale del Remo, o le strutture del trascendentale – Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how hearers move from sentence meaning to speaker meaning by presuming a shared rational enterprise (the Cooperative Principle and its maxims) and by treating apparent departures from those norms as evidence of further, intention-based content (implicatures) that are in principle calculable and cancellable; on this view, the central explanatory work is done by publicly recognizable communicative intentions plus shared expectations about rational conduct in talk. Morpurgo-Tagliabue, by contrast, is best situated within mid‑century Milanese theoretical philosophy and aesthetics (with formative links to phenomenology, empiricism, and philosophy of science, and with a postwar philosophical “debut” in works like Le strutture del trascendentale and Il concetto dello stile that help reorient Italian aesthetics beyond Crocean idealism): his key concern is not the micro-pragmatics of conversational inference but the conditions of possibility for experience, judgement, and value (including aesthetic judgement, “taste,” and style) at a transcendental level. The most direct point of contact is that Grice’s account presupposes rational agency in conversational interpretation, while Morpurgo-Tagliabue thematizes the deeper structures that make rational and evaluative comportment possible in the first place; however, where Grice operationalizes rationality as norms governing exchanges of utterances (so that even talk of “taste” becomes a case of how speakers manage relevance, evidential force, and communicative intentions), Morpurgo-Tagliabue treats “taste” and “style” less as conversational achievements than as philosophically thick mediations between subjectivity and objectivity—forms through which experience is organized and shared—so that the “reason” at stake is not primarily the cooperative management of what is meant in interaction but the transcendental articulation of how meaning, value, and form can be intelligible at all. -- il concetto di gusto nell’estetica italiana –Nasce da Giovanna Tagliabue. Non è noto il nome del padre.  Si forma a Milano, all’epoca nel campo filosofico caratterizzata dalla prevalenza di orientamenti estranei alla linea idealistica di Croce e Gentile, altrimenti dominante in Italia, e influenzati invece dalla contemporanea fenomenologia, dall’empirismo e dalla filosofia della scienza. L’influsso dell’ambiente filosofico milanese è manifesto nelle opere pubblicate da T. nel secondo dopoguerra, e in particolare in Le strutture del trascendentale – Milano -- e Il concetto dello stile – Milano --, che ne costituiscono il vero e proprio esordio filosofico. Infatti negli anni precedenti gli interessi dello studioso sono stati orientati prevalentemente verso la critica letteraria e teatrale: collabora alla rivista milanese Il Convegno, mentre è critico teatrale per La lettura. Altri articoli di critica letteraria apparvero nel dopoguerra nella rivista La rassegna d’Italia. Negli ultimi anni del conflitto è in contatto con il movimento Giustizia e Libertà, ma successivamente abbandona ogni impegno politico e vive una vita appartata. Insegna estetica a Milano e filosofia teoretica a Trieste.  La prima opera importante di estetica, Il concetto dello stile, rimasta anche la più sistematica pubblicata da Morpurgo in questo settore, rappresenta un contributo significativo al rinnovamento degli studi estetici italiani avvenuto quando si avvertì ormai imperiosa l’esigenza di superare l’impostazione data da Croce a questo campo. Nell'opera, T. procede innanzitutto a una ricognizione dello stato degli studi estetici in Italia, un bilancio critico che occupa tutta la prima metà del saggio. Dopo aver rapidamente ricordato i capisaldi della dottrina di CROCE, si volge ad analizzare le posizioni critiche nei confronti di Croce. Romolo, le strutture del trascendentale, concetto del gusto, estetica.  Grice: Professore Tagliabue, sono sempre rimasto affascinato dal suo approccio alle strutture del trascendentale. In che modo, secondo lei, il concetto di gusto si intreccia con la filosofia milanese e il rinnovamento dell’estetica italiana? Tagliabue: Grazie, Grice! A mio avviso, il gusto non è solo una questione di preferenze personali, ma rappresenta un autentico momento del trascendentale: è ciò che consente all’individuo di aprirsi alla dimensione estetica, superando le vecchie impostazioni crociane. Milano, negli anni del dopoguerra, ha offerto un terreno fertile per questa rivalutazione, favorendo un dialogo tra fenomenologia, empirismo e filosofia della scienza. Grice: È interessante! Quindi il gusto diventa una sorta di ponte tra il soggettivo e l’oggettivo, tra la percezione individuale e i valori condivisi. Le sue opere, penso a Il concetto dello stile, hanno contribuito a ridefinire il modo in cui l’estetica italiana affronta proprio questi temi. Tagliabue: Esatto, Grice! Come diceva mia madre, “non basta vedere, bisogna saper cogliere il senso profondo della bellezza.” Il trascendentale è lo strumento che ci guida, e il gusto diventa una lente attraverso cui si rinnova la nostra comprensione estetica. La filosofia milanese ha avuto il coraggio di superare le rigidità idealistiche e di aprire nuove strade. Ne sono felice! Tagliabue, Guido Mopurgo (1931). Contributo. Il Convegno.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Taglialatela – Ossia: Grice e Taglialatela: la ragione conversazionale degl’istituzioni di filosofia. Note sugl’Istituzioni di filosofia. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Pietro Taglialatela (Mondragone, Caserta, Campania): la ragione conversazionale degl’istituzioni di filosofia – Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning is a general, explicitly pragmatic account of how hearers infer speaker-meaning from what is said by presuming rational cooperation: conversational exchanges are treated as purposive activities regulated by norms (Cooperative Principle and maxims), so that apparent irrelevance, underinformativeness, or stylistic markedness can be rationally “explained away” as generating implicatures that are (in principle) calculable, defeasible, and cancellable while remaining anchored in publicly recognizable intentions. Pietro Taglialatela (Mondragone, 19th century), by contrast, belongs to the Italian post-Risorgimento world of institutional philosophy, civic pedagogy, and confessionally inflected public intellectual life (Gioberti-inspired “istituzioni di filosofia,” later Protestant polemics and missionary activity): his work is concerned with founding and legitimating philosophical formation and moral-political orientation within institutions (schools, movements, churches), not with offering a technical model of conversational inference. Read against Grice, Taglialatela’s “ragione conversazionale” in your staged dialogue is best understood as a metaphor for how philosophical education and social belonging shape what counts as intelligible, persuasive, or “liberating” speech within a community—how an “institution” can be heard either as a cage or as wings—whereas Grice explains that very shift in uptake as a pragmatic phenomenon: the “institutionalize them” worry is a textbook case of how an utterance triggers a predictable interpretive path (a relevance-driven inference from institutional vocabulary to social control), and Taglialatela’s reply functions like an attempt to cancel and replace that implicature by supplying an alternative purpose and frame (“not gabbie but ali”). The upshot is that Grice provides the micro-level mechanics of meaning-in-interaction (how the hearer gets from words to intended meaning under rational norms), while Taglialatela represents a macro-level concern with the cultural and institutional conditions under which philosophical discourse is cultivated, authorized, and morally directed—conditions that can motivate, constrain, or rhetorically steer conversations, but do not themselves amount to Grice’s reason-governed theory of conversational meaning. Studia a Sessa. Insegna a Cava e Napoli. S’arruolarsi nelle truppe di GARIBALDI , per predicare i nuovi ideali del movimento unitario. Dirigge una scuola privata. Riprende e sposa le tesi di GIOBERTI , che lo affascina. Su questo indirizzo filosofico è stato imperniato Istituzioni di filosofia, Diogene, Napoli, che riceve le lodi di SPAVENTA. Non manca, in seguito, avendo aderito al protestantesimo, di compiere opere missionarie, in particolare in Puglia e in Abruzzo. A tal riguardo è documentato il viaggio di Pescasseroli sul quale scrisse CROCE, che segnala anche come e considerato, assieme a MAZZARELLA e CAPORALI, fra i filosofi più creativi del movimento protestante in Italia. Altre saggi: Apologia delle dottrine filosofiche di GIOBERTI, Diogene, Napoli, La scienza, la vita e SANCTIS, Diogene, Napoli, GARIBALDI, Speranza, Roma; Il papa-re nelle profezie e nella storia, Speranza, Roma, In Dio, Speranza, Roma; Fede, speranza e caritàm Speranza, Roma; Teoria evangelica della vita, Speranza, Roma, Ciampoli, T., Unione, Roma; Croce, Pescasseroli, Laterza, Bari; Fiore, Civiltà Aurunca, Iurato, T.: dalla filosofia del Gioberti all'evangelismo anti-papale, Claudiana, Torino; Gioberti, Protestantesimo in Italia, Dizionario biografico dei protestanti in Italia; Società di studi valdesi. Apologia della dottrina di Gioberti. 03 APOLOGIA DELLA 3 DOTTRINA FILOSOFICA DI V. GIOBERTI PER P. TAGLIALATELA NAPOLI TIPOGRAFIA ALL' INSEGNA DEL DIOGENE Strada Montesanto num. 14. 1867 Proprietà letteraria ; LE PICCOLE QUISTIONI DIALOGO PRIMO tra L'Autore e F. Toscano A. Vi ringrazio di gran cuore, professor Toscano, per esser vi finalmente degnato di rispondere alla critica che circa tre an ni addietro io mossi contro il vostro CorsoElementare di Fi losofia. T. istituzioni di filosofia.  Grice: Professore Taglialatela, lei che ha saputo fondare una vera scuola di istituzioni filosofiche a Mondragone, mi dica: qual è il segreto per far fiorire la filosofia anche dove sembra che il terreno sia duro e poco incline al pensiero?  Taglialatela: Ah, caro Grice, la filosofia è come il vento tra le colline campane: a volte basta un soffio, altre volte bisogna pazientare e seminare idee con costanza. E a Mondragone, tra Garibaldi, Gioberti e le nuove istituzioni, il pensiero si radica proprio quando meno te lo aspetti!  Grice: Non lo dico, ma se dovessi tenere un seminario sulle ‘istituzioni di filosofia’ a Vadum Boum, i barbari che ho come allievi—nulla a che vedere con quelli di Bononia—penserebbero subito che voglio ‘istituzionalizzarli’, magari metterli in qualche bella scatola regolamentare!  Taglialatela: Bellissima implicatura, Grice! In fondo, le istituzioni filosofiche non sono gabbie ma ali: bisogna volare, non farsi imbrigliare! E se qualcuno teme di essere istituzionalizzato, basta ricordargli che la filosofia, come diceva Gioberti, è fatta per liberare la mente, non per incatenarla. A Mondragone, si insegna a ragionare e a sorridere: meglio una scuola che sappia accogliere le differenze, che una istituzione che le sopprime! Taglialatela, Pietro (1864). Istituzioni di filosofia. Napoli: Diogene.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Talio – Ossia: Grice e Talio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Talio. The gens Talia or Tallia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. Hardly any members of this gens are mentioned by ancient writers, but several are known from inscriptions.  Praenomina The Talii known from inscriptions used a variety of common praenomina, including Gaius, Publius, Quintus, and Sextus, without any clear preference. One of the Talii bore the feminine praenomen Secunda.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Talia, buried at Salona in Dalmatia, aged about thirty, in a third-century tomb dedicated by her son-in-law, Primus.[1] Gaius Talius, buried at Baretium in Cisalpine Gaul.[2] Publius Talius Q. f., a soldier in the Legio X Gemina, buried at Caurium between AD 37 and 63.[3] Secunda Talia, named in an inscription from Bononia in Cisalpine Gaul.[4] Sextus Talius Sex. Ɔ. l. Dionysius, a freedman buried at Rome during the first half of the first century, with a monument from Talia Psyche.[5] Talius Geminus, in some manuscripts of Tacitus, the accuser of Fabricius Veiento, supposedly exiled for libeling the senators and priests of Rome, is probably an error for Tullius Geminus, and is so amended in some editions.[6][7] Publius Tallius Onesimus, made an offering at Aquae Sextiae in Gallia Narbonensis.[8] Tallia Polla, named in an inscription from Corinth in Achaia.[9] Quintus Tallius Sex. f., an augur named in an inscription from Egitania in Lusitania, dating between 16 BC and AD 16.[10] Gaius Tallius C. f. Priscus, a veteran of the Legio XIV Gemina, was buried at Mogontiacum in Germania Superior, aged forty-eight, having served for twenty-seven years, in a tomb dating between 13 BC and AD 43, and dedicated by his brother, the standard-bearer Publius Atilius Crispus.[11] Talia Sex. l. Psyche, a freedwoman, dedicated a monument at Rome for Sextus Talius Dionysius, dating to the first half of the first century.[5] See also List of Roman gentes References  CIL III, 2545.  Pais, Supplementa Italica, 834.  Hispania Epigraphica, 1994, 186.  CIL XI, 06707,05.  CIL VI, 36399.  Tacitus, Annales, xiv. 50.  PIR, S. 4.  CIL XII, 511.  CIL III, 13692.  AE 1961, 349.  AE 1979, 433. Bibliography Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales. Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). Ettore Pais, Corporis Inscriptionum Latinarum Supplementa Italica (Italian Supplement to the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum), Rome (1884). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). Paul von Rohden, Elimar Klebs, & Hermann Dessau, Prosopographia Imperii Romani (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, abbreviated PIR), Berlin (1898). Hispania Epigraphica (Epigraphy of Spain), Madrid (1989–present). Category: Roman gentes and for THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Talio – Ossia: Grice e Talio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Talio. For this gens, the first-best Grice-Speranza choice is Quintus Tallius, the augur from Egitania in Lusitania. The temptation, of course, is Talia Psyche, because a freedwoman named Psyche dedicating a monument to Dionysius almost offers too much semantic perfume. But for Grice and Speranza the augur is better, because augury gives them not merely a name but a whole Roman theory of sign, uptake, and licensed inference. Quintus Tallius is obscure enough to be useful. He is not a grand statesman whose historical noise would drown the philosophical point. He is named as an augur, and that is the crucial fact. An augur is a public interpreter of signs, but not in the casual sense in which anyone may say that clouds mean rain or a bad dinner means a worse evening. The augur reads within an institution. Birds, directions, silences, interruptions, and auspicial events do not simply “mean” whatever the nervous spectator imagines. They are made to count under rules, office, ritual setting, and public uptake. That is very nearly a Roman grammar of meaning. The Gricean point is immediate. Natural signs are not enough. A bird may fly, but an augur must determine whether that flight is to be taken as relevant, admissible, favourable, unfavourable, void, or procedurally decisive. The bird is not having a chat with the magistrate; nevertheless, Roman public life behaves as if the sign has entered a conversation, provided the right human office mediates it. The augur is thus the man who turns occurrence into authorised significance. He does not create the bird; he creates the uptake. Tallius is therefore better than the soldier Publius Talius of Legio X Gemina, better than Gaius Tallius Priscus the veteran, and better even than the dubious Talius Geminus of the Tacitean manuscript tradition, who is probably Tullius anyway and so should be returned to his proper file. Soldiers give service; inscriptions give presence; manuscript error gives philological comedy. But the augur gives meaning under discipline. A Speranzian vignette could turn on the smallness of the record. “Quintus Tallius, augur,” says almost nothing, and therefore, for once, says exactly enough. The very office supplies the missing philosophy. Speranza may imagine Grice asking whether the auspices mean in the natural sense, the conventional sense, or some third Roman sense in which a natural event is made institutionally conversational. Tallius would reply, if allowed to do so, that birds do not mean as men mean, but Rome has arranged matters so that their flight may be taken as a public answer. Grice would then become interested, because “taken as” is already halfway to pragmatics. The best dry formulation would be this. In Quintus Tallius the gens Talia contributes not a hero but an interpreter. That is more than enough. The augur’s art shows that Rome did not merely observe signs; it licensed them. A crow outside a ritual frame is only a crow, and perhaps a noisy one. A crow under auspicial conditions may delay an election, disturb a command, or save a magistrate from doing what he wanted to do anyway. The point is not ornithology, but authority of uptake. The sign becomes public because the office makes it answerable. This also lets Speranza connect Talius or Tallius to the possible pun on talio only with caution. Lex talionis, retaliation, equal return, is not the etymology of the gens, but it supplies a useful false friend. Augury too is a kind of return: man asks, sign answers, magistrate proceeds or stops. Not retaliation, but responsion. The danger, which Speranza would enjoy, is to make every Roman sign look like a reply. Grice would object that birds cannot have m-intentions. Speranza would agree, and then add that Rome cleverly supplied the missing intention by creating augurs. So my first-choice vignette is Quintus Tallius the augur. The governing theme would be not “what birds say,” which is vulgar, but “what Rome is entitled to take them as saying.” That is a sharper and more Gricean question. It turns a tiny Lusitanian inscription into a miniature theory of institutional meaning: natural event, ritual frame, authorised interpreter, public consequence. In other words, an implicature with feathers, but very properly filed.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tampio – Ossia: Gice e Tampio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tampio. The gens Tampia was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned in history during the time of Nero, but few achieved any distinction in the Roman state. The nomen Tampius is easily confused with that of Ampius. The most illustrious of the Tampii was Lucius Tampius Flavianus, who held the consulship twice during the latter half of the first century.[1][2]  Origin The earliest Tampii known from inscriptions came from Praeneste, an ancient city of Latium, probably indicating that they were Latins; but at least three of this gens bore the cognomen Sabinus, typically indicating a tradition of Sabine descent, or some other association with Sabine manners or appearance.[3]  Praenomina The main praenomina of the Tampia gens were Lucius and Gaius, the two most common names at all periods of Roman history. Several Tampii also bore other common praenomina, such as Marcus, Publius, and Quintus, while a few had more distinctive names, such as Decimus and Servius.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Lucius Tampius, named in an inscription from Praeneste in Latium, dating to the latter half of the third century BC.[4] Gaius Tampius D. f., named in an inscription from Praeneste, dating to the late third century BC.[5] Marcus Tampius C. f., named in an inscription from Praeneste, dating to the late third century BC.[6] Marcus Tampius M. f., named in an inscription from Praeneste, dating to the late third century BC.[7] Tampia C. f., named in an inscription from Praeneste, dating to the second century BC.[8] Gaius Tampius C. f. Ser. n. Tarenteinus, praetor at Praeneste, made an offering to Hercules, commemorated in an inscription dating to the latter half of the second century BC.[9] Tampia L. f., made an offering to Jupiter at Patavium in Venetia and Histria, dating to the early first century BC.[10] Lucius Tampius, named in a bronze inscription from Aquileia in Venetia and Histria, dating from the first half of the first century BC.[11] Tampia L. l. Stratonice, buried in a family sepulchre at Rome, dating from the first century BC, and dedicated by Euhodus, a margaritarius, or dealer in pearls, in the Velabrum, perhaps Tampia's husband.[12][13] Lucius Tampius L. l. Papa, a freedman buried at Rome, in a tomb dedicated by Tampia Prima, dating between 50 BC and AD 30.[14] Tampia L. l. Prima, a freedwoman who dedicated a tomb for Lucius Tampius Papa, dating between 50 BC and AD 30.[14] Lucius Tampius L. f. Peccio, dedicated a family sepulchre at Sena Gallica in Umbria for himself, his wife, Maxima Oppia, and Quintus Oppius, dating from the latter half of the first century BC, or the first half of the first century AD.[15] Lucius Tampius Acutus, husband of the freedwoman Safinia Agathemeris, named in an inscription dating from the first half of the first century.[16] Gaius Tampius Cliens, named in an inscription from Asculum in Picenum, dating between AD 16 and 50.[17] Tampia Ɔ. l., a freedwoman buried in a first-century tomb at Canusium in Apulia, dedicated by the freedwoman Tampia Fa[...] for herself and her family.[18] Lucius Tampius, one of the municipal duumvirs at Casilinum in Campania during the first century.[19] Gaius Tampius C. l. Chaeria, a freedwoman buried at Canusium, in a first-century tomb dedicated by Tampia Hilara, with whom he had been freed.[20] Gaius Tampius C. l. Eros, a freedman buried at Canusium, in a first-century tomb dedicated by his client, the freedwoman Tampia Hilara.[20] Tampia D. l. Fa[...], a freedwoman and the wife of Sextus Aburius, dedicated a first-century family sepulchre at Canusium for herself, her son, also named Sextus Aburius, and another freedwoman named Tampia.[18] Tampia C. l. Hilara, a freedwoman who dedicated a first-century tomb at Canusium for her patron, Gaius Tampius Eros, and her fellow freedman, Gaius Tampius Chaeria.[20] Lucius Tampius L. l. Ingenuus, a freedman buried in a first-century tomb at Rome, along with his wife, Crassicia Helpis.[21] Tampia Priscilla, along with her husband, Lucius Volusius Zosimus, dedicated a tomb for Zosimus parents, the elder Lucius Volusius Zosimus, and Volusia Stratonice, nurse of the pontifex Lucius Volusius Saturninus, dating between AD 30 and 70.[22] Gaius Tampius Sabinus, prefect and tribune of the plebs at Pompeii in Campania.[23] Tampia Ɔ. l., a freedwoman buried in a first-century tomb at Rome, along with the freedman Lucius Tampius Vitalis, according to an inscription of dubious authenticity.[24] Lucius Tampius Ɔ. l. Vitalis, a freedman buried in a first-century tomb at Rome, along with the freedwoman Tampia, according to an inscription of dubious authenticity.[24] Tampia Hygia, dedicated a tomb at Rome, dating from the reign of Nero, for her son, Tiberius Claudius Tiberinus, a freedman of the emperor.[25] Lucius Tampius Flavianus,[i] was consul suffectus in an uncertain year during the reign of Nero, then governor of Africa and Pannonia. He was a general of some achievement, and received the triumphal ornaments for his victories. During the Year of the Four Emperors, Tampius took the side of Vespasian, although he was connected by marriage to Vitellius. He was accused of treachery, but absolved by Vespasian, who raised him to the consulship again in AD 76.[26][27][28][29][1][2] Lucius Tampius Rufus, a kinsman of Lucius Tampius Flavianus, although the nature of their relationship is unclear from the fragmentary inscription in which he is mentioned.[28][30] Tampia Venusta, buried at Casinum in Samnium, along with her husband, Quintus Venafranius Probus, in a tomb dating from the first century, or the early part of the second.[31] Publius Tampius Verecundus, buried at Casinum, in a first- or second-century tomb dedicated by his children, Vettia Zmyrna and Tampilus Verecundinus.[32] Tampius, dedicated a tomb at Florentia in Etruria for his daughter, Quadratilla, dating to the latter half of the first century, or the first half of the second.[33] Quintus Tampius Terminalis, buried at Rome in a tomb dedicated by Tampia Urbica, dating to the late first century, or the first half of the second.[34] Tampia Urbica, dedicated a tomb at Rome for Quintus Tampius Terminalis, dating to the late first century, or the first half of the second.[34] Lucius Tampius, a soldier stationed at Rome around AD 135.[35] Tampius Rufinus, prefect of the Cohors II Flavia Commagenorum, a cohort of auxilia recruited from Commagene and stationed in Dacia, made a second-century offering to Diana at Micia, a Roman fort in Dacia.[36] Gaius Tampius Sabinus, mentioned in a second-century inscription from Ferentinum in Latium.[37] Tampius Secularis, buried at Salona in Dalmatia, aged about seventy, in a third-century tomb dedicated by his son, Tampius Marcellus.[38] Tampius Marcellus, dedicated a third-century tomb at Salona for his father, Tampius Secularis.[38] Undated Tampii Tampia L. f., made an offering to Jupiter at Aquileia.[39] Lucius Tampius Alypus, dedicated a tomb at Rome for himself and his wife, Pontia Secunda.[40] Tampia Ɔ. l. Auge, a freedwoman named in an inscription from Aquinum in Latium.[41] Gaius Tampius Diophantus, a freedman buried at Musarna in Etruria.[42] Quintus Tampius Hermeros, dedicated a tomb at Pisae in Etruria for his wife of eighteen years, Scribonia Hedone.[43] Tampia C. f. Sabina, a woman buried at Musarna.[44] Notes  Erroneously called Titus Ampius or "Amplius Fabianus" in some sources. See also List of Roman gentes References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 169 ("T. Ampius Flavianus").  PIR, T. 5.  Chase, p. 114.  CIL XIV, 3264.  CIL XIV, 3265.  CIL XIV, 3266.  CIL XIV, 3267.  CIL XIV, 3270.  CIL XIV, 2890.  CIL V, 2799.  Epigrafia della produzione e della distribuzione, p. 637.  CIL VI, 37803.  AE 1907, 129.  CIL VI, 27101.  CIL XI, 6215.  NSA, 1923-370.  CIL IX, 5190.  AE 1972, 128.  CIL X, 3822.  AE 1986, 194.  CIL VI, 4656.  CIL VI, 7393.  CIL IV, 3872, CIL IV, 9952.  CIL VI, 12352.  CIL VI, 10097.  Tacitus, Historiae, ii. 86, iii. 4, 10.  CIL VI, 2051.  CIL X, 6225.  AE 1973, 162.  PIR, T. 6.  CIL X, 5297.  AE 1971, 114.  CIL XI, 1639.  CIL VI, 27102.  CIL VI, 2375.  AE 1977, 706.  CIL X, 5848.  CIL III, 2547.  CIL I, 2171b.  CIL VI, 27100.  CIL X, 5490.  CIL XI, 3034.  CIL XI, 1491.  CIL XI, 3035. Bibliography Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Historiae. 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). Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità (News of Excavations from Antiquity, abbreviated NSA), Accademia dei Lincei (1876–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, pp. 103–184 (1897). Paul von Rohden, Elimar Klebs, & Hermann Dessau, Prosopographia Imperii Romani (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, abbreviated PIR), Berlin (1898). Epigrafia della produzione e della distribuzione (Epigraphy of Production and Distribution), Rome (1994). Category: Roman gentes

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tampio – Ossia: Gice e Tampio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tampio. For the gens Tampia, the first-best Grice-Speranza choice is plainly Lucius Tampius Flavianus. He is the one figure here in whom the minor plebeian name becomes historically audible, and the reason is not only that he held the consulship twice. It is that his career turns on the most Gricean of imperial questions: what does loyalty mean when every visible allegiance is liable to be redescribed as treachery? The biography almost writes the vignette. Tampius Flavianus is connected by marriage to Vitellius, yet in the Year of the Four Emperors he takes the side of Vespasian. He is then accused of treachery, but Vespasian absolves him and later raises him again to the consulship. That is ideal material. The same facts permit two competing descriptions. To one audience, he is a turncoat. To another, he is a prudent supporter of the future settlement. To Vitellians, connection by marriage should have implicated loyalty; to Flavian eyes, conduct has cancelled that implication. The case is therefore not merely political but semantic. What counts as fidelity: kinship, marriage-alliance, current advantage, military judgment, or successful retrospect? Speranza would enjoy the fact that the nomen itself is easily confused with Ampius. Even the name is unstable at the margins. Tampius or Ampius, Flavianus or Fabianus, loyalty or treachery: the entry keeps generating misreadings. But the main philosophical point is the imperial management of uptake. Flavianus tries to make his conduct mean loyalty to Vespasian; his enemies try to make the same conduct mean betrayal of Vitellius. Vespasian’s absolution is the decisive conversational act, because the princeps fixes the official interpretation. Once Vespasian says, in effect, “this was not treachery,” the same career becomes service rather than perfidy. A Speranzian vignette could stage Flavianus before Vespasian after the accusation. Flavianus says that he followed not fortune but the res publica. The accuser says that a man related to Vitellius has betrayed his household. Vespasian answers that kinship does not outvote judgment. The implicature is clear enough: under civil war, every man’s loyalty is discovered only after one knows who has survived to interpret it. A very Roman truth, and not a pretty one. Compared with the other Tampii, Flavianus is the strongest choice. Gaius Tampius Sabinus at Pompeii is local and potentially pleasant, the early Praenestine Tampii are useful for antiquity of the name, and the freedmen and freedwomen give good epigraphic texture. But Flavianus gives action, risk, imperial suspicion, accusation, acquittal, and reclassification. He lets Grice and Speranza ask how a public act acquires its official meaning when the context is civil war and the interpreter is an emperor. The dry formula would be this: Lucius Tampius Flavianus is a minor-name man caught in a major-name crisis. He means loyalty; his enemies hear betrayal; Vespasian supplies the uptake. In a republic that might have been argument. Under the Flavians it becomes judgment. That is why he is the best Tampius for a Grice-Speranza vignette: he shows that in imperial politics, as in conversation, what one meant is important, but who is authorised to say what one meant may matter even more.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tanizio – Ossia: Gricee Tanizio – Grex griceiana—Tanizio. The gens Tanicia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. No members of this gens are mentioned by ancient writers, but a few are known from inscriptions.  Origin The nomen Tanicius seems to belong to a class of gentilicia formed from cognomina ending in -ex or -icus, but no corresponding surname is known.[1]  Branches and cognomina The only regular surname associated with the Tanicii is Verus, meaning "true" or "just".[2] It belongs to a class of surnames originally derived from the character or habits of an individual.[3] Zosimus, borne by one of the Tanicii, is a Greek name, and would have been a personal surname, possibly the birth name of a freedman of one of the Tanicii, retained by him as a cognomen after his manumission.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Lucius Tanicius L. f. Verus, a native of Vienna in Gallia Narbonensis, was a centurion in the Legio III Cyrenaica, stationed in Egypt in AD 80 or 81.[4] Lucius Tanicius Verus, prefect of a Roman fort along the Antonine Wall in northern Britain, at the site of modern Cadder, in the middle or later part of the second century. An inscription records his offering to Silvanus.[5] Lucius Tanicius Zosimus, made a cult offering to the Hero of Ithiostla in Moesia Inferior, dating to the first half of the second century.[6] See also List of Roman gentes References  Chase, p. 126.  New College Latin & English Dictionary, s.v. verus.  Chase, pp. 110, 111.  CIL III, 34.  CIL VII, 1124.  AE 1908, 137. Bibliography 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, pp. 103–184 (1897). John C. Traupman, The New College Latin & English Dictionary, Bantam Books, New York (1995). Category: Roman gentes And for THIS gens? thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tanizio – Ossia: Gricee Tanizio – Grex griceiana—Tanizio. For Tanicius, the first-best Grice-Speranza choice should be Lucius Tanicius Verus, the prefect on the Antonine Wall who made an offering to Silvanus. The centurion in Legio III Cyrenaica is attractive, and Egypt under a Cyrenaican legion has its own charm, but the Cadder inscription is sharper: a Roman officer at the northern edge of the empire, bearing the cognomen Verus, making a dedication to a god of woods, boundaries, and uncultivated spaces. For Grice and Speranza, that is almost too neat. Verus carries the promise of truth; the frontier supplies the test of what counts as Romanly true when Rome has reached the limit of its own voice. The vignette would turn on Verus as a name and as a claim. Verus means true, genuine, reliable, just. But on the Antonine Wall, “true” is not a metaphysical luxury. It is a military, administrative, and religious problem. Is this boundary truly Rome? Is the fort truly held? Is the offering truly Roman piety, or a negotiated gesture toward a landscape that Rome has not fully converted into civic speech? The dedication to Silvanus is therefore ideal. Silvanus is not Jupiter in the Capitol. He is a god of woods, margins, fields, and border-zones. A prefect dedicating to Silvanus at Cadder is not merely being devout; he is trying to make a frontier intelligible under Roman ritual description. The Gricean theme is that an inscription says very little and means a good deal. “Lucius Tanicius Verus dedicated this to Silvanus” is, on the surface, a pious formula. But its recoverable content is richer: here is a Roman officer declaring presence, order, and recognisable piety at the edge of a not-quite-domesticated world. The stone does not merely record devotion; it performs Roman uptake. It tells soldiers, passers-by, local observers, and perhaps the god himself that this place has been entered into a Roman system of signs. The forest is not abolished; it is addressed. Speranza would enjoy the dry pun that Verus, the true man, serves where truth needs posts, walls, dedications, and garrisons. In Oxford one may ask what a speaker means; at Cadder one asks what an empire means by a wall. A wall appears to say “stop,” but politically it may mean “here Rome still counts,” or “beyond this point Rome prefers not to be misunderstood.” The dedication to Silvanus adds the softer implicature: the limit is not only military but religiously negotiated. Rome does not merely build; it asks the local divine grammar to notice. Lucius Tanicius Zosimus is tempting because a Greek cognomen making a cult offering in Moesia gives a nice freedman-or-eastern-religious angle; and Lucius Tanicius Verus the centurion in Egypt has decent military clarity. But the Antonine Wall prefect is better because he combines name, office, frontier, inscription, and god in one compact case. He lets Speranza make the whole gens speak through almost nothing: a true Tanicius, at the edge of Roman Britain, dedicating to the god of the spaces Rome has not quite turned into Rome. The dry closing would be: Tanicius Verus is the right Tanicius because he makes veritas provincial, military, and epigraphic. He does not write a treatise on truth. He leaves a dedication at a fort. That is more Roman, and in some ways more Gricean. The inscription says thanks to Silvanus; it means, among other things, that Rome has found a way to speak at the boundary.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tannonio – Ossia: Grice e Tannonio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tannonio. The gens Tannonia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. Few members of this gens are mentioned in Roman literature, but many are known from inscriptions.  Origin The nomen Tannonius belongs to a large class of gentilicia ending in -onius, originally derived from cognomina ending in -o, but subsequently derived from a variety of names, after -onius had come to be regarded as a regular gentile-forming suffix.[1]  Praenomina Nearly half of the Tannonii whose praenomina are recorded bore the name Lucius, the most abundant praenomen at all periods of Roman history. The remainder used a variety of other common names, including Gaius, Quintus, Marcus, Publius, Gnaeus, and Titus.  Branches and cognomina Although some of the Tannonii appear in inscriptions from Rome and elsewhere in Italy, the great majority are known from Roman colonies in the north African provinces of Africa Proconsularis, Mauretania Caesariensis, and Numidia, particularly Lambaesis, where the name appears from the second century onward. The Tannonii used a wide variety of common surnames without any apparent pattern, except that many of them bore the surname Felix, meaning "fortunate" or "happy".[2]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Tannonia Valentina, the wife of Marcus Antonius, with whom she dedicated a tomb at Novae in Moesia Inferior, dating from the latter half of the first century, for their children, Marcus Antonius Valentinus and Antonia Aprulla.[3] Tannonius Marcellus, buried at Ammaedara in Africa Proconsularis, aged seventy, in a tomb built by his son, Tannonius Sterceius, dating from the first or early second century.[4] Tannonius Sterceius, built a first- or early second-century tomb for his father, Tannonius Marcellus, at Ammaedara.[4] Lucius Tannonius, named in a list of decurions at Rome, dating from the reign of Antoninus Pius.[5] Lucius Tannonius, a native of Lambaesis in Numidia, was a soldier in the Legio II Augusta, and killed in battle. His wife, Macrinia, and their children built a second-century tomb for him at Lambaesis.[6] Tannonius Maximus, a cavalry prefect named in a second-century dedicatory inscription from modern Gherla, formerly part of Dacia.[7] Tannonius Pudens, a lawyer who brought forward the accusation of Sicinius Pontianus against Apuleius. Apuleius had married Sicinius' mother, Pudentilla, a woman of considerable wealth; Sicinius' father-in-law, Herennius Rufinus, urged him to sue Apuleius and prevent him from obtaining Prudentilla's money, alleging that Apuleius had seduced Prudentilla using magic. Apuleius' successful defense formed the basis of his Apologia.[8][9] Quintus Tannonius Primus, a native of Uthina in Africa Proconsularis, was a veteran of the Legio II Traiana Fortis, listed in an inscription of Nicopolis in Roman Egypt, dating from AD 157. He served in the tenth cohort, and the century of Antonius Nereus.[10] Tannonius, one of the patrons of a guild at Ostia in Latium, dating from AD 165.[11] Gnaeus Tannonius Ingenuus, a youth buried alongside his mother, Gavia Sassa, in a second- or third-century tomb at Carthage, aged sixteen years, three months, and nineteen days.[12] Tannonia Veneria, dedicated a tomb for her son, Lucius Neapolitanus Liberalis, at Puteoli in Campania, dating from the second century, or the first half of the third.[13] Marcus Tannonius Gerinianus, the student of Julius Augurius, was a young man buried at Puteoli, aged eighteen years, eight months, and five days, in the latter half of the second century, or the first half of the third.[14] Tannonius Victor, listed amongst a group of donors to a monument at Lambaesis, dating to AD 200.[15] Lucius Tannonius Primus, a soldier in the fifth cohort of the vigiles at Rome in AD 205, serving in the century of Antullus.[16] Lucius Tannonius Saturninus, a soldier in the fifth cohort of the vigiles in AD 205, serving in the century of Verinus.[16] Lucius Tannonius Felix, a soldier in the fifth cohort of the vigiles in AD 210, serving in the century of Caesernius Senecio. Perhaps the same Lucius Tannonius "Felixs" mentioned in an earlier portion of the same inscription, dating from 205, and listing soldiers in the cohort of Antullus, or the Lucius Tannonius Felix serving in the century of Verinus, also in 205.[16] Lucius Tannonius Fi[...], a soldier in the fifth cohort of the vigiles in AD 210, serving in the century of Ulpius Rutilianus.[16] Tannonius Laetus, a duplicarius, or soldier entitled to double-pay, serving in the Legio III Augusta at Lambaesis, during the reign of Elagabalus.[17] Lucius Tannonius Donatus, buried at Auzia in Mauretania Caesariensis, aged sixty, together with his wife, Flavia Quarta, aged fifty. Both are named in a dedicatory inscription, dating from AD 235.[18] Tannonius Felix, a boy buried at Thugga in Africa Proconsularis, aged eleven, in a tomb dating between the middle of the second century, and the end of the third.[19] Gaius Tannonius Sabbatius, one of the municipal officials at Ostia in AD 242.[20] Publius Tannonius Saturninus, mentioned in a list of names from Lambaesis.[21] Titus Tannonius Concordius, a member of a guild at Ostia in AD 262.[22] Tannonius Victor, deacon of a church at Altava in Mauretania Caesariensis, mentioned in an inscription dating from AD 309, along with Tannonius Rufinianus and Lucius Tannonius Rogatus.[23] Tannonius Rufinianus, named in an inscription from Altava dating from AD 309, along with Tannonius Victor and Lucius Tannonius Rogatus.[23] Lucius Tannonius Rogatus, named in an inscription from Altava dating from AD 309, along with Tannonius Victor and Tannonius Rufinianus.[23] Tannonius Felix, flamen of Zattara in Africa Proconsularis during the reign of Constans I and Constantius II, in the mid-fourth century.[24] Tannonius Chrysantius, a Roman senator, had been governor of Byzacena. His eponymous son is known from inscriptions from Campania.[25] Tannonius Chrysantius, son of the governor Chrysantius, is described as a vir perfectissimus, a high-ranking eques, named in an inscription from Liternum in Campania, dating to the reign of Valentinian I or Valens, and several inscriptions from Puteoli.[26][25][27] Tannonius Monimus, along with his brothers, Tannonius Januarius and Tannonius Victor, dedicated a late fourth-century tomb at Numerus Syrorum in Mauretania Caesariensis for their mother, Valeria Julia.[28] Tannonius Januarius, along with his brothers, Tannonius Monimus and Tannonius Victor, dedicated a late fourth-century tomb at Numerus Syrorum for their mother, Valeria Julia.[28] Tannonius Victor, along with his brothers, Tannonius Monimus and Tannonius Januarius, dedicated a late fourth-century tomb at Numerus Syrorum for their mother, Valeria Julia.[28] Tannonius, buried at Rome in AD 484, aged thirty-two years, thirteen days.[29] Undated Tannonii Tannonius, the husband of Valeriana, and father of Tannonius, a young boy buried at Arelate in Gallia Narbonensis.[30] Tannonius, the son of Tannonius and Valeriana, a little boy buried at Arelate, aged six years, six months, and six days.[30] Quintus Tannonius, named in a sepulchral inscription from Venusia in Samnium.[31] Quintus Tannonius, a native of Mina in Mauretania Caesariensis, where he was buried, aged fifty, in a tomb dedicated by his son, Quintus Marcus Tannonius.[32] Quintus Marcus Tannonius Q. f., a soldier in the Legio III Augusta, dedicated a tomb at Mina for his father, Quintus Tannonius.[32] Tannonius Adiutor, buried at Thugga.[33] Tannonia Annibonia, a woman buried at Carthage, aged thirty-two, in a tomb dedicated by her husband.[34] Tannonia Antonia, the daughter of Tannonius Felix, married Valerius Processus, and was the mother of Valerius Antonius. She was buried at Caesaria in Mauretania Caesariensis, aged twenty-six, along with her father and son, in a family sepulchre built by her husband.[35] Gaius Tannonius Celer, buried at Ucubi in Africa Proconsularis, aged ninety-one, alongside Julia Saturnina, perhaps his wife, aged sixty-five.[36] Lucius Tannonius Claudianus, buried at Castellum Elefantum in Numidia, aged twenty-five.[37] Lucius Tannonius Crescens, a native of Cirta, mentioned in an inscription from Lambaesis.[38] Lucius Tannonius Crescens, named in a sepulchral inscription from Milevum in Numidia.[39] Tannonia Q. f. Cyrilla, buried at Tiddis, aged thirty-three, with a monument from her husband.[40] Tannonia Dativa, along with Julius Primus, dedicated a monument at Lambaesis to her brother, Tannonius Donatus.[41] Tannonia Donata, buried at Mactaris in Africa Proconsularis, aged sixty.[42] Tannonius Donatus, a soldier in the Legio III Augusta, buried at Lambaesis, aged thirty-five, with a monument from Julius Primus and Tannonia Dativa, his sister.[41] Tannonia Faustina, buried at Castellum Fabatianum in Numidia, aged forty, with a monument from her brother, Gaius Julius Honoratus.[43] Lucius Tannonius Faustinus Artius, buried at Bulla Regia in Africa Proconsularis, aged sixty-five years, nine months, and ten days.[44] Tannonia Felicia, buried at Thala in Africa Proconsularis, aged thirty-five, alongside Elius Felix, perhaps her husband.[45] Tannonius Felix, the father of Tannonia Antonia, and grandfather of Valerius Antonius, alongside whom he was buried at Caesaria in Mauretania Caesariensis, aged forty-eight, in a tomb built by his son-in-law, Valerius Processus.[35] Gaius Tannonius L. f. Felix, a young soldier buried at Lamphua in Numidia, aged twenty-one.[46] Marcus Tannonius Felix, a priest of Saturn, named in a dedicatory inscription from Soliman in Africa Proconsularis.[47] Tannonius Felix Primianus, caretaker of the temple of Mercury at Tapphugabensis in Africa Proconsularis.[48] Tannonia Fortunata, buried at Thala, alongside Marcus Duresius Barachianus, perhaps her husband.[49] Tannonia Honorata, buried at Castellum Elefantum, aged forty-one.[50] Marcus Tannonius Jucundus, a young man buried at Lambaesis, aged nineteen, with a monument from someone named Silvanus.[51] Tannonia Juliosa, buried at Castellum Elefantum, aged thirty-eight.[52] Publius Tannonius Justus, buried at Capsa in Africa Proconsularis, aged forty-three. Tannonius Saturninus is buried in the same tomb.[53] Gnaeus Tannonius Major, an adiutor, or assistant, buried at Lambaesis, aged forty-five. He left his heirs a thousand sestertii, from which they erected his monument.[54] Tannonia Paterna, a girl buried at Beneventum in Samnium, aged twelve years, four months, in a tomb built by her parents, Flavius Successus and Terentia Hermione.[55] Tannonia Rogata, buried at Castellum Elefantum, aged twenty-five.[56] Tannonia Romana, buried at Lambaesis, aged thirty-eight, with a monument from her husband, Julius Sedatus.[57] Publius Tannonius Salutaris, buried at Lambaesis, with a monument from his son, Tannonius Speratus.[58] Tannonia Saturnina, a young woman buried near the current site of Ain Kela Bou Seba in Algeria, formerly part of Africa Proconsularis, aged thirteen years, ten months, and fifteen days, in a tomb dedicated by her parents.[59] Tannonius Saturninus, buried at Capsa, in the same tomb as Publius Tannonius Justus.[53] Gaius Tannonius C. f. Saturninus, a young man buried alongside his father, Gaius Tannonius Victor, at Calama in Africa Proconsularis, aged twenty-three, in a family sepulchre built by his mother, Julia.[60] Tannonius Secundus, named in a list of soldiers at Lambaesis in Numidia.[61] Gaius Tannonius Secundus, a young man buried at Lambaesis, aged twenty, with a monument from his parents.[62] Lucius Tannonius Secundus, named in an inscription from Portus in Latium.[63] Tannonius P. f. Speratus, dedicated a monument at Lambaesis for his father, Publius Tannonius Salutaris.[58] Tannonia Tertulla, a young woman buried at Thugga, aged fifteen.[64] Tannonia Tue,[i] a girl buried at Castellum Fabatianum, aged seven.[65] Lucius Tannonius Urbanus, buried at Castellum Elefantum, aged eighty.[66] Tannonia Valeria, dedicated a tomb at Lambaesis for her husband, Quintus Mallius Donatus, aged seventy-five, who had been one of the duumvirs.[67] Tannonia Valeria, dedicated a tomb at Lambaesis for her husband, Marcus Marius Saturninus, aged forty-one.[68] Gaius Tannonius Victor, buried alongside his son, Gaius Tannonius Saturninus, at Calama, aged seventy-five, in a family sepulchre built by Saturninus' mother, Julia.[60] See also List of Roman gentes Notes  The surname is probably erroneously written; the correct form is not apparent. References  Chase, p. 118.  Chase, p. 111.  AE 1914, 92.  CIL VIII, 428.  CIL VI, 1220.  CIL VIII, 2980.  CIL III, 832.  Apuleius, Apologia, c. 4.  PIR, vol. III, p. 295 (T., No. 9).  AE 1955, 238.  CIL XIV, 4564.  AE 1968, 557.  CIL X, 2767.  AE 2007, 381.  AE 1902, 10.  CIL VI, 1057.  CIL VIII, 2464.  CIL VIII, 9163, CIL VIII, 9016.  MAD, 1549.  CIL XIV, 4559.  CIL VIII, 2570.  CIL XIV, 5357.  AE 1969/70, 737c.  CIL VIII, 5178.  AE 2014, 324.  CIL X, 3714, CIL X, 1813, CIL X, 1815.  AE 1976, 141.  CIL VIII, 9983.  ILCV 842.  CIL XII, 886.  CIL IX, 579.  CIL VIII, 21538.  MAD, 1186.  CIL VIII, 24986.  CIL VIII, 21320.  CIL VIII, 15705.  ILAlg, ii. 3, 10057.  CIL VIII, 2618.  CIL VIII, 8218.  CIL VIII, 6830.  CIL VIII, 2979.  Prévot, "Les inscriptions chrétiennes", 12–33.  ILAlg, ii. 2, 4306.  EDCS–00170.  BCTH, 1928/29–349,25.  CIL VIII, 6311.  CIL VIII, 938.  AE 1938, 74.  BCTH, 1930/31–215.  ILAlg, ii. 3, 10055.  CIL VIII, 4083.  ILAlg, ii. 3, 10057.  CIL VIII, 141.  CIL VIII, 2981.  CIL IX, 1982.  ILAlg, ii. 3, 10058.  CIL VIII, 4087.  CIL VIII, 4084.  CIL VIII, 5287.  CIL VIII, 5462.  BCTH, 1904–239.  CIL VIII, 4085.  CIL XIV, 259.  MAD, 1187.  ILAlg, ii. 2, 4307.  CIL VIII, 19393.  CIL VIII, 3301.  CIL VIII, 3900. Bibliography Lucius Apuleius, Apologia. Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). Bulletin Archéologique du Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques (Archaeological Bulletin of the Committee on Historic and Scientific Works, abbreviated BCTH), Imprimerie Nationale, Paris (1885–1973). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII, pp. 103–184 (1897). Paul von Rohden, Elimar Klebs, & Hermann Dessau, Prosopographia Imperii Romani (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, abbreviated PIR), Berlin (1898). Stéphane Gsell, Inscriptions Latines de L'Algérie (Latin Inscriptions from Algeria, abbreviated ILAlg), Edouard Champion, Paris (1922–present). Ernst Diehl, Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres (Ancient Latin Christian Inscriptions, abbreviated ILCV), Weidmann, Berlin (1925–1931). Françoise Prévot, Recherches archéologiques franco-tunisiennes à Mactar (Franco-Tunisian Archaeological Research from Mactar), vol. 5, "Les inscriptions chrétiennes", Rome (1984). M. Khanoussi, L. Maurin, Mourir à Dougga: Receuil des inscriptions funéraires (Dying in Dougga: a Compendium of Funerary Inscriptions, abbreviated MAD), Bordeaux, Tunis (2002). Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss/Slaby (EDCS). Category: Roman gentes And for THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tannonio – Ossia: Grice e Tannonio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tannonio. For Tannonius, the first-best Grice-Speranza vignette is Tannonius Pudens, the lawyer who brought forward the accusation against Apuleius in the Apologia. The reason is simple: almost everyone else in the gens is epigraphically present, sometimes movingly so, but Pudens is conversationally alive. He gives Speranza not merely a name on stone but a forensic act, and a very Gricean one at that: the attempted conversion of marriage, wealth, age, desire, influence, and bookish oddity into the charge of magic. The Apuleius case is perfect because the prosecution depends on hostile uptake. Apuleius marries Pudentilla, a wealthy widow. The accusers would have the court infer that a woman of means could not have chosen him without illicit compulsion. The surface charge is magic; the deeper social implicature is fraud by charm, learning, sexuality, exoticism, and words. Tannonius Pudens, as legal mouthpiece of that suspicion, becomes the man whose task is to make ordinary acts signify occult manipulation. In Gricean terms, he tries to make the court hear more than the evidence says, and to hear it under the most damaging possible description. That is why Pudens is better than Tannonius Felix the flamen, Tannonius Victor the deacon, the soldiers of the vigiles, or the African epitaphic Tannonii with their very human ages and family devotions. Those figures give excellent social texture, but Pudens gives a theory of meaning under accusation. He must argue that Apuleius’s conduct is not merely conduct but signum: the fish, the mirror, the verses, the medical or philosophical interests, the marriage contract, the widow’s choice, all become indicia. Apuleius’s defence, in turn, is a sustained counter-pragmatics. He does not merely deny; he reclassifies. What you call magic, he says in effect, is philosophy, medicine, literature, household business, or malice in the mind of the accuser. The name Pudens is also too good to ignore. Pudens means modest, shamefaced, decent. Yet this Pudens participates in a prosecution that Apuleius presents as anything but modest. Speranza would not overwork the joke, but he would not leave it outside the door either. Tannonius Pudens, the “modest” man, brings forward a charge whose force depends on making a widow’s autonomy seem immodest and a philosopher’s learning seem criminal. In that sense the cognomen turns back on the speaker. Pudens tries to manage shame; Apuleius returns it to the prosecution. A good vignette could stage Pudens and Apuleius in the courtroom. Pudens says that books, charms, and private dealings with a wealthy woman cannot be innocent. Apuleius replies that learned men possess books, husbands speak privately with wives, and not every woman who marries has been enchanted. Pudens says the signs speak. Apuleius answers, in the best Gricean spirit, that signs do not speak unless a malicious interpreter lends them grammar. The legal question becomes: what is the court entitled to gather? The dry Speranzian formula would be this. Tannonius Pudens is useful because he is a lawyer of implicature gone bad. He wants suspicion to count as evidence, learnedness to count as sorcery, and marriage to count as capture. Apuleius defeats him by refusing the prosecutorial implicature: the same facts, under a different rational description, cease to be magical. Thus the trial is not just about whether Apuleius performed magic. It is about who controls the meaning of the signs. So my choice is Tannonius Pudens. In him the obscure gens Tannonia briefly enters literary history as the gens of a failed interpretation. That is often the best kind for Grice and Speranza: a man tries to make the world mean one thing; a better speaker makes it mean another. Could there be an ethnic element involved? Because Grice speaks of the 'decent chap' -- the 'honest chap' does -- qua participant of conversation. So Apuleius is not given the rights to be a 'participant' of the 'conversation'? Thanks Yes, there could be an ethnic element, though I would phrase it carefully as an ethnic-cultural and rhetorical element rather than a simple racial one. In the Apuleius case, the prosecution’s task is not merely to prove that Apuleius did something; it is to make him fail the status of the decent conversational participant. That is very close to your Gricean point. Grice’s “decent chap” or “honest chap” is not just morally admirable. He is the kind of person whose contributions one may treat as cooperative unless there is reason not to. He is entitled to ordinary uptake. If he says something obscure, one assumes relevance; if he withholds, one searches for tact; if he speaks learnedly, one does not immediately infer fraud. The prosecution against Apuleius tries to deny him that default entitlement. He is not heard as a respectable participant offering reasons. He is heard as an outsider manipulating signs. The ethnic element enters because Apuleius can be made to look too African, too Greek, too exotic, too eloquent, too philosophical, too interested in strange rites, too skilled with words. None of these separately proves magic. Together they can be made to generate the hostile implicature: this is not a Roman plain-dealer but a dangerous performer of meanings. His learning, instead of counting as cultivated speech, is redescribed as occult technique. His marriage, instead of counting as mutual choice, becomes enchantment. His philosophy, instead of counting as serious inquiry, becomes magic under another name. So yes: Apuleius is denied the rights of conversation. The accusers do not merely say “he is wrong” or “he is guilty.” They try to shift the frame so that whatever he says is already suspect as strategy, seduction, spell, or theatrical display. That is a classic exclusion from the Gricean community of cooperative interpretation. The decent chap may implicate; Apuleius is accused of insinuating. The decent chap may persuade; Apuleius is accused of bewitching. The decent chap may marry; Apuleius is accused of capturing. Tannonius Pudens, therefore, becomes useful because he is not only prosecuting a man but attempting to control the court’s uptake of a man’s whole persona. The question is not simply whether Apuleius has done magic, but whether Apuleius is the sort of speaker whose words can be received under the normal presumption of civic reasonableness. Apuleius’s Apologia is then a counter-claim to participant-status. He says, in effect: hear me as philosopher, husband, educated man, and Roman provincial of standing; do not hear me as the barbarous magician your suspicion wants to create. The Speranzian dry formula would be this. The prosecution tries to make Apuleius conversationally indecent before it makes him legally guilty. It wants the court to stop treating his utterances as contributions and start treating them as symptoms. That is where ethnicity, accent, cultural location, Greek learning, African provenance, and philosophical eccentricity do their work. They do not prove the charge; they prepare the hearing of it. In Gricean terms, Apuleius’s first task is not to answer the accusation, but to recover the right to be an addressee and speaker in the same rational conversation as everyone else.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tanusio – Ossia: Grice e Tanusio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tanusio -- The gens Tanusia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. Few members of this gens are mentioned in history, and none attained any of the higher offices of the Roman state. Quintus Cicero mentions that the heads of this family were proscribed by Sulla,[1] and Tanusius Geminus was a historian of the same period, whose work has now been lost.[2] A few other Tanusii are known from epigraphy.  Praenomina The Tanusii used the praenomina Lucius, Gaius, Marcus, Quintus, and Titus, all of which were amongst the most common names at all periods of Roman history.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Tanusius Geminus, a historian whose work has been lost, with the exception of a passage quoted by Suetonius, concerning Sulla. He is probably the same as the historian "Ganusius" referred to by Plutarch, and the annalist "Tamusius" mentioned by Seneca.[3][4][5][6] Lucius Tanusius L. f., a native of Ateste in Venetia and Histria, was a veteran of the Legio XIV Gemina, buried at Mogontiacum in Germania Superior, aged fifty, along with Quintus Tanusius, probably his brother, in a tomb dating from the first half of the first century.[7] Quintus Tanusius L. f., a native of Ateste, and a veteran of the Legio XIV Gemina, was buried at Mogontiacum, aged forty, along with Lucius Tanusius, probably his brother, in a tomb dating to the first half of the first century.[7] Tanusius, the author of an inscription from Pompeii in Campania.[8] Gaius Tanusius T. f. Balbinus, interred at Saena in Etruria, in a cinerarium dating to the latter half of the first century.[9] Lucius Tanusius Dexter, one of the aediles at Sora in Latium in AD 83.[10] Lucius Tanusius M. f. Pudens, a native of Sassina in Umbria, was a soldier in the seventh cohort of the Praetorian Guard at Rome, in the century of Taurus, and was buried at Rome, aged twenty-five, having served for five years, in a tomb dating to the late first or early second century.[11] Quintus Tanusius Terentianus, a native of Arretium in Etruria, was a soldier serving at Rome during the reign of Antoninus Pius, in the century of Severus.[12] Tanusius Martinianus, buried in a fourth- or fifth-century tomb at Rome.[13] Undated Tanusii Marcus Tanusius C. f., named in a sepulchral inscription from the present site of Scansano, formerly part of Etruria.[14] Lucius Tanusius Felix, buried at Aquileia in Venetia and Histria.[15] Gaius Tanusius Luppus, a veteran of the urban cohorts, buried at Sullectum in Africa Proconsularis.[16] See also List of Roman gentes References  Quintus Tullius Cicero, De Petitione Consulatus, 2.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 239 ("Tanusius Geminus").  Suetonius, "The Life of Caesar", 9.  Plutarch, "The Life of Caesar", 22.  Seneca the Younger, Epistulae, 93.  Vossius, De Historicis Latinis, i. 12.  AE 1940, 113.  CIL IV, 10044.  CIL XI, 1802.  EE, viii. 1, 892.  AE 2012, 256.  CIL VI, 2379.  CIL VI, 36401.  NSA 1930–298.  CIL V, 8465.  CIL VIII, 11107. Bibliography Quintus Tullius Cicero, De Petitione Consulatus (attributed). Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Seneca the Younger), Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius). Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (Plutarch), Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, De Vita Caesarum (Lives of the Caesars, or The Twelve Caesars). Gerardus Vossius, De Historicis Latinis (The Latin Historians), Jan Maire, Brittenburg (1627). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). Wilhelm Henzen, Ephemeris Epigraphica: Corporis Inscriptionum Latinarum Supplementum (Journal of Inscriptions: Supplement to the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, abbreviated EE), Institute of Roman Archaeology, Rome (1872–1913). Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità (News of Excavations from Antiquity, abbreviated NSA), Accademia dei Lincei (1876–present). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). Category: Roman gentes And for THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tanusio – Ossia: Grice e Tanusio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tanusio -- For Tanusius, the first-best Grice-Speranza choice is Tanusius Geminus, the lost historian. The temptation is almost irresistible because he survives as a historian whose work has disappeared except for a passage quoted by Suetonius on Sulla, and because even his name arrives under variant transmissions, Tanusius, Ganusius, Tamusius. That is already a little seminar on historical meaning. A man writes history; the history vanishes; the name itself becomes unstable; yet a hostile or useful fragment survives because later authors found it worth taking up. For Speranza, that is not a misfortune. It is the point. The Sullan context is especially good. Quintus Cicero says that the heads of the Tanusian family were proscribed by Sulla. Tanusius Geminus then appears as a historian of the same period, with a surviving notice concerning Sulla. This gives a compact but powerful Gricean pressure: what does it mean to write history when one’s gens has suffered under the political violence being narrated? The question is not whether Tanusius is therefore unreliable. That would be too crude. The question is how a Roman reader is entitled to hear the historian’s testimony once family memory, proscription, and public record intersect. Speranza would like the fact that Tanusius’s claim to fame is almost entirely mediated. We do not possess Tanusius as an author in command of his own page. We possess him as cited, misspelled, perhaps corrected, and put to later use. His meaning comes to us by transmission and uptake. Suetonius quotes him; Plutarch may know him under another form; Seneca may mention him under yet another. The historian becomes, ironically, a historical object whose own identity must be reconstructed from the very instability he would have wished to master. That is very dry, and very Roman. A Gricean vignette could turn on the difference between saying, recording, and letting posterity infer. Tanusius writes about Sulla. What he says is lost. What survives is what Suetonius needed him to have said. The historical implicature is therefore double. First, Tanusius may have meant something about Sulla’s power, cruelty, or public persona. Second, Suetonius, by quoting him, means something about Caesar, Sulla, or the genealogy of Roman ambition. The fragment is not simply evidence; it is evidence under quotation. Grice would insist on asking who means what by preserving it. The variant names help rather than hinder. Tanusius, Ganusius, Tamusius: the archive itself behaves like a bad conversational partner, repeating the name with just enough deformation to make recognition possible and certainty difficult. Speranza could put it this way: Tanusius Geminus is the historian of civil violence who survives by civil textual damage. The Roman republic loses citizens to proscription; the manuscript tradition loses consonants. Neither loss is equivalent, but both remind one that survival is not the same thing as integrity. Compared with the other Tanusii, Geminus is clearly superior for this purpose. The veterans of Legio XIV Gemina at Mogontiacum give a pleasant accidental echo in the cognomen Gemina, and Lucius Tanusius Pudens of the Praetorian Guard offers the usual possibilities of military epitaph and youth cut short. But Tanusius Geminus gives history, Sulla, proscription, quotation, textual instability, and the danger of memory under power. That is the richer Grice-Speranza case. The dry formula would be this. Tanusius Geminus is useful because he is a historian whose authority arrives in fragments, and a Roman whose family-name stands near the violence of Sulla’s lists. He writes, perhaps, to record. Suetonius quotes, perhaps, to illustrate. Later readers infer, perhaps, too much. In him, history is not a settled narrative but a chain of conversational custody: someone witnessed or gathered; someone wrote; someone excerpted; someone miscopied; someone corrected; Speranza listens. That is enough for the vignette. and do we have the latin for the suetonio passage? It seems that if the proscription was on the Tanusia gens, he was a Tanusio. Do the variants in spelling come in apparatus criticum? Thanks -- Grice: "For surely Tanusius knew what he was called!" Yes. The Latin passage is Suetonius, Divus Iulius 9.2: meminerunt huius coniurationis Tanusius Geminus in historia Marcus Bibulus in edictis C. Curio pater in orationibus; de hac significare uidetur et Cicero in quadam ad Axium epistula referens Caesarem in consulatu confirmasse regnum de quo aedilis cogitarat. Tanusius adicit Crassum paenitentia uel metu diem caedi destinatum non obisse et idcirco ne Caesarem quidem signum quod ab eo dari conuenerat dedisse; conuenisse autem Curio ait ut togam de umero deiceret. Suetonius, Divus Iulius 9.2 [perseus.tufts.edu] A close translation would be: “Tanusius Geminus in his History, Marcus Bibulus in his edicts, and Gaius Curio the elder in his speeches mention this conspiracy; Cicero too seems to refer to it in a certain letter to Axius, saying that Caesar in his consulship established the monarchy of which he had thought when he was aedile. Tanusius adds that Crassus, from remorse or fear, did not attend on the day appointed for the slaughter, and that therefore Caesar too did not give the signal which it had been agreed he should give; Curio says that the agreement was that he should let his toga fall from his shoulder.” Suetonius, Divus Iulius 9.2 [perseus.tufts.edu] Grice’s joke is exactly right: surely Tanusius knew what he was called. The Suetonian text as transmitted in the standard online Latin gives Tanusius Geminus, and the internal logic of the gens-entry supports Tanusius rather than a wandering Ganusius or Tamusius. If the family is Tanusia, and if Quintus Cicero is said to mention the heads of that family being proscribed by Sulla, then Tanusius is the form that makes prosopographical sense. The variants Ganusius and Tamusius look like the kind of manuscript or secondary-report disturbance one expects when an obscure nomen has to travel through copying, quotation, and later excerpting. Speranza would say: the man’s name was probably least uncertain to the man himself, and most uncertain to posterity, which is the usual arrangement. On the apparatus question: yes, this is just the sort of variation one would expect to find noted in an apparatus criticus or in prosopographical discussion rather than treated as three different historians. The gens notice’s phrasing already points that way: Tanusius Geminus is probably the “Ganusius” of Plutarch and the “Tamusius” of Seneca. That is not three men but one name under textual weather. A full critical edition of Suetonius or the relevant fragment-collection would be the place to check which manuscripts or indirect traditions support which spelling. The Perseus text itself prints Tanusius, while the English summary from Rolfe likewise calls him Tanusius Geminus and says he wrote a History. Suetonius, Life of Julius Caesar 9 [lexundria.com] The Grice-Speranza point is very neat. Tanusius writes history; Suetonius quotes him; Plutarch and Seneca, or their traditions, deform the name; modern editors then restore or compare. So the historian of civil violence becomes himself a victim of transmissional violence. Grice asks, “What did he mean?” Speranza adds, “What was he called?” The answer is: in Suetonius, Tanusius Geminus; in the apparatus, probably a small civil war among consonants. Grice, as per his 'Vacuous Names,' would say that 'Tanusius' is not one, but Plutarch's 'Ganusius' is, as is Seneca's 'Tamusius.' Grice's gloss: Plutarch was a Greek, so let him go. Seneca was from Hispania, so let him go. Only Suetonius was the pure-bred Roman: and he provides the denotatum for 'Tanusius,' as he should! Thanks Yes, that is a very nice Gricean refinement. Tanusius is not the vacuous name; it has its denotatum, supplied by Suetonius, who gives Tanusius Geminus in the Latin biographical tradition. The vacuity begins when the reference is mis-carried: Plutarch’s Ganusius and Seneca’s Tamusius are not alternative gentlemen waiting in the prosopographical anteroom, but defective routes to the same intended target. Grice would say, dryly, that a name may fail not because no one ever bore it, but because this token, in this tradition, does not succeed in fastening onto the man except by editorial charity. The joke about ethnography must be handled with Speranzian courtesy, but it works as philological comedy. Plutarch was writing in Greek, so one expects a certain transliterative weather. Seneca was from Hispania, so Speranza lets him go too, though less generously, because Latin from Hispania is still Latin and therefore had better behave. Suetonius, however, is the Roman biographer in possession of the Roman file. If anyone is to give the name its denotatum, he is the one. Hence the line writes itself: Plutarch may have heard him through Greek, Seneca through moralising citation, but Suetonius gives us the man’s visiting card. This also fits Grice’s “Vacuous Names” rather neatly. Tanusius, in Suetonius, is not empty; Ganusius and Tamusius are, unless rescued by an apparatus that says, in effect, “read Tanusius.” Their role is not to denote independently but to display the route by which denotation nearly failed. The apparatus criticus becomes a little theory of reference-management: Ganusius means Tanusius, if and only if the editor has done the decent thing and supplied the missing conversational charity. Speranza’s dry version could be: “Surely Tanusius knew what he was called; it is posterity that had difficulty taking minutes.” That is the charm of the case. The historian of Sulla survives not only in a fragment, but in a dispute over his own nominative identity. Suetonius secures the reference; Plutarch and Seneca provide the noise; Grice supplies the theory; Speranza supplies the smile. And what Tanusius says -- even 'implicates' as Grice would have it -- is clear enough. The man was a historian (Grice's obituary read: "Professional philosopher and amateur cricketer") although Grice is unsure whether Suetonius uses 'historicus' (too pompous a word for a Roman). The man was a man -- never mind his 'profession' -- and his 'head' was metonymically proscribed. He wasn't a farmer raising cows. The memory of Tanusius is enough to recover what Grice calls the 'dictivum' -- after Peirce -- a 'sign' that does the signing! Thanks Exactly. Tanusius is doing more than “providing information,” and Suetonius is doing more than citing a source. The little surviving notice is a sign in the strong Peircean-Gricean sense: not a mere label attached to a lost historian, but a dictivum, a sign that says by standing where it stands, under the pressure of Sulla, proscription, memory, and quotation. And yes, Suetonius does not need to call him historicus for the point to hold. The Roman word in the passage is in historia: Tanusius Geminus in historia. That is better than historicus, perhaps, because it avoids the pomp of profession. Grice’s obituary joke, “professional philosopher and amateur cricketer,” is helpful precisely because it exposes the absurdity of letting the professional label absorb the man. Tanusius was not chiefly a job-title. He was a man whose family-memory, historical writing, and surviving fragment meet at one dangerous Roman point. The metonymy of the head is excellent. In proscription, the “head” is not merely anatomical. It is the citizen under the description under which the state has made him killable, confiscable, displayable, and nameable. The caput is the juridical-personal unit of exposure. If the heads of the Tanusii were proscribed, the gens has already entered Roman history as a family whose name was made public by being made vulnerable. Tanusius Geminus later writing about Sulla is therefore not neutral chatter from a man who happened to enjoy republican anecdote. Even if he writes calmly, the name itself has suffered enough to make the fragment speak. Speranza could put it this way: Tanusius is not a farmer raising cows because the surviving sign does not permit him to remain one. He is recovered under the description historian, but the recovery is made possible by the darker description proscribed household. The man writes historia; Suetonius preserves historia; the name Tanusius carries a civic wound; and the reader, doing the decent Gricean thing, completes the inference without requiring the fragment to cry. So the implicature is clear enough. Tanusius does not merely report Sulla. He is remembered in a chain in which Sulla’s violence, Roman memory, and literary testimony are mutually implicated. The dictivum is the surviving citation itself: Tanusius Geminus in historia. It signs because it has been placed in a history of names that survived just barely enough to denote, accuse, and remind. Grice asks what is meant. Speranza answers that, sometimes, the archive means by not having forgotten quite everything.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tassenio – Ossia: Grice e Tassenio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tassenio -- The gens Tapsennia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. No members of this gens occur in history, but several are known from an inscription dating from the middle of the first century, under the early empire.  Origin The nomen Tapsenna is clearly of Etruscan derivation, as shown by the distinctly Etruscan termination -enna in its masculine form.[1][2] The inscription mentioning several members of this family is from Teanum Sidicinum in northern Campania, a region that had been colonized by the Etruscans at a very early period, although it is not impossible that the Tapsennae settled there at a later time.[3]  Branches and cognomina The only cognomen associated with the Tapsennae known from epigraphy is Proculus, originally a praenomen that had fallen out of use in Republican times, but was later revived as a surname. From its form, Proculus seems to be a diminutive of Procus, a very ancient word for a prince, or in later times, a suitor.[4][5] although a popular explanation in later times was that the name was given to a child born while his father was abroad.[6][4]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Lucius Tapsenna, the father of Publius, and grandfather of Publius Tapsenna Proculus and Quintus Tapsenna.[7] Publius Tapsenna L. f., the father of Publius Tapsenna Proculus and Quintus Tapsenna, was buried in a mid-first-century family sepulchre built at Teanum Sidicinum in Campania by his son, Publius.[7] Publius Tapsenna P. f. L. n. Proculus, a veteran of the tenth cohort of the Praetorian Guard, died at the age of thirty-two. He built a family sepulchre at Teanum Sidicinum for himself, his wife, Pettia Urbana, his father, Publius, and brother, Quintus.[7] Quintus Tapsenna P. f. L. n., the brother of Publius Tapsenna Proculus, in whose mid-first-century family sepulchre at Teanum Sidicinum he was buried.[7] See also List of Roman gentes References  Chase, pp. 117, 118.  Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, pp. 1101–1103 ("Nomen").  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, vol. I, pp. 490 ff.  Chase, pp. 111, 145.  Lewis & Short, A Latin Dictionary, s.v. procer.  Paulus, Epitome of Festus.  CIL X, 4787. Bibliography Paulus Diaconus, Epitome de Sex. Pompeio Festo de Significatu Verborum (Epitome of Festus' De Significatu Verborum). Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1854). Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, Clarendon Press, Oxford (1879). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII, pp. 103–184 (1897). Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities, Harry Thurston Peck, ed. (Second Edition, 1897). Category: Roman gentes And for THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tassenio – Ossia: Grice e Tassenio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tassenio -- For the Tapsennii, the best choice is Publius Tapsenna Proculus, the Praetorian veteran who built the family sepulchre at Teanum Sidicinum for himself, his wife Pettia Urbana, his father Publius, and his brother Quintus. The whole gens is almost a single inscription, which is not a defect for Speranza but an invitation. Here the Gricean interest lies in the fact that one act of commemoration has to make a family speak. Tapsenna is useful because the name is Etruscan in form, the setting is Campanian, the man is Roman military, and the monument is domestic. That gives Speranza a fine little crossing of identities. Publius Tapsenna Proculus is not historically noisy, but he is structurally rich. His family-name points backward to Etruscan derivation; his sepulchre stands in Teanum Sidicinum, a region with very old mixed Italic and Etruscan associations; his service in the tenth cohort of the Praetorian Guard places him near the imperial centre; and his inscription gathers wife, father, brother, and self into one built act of memory. If Grice wants a “sign that signs,” this is it, but in stone. The cognomen Proculus also helps. It has those old explanations about distance, princely or suitor-like ancestry, or the child born while the father was away. Speranza would not need to make too much of any one etymology. The point is that Proculus, as a name, already invites a small drama of nearness and distance. The veteran has gone from Teanum to service in the Praetorian world and then back, at least commemoratively, to family burial. He is near Rome by office, near home by tomb, and near his ancestors by inscription. The family sepulchre becomes the device by which distance is cancelled. A Grice-Speranza vignette could turn on the inscription as a speech-act. Publius does not merely record that these people existed. He makes a claim about who is to be kept together under one name and one stone. The utterance is not “I died at thirty-two,” though the age matters. It is rather: “Let this family be readable as a family.” The sepulchre is therefore not only funerary but conversational. It addresses descendants, passers-by, local memory, and perhaps the Roman habit of filing persons under names, filiations, and places. It tells the reader how to take the Tapsennii. The dry version might be this. The Tapsennii are so obscure that they almost require Publius Tapsenna Proculus to become their editor. He supplies the archive by dying young, or at least by preparing for death intelligently. A lesser Roman might have left a name; Proculus leaves a syntax: father, son, brother, wife, cohort, place. The inscription means by arranging relations. It does not argue that the family mattered. It gives the reader no alternative but to read them together. This also makes him better than the grandfather Lucius or the father Publius taken alone, and better than Quintus, who appears essentially inside his brother’s commemorative structure. Publius Proculus is the active figure. He builds, names, gathers, and fixes the relevant relations. In Gricean terms, he is the speaker; the tomb is the utterance; the family is the content; public memory is the addressee. So my first-choice Tapsennius is Publius Tapsenna Proculus. He gives Speranza a miniature theory of Roman familial meaning: an Etruscan-shaped nomen in Campania, a Praetorian career near imperial power, and a sepulchral inscription that turns kinship into durable public uptake. The wolf gives milk, Acca gives language, and Proculus gives the Tapsennii a sentence in stone. When Grice visited Italy (and Greece) for his 'grand tour' apres Clifton, he was surprised at how un-Latin Italian had become. Can you find a word in Latin that has the '-ps-' cluster and becomes '-ss-' in today's Italian. Grice won't expect HIS kin -- Bolognese philosophy dons -- talking of Tassenio, but still! Thanks Yes: the clean exhibit is Latin ipse becoming Italian esso. The phonetic route is just the sort of thing Grice could enjoy while pretending not to. Latin ipse contains the cluster -ps-. In Italian, that cluster is assimilated and simplified into -ss-, giving esso. So, ipse becomes esso: the very emphatic Latin “self, very, the same one” ends by becoming a rather ordinary Italian pronoun. That is almost too neat for the Clifton grand tourist: the Roman insists ipse, and the Italian replies esso, having politely removed the p on the way. A second useful example is scripsi becoming scrissi. Latin scripsi, “I wrote,” gives Italian scrissi. Here again -ps- becomes -ss-. Grice would like this one too because it lets him mutter that the author wrote scripsi, but the descendant language reports scrissi, as if even the verb of writing had suffered editorial emendation. So, if Speranza wants a playful note on Tapsenna becoming imaginary Tassenna or Tassenio, the sound-change has respectable company. One would not use it as an actual etymology without evidence, but as a joke about Italian’s treatment of the Latin -ps- cluster it works perfectly. Latin is not merely translated into Italian; it is sometimes made to behave. The -p- is not refuted, exactly. It is silently voted out. The dry Speranzian formulation might be: Grice, after Clifton, expected Italy to speak Latin with better weather. Instead, he found ipse softened into esso and scripsi domesticated as scrissi. Thus, if some Bolognese philosophical don failed to say Tapsennius and produced something perilously like Tassenio, the fault would not be wholly personal. Italian had long ago learned to treat -ps- as an invitation to -ss-. Grice: "Well, the 'p' does not dissappear or vanish into thin air -- rather the italian tongue (lingua italiana) 'gemminates' the s. As Professor Higgins at UCL would say, /ta'ssenio/, not /ta'senio/. Thanks Exactly. Grice would not say the p has vanished; he would say Italian has paid for it by strengthening the s. The lost segment is not simply absent; it has left a phonetic receipt. Latin ipse does not become Italian eso, but esso, and scripsi does not become scrisi, but scrissi. The p has ceased to be segmentally audible, but the following s has been geminated. That is much more satisfying to a Gricean ear, because nothing has quite disappeared without conversational consequences. So for playful Tapsenna/Tassenio purposes, the point is not /taˈsenio/ but /taˈssenio/. Professor Higgins would indeed insist on the double consonant, and an Italian schoolmaster would do so with less charm and more chalk. The Latin or pseudo-Latin -ps- cluster, domesticated by Italian phonotactics, yields not a lazy single s but the tense Italian geminate. The tongue does not forget the p; it converts it into duration. Speranza’s formulation might be: Italian does not murder the p; it buries it inside the s, with full honours and double consonantal compensation. Latin ipse says its p openly; Italian esso keeps the trace by holding the s longer. Thus Tapsennius, if surrendered to a comic Italianising ear, would not become a smooth Tasenio, but a properly tightened Tassenio. Grice, who disliked vanishing acts in philosophy as much as in phonology, would approve the economy: no entity disappears praeter necessitatem; some merely geminate.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tarantino – Ossia: Grice e Tarantino: la ragione conversazionale dell’inconscio e la coscienza – la scuola di Gravina. Note su Il problema della causalità. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Giuseppe Tarantino (Gravina, Bari, Puglia): la ragione conversazionale dell’inconscio e la coscienza – Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats conversation as a cooperative, rationally organized activity in which hearers infer speaker-meaning by assuming that contributions are made in accordance with an accepted purpose and are regulated by norms (the Cooperative Principle and the maxims of quantity, quality, relation, and manner); what is “meant” is often not identical with what is literally said, but is instead recoverable as a calculable implicature from the speaker’s publicly recognizable intentions plus shared expectations about rational talk. Giuseppe Tarantino (1857–1950), by contrast, was an Italian academic philosopher and pedagogue associated with Pisa (including leadership roles there), trained in the post-Hegelian/Italian critical tradition around figures such as Francesco Fiorentino, and known for historical-critical work (e.g., on Locke) and for broader treatments of will, ethics, and causality; nothing in his documented output places him as a precursor to Gricean pragmatics, and the “Grice–Tarantino” exchange in your passage is best read as a witty anachronistic staging that juxtaposes Tarantino’s interest in mind, will, and the conscious/unconscious nexus with Grice’s focus on how rational agents manage meaning in interaction. The clean comparison, then, is that Grice explains how conversational understanding is normatively guided and inferentially structured (how a remark about tea, self-forgetting, or “not knowing that one does not know” can communicate more than its literal content by exploiting cooperative expectations), whereas Tarantino’s philosophical psychology and ethics would frame talk about unconsciousness primarily as a problem about the structure of agency, cognition, and moral responsibility rather than as a problem about the inferential mechanics of talk-exchange; in the dialogue’s terms, Grice can treat Tarantino’s quips as cases of implicature generated by deliberate understatement or playful relevance-shifts, while Tarantino provides the thematic subject matter (consciousness, will, causal explanation) that Grice’s theory does not aim to analyze directly except insofar as such topics become contents handled by reason-governed conversational moves. Insegna a Pisa. Studia nel ginnasio e compì gli studi superiori a Pisa, dapprima come studente all'università della stessa città e successivamente come allievo della scuola normale superiore di Pisa. Inizia gli studi sotto la guida di FIORENTINO . Si laurea e segue a Napoli il maestro FIORENTINO. In sua memoria dedica al suo maestro “I Saggi Filosofici,” ottenne la docenza in filosofia. Inizia ad acquisire notorietà grazie ai saggi critici che pubblica sul Giornale Napoletano. Insegna al liceo Genovesi di Napoli. Compone il Saggio sulla volontà, Gennaro, Napoli.  Insegna al Marciano, e Pisa. Insegna anche alla scuola di pedagogia, dove tra i suoi insegnanti figura GENTILE. La sua notorietà cresce sempre più grazie ad alcuni suoi saggi critici pubblicati sulla Rivista di Filosofia Scientifica di MORSELLI, il più noto dei quali è su Locke. Tra i suoi studenti di Pisa più noti figurano NICOLA ed ACCADIA. Torna nella sua città natale, dove dona alla biblioteca Santomasi una parte cospicua dei suoi libri. A lui è stato intitolato il liceo. Altre saggi: Appunti di Filosofia, Toso, Aversa, Saggi filosofici, Napoli, Morano; Studio storico su Locke, Rivista di Filosofia, Milano-Torino, Dumolard; Saggio sul criticismo e sull'associazionismo, Napoli, Morano; In morte di CALDERONI, Vecchi, Trani; Saggio sulla volontà; Saggio sulle idee morali e politiche di Hobbes, Napoli, Giannini; Il problema della morale di fronte al positivismo e alla metafisica, Pisa, Valenti; Il principio dell'etica e la crisi morale, Napoli, Tessitore; Il concetto dello STATO ed il principio di nazionalità” (Napoli); “Discorso preposto alle traduzioni dal latino, dall’inglese e dal francese di SOTTILE, Napoli; VINCI  e la scienza della natura, Nel centenario di VINCI, La politica e la morale. Discorso, Pisa, Mariotti, Sulla riforma universitaria, Rivista di filosofia. Cfr. Turi, inconscio, Gentile, Vinci, lo stato, la nazione.  Grice: Professore Tarantino, mi hanno sempre affascinato i suoi studi sull’inconscio e la coscienza! Dica, secondo lei, una buona tazza di tè può aiutare a scoprire i misteri della mente, o rischia solo di renderli più... aromatici? Tarantino: Ah, caro Grice, se il tè fosse la soluzione, bisognerebbe aggiungerlo al programma di filosofia! Ma temo che il mistero dell'inconscio resti più difficile da dissolvere che lo zucchero nella bevanda. Grice: Mi trova d’accordo! Del resto, come scrivevo in Personal identity, io stesso non ero consapevole di essere inconsapevole. Un po’ come quando ti dimentichi dove hai messo gli occhiali... e li stai indossando! Ma non glielo dico, eh! Tarantino: Bella implicatura, Grice! In fondo, il filosofo che non sa di non sapere è come l’inconscio: sempre pronto a spuntare quando meno te lo aspetti, e magari pure con gli occhiali già sul naso! Tarantino, Giuseppe (1879). Dissertazione. Sotto Fiontino. Filosofia. Pisa.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tarazio – Ossia: Grice e Tarazio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tarazio. The gens Taracia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. No members of this gens appear in history, although at least one held the rank of quaestor at an uncertain period.[1] Several are known from inscriptions.  Origin The nomen Taracius is probably of Oscan origin, indicating that the Taracii were likely descended from the Sabines, Samnites, or some other people of central and southern Italy.[2]  Branches and cognomina The only cognomen found in the inscriptions of the Taracii is Felix, a common surname meaning "fortunate" or "happy".[3]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Gnaeus Taracius Cn. f., a young man buried at Casilinum in Campania, aged twenty, in a tomb dedicated by his mother, and dating to the latter half of the first century BC.[4] Marcus Taracius, buried at Carthage in Africa Proconsularis.[5] Marcus Taracius M. f., a quaestor, made an offering to Demeter at Cumae in Campania.[1] Neus[i] Taracius Felix, dedicated a tomb at Rome for his foster-son, Felicior, aged four years, eight months, and seven days.[6] Notes  Presumably Gnaeus, which seems to have been a regular praenomen of this gens. See also List of Roman gentes References  ILS, 9511.  Chase, p. 128.  Chase, p. 111.  CIL X, 4362.  CILPCart, 360.  Fede e Civiltà, 1966–22. Bibliography Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). Hermann Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae (Select Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated ILS), Berlin (1892–1916). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII, pp. 103–184 (1897). Zeïneb Benzina Ben Abdallah and Leïla Ladjimi Sebaï, Catalogue des inscriptions latines païennes inédites du Musée de Carthage (Catalogue of Unpublished Pagan Latin Inscriptions from the Museum of Carthage, abbreviated CILPCart), Rome (2011). Category: Roman gentes And for this gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tarazio – Ossia: Grice e Tarazio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tarazio. For Taracius, the first-best Grice-Speranza choice is Marcus Taracius M. f., the quaestor who made an offering to Demeter at Cumae. The gens is almost too small to resist sentimental over-reading, but this figure gives the cleanest intersection: Oscan-looking nomen, Campanian setting, Greek cult, Roman office, and a public dedication. That is enough for Speranza, and perhaps more than enough for Grice. The point is not that Marcus Taracius is historically important. He is not. The point is that he is institutionally bilingual in the broader Roman sense. As quaestor, he belongs to the language of Roman public accounting, magistracy, and res publica. At Cumae, a Greek city in Campania with enormous symbolic weight, he makes an offering to Demeter, not merely to a neat Latin equivalent under a tidy Roman shelf-label. The act therefore speaks across civic and cultic idioms. In Gricean terms, the dedication says devotion; it also implicates cultural competence. Taracius knows where he is, what divinity is to be addressed there, and what kind of public religious gesture will count. Demeter is especially useful. She is not only a goddess of grain and fertility, but also, in a Roman administrative ear, almost too close to the practical world of supply, harvest, and public provision. A quaestor dedicating to Demeter at Cumae is not merely being pious. He is, so to speak, allowing office and cult to converse. The official who handles resources honours the goddess of yield. That may be accidental. Speranza would say that accidents are often the archive’s way of pretending to be modest. The alternative candidates are thinner. Gnaeus Taracius, dead at twenty at Casilinum, gives pathos but little conceptual pressure. Marcus Taracius at Carthage gives geographic spread but not much scene. Neus or Gnaeus Taracius Felix, dedicating to the foster-son Felicior, is touching and permits a little play on Felix and Felicior, fortune and comparative fortune, but the risk of sentiment is high. The quaestor at Cumae gives the better machinery: office, cult, translation, Oscan-Campanian background, and a Greek divine addressee under Roman form. A possible vignette would have Grice ask what the offering “means.” Not in the merely natural sense, and not simply as a conventional inscription. It means because a Roman magistrate, in a particular place, under a public religious form, addresses a goddess whose name carries Greek, local, agricultural, and administrative resonances. The act is therefore not reducible to “Taracius was religious.” It is a controlled public utterance in stone or ritual: I, holding Roman office, recognise this local-divine grammar and make myself intelligible within it. The dry Speranzian formula might be: Marcus Taracius is the right Taracius because he lets an obscure Oscan-shadowed nomen speak Greek at Cumae in a Roman official accent. He does not write philosophy. He makes an offering. But sometimes that is enough. A quaestor before Demeter is a small theory of Roman accommodation: what is said is piety; what is meant is that Rome can govern best when it has learned whom to address, and in what language, even when the language is not purely its own. And we can imagine the stone carver -- you can translate to Latin and add +> with implicatum, as you please. Mrs. Tarazio. "What are you doing? You're taking too long." Stone carver: Master's orders: M -- E -- T -- E -- I have done the "D" and "E" already, one "R" to go. Mrs T. Such a hellenistic, the husband! I always thought 'CERES' was so much more economical!" Thanks Yes, very much. I would make the stone-cutter scene do two things at once: first, stage the practical nuisance of Greek prestige; second, let the implicature sit in the extra labour of inscription. “CERES” is shorter, cheaper, and perfectly Roman. “DEMETER” is longer, Greek, and therefore socially marked. Mrs Taracius hears not theology but affectation. Latin reconstruction: Taracia: “Quid agis? nimium moraris.” Stone-cutter: “Iussa domini facio: D -- E -- M -- E -- T -- E -- R. Duo iam litterae peractae sunt, unum R superest.” Taracia: “O virum hellenisticum! Ego semper putavi CEREREM multo breviorem esse.” Or, if one wants the more economical and inscriptional Roman form: Taracia: “Quid agis? nimium moraris.” Lapicida: “Iussa domini: D -- E -- M -- E -- T -- E -- R. D et E iam incisa sunt; unum R restat.” Taracia: “O maritum nimis Graeculum! CERES, ut opinor, minus lapidis poscebat.” Translation: Mrs. Taracius: “What are you doing? You are taking too long.” Stone-cutter: “Master’s orders: D -- E -- M -- E -- T -- E -- R. The D and E are already cut; one R remains.” Mrs. Taracius: “What a little Greekling my husband is. CERES, I always thought, required less stone.” Implicature: The stone-cutter explicitly reports obedience to instructions, but the counting of letters implicates cost, effort, and perhaps mild irritation. Mrs. Taracius does not merely prefer the Roman goddess-name; she treats the Greek divine address as social display. “CERES” would have done the religious work. “DEMETER” does extra cultural work. It says that Marcus Taracius wants to be heard at Cumae not merely as pious, but as pious in the Greek key. Speranza’s dry gloss would be that the inscription itself becomes a miniature Gricean case. What is said is a dedication to Demeter. What is implicated is: “I know where I am; I know the Greek cultic register; I am not one of those rustic magistrates who calls every grain-goddess Ceres because Latin is cheaper.” Mrs. Taracius, more economical and perhaps more Roman, hears the same utterance differently: not cultural competence, but unnecessary Hellenism, paid by the letter. The better Latin joke, perhaps, is not that Ceres is shorter than Demeter in every inflected form, but that CERES is epigraphically thriftier and Romanly sufficient. The husband’s “Demeter” is a costly implicature. The wife’s “Ceres” is a household budget. Just for the record for any future one and you can provide a adjustment here for this one. When you do the dialogue. Conversationalists all in capital. UXOR. and SCRIBA(?). No ":" -- just a dot. Then the Latin. Then in round brackets the English. and then on occasion the "+>" -- what follows is the 'that'-clause of the implicaum, as meant by utterer to addressee. Let's see how that works here. Also you don't need new line with conversationalist change. Since this goes in an entry that does not use 'enter'. Thanks Understood. For this one, in the requested continuous format, I would regularise it like this: UXOR. quid agis? nimium moraris. (What are you doing? You are taking too long.) SCRIBA. iussu domini: D E M E T E R. D et E iam incisa sunt; unum R restat. (By master’s order: D E M E T E R. The D and E have already been cut; one R remains.) +> that the name chosen is longer, costlier, and culturally marked. UXOR. o maritum nimis Graeculum. CERES, ut opinor, minus lapidis poscebat. (What a little Greekling my husband is. CERES, I should have thought, required less stone.) +> that the husband’s Greek divine address is not required for piety, but for display. A small adjustment: I would use SCRIBA only if he is being treated as the lettering man in a broad comic sense, but LAPICIDA is more exact for the stone-cutter. If you want the dialogue to preserve the artisan as the cutter rather than the writer, the better version is: UXOR. quid agis? nimium moraris. (What are you doing? You are taking too long.) LAPICIDA. iussu domini: D E M E T E R. D et E iam incisa sunt; unum R restat. (By master’s order: D E M E T E R. The D and E have already been cut; one R remains.) +> that obedience, not theology, is responsible for the expensive Hellenism. UXOR. o maritum nimis Graeculum. CERES, ut opinor, minus lapidis poscebat. (What a little Greekling my husband is. CERES, I should have thought, required less stone.) +> that CERES would have done the religious work, while DEMETER does the social work. That format works very well for the entries: speaker in capitals, dot, Latin, English in round brackets, and then the occasional +> for the intended implicatum. It also suits the no-enter style, because each exchange can run as a compact conversational strip rather than as a staged dramatic scene. Great. Please re-adjust two minor things: first letter in Latin opening move in capital. b) I would also omit the 'that'. The point is that what an utterer implicates to an addressee is a proposition -- a full proposition. A full sentence. Yours are good. Just the 'that' may be omitted -- following Grice's logic --: "By explicitly conveying that B(ix.Ax), U implicitly conveys to addressee A that D(ix.Cx). -- one explicitly conveys only full propositions -- here in predicate calculus -- there need not be any semantic connection between them, hence the A, B for the 'A is B' of the explicit and the C and D for the C is D of the implicit. See if you can re-adjust the conversation along those lines. IT's only Grice's way to irritate systematicists who look for something tidier, when there isn't! Thanks -- And do use the technical for 'stone-carver' -- and adjust as what the implicatum is is something he would say on the Roman matron's face -- not to the world at large! Ditto for Matrona -- he is addressing a mere stone carver, not the Oxonian classicist! Thanks UXOR. Quid agis? nimium moraris. (What are you doing? You are taking too long.) LAPICIDA. Iussu domini: D E M E T E R. D et E iam incisa sunt; unum R restat. (By master’s order: D E M E T E R. The D and E have already been cut; one R remains.) +> The matron should understand that he is not responsible for the length, the cost, or the Greekness of the inscription; he is merely obeying the husband’s affected instruction. UXOR. O maritum nimis Graeculum. CERES, ut opinor, minus lapidis poscebat. (What a very Greekling husband. CERES, I should have thought, required less stone.) +> The stone-carver should understand that she takes DEMETER not as necessary piety, but as her husband’s expensive Hellenistic display, and that a Roman household-name would have served perfectly well. Great -- only (and you can re-adjust) I would simplify the implicata. 'The matron should understand' seems okay but may need rephrasing. 'he' is not responsible -- shouldn't it be better as 'I am not responsible' -- or a mere stone cutter is not ... 'her' husband --> 'my husband' and no need to keep referring to stone carver -- it's just the proposition that matron is communicating to stone carver. Thanks -- Note also that you do not need to have implicata for each move. If we have U S U S (four moves -- the strongest most 'explicit' implicatum is best left for the 'last' move in the sequence -- thanks -- and often just a dyad will do -- Grice: I'm out of gas B: There's a garage round the corner ---- although not likely in this case, unless it's only S U. Thanks Yes. The cleaner version is to let the last move carry the implicatum, and to make it a proposition uttered from the speaker’s point of view rather than a curatorial gloss about the speaker. For this case I would reduce it to a dyad, since the stone-cutter’s defence and the matron’s counter-reading are enough. UXOR. Quid agis? nimium moraris. (What are you doing? You are taking too long.) LAPICIDA. Iussu domini: D E M E T E R. D et E iam incisa sunt; unum R restat. (By master’s order: D E M E T E R. The D and E have already been cut; one R remains.) UXOR. O maritum nimis Graeculum. CERES, ut opinor, minus lapidis poscebat. (What a very Greekling husband. CERES, I should have thought, required less stone.) +> My husband is not merely making a pious dedication; he is paying for Greek display where a Roman name would have done. That seems closer to what you want. The implicatum is not a narrator’s description of what “the matron should understand,” nor a general statement for the world at large. It is the proposition the matron means the lapicida to recover: my husband is being expensively Hellenistic. It also avoids overloading every move. The first two turns prepare the comic economy; the last turn carries the strongest implicature. and just as an experiment let us try a dyad by which I meant a two-move exchange. It seems Grice is making fun of conventions by systematicists of using (1), (2), ... and then filled with ONE sentence. For him, it's (1) S U -- AT LEAST: the minimum pair. So he would not regard 'There's a garage around the corner' or 'I've run out of fuel' as well formed. Only (1) A. I've run out of gas. B. There's a garage round the corner (+> open, and with gas to sell). Thanks Yes, exactly: for a Gricean numbering convention, the unit is not an isolated sentence but the conversational pair. A lone “I have run out of gas” is not yet the example; a lone “There is a garage round the corner” is not yet the example either. The example begins only when the second move is heard as a response to the first. That is where the implicatum becomes recoverable. So, for the Taracius-Demeter case, a strict dyad might be: (1) UXOR. Quid est tam longum? (What is taking so long?) LAPICIDA. DEMETER iussu domini, non CERES. (DEMETER by the master’s order, not CERES.) +> Your husband has chosen the longer Greek name, and I am not responsible for the extra carving. Or, with the implicature loaded onto the wife’s second move instead: (1) LAPICIDA. DEMETER iussu domini, non CERES. (DEMETER by the master’s order, not CERES.) UXOR. Scilicet; maritus meus Graeculum se etiam in lapide praestat. (Of course; my husband proves himself a little Greekling even in stone.) +> My husband is using piety to display Greek cultivation where an ordinary Roman name would have done. That second version is probably better, because it lets the lapicida supply the explicit contrast and the UXOR supply the social uptake. It is closer to the petrol example: the first move creates the practical setting; the second move is relevant only if the addressee recovers the extra content. “DEMETER, not CERES” is the stone-carver’s minimal datum; “Graeculum” is the matron’s interpretation of the datum as social display. And Grice’s irritation with systematicists is well preserved. Numbering one sentence as if it were already the unit misses the conversational fact. The implicature is not inside either sentence considered ceremonially alone. It is in the adjacency, the uptake, the recognition that this was said as answer to that.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tari – Ossia: Grice e Tari: pooh-pooh e la ragione conversazionale e l’origine della lingua pirotese, o la questione spuria favorita da Grice. Note sul Saggio sulla filosofia delle scienze matematiche. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Antonio Tari (Villa Santa Maria Capua Vetere, Caserta, Campania): pooh-pooh e la ragione conversazionale e l’origine della lingua pirotese, o la questione spuria favorita da Grice  – Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversation treats “what is meant” as systematically inferable from “what is said” plus shared rational expectations: interlocutors presume a cooperative point to the exchange and interpret apparent deviations from maxims of quantity, quality, relation, and manner as intelligible, intention-tracking moves that generate implicatures; meaning is thus anchored in publicly recognizable intentions and norms of rational communicative conduct. Antonio Tari (1809–1884), by contrast, is a nineteenth-century Neapolitan philosopher and man of letters (trained in law, active in liberal intellectual circles, later associated with aesthetics), not a contributor to pragmatics in Grice’s technical sense; in your playful passage he functions as a culturally and historically situated foil who treats “ragione conversazionale” and the “origin of Pirotese” as if language identity and etymological borrowing were matters settled by local dialect life, lexicographic authority, and witty reversals, so that the “spurious question” becomes a satire on how people overread categories (pirot/Parrot, pirotese as essence vs acquisition) rather than an analysis of how conversational inference works. The sharp comparison, then, is that Grice offers a general explanatory model of how rational hearers recover speaker-meaning (including how misdirection, joking, and apparent irrelevance are rationally decoded), whereas “Tari” in this vignette is best read as dramatizing the pre-theoretical social materials that make Gricean inference possible—dialect pride, metalinguistic stereotypes, appeals to dictionaries, and identity talk—without supplying Grice’s machinery of calculability, cancellability, and intention-recognition that turns those materials into a theory of reason-governed conversational meaning. Nacque a Santa Maria Maggiore in provincia di Caserta -- Santa Maria Capua Vetere --, da Giuseppe, conservatore delle ipoteche per la provincia di Terra di Lavoro, e da Anna Cossa. La data di nascita, in precedenza indicata come 1° luglio, è stata corretta di recente insieme al nome di battesimo, Marcantonio, registrato negli atti anagrafici -- L’estetica reale di T.: nei carteggi e nelle testimonianze di amici e contemporanei il nome fu citato spesso nelle forma dialettale del diminutivo, Totonno. Ha tre fratelli, Benedetto, Vincenzo e Achille, e una sorella, Teresita. La famiglia è originaria di Terelle, Frosinone, piccolo borgo compreso nel territorio storico dell’abbazia di Montecassino. Non molto si sa della sua formazione prima dell’arrivo a Napoli, città in cui la famiglia possede una casa. Ivi si laurea in giurisprudenza esercitando per qualche anno la professione forense, che abbandona tuttavia per dedicarsi agli studi filosofici a lui più congeniali. Autodidatta, fornito di una straordinaria erudizione, studia musica, sotto la guida di Conti, divenendo un abile esecutore, e apprend le principali lingue moderne e quelle classiche, insegnando tra l’altro i rudimenti del tedesco a Spaventa che conosce al collegio di Montecassino. A Napoli diserta i corsi del purista Puoti, indiscussa autorità sulla cultura napoletana del tempo, e frequenta invece le lezioni e la casa di GALLUPPI , docente di logica e filosofia teoretica, tra i primi a introdurre in Italia il pensiero critico. Le numerose prove letterarie di T. -- schizzi biografici, note di storia e storia della religione, recensioni e qualche lavoro di carattere critico-estetico -- sono ospitate in riviste e giornali. Collabora più assiduamente alla prima serie della Rivista napolitana, chiusa dalla censura --, scrivendo l’introduzione al primo numero. Il periodico, aperto a influssi provenienti dai paesi europei. origine della lingua.  Grice: Caro Tari, una domanda: i piroti parlano pirotese perché sono piroti, o diventano piroti appena iniziano a parlare pirotese? Sai, mi sembra una bella questione “spuria”! Tari: Ah, Grice, è del tutto naturale! Un piroto nasce già con il pirotese sulla punta della lingua. Nessuno in Villa Santa Maria Capua Vetere si sorprende: qui il dialetto è pane quotidiano! Grice: Locke direbbe che la mia lingua barbarica trasforma il “pirot” più in un “Parrot” che in un “Pidlock”... almeno così mi dice la mia filosofia del linguaggio! Tari: Touché, ma secondo l’Oxford English Dictionary, gli inglesi il “pirot” l’hanno preso dai veneziani, mica dagli italiani—e non l’hanno mai restituito! Se ne sono appropriati per sempre, come fanno spesso con le parole e col tè! Tari, Antonio (1830). Dissertazione. Giuisprudenza. Napoli.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tario – Ossia: Grice e Tario – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tario -- The gens Taria was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned in the time of Augustus, when Lucius Tarius Rufus attained the consulship.  Praenomina The praenomina used by the Tarii were the most common names at all periods of Roman history: Lucius, Gaius, Marcus, Publius, and Quintus, along with the slightly less-common Sextus.  Branches and cognomina A family of Tarii settled at Nedinum in Dalmatia by the first century, and Tarii were still living in Dalmatia a century later.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Lucius Tarius Rufus, served under Octavian at the Battle of Actium, and was governor of Macedonia from 18 to 16 BC, when he was appointed consul suffectus. He was still living in AD 23, when he was named curator of Rome's aqueducts.[1][2] Lucius Tarius Philargyrus, dedicated a tomb at Rome for his wife, Ebrilia Auctulla, dating from the late first century BC, or the early first century AD.[3] Taria L. l. Apate, a freedwoman named in an inscription from Rome, dating from the first half of the first century.[4] Marcus Tarius C. f., built a first-century tomb at Nedinum in Dalmatia for his siblings, Sextus Tarius, Taria Tertia, and Quintus Tarius.[5] Sextus Tarius C. f., buried at Nedinum in a first-century tomb built by his brother, Marcus Tarius, for his siblings.[5] Taria C. f. Tertia, buried at Nedinum in a first-century tomb built by her brother, Marcus Tarius, for his siblings.[5] Quintus Tarius C. f., buried at Nedinum in a first-century tomb built by his brother, Marcus Tarius, for his siblings.[5] Lucius Tarius L. l. Auctus, a freedman buried in a first-century tomb at Rome.[6] Lucius Tarius Bello, built a first-century tomb at Rome for the freedwoman, Taria Sympherusa.[7] Taria Sympherusa, a young freedwoman buried at Rome, aged fifteen, in a first-century tomb built by Lucius Tarius Bello.[7] Marcus Tarius C. f. Triera, built a first-century tomb at Nedinum for himself and his siblings, Sextus Tarius, Taria Tertia, and Quintus Tarius.[5] Sextus Tarius C. f., buried in a first-century tomb at Nedinum, built by his brother, Marcus Tarius Triera, for himself and his siblings.[5] Taria C. f. Tertia, buried in a first-century tomb at Nedinum, built by her brother, Marcus Tarius Triera, for himself and his siblings.[5] Quintus Tarius C. f., buried in a first-century tomb at Nedinum, built by his brother, Marcus Tarius Triera, for himself and his siblings.[5] Gaius Tarius C. f. Sextio, the husband of Sentia Prima, who built a tomb at Nedinum, dating from the first century, or the first half of the second, for herself, her husband, her mother, Laecania Maxuma, and their children, Marcus Tarius Clemens, Publius Tarius Rufus, and Lucius Tarius Celsus.[8] Marcus Tarius C. f. C. n. Clemens, the son of Gaius Tarius Sextio and Sentia Prima, buried in a first- or early second-century tomb at Nedinum, along with his parents, grandmother, and siblings.[8] Publius Tarius C. f. C. n. Rufus, the son of Gaius Tarius Sextio and Sentia Prima, buried in a first- or early second-century tomb at Nedinum, along with his parents, grandmother, and siblings.[8] Lucius Tarius C. f. C. n. Celsus, the son of Gaius Tarius Sextio and Sentia Prima, buried in a first- or early second-century tomb at Nedinum, along with his parents, grandmother, and siblings.[8] Taria [...] l. Primigenia, a freedwoman, and the wife of the freedman Lucius Cenionius[i] Priamus, who built a tomb for her at Alvona in Dalmatia, dating between the death of Augustus and the middle of the second century.[9] Tarius Titianus, governor of Asia during the reign of Caracalla, about the beginning of the third century.[10] Tarius, named in a sepulchral inscription from Epidaurum in Dalmatia, dating between the middle of the second century, and the end of the third.[11] Undated Tarii Tarius, a potter whose maker's mark was found at Mediomatrici in Gallia Belgica.[12] Taria Fausta, buried at Rome, aged forty, alongside her husband, the freedman Lucius Tarius Protus.[13] Taria Galla, buried at Rome, along with her husband, Lucius Tarius Speratus.[14] Lucius Tarius Hymnus, buried in a family sepulchre at Rome.[15] Tarius Lucanus, a veteran of the Legio XIII Gemina, buried at the present site of Daia Română, formerly part of Dacia.[16] Lucius Tarius Philero, made an offering to Juno at Parma in Cisalpine Gaul.[17] Lucius Tarius L. l. Protus, a freedman buried at Rome, along with his wife, Taria Fausta.[13] Lucius Tarius Rufius, a potter whose maker's mark was found at the site of Siscia in Pannonia Superior.[18] Lucius Tarius Speratus, buried at Rome, along with his wife, Taria Galla.[14] See also List of Roman gentes Notes  Perhaps this should be Ceionius, as there seem to be no other examples of Cenionius. References  Frontinus, De Aquaeductu, 102.  PIR, vol. III, p. 295 (T, No. 14).  CIL VI, 37297.  CIL VI, 14160.  CIL III, 2878.  CIL VI, 27106.  CIL VI, 27107.  CIL III, 2877.  CIL III, 3060.  PIR, p. 295 (T, No. 15).  CIL III, 8408.  CAG, lvii. 1, p. 328.  CIL VI, 5727.  AE 1896, 37.  CIL VI, 36475.  IDR, iii. 4, 33.  CIL XI, 1048.  CIL III, 12010,30. Bibliography Sextus Julius Frontinus, De Aquaeductu (On Aqueducts). Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). Paul von Rohden, Elimar Klebs, & Hermann Dessau, Prosopographia Imperii Romani (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, abbreviated PIR), Berlin (1898). La Carte Archéologique de la Gaule (Archaeological Map of Gaul, abbreviated CAG), Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1931–present). Inscriptiones Daciae Romanae (Inscriptions from Roman Dacia, abbreviated IDR), Bucharest (1975–present). Category: Roman gentes And for THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tario – Ossia: Grice e Tario – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tario – For the Tarii, the first-best Grice-Speranza choice is Lucius Tarius Rufus. The Nedinum family inscriptions are touching, and Tarius Titianus in Asia has administrative weight, but Tarius Rufus gives the cleanest philosophical scene: Actium, Augustus, Macedonia, the suffect consulship, and then, late in life, the curatorship of Rome’s aqueducts. He moves from naval victory and Augustan consolidation to water-supply, which is to say from glory to maintenance. That is very Roman, and very Gricean in the dry sense: civilisation depends less on what is loudly asserted than on what continues to function. The best vignette would not make him merely another Augustan loyalist. It would make him the man who understands that power requires channels. He serves Octavian at Actium, where the future of Rome is decided in the language of battle; later he becomes curator aquarum, where Rome’s future depends on water arriving where it is meant to arrive. The transition is excellent. At Actium, Rufus helps settle who will rule. As curator of aqueducts, he helps settle whether the city can live under that rule. A Roman might call the first gloria and the second cura; Speranza would say the second is often the more honest metaphysics. The Gricean angle is the notion of conductance. An aqueduct is not a metaphor only because it is first an institution. It carries water by gradient, channel, maintenance, and public trust. Conversation, for Grice, carries meaning by intention, uptake, route, and cooperative pressure. Both fail when the channel is blocked, stolen from, misdirected, or poorly maintained. A curator aquarum is therefore a magistrate of relevance: he ensures that what is supplied reaches the proper addressee. The water is not eloquent, but the system has a publicly intelligible point. A possible dry dyad, if wanted later, might involve Tarius Rufus and a householder who has made a private diversion from a public conduit. Rufus would say, not that the water “means” Rome, but that the flow has been made to mean the wrong household. That is where the implicature lies: private convenience has presented itself as harmless use, but under the public description it is theft from the city. The same water, under one description, refreshes a villa; under another, it betrays the res publica. So my choice is Lucius Tarius Rufus. He is historically strong enough to carry the entry, but philosophically useful because his career supplies a beautiful two-stage Roman lesson. First victory must be won; then the channels must be kept clear. Actium gives Augustus the world. The aqueducts give Rome its morning. Very good, and unless otherwise stated or implicated, do provide the dyad. This one works good with householder first, and our 'hero' -- as I call the entry holder making his move that carries the implicatum. Thanks. So that the entries become mini-lessons in classical Latin. Recall to use capitals for names, in this case TARIVS. Just to irritate those who do a search for Tarius and get no retrieve. Thanks Yes, that will be the default: unless the next case clearly calls for more, I’ll provide the dyad as the miniature conversational lesson, with the non-hero speaking first and the entry-holder’s move carrying the strongest implicatum. And I’ll keep names in capitals, Romanised when useful, so TARIVS rather than Tarius. For TARIVS Rufus, the dyad could run: (1) DOMINVS. Aqua mea per agrum meum currit. (The water runs through my land.) TARIVS. Per agrum tuum currit; ad urbem pertinet. (It runs through your land; it belongs to the city.) +> Your private access to the channel does not make the public supply yours to divert. That gives the aqueduct case in its most compact Gricean form. The householder’s sentence is true enough under one description: the water physically crosses his property. TARIVS’s reply repairs the description: location is not entitlement. The implicatum is not addressed to posterity, or to a board of water engineers, but to the very householder tempted to confuse “through my land” with “mine.” Rome, through TARIVS, distinguishes possession of site from right of use. Good. And for next, I was thinking that marking it as (*) rather than (1) makes more sense if we don't feel like providing any (2)! Thanks Yes, (*) is better for the dyad when it is not one item in a longer numbered series. It marks the conversational unit without falsely implying that (2) is waiting in the wings like a neglected undergraduate. So the working convention can be: (*) A. Latin. (English.) B. Latin. (English.) +> Full propositional implicatum. And for the TARIVS case: (*) DOMINVS. Aqua mea per agrum meum currit. (The water runs through my land.) TARIVS. Per agrum tuum currit; ad urbem pertinet. (It runs through your land; it belongs to the city.) +> Your private access to the channel does not make the public supply yours to divert. That has the advantage of treating the dyad as the minimal Gricean exhibit. Not an isolated sentence, not a numbered proposition, but a conversational pair. Grice would approve, if only because it would annoy just the right sort of systematicist.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tarioleno – Ossia: Grice e Tarioleno – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tarioleno. The gens Tariolena was an obscure plebeian family of Roman times. No members of this gens appear in history, but several are known from inscriptions.  Origin The nomen Tariolenus belongs to a class of gentilicia formed using the suffix -enus, regularly formed from other nomina, but occasionally from place-names.[1] Names of this class are frequently associated with families of Umbrian origin, but were also characteristic of Cisalpine Gaul, and particularly of Venetia and Histria, where the inscriptions of the Tarioleni are found.[2]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Lucius Tariolenus Princeps, named in two inscriptions from Aquileia in Venetia and Histria, may have been the master of the freedwomen Tariolena Fausta and Tariolena Doris.[3][4] Tariolena L. l. Doris, a freedwoman named in an inscription from Aquileia, together with the freedwoman Tariolena Fausta, and Lucius Tariolenus Princeps, perhaps their former master.[4] Tariolena L. l. Fausta, a freedwoman named in an inscription from Aquileia, together with the freedwoman Tariolena Doris, and Lucius Tariolenus Princeps, perhaps their former master.[4] Lucius Tariolenus L. l. Hilarus, a freedman buried at Aquileia, together with the freedman Lucius Tariolenus Liccaeus, in a tomb dating from the latter half of the first century BC.[5] Lucius Tariolenus L. l. Liccaeus, a freedman buried at Aquileia, together with the freedman Lucius Tariolenus Hilarus, in a tomb dating from the latter half of the first century BC.[5] See also List of Roman gentes References  Chase, p. 118.  Salomies, "Prolegomena", pp. 616, 628, 629.  CIL V, 8466.  CIL V, 1396.  CIL V, 1395. Bibliography Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII, pp. 103–184 (1897). Olli Salomies, "Prolegomena to a Study of the Nomina Ending in –(i)enus", in Antichità Altoadriatiche, Centro di Antichità Altoadriatiche, Editreg di Fabio Prenc, Trieste, vol. LXXXV, pp. 615–631 (2016). Category: Roman gentes And for THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tarioleno – Ossia: Grice e Tarioleno – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tarioleno. For the Tarioleni, the first-best Grice-Speranza choice is Lucius TARIOLENVS Princeps, precisely because the little family is less a political gens than a freedman-household in epigraphic miniature. Princeps is too useful to ignore: as cognomen it need not mean “prince” in the imperial sense, but it cannot help sounding like precedence, firstness, and authority. Around him stand Doris and Fausta, likely freedwomen, and Hilarus and Liccaeus, freedmen at Aquileia. The material is small, but the social grammar is clear enough: manumission, naming, dependence, and the delicate passage from being someone’s property to bearing a nomen publicly. The Gricean point is that a freedman’s name is never merely a name. It says status, former ownership, new civic standing, and a continuing relation to the patron. If Tariolena Doris is L. l., the formula says much more than the two letters say. The explicit inscription records a freedwoman; the Roman reader recovers the manumitter, the household, the patronal tie, and the social ascent into legible civic personhood. That is not sentiment. It is epigraphic pragmatics. So the vignette should probably turn on PRINCEPS and one of the freedwomen, perhaps DORIS. He thinks the nomen records his generosity; she hears it as both liberation and remaining attachment. That is where the implicature lives. (*) DORIS. Nomen tuum fero; libertatem meam ago. (I bear your name; I live my freedom.) TARIOLENVS. Nomen meum geris; ideo libertas tua legitur. (You carry my name; for that reason your freedom is readable.) +> Your freedom is publicly recognised only through the patronal name that still marks your former dependence. That gives a compact dyad. DORIS makes freedom the main predicate; TARIOLENVS makes legibility the condition. Neither sentence denies the other. That is why it is good for Grice. The freedwoman is free, but the social sign by which Rome reads her freedom remains the patron’s nomen. The formula L. l. is a tiny Roman lesson in how one may be released and still be grammatically attached. Speranza’s dry closing would be that TARIOLENVS Princeps is not important because he ruled anything, but because his name lets others be filed as free. In a family this obscure, that is quite enough. The gens survives not by magistracy, war, or scandal, but by the Roman genius for making status abbreviated, public, and uncomfortably meaningful. That is the meaning of the 'l' (small-case L) in the epitaph, right? Oddlly Doris never carried an 'l' around her neck while alive. This connects with Grice's getting tired in his class at Examinations Hall on conversation -- 'what is that? what is this!' 'Why, what a decent chap does!" -- Doris may not have been one. By decent chap or honest chap Grice means 'he who converses' properly and correctly -- no need to gound the principle of conversational helpfulness in some Kantian super-conductivity. It's just what an Oxonian decent chap does -- the things he does -- Implicature: "You know -- don't ask me to explain -- or you'll disclose your status as a NON-decent chap, if you doubt or do not know what a decent chap does!" Thanks Yes, that small l is exactly libertus or liberta in the epigraphic formula: L. l. means Luci libertus or Luci liberta, “freedman” or “freedwoman of Lucius.” Doris did not carry a small l round her neck in life; the stone carries it for her after the transaction has become publicly legible. That is the Roman genius for making status survive in abbreviation. The person walks about as Doris; the inscription corrects the social grammar: Doris, yes, but read her under Lucius. And this connects beautifully with your Grice point. The “decent chap” is not the Kantian superconductor of rationality, nor the metaphysical citizen of the Kingdom of Ends wearing a tweed jacket. He is the one who knows how the exchange is done. He does not need the principle grounded for him every time; to ask too insistently “but why should I be helpful?” already risks showing that one has not quite been brought up conversationally. Grice’s dry impatience at Examination Schools is part of the point: the decent chap is the participant who has the practice, not the systematiser who demands a transcendental deduction of good manners before answering a question. Doris, then, is a useful complication. As L. l., she has been admitted into public civic readability through a patronal mark, but that does not automatically make her a “decent chap” in Grice’s sense, because Grice’s phrase names not legal freedom but conversational membership. Rome can record that she has been freed; it cannot engrave, except by hopeful implication, that she knows how to converse. The l gives status, not manners. It says: she stands in this legal relation to Lucius. It does not say: she can now be relied upon to make her conversational contribution as required by the accepted purpose of the exchange. That is why the little Tariolenus dyad remains good. TARIOLENVS is not saying, “you are free simpliciter.” He is saying, in effect, “your freedom is publicly readable under my name.” The freedwoman may prefer the existential proposition, “I live my freedom.” The patron supplies the Roman correction, “Rome reads your freedom through the formula.” In Gricean terms, the l is not a physical collar, but it is an implicature fastened to the inscription: this person is not slave, not ingenua, but freed through this patronal relation. It is a mark of release that still remembers dependence. The dry Speranzian moral would be: Doris did not wear the l, but posterity does. Rome has no need to hang the letter round her neck while she lives, because it can place it beside her name when she dies. And Grice would add that the same is true, less legally and more comically, of the “decent chap”: no one wears D. C. in the common room, but the whole conversation assumes that one has earned the invisible abbreviation. If one has to ask what it means to be decent in conversation, one may already have missed the vocative.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Taronio – Ossia: Grice e Taronio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Taronio. The gens Taronia or Tarronia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome, known from the late Republic until at least the fourth century. No members of this gens are mentioned in history, but from epigraphy it appears that they had reached senatorial rank by the early third century.  Origin The nomen Taronius belongs to a large class of gentilicia originally formed from cognomina ending in -o, or in later times from other names, after -onius had come to be regarded as a regular gentile-forming suffix.[1] A great many inscriptions of this family come from Samnium, and in particular from Amiternum, where one of them bore the Oscan praenomen Pompo, equivalent to the Latin Quintus. From this it would seem that the Taronii were probably of Samnite descent. The form Taronius is more frequent, and appears in most of the older inscriptions, while the form Tarronius seems to belong to imperial times.  Praenomina Most of the Taronii whose praenomina are known were named Lucius, Gaius, Publius, and Quintus, four of the most common names at all periods of Roman history. Besides the early instance of the Oscan name Pompo, there are also examples of the names Aulus, Gnaeus, Marcus, and Titus, each of which was also common throughout Roman times.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Lucius Taronius L. l. Philoxsenus, a freedman named in an inscription from Amiternum in Samnium, dating from the first half of the first century BC, along with Lucius Taronius Protio, and the freedwoman Toedia Ialisy.[2] Lucius Taronius L. l. Protio, a freedman named in an inscription from Amiternum, dating from the first half of the first century BC, along with Lucius Taronius Philoxsenus, and the freedwoman Toedia Ialisy.[2] Lucius Taronius L. f., named in a first century BC inscription from Amiternum.[3] Gaius Taronius Serranus, buried in a first-century BC tomb at Amiternum.[4] Lucius Taronius, a member of a college of octoviri, a board of eight men, perhaps municipal administrators, named in an inscription found at the site of modern Roio Piano, formerly part of Samnium, dating from the first half of the first century.[5] Taronia Tertia, named in a sepulchral inscription from Nersae in Samnium, dating from the first half of the first century, apparently the tomb of Lucius Carcurinius, formerly an aedile and quaestor, perhaps her husband.[6] Publius Taronius P. l. Isidorus, a freedman mentioned in a first-century inscription from Amiternum.[7] Tarronius Salutaris,[i] a freedwoman named in a late first-century inscription from Rome.[8] Gaius Tarronius Titianus, a potter whose maker's mark is known from two pieces of pottery found at Rome, and dating from AD 123.[9] Lucius Taronius, built a tomb for one Claudius at Salona in Dalmatia, dating between the middle of the second century and the end of the third.[10] Quintus Tarronius Julianus, a centurion in the Legio XXII Primigenia, made an offering to Jove, Juno, Minerva, and the other gods at Mogontiacum, some time in the late second or early third century.[11] Tarronius, together with his brother, Helvinius, dedicated a third-century tomb at Rome for another brother, Dexter.[12] Quintus Tarronius Q. f. Felix Dexter, a man of senatorial rank, was designated to become curule aedile at some point between AD 220 and 250. An inscription from Allifae in Campania describes him as patron of the carpenters' guild.[13][14] Quintus Egnatius Gallienus Lucillus Lollianus Tarronius Pisoninus, described as a learned and erudite young man of senatorial rank, who was buried at Allifae between AD 220 and 250, aged eighteen years, ten months, and twenty-two days, is listed under "Tarronius" in Prosopographia Imperii Romani, but should perhaps be considered an Egnatius, as his father is identified as the senator Quintus Egnatius Gallienus. From the name, time, and period, he was likely related to Quintus Tarronius Felix Dexter, and may have descended from the Tarronii through a maternal line.[15][16] Tarronia Proba, buried at Rome, in a fourth-century tomb dedicated by her son, Leo.[17] Undated Taronii Taronia L. f., named in an inscription from Amiternum, along with Gnaeus Taronius, probably a relative.[18] Gnaeus Taronius Pomponis f., named in an inscription from Amiternum, along with Taronia, probably a relative.[18] Lucius Taronius, the master of Auctus, a slave mentioned in an inscription from Caudium in Samnium.[19] Marcus Tarronius, named in an inscription from Carthage in Africa Proconsularis.[20] Pompo Taronius, the father of Gnaeus Taronius, mentioned in an inscription from Amiternum.[18] Titus Taronius Celer, originally one of the Bessi, a Thracian tribe, was a soldier in the Praetorian Guard at Ravenna, and was subsequently buried at Athens, aged thirty.[21] Publius Taronius P. l. Eros, a freedman buried at Amiternum, along with Publius Taronius Phileros and the freedwoman Lucretia Psyce.[22] Gaius Tarronius Festivus, named in an inscription from Carthage.[23] Publius Taronius P. l. Phileros, a freedman buried at Amiternum, along with Publius Taronius Eros and the freedwoman Lucretia Psyce.[22] Taronia Quintilla, built a tomb at Rome for her client, the freedwoman Taronia Restituta.[24] Taronia Restituta, a freedwoman buried at Rome, with a monument from her patron, Taronia Quintilla.[24] Aulus Taronius Verus, originally one of the Dalmatae, became a Roman soldier. He was buried at Ravenna, aged fifty, with a monument from his wife, Petronia Liberalis.[25] Notes  Neither the name of her former master nor her surname are certain. Her master may have been Quintianus, or perhaps Quintus; her surname could be Saluta, an Oscan praenomen. See also List of Roman gentes References  Chase, pp. 118–120.  AE 1992, 486.  AE 1992, 484.  AE 1992, 487.  AE 1992, 388.  CIL IX, 4126.  AE 1992, 485.  Da Bra, Iscrizioni latine di S. Lorenzo, p. 143.  CIL XV, 1466.1, 1466.2.  CIL III, 14768.  CIL XIII, 11815.  CIL VI, 16825.  CIL IX, 2339.  PIR, vol. III, p. 296 (T. No. 23).  CIL IX, 2340.  PIR, vol. III, p. 296 (T. No. 24).  ICUR, i. 2418.  CIL I, 3292.  CIL IX, 6293.  CILPCart, 359.  CIL III, 557.  CIL IX, 4302.  Wilmanns, Inscriptiones Africae Latinae, 412,87.  CIL VI, 27108.  CIL XI, 98. Bibliography Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). Giovanni Battista de Rossi, Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romanae Septimo Saeculo Antiquiores (Christian Inscriptions from Rome of the First Seven Centuries, abbreviated ICUR), Vatican Library, Rome (1857–1861, 1888). Gustav Wilmanns, Inscriptiones Africae Latinae (Latin Inscriptions from Africa), Georg Reimer, Berlin (1881). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). Paul von Rohden, Elimar Klebs, & Hermann Dessau, Prosopographia Imperii Romani (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, abbreviated PIR), Berlin (1898). Giuseppe Da Bra, Iscrizioni latine di S. Lorenzo (Latin Inscriptions of San Lorenzo), Rome (1931). Zeïneb Benzina Ben Abdallah and Leïla Ladjimi Sebaï, Catalogue des inscriptions latines païennes inédites du Musée de Carthage (Catalogue of Unpublished Pagan Latin Inscriptions from the Museum of Carthage, abbreviated CILPCart), Rome (2011). Category: Roman gentes and from this gens? Thanks Taronio

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Taronio – Ossia: Grice e Taronio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Taronio. For the Taronii, my first-best choice is Quintus TARRONIVS Felix Dexter, the man of senatorial rank designated for the curule aedileship and described as patron of the carpenters’ guild at Allifae. The alternative is tempting: Quintus Tarronius Julianus, the centurion of Legio XXII Primigenia, gives the clean military-pious formula at Mogontiacum. But Felix Dexter is better for Grice and Speranza because he brings together senatorial status, patronage, craft, and public recognition. He is not merely a name on a stone; he is a social relation made legible. The point is patronage. A carpenters’ guild is not philosophically glamorous, which is why it is excellent. It makes meaning depend on practice, craft, mutual obligation, and the public act of naming someone patronus. The guild does not merely say, “he is distinguished.” It says, “he is our distinguished man.” In Roman terms, that matters. Patronage turns prestige into reciprocal legibility: the senator gains a civic constituency; the craftsmen gain a protector whose name can speak for them when mere workmanship might not. The cognomina help. Felix means fortunate; Dexter means right-handed, skilful, favourable, auspicious. For a patron of carpenters, Dexter is almost indecently apt. Speranza would enjoy the fact that the senator’s name already seems to lean toward craft: the right hand, the competent hand, the hand that can make. Of course, he need not have touched a plane in his life. That is precisely the joke. The carpenters have the hands; TARRONIVS has the name, rank, and public efficacy. Between them, a Roman social utterance is produced. (*) FABER. Manus nostrae aedificia faciunt; nomen tuum nos tegit. (Our hands make buildings; your name protects us.) TARRONIVS. Nomen meum vobis praesto; opera vestra mihi testimonium praebent. (I put my name at your disposal; your works provide testimony for me.) +> The patron’s rank gives the craftsmen public protection, while the craftsmen’s visible works convert his patronage into civic honour rather than empty status. That dyad works because both sides say something true under different descriptions. The FABER begins from labour: hands, material work, building. TARRONIVS replies from patronage: name, protection, testimony. The implicatum is reciprocal. The guild needs the senator’s name to be heard in public; the senator needs the guild’s concrete works to make his patronage more than aristocratic decoration. The Gricean point is that patronus is not a bare title. It is a role whose meaning depends on uptake. The carpenters must be able to rely on the senator’s name, and the senator must be publicly recognised as one whose protection is effective. “Patron of the carpenters” is therefore a compact Roman proposition about power, speech, craft, and mutual advantage. It says: this man’s name can do something for those whose hands do something for the city. So Felix Dexter is the best TARRONIVS. The soldier Julianus gives vow and discipline; the many African and Samnite inscriptions give admirable texture; the Christian Victor at Altava gives a later ecclesiastical angle. But Felix Dexter gives the cleanest conversational relation. A guild addresses a patron; a patron accepts being made meaningful by the guild. Rome, as usual, turns a social arrangement into a public sign and then pretends it was merely an inscription. And how does this relate to Grice when he became CUF lecturer in 1946. Students of the history of the university of Bologna, Sorbonne, and Oxford, usually speak of 'guilds' magistrorum -- etc -- would the patron be the monarch? Grice was first in 1939 made a Fellow and Tutor in philosophy, St. John's -- but that's collegiate, not 'common fund' status -- how would guild and patron translate here -- we have patronus -- what was Latin for guild. I would think that back in the day of Bononia and Sorbonne and Oxford, there was also a guild of scholar, UNIVERSITAS meaning the 'totality of 'students' back in Sorbonne and Bologna, if not Oxford. In 1946, Grice became a 'civil servant' of sorts? Thanks Yes. The useful translation is not one-to-one, but the analogy is good if kept slightly wicked. The Latin for guild can be collegium, corpus, sodalitas, or universitas, depending on the period and institutional flavour. For a craft-guild like the carpenters, collegium fabrum is the obvious Roman form. Corpus can also work, especially for an incorporated body. Sodalitas is more association or fellowship, sometimes religious or convivial. Universitas is the medievally potent one: not originally “university” as campus and lecture-halls, but a totality, corporate body, legally recognisable collectivity. Thus universitas magistrorum et scholarium is exactly the sort of phrase by which Bologna, Paris, and later Oxford become thinkable as guild-like corporate persons. So, in the TARONIVS case, the Roman patronus of a collegium fabrum translates surprisingly well into the medieval academic world, but with adjustments. The patron is not always the monarch. In a medieval university setting the patronal role may be played by pope, emperor, king, bishop, chancellor, city, college founder, noble protector, or legal privilege itself. Bologna, famously, makes one think of the universitas scholarium, in which students as a corporate body exerted power over masters. Paris more readily suggests a corporation of masters under ecclesiastical shadow. Oxford develops its own tangled arrangement: university, colleges, chancellor, Crown, Church, statutes, endowments, and, later, public funding. No single Roman patronus maps neatly onto all that. But the patronal function remains: someone or something gives protection, recognition, privilege, shelter, money, jurisdiction, or name. Grice’s CUF lectureship is very suggestive here. As Fellow and Tutor of St John’s in 1939, Grice belonged to a college household, with pupils, rooms, tutorials, and the domestic economy of collegiate obligation. That is not yet the same as speaking for the universitas. When he became a CUF Lecturer in 1946, he acquired a university post paid from the Common University Fund, so that he became, in a modest Oxford sense, less merely collegiate and more corporate-university. “Civil servant” is not quite right legally, but the phrase catches the flavour: a don now supported by a central university mechanism, answerable not merely to the college table but to the wider academic body. Bread and butter from the common fund, marmalade still from conversation. For the TARRONIVS analogy, then, one might say: the collegium fabrum has hands and work; the patronus has name and standing. In Oxford terms, the students and teachers form the living practice; the college or university supplies recognised status; the Crown, Church, benefactor, or fund supplies patronal guarantee. A CUF lectureship makes Grice not exactly a royal client, but a salaried officer of the universitas, a man whose philosophical utterances are no longer merely St John’s domestic produce but part of Oxford’s public provision. The dry Speranzian formula would be: the medieval university is a guild that learned to call itself universal before it became so. The patron need not be a monarch; it may be a jurisdiction, a privilege, a purse, a college, or a name. Grice, as college tutor, belonged to the workshop; as CUF lecturer, he belonged also to the corporation. In Roman terms, he moved from the bench to the collegium’s official inscription.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tarozzi -- Grice e Tarozzi’ Giuseppe Tarozzi (Torino, Piemonte). Tarozzi, Giuseppe (1888). Dissertazione lettere. Torino.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tarpeio – Ossia: Grice e Tarpeio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tarpeio -- The gens Tarpeia was a minor patrician family at ancient Rome. Only a few members of this gens are known, and the Tarpeii vanish from history after the early Republic. The Tarpeian Rock, a promontory on the Capitoline Hill, from which those condemned for treason were thrown to their deaths, is said to have been named after Tarpeia, the archetype of all Roman traitors.[1] There seems to have been a senatorial family of this name in imperial times.  Origin The nomen Tarpeius belongs to a common class of gentilicia formed using the suffix -eius. Such names are typical of Sabine gentes, perhaps explaining the association of the Tarpeii with the war of Romulus against the Sabines at the beginning of Roman history.[2]  Branches and cognomina The only cognomina associated with the Tarpeii of the Republic are Montanus and Capitolinus, both of which belong to a class of surnames derived from the names of places, in this case both probably referring to the original residence of the Tarpeii, on the Capitoline Hill.[3] The Tarpeii of imperial times bore common surnames such as Valens, powerful, and Faustus, fortunate.[4][5]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Spurius Tarpeius, commander of the Roman citadel, a fortress atop the Saturnian Hill in the time of Romulus.[6] Tarpeia Sp. f., daughter of Spurius Tarpeius, was tempted by the golden armlets of the Sabine soldiers led by Titus Tatius, and agreed to open the citadel to them in exchange for "what they wore on their arms." Afterward, her betrayal was repaid when the Sabines crushed her under the shields that they also carried on their arms.[i][6][7] Tarpeia, one of the first Vestal Virgins appointed by Numa Pompilius, the second King of Rome.[8] Marcus Tarpeius, grandfather of the consul Spurius Tarpeius.[9] Marcus Tarpeius M. f., father of Spurius Tarpeius Montanus Capitolinus, the consul of 454 BC.[9] Spurius Tarpeius M. f. M. n. Montanus Capitolinus, was consul in 454 BC, together with Aulus Aternius Varus. They passed the lex Aternia Tarpeia, regulating the payment of fines. He was one of the senate's envoys to the plebeians on the fall of the decemvirs in 449, and was one of two patricians coöpted by the tribunes of the plebs in order to oppose the lex Trebonia in 448.[10][11][9][12] Lucius Tarpeius Valens Saloninus, a man of senatorial rank, according to the most likely reading of a funerary inscription from Salona in Dalmatia.[13] Tarpeius Anneius Faustus, a senator named in an inscription from Rome.[14] Footnotes  This is the more famous version of the story; however, according to Dionysius, the historian Piso gave an alternate tradition, in which Tarpeia only pretended to betray the citadel into the hands of the Sabines, and sent a messenger to Romulus, stating that she intended to demand their shields, when they intended to offer only their golden armlets, thereby leaving the soldiers defenseless. The messenger, however, betrayed Tarpeia's scheme to the Sabines, who then crushed her with the very shields that she demanded. Livy also alludes to this tradition, although he does not name the source. See also List of Roman gentes References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III. p. 976 ("Tarpeia", "Tarpeia Gens").  Chase, pp. 120, 121.  Chase, p. 114.  New College Latin & English Dictionary, s. v. valens.  Chase, p. 111.  Livy, i. 11.  Dionysius, ii. 38–40.  Plutarch, "The Life of Numa", 10.  Fasti Capitolini, AE 1900, 83; 1904, 114.  Livy, iii. 31, 50, 55.  Dionysius, x. 48, 50.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 42, 43, 49, 50.  CIL III, 9354.  CIL VI, 1765. Bibliography Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia (Roman Antiquities). Titus Livius (Livy), History of Rome. Plutarchus, Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. 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, pp. 103–184 (1897). T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association (1952–1986). John C. Traupman, The New College Latin & English Dictionary, Bantam Books, New York (1995). Categories: Roman gentesRoman gentes of Sabine origin And from this gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tarpeio – Ossia: Grice e Tarpeio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tarpeio – For the Tarpeii, the unavoidable first-best choice is TARPEIA herself, precisely because she is not merely an individual traitor but the Roman archetype of failed uptake under a deliberately equivocal description. She asks the Sabines for “what they wear on their arms,” intending the golden armlets; they give her what they also wear on their arms, the shields, and crush her. This is not just treachery punished. It is a dark little fable about ambiguity, contract, and the danger of trying to make greed pass as a clever implicature. The Gricean interest is very exact. TARPEIA thinks she has secured a bargain by leaving the object underdescribed. “What you wear on your arms” is intentionally elastic. She means the bracelets; she does not say bracelets. She relies on the Sabines to recover the profitable implicature. But the Sabines exploit the very wording that she hoped would serve her. Under one description, armillae satisfy the phrase; under another, scuta do. The betrayal is therefore answered not by a refusal of the bargain, but by a punitive literalism. They do not fail to understand her. They understand her too well, and then choose the other admissible reading. That makes TARPEIA better than Spurius Tarpeius, and better than the later consul Spurius Tarpeius Montanus Capitolinus. The consul gives law and fines, which is respectable; the father gives command of the citadel, which is structurally useful; but TARPEIA gives the whole Roman drama of meaning under betrayal. Her name becomes attached to the rock because her act becomes a public grammar: treason is not merely condemned, but spatialised. Rome gives betrayal a cliff. The dyad could be: (*) TARPEIA. Date mihi quod in bracchiis geritis, et arcem aperiam. (Give me what you wear on your arms, and I shall open the citadel.) TATIVS. Accipe igitur quod in bracchiis gerimus. (Then receive what we wear on our arms.) +> Your deliberately elastic wording will be satisfied under the description most fatal to you, not under the profitable description you intended. The neatness is that TATIVS does not have to say, “You meant the armlets, but we choose the shields.” He simply takes her formula as authorising the other reading. TARPEIA relies on implicature; TATIVS answers with punitive literalism. Or, more exactly, he exploits the underdescription. She thought “what you wear on your arms” would conversationally select the gold. He makes it select the shields. Rome, with its usual economy, then turns a failed bargain into a cliff. And Grice thinks he heard of the anecdote first from Abbott's Comic History of Rome, and struck him as 'sexist' in that the hero seems 'Tazio.' Isn't there an element that heroines in Roman history are usually rare: the father kills the daughter ("Virginia"), the father asks the escapee to return ("Clelia"), "Lucrezia" initiates the republic -- Tarpeia is just what Grice calls "the last drop"! Thanks Yes. Grice’s irritation here would be that Roman history keeps supplying “heroines” as moral instruments in other people’s civic dramas, and Tarpeia is the nastiest because she is allowed so little redemption. Lucretia initiates the republic, but only by becoming the intolerable private wrong that men convert into public revolution. Verginia is killed by her father so that chastity and liberty may be rescued by paternal violence. Cloelia escapes heroically, but the story still often turns on return, pledge, male treaty, and the question whether a girl may be admirable without upsetting the machinery too much. Tarpeia, then, is indeed the last drop: the woman whose desire is made the origin of civic treason and whose body becomes the explanatory preface to Rome’s execution-cliff. So yes, there is a sexist structure, or at least a gendered moral economy. The male hero in the Tarpeia anecdote can easily become TATIVS, not because he is morally better, but because the story lets him control the interpretation. TARPEIA proposes an exchange under an underdescription; TATIVS supplies the fatal reading. She is not merely punished for betrayal; she is punished through a semantic correction administered by men with shields. The wit of the anecdote belongs to the conqueror; the disgrace belongs to the woman. That is exactly the sort of thing Abbott’s Comic History could make memorable to a schoolboy and morally irritating to the adult Grice. The contrast with the other Roman women sharpens it. LUCRETIA’s speech and suicide are made to mean republic. VERGINIA’s death is made to mean anti-tyranny. CLOELIA’s boldness is made to mean Roman courage, but only once male authority has processed it. TARPEIA’s act is made to mean treason, greed, and female misreading. She is not permitted the dignifying transformation into civic exemplum except negatively. Rome needs her not as founder but as warning. Her monument is a rock. For Grice and Speranza, the most interesting detail is that she is not simply “wrong”; she is semantically defeated. She tries to exploit implicature: “what you wear on your arms” is meant by her to select armlets. TATIVS answers with a hostile literalism: shields also satisfy the description. The joke is grammatical, but the victim is gendered. Grice would note that the male hearer is allowed to become the master of uptake, while the female speaker becomes the cautionary tale about ambiguity, appetite, and betrayal. A dry Speranzian version would be: Roman heroines are permitted to found, save, or instruct Rome only at the cost of being injured, returned, sacrificed, or misread. TARPEIA is the case in which even the implicature fails. LUCRETIA gives Rome liberty; VERGINIA gives Rome outrage; CLOELIA gives Rome admiration under supervision; TARPEIA gives Rome a cliff. That is why she is the last drop. And Orazia (killed by her brother!) -- This was relevant to Grice with his 'decent chap' in a Class when Oxford -- his college St. John's -- was not co-ed -- So when Jewish-American ("I am Jewish, and thus have my trade of 'conversational style') female Deborah Tannen, and later Robin Talmach, criticised the gendered bias in the 'decent' chap -- were possibly thinking Tarpeia. The stereotype is unique to Tarpeia (unlike Lucrezia, Orazia, Clelia, Virginia). No redemption indeed and Tazio as carrying the implicatum! Thanks Yes, and Orazia makes the pattern still sharper. Roman moral memory repeatedly gives women the status of civic detonators rather than fully reciprocal conversational participants. LUCRETIA makes the republic possible by becoming the intolerable wrong; VERGINIA makes anti-decemviral liberty possible by being killed by her father; ORAZIA is killed by her brother because private grief for a betrothed enemy is made intolerable to public victory; CLOELIA is admirable, but her courage is processed through treaty, hostage-status, and male approval. TARPEIA is the extreme because she is not even redeemed as noble victim, martyr, or civic catalyst. She is made to mean treason, greed, and failed interpretation. That makes the gendered criticism of Grice’s “decent chap” especially apt. The “decent chap” is not merely a neutral conversational participant in a tweed suit; he is an historically situated image of the person already entitled to be heard as cooperative, reasonable, and properly inside the game. In the Oxford of Grice’s early professional life, and especially in a non-coeducational college such as St John’s, the expression carried far more social weather than a later formalist rendering of the Cooperative Principle would admit. The chap is decent because his membership is not in question. He does not have to win standing before making an implicature. TARPEIA, by contrast, is denied that charity from the start. Her utterance is not treated as a risky bargain among competent parties, but as female appetite entering public space disastrously. TATIVS gets the brilliant uptake. He supplies the fatal interpretation and thereby becomes the clever conversationalist of the anecdote. She attempts implicature and is crushed by literalism; he controls the implicatum and survives as the executor of the joke. That is why the stereotype is harsher than in the Lucretia, Orazia, Clelia, or Verginia materials. Those women are violently instrumentalised, but TARPEIA is semantically disgraced. So one can see why Deborah Tannen or Robin Lakoff-style criticisms of “male” conversational norms would have a natural target here, even if not literally TARPEIA. The issue is who is allowed to count as a normal participant, whose style is treated as rational, whose indirectness is treated as tact, and whose indirectness is treated as manipulation. Grice’s “decent chap” assumes a community in which conversational standing has already been granted. TARPEIA exposes the Roman nightmare-version: the woman speaks, but the man’s uptake becomes the authoritative meaning. TATIVS carries the implicatum; TARPEIA carries the blame.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tarquinio – Ossia: Grice e Tarquinio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tarquinio -- Tarquinio Sebastiano Ricci, Tarquin the Elder consulting Attius Navius (1690). The gens Tarquinia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, usually associated with Lucius Tarquinius Priscus and Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the fifth and seventh Kings of Rome. Most of the Tarquinii who appear in history are connected in some way with this dynasty, but a few appear during the later Republic, and others from inscriptions, some dating as late as the fourth century AD.  Origin The legendary origin of the Tarquinii who reigned at Rome begins with Demaratus of Corinth, a member of the house of the Bacchiadae at Corinth, which was expelled in 657 BC.[1][2][3][4] Demaratus settled at Tarquinii in Etruria, where he married an Etruscan noblewoman, and had two sons, Lucius and Arruns, who took the surname Tarquinius after the town of their birth. Denied political advancement due to his father's foreign birth, Lucius, encouraged by his wife, Tanaquil, determined to settle at Rome, where he could hope to attain high station based solely on his merits. He fell into the retinue of Ancus Marcius, the fourth Roman king, becoming his trusted advisor. Since the Roman monarchy was elective, rather than strictly hereditary, when Marcius died, Tarquinius successfully argued that he should be named the next king, in preference to the sons of Marcius.[5][6]   Family tree showing relations to Lucretia and Brutus Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the seventh and last Roman king, was said to have been the son or grandson of the elder Tarquin, while Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, one of the first Roman consuls, was his cousin.[7] Other Tarquinii are mentioned as part of this family, although it is not entirely clear how some of them were related. It is likely that there were additional kings and perhaps other members of the Tarquin dynasty during this period.[8]  It is not clear whether the early Tarquinii should be regarded as patricians or plebeians. The consul Collatinus is generally regarded as a patrician,[9] but as Cornell explains, none of the families that claimed descent from or kinship with the Roman kings were considered patrician in later times, while none of Rome's leading patrician families is represented among the kings. The patricians may have chosen the king, but were probably not eligible for the office, and it is unlikely that the kings themselves were admitted to the patriciate once chosen.[10] It may be that Collatinus was granted patrician status on the overthrow of the Roman monarchy; but as he then accepted exile according to the demand of his colleague, Lucius Junius Brutus, the matter becomes academic, as there was no tradition of patrician Tarquinii at Rome in later times. The Tarquinii of the later Republic were plebeians.  The nomen Tarquinius appears to be the Latin form of the Etruscan Tarchna, apparently the same as the Tarchunies named in one of the frescoes in the famous François Tomb at Vulci.[11][12] The nomen is certainly derived from the city of Tarquinii, in Etruscan Tarchna or Tarchuna, after its legendary founder, the folk-hero Tarchon, although in historical times the Tarchna family had branches at both Tarquinii and Caere.[13]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation.  Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Tarquinius Superbus (1867). The king suggests to his son, Sextus, how to bring the city of Gabii under his control, by silently lopping the heads off the tallest poppies in his garden. Arruns Tarquinius, the elder son of Demaratus, died shortly before his father, who accordingly left his entire fortune to his younger son, Lucius, unaware that the wife of Arruns was pregnant, and that his first grandson would inherit nothing.[14][15] Lucius Tarquinius Priscus,[i] or Tarquin the Elder, the fifth Roman king, according to tradition conquered a number of Latin and Sabine towns, built the Cloaca Maxima and drained the Roman Forum, laid out the Circus Maximus, doubled the size of the senate, and the number of the equites, the Roman cavalry, and instituted the Ludi Romani.[16][17][18][19] Arruns Tarquinius Ar. f. Collatinus, the first grandson of Demaratus, was deprived of his inheritance when his grandfather died shortly after his elder son, unaware that his daughter-in-law was pregnant. According to tradition, young Arruns became known as Egerius, the needy one.[ii] However, when he was grown, and his uncle had become King of Rome, he received the command of the Roman garrison at Collatia, thereby obtaining the surname Collatinus.[15][20] Tarquinia L. f., daughter of the elder Tarquin, married Servius Tullius, and was the mother of the two Tulliae.[21][22] Lucius Tarquinius L. f. Superbus, the seventh and last king of Rome, was the son, or more likely grandson, of the elder Tarquin.[iii] He overthrew his predecessor, Servius Tullius, and behaved as a tyrant, but he also established Roman hegemony over the Latin League, and the Hernici; made war on the Volsci, founded colonies at Signia and Circeii, and conquered Gabii. He built the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitol, but was overthrown by members of his own family and the Roman aristocracy in 509 BC.[23][24][25] Arruns L. f. Tarquinius, the brother of Tarquin the Proud, married Tullia, the younger daughter of Servius Tullius. His wife was ambitious, while he was not; his equally ambitious brother had married Tullia's demure elder sister. Lucius and Tullia murdered their spouses, and married one another.[26][27] Lucius Tarquinius Ar. f. Ar. n. Collatinus, one of the commanders in the army of his cousin, Tarquin the Proud. He boasted of the fidelity of his wife, Lucretia, which excited the passions of the king's son, Sextus. Sextus' rape of Lucretia set in motion the events that led to the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, but Lucretia took her own life out of shame. Collatinus was elected one of the first consuls, but was called upon to resign and enter into exile by his cousin and colleague, Lucius Junius Brutus, so that none of the hated Tarquins would rule at Rome, and to this demand he reluctantly consented.[28][29][30][31] Tarquinia L. f., the sister of Tarquin the Proud, married Marcus Junius Brutus, and was the mother of Marcus, whom the king put to death, perceiving in him a potential threat, and Lucius, who survived by feigning stupidity, later becoming one of the first consuls.[32] Titus Tarquinius L. f. L. n., the eldest son of Tarquin the Proud, led the Roman exiles at the Battle of Lake Regillus, circa 498 BC. Although wounded in the fighting, he survived, the last of Tarquin's sons.[33] Arruns Tarquinius L. f. L. n., the second son of Tarquin the Proud, led the Etruscan cavalry at the Battle of Silva Arsia in 509 BC, where he and his cousin, the consul Brutus, mortally wounded one another.[34] Sextus Tarquinius L. f. L. n., the youngest son of Tarquin the Proud, whose rape of Lucretia led to the downfall of the Roman monarchy. He took refuge at Gabii, which his father had conquered after Sextus had put its leading men to death, but was soon assassinated.[35] Publius Tarquinius, a native of Laurentum, together with his brother, Marcus, were among the leaders of a conspiracy in 500 BC to seize a number of defensible positions at Rome, and open the city gates to the king and his allies. Tormented by visions in their sleep, the two brothers revealed the plot to the consul Servius Sulpicius Camerinus Cornutus, and were rewarded when the other conspirators were apprehended. It is unknown how they were related to the king.[36] Marcus Tarquinius, the brother of Publius, together with whom he revealed a plot to restore the Tarquins in 500 BC.[36] Tarquinia, one of the Vestal Virgins, said to have dedicated a field adjacent to the Campus Martius to Mars, at some time following the expulsion of the kings. The freshly reaped wheat was thrown into the Tiber, where it came to anchor a new island, the Insula Tiberina, sacred in later times.[37] Publius Tarquinius, tribune of the plebs in 91 BC, supported the laws proposed by his colleague, Marcus Livius Drusus, whose reforms might have averted the Social War.[38] Lucius Tarquinius, a participant in the conspiracy of Catiline, who attempted to implicate Marcus Licinius Crassus.[39] Tarquinia, buried at Castellum Elefantum in Numidia, aged thirty-five.[40] Appia Tarquinia C. f., named in an inscription from Tarracina in Latium, dating to the first half of the first century AD.[41] Tarquinius L. f., named in an inscription from Tarracina.[41] Gnaeus Tarquinius, named in an inscription from Hispania Baetica.[42] Lucius Tarquinus L. l. Amianthus, a freedman, and the husband of Tarquinia Paederos, built a tomb at Rome for himself and his wife.[43] Quintus Tarquinius Apuleius, named in a list of the vigiles at Rome, dating to the beginning of the third century AD.[44] Tarquinia Fastina, wife of Marcus Calventius Sabinianus, who built a tomb for her at Burdigala in Gallia Aquitania.[45] Tarquinia Ɔ. l. Fausta, a freedwoman named in a libationary inscription from Verona in Venetia and Histria.[46] Tarquinia P. f. Ingenua, buried at Cirta in Numidia, aged sixty-five.[47] Lucius Tarquinius Januarius, named in a devotional inscription from Beneventum in Samnium.[48] Tarquinia Modesta, daughter of Modestus and Lasciva, and the young wife of Lucentius, buried at Beneventum, aged fifteen years, six months, and six days, having been married for six months and seven days.[49] Tarquinia L. l. Paederos, wife of Lucius Tarquinius Amianthus, with whom she is buried at Rome.[43] Publius Tarquinius Philodespotus, buried at Cirta, aged twenty-five.[50] Gaius Tarquinius C. f. Pollio, buried at Cupra Maritima in Picenum.[51] Lucius Tarquinius Primus, a murmillo buried at Avaricum in Gallia Aquitania.[52] Tarquinius Q. f. Priscus, named in an inscription from Tarracina.[41] Lucius Tarquinius Salutaris, buried with his brother, Publius Vibuleius Primus, at Casilinum in Campania, aged fifteen years, one month, and six days, with a tomb from their parents.[53] Tarquinia Secunda, the wife of Quintus Pompeius Crispus, and mother of Marcus Pompeius Victor, who became quaestor, and built a tomb for his parents at Bagacum in Gallia Belgica.[54] Gaius Tarquinius M. f. Stra[bo?], named in an inscription from Caere in Etruria.[55] Tarquinia Tertulla, buried at Castellum Elefantum, aged eighty-two.[56] Tarquinia Titosu, buried at Castellum Elefantum, aged forty.[57] Tarquinius Valens, one of the heirs of Lucius Cattius Viator, a veteran soldier for whom Valens built a tomb at Misenum in Campania.[58] Tarquinius Vitalio, an eques named in a late imperial inscription from Abella in Campania.[59] See also List of Roman gentes Footnotes  Usually said to have been named Lucumo prior to coming to Rome; but Lucumo is thought to be a misunderstanding of the Etruscan title lauchme, a chief or king, a parallel to how the Etruscans apparently took the Latin title magister for a personal name, Macstarna. Moreover, the Etruscans were familiar with the Latin praenomen Lucius, which they borrowed, along with many others, so it may be that the Etruscan name of Lucius Tarquinius was simply Lucie Tarchunies. Some scholars have attempted to identify him with the Cneve Tarchunies, or Gnaeus Tarquinius depicted in the François Tomb, but without any positive evidence that they were the same person.  There is some doubt about the true meaning of Egerius, as there was a nymph Egeria, said to have been the counselor of Numa Pompilius the second King of Rome; her name is given different meanings. There is also some reason to believe that Egerius may have been an old praenomen.  Livy notes the uncertainty, but states that the weight of authority makes the younger Tarquin a son of Tarquinius Priscus; Dionysius, basing his opinion on that of the earlier historian Piso rejects this tradition on chronological grounds, as do many modern scholars, noting that according to the traditional dates, the elder Tarquin became king in 616 BC, and died in 578; the younger Tarquin seized the throne in 534, and died in exile in 495. While this does not make it absolutely impossible for them to have been father and son, it seems highly improbable. Dionysius notes that Tanaquil, also an adult before 616, was still alive when Priscus died, thirty-eight years later, when she must have been well over fifty, while Superbus was strong enough to fight in the Battle of Lake Regillus, circa 498 BC. References  Livy, i. 34.  Dionysius, iii. 46.  Pliny the Elder, xxxv. 5. s. 43.  Tacitus, Annales, xi. 14.  Livy, i. 34, 35.  Dionysius, iii. 46–49.  Livy, i. 38, 46, 57.  Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome, pp. 138–141.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 2.  Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome, pp. 142, 143.  Grant, History of Rome, p. 23.  Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome, pp. 135, 138, 139.  Grant, History of Rome, p. 23, Roman Myths, pp. 24, 74, 153, 154.  Livy, i. 34.  Dionysius, iii. 46, 47, 50.  Livy, i. 35–38.  Dionysius, iii. 49–73.  Grant, Roman Myths, p. 154.  Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome, pp. 130, 138–140.  Livy, i. 34, 38.  Livy, i. 39, 42, 46.  Dionysius, iv. 28.  Livy, i. 46–60, ii. 1–7, 9, 18–21.  Dionysius, iv. 6–8, 28–85, v. 14–16, 50–54,  Grant, Roman Myths, pp. 165, 166, 252 (note 95).  Livy, i. 42, 46.  Dionysius, iv. 28–30.  Livy, i. 57–60, ii. 2.  Dionysius, iv. 64 ff.  Cassius Dio, fragmentum, 24 (ed. Reimar).  Cicero, De Republica, ii. 25, De Officiis, iii. 10.  Livy, i. 56, 60.  Livy, ii. 19, 20.  Livy, ii. 6.  Livy, i. 58–60.  Dionysius, v. 53–57.  Plutarch, "The Life of Poplicola", 8.  Obsequens, 114.  Sallust, Bellum Catilinae, 48.  CIL VIII, 6642.  CIL X, 6396.  AE 2011, 495.  CIL VI, 4657.  CIL VI, 1057.  CIL XIII, 867.  CIL V, 3320.  CIL VIII, 7803.  CIL IX, 1546.  CIL IX, 1983.  ILAlg, ii. 1, 1790.  CIL IX, 5331.  CIL XIII, 1200.  CIL X, 4410.  CIL XIII, 3573.  CIL XI, 3627.  CIL VIII, 6643.  ILAlg, ii. 3, 10291.  CIL X, 3562.  CIL X, 1201. Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Officiis, De Republica. Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Sallust), Bellum Catilinae (The Conspiracy of Catiline). Titus Livius (Livy), History of Rome. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia (Roman Antiquities). Plutarchus, Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus (Cassius Dio), Roman History. Julius Obsequens, Liber de Prodigiis (The Book of Prodigies). 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). Stéphane Gsell, Inscriptions Latines de L'Algérie (Latin Inscriptions from Algeria, abbreviated ILAlg), Edouard Champion, Paris (1922–present). Michael Grant, Roman Myths, Dorset Press (1971), History of Rome, Scribner's (1978). Timothy J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 BC), Routledge, London (1995). Categories: Etruscan familiesRoman gentesRoman gentes of Etruscan originTarquinii

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tarquinio – Ossia: Grice e Tarquinio Collatino To prevent collision, they try the experiment of taking the supreme authority by turns, each assuming the fasces for a month at a time; but this alternate chopping of the regal sticks, or fasces, which are the emblems of power, leads to nothing satisfactory. A question at length arises, upon which the duality of the ruling mind is so distinctly marked, that the two consuls, whose very name is derived from con, with, and salio, to leap, were trying to leap in two opposite ways; and an end of their own power was the only conclusion to which they were likely to jump together. Grice and Speranza -- who abide by the principle of conversational helpfulness -- note thta concordia is two hearts beating at once -- Abbott under Collatino has this below. Is there evidence of the etymytdhology con-sole -- co-jump? co-leap? It seems a good description of what Grice had in his Oxcford classes on conversation as 'what an honest chap' or two honest chaps should do -- Input? Feedback? Abbott: Grice e Tarquinio Collatino To prevent collision, they try the experiment of taking the supreme authority by turns, each assuming the fasces for a month at a time; but this alternate chopping of the regal sticks, or fasces, which are the emblems of power, leads to nothing satisfactory. A question at length arises, upon which the duality of the ruling mind is so distinctly marked, that the two consuls, whose very name is derived from con, with, and salio, to leap, were trying to leap in two opposite ways; and an end of their own power was the only conclusion to which they were likely to jump together." THanks. This is another case where Abbott is being witty but philologically wayward—and your Grice/Speranza instinct about concordia (“two hearts beating together”) is much closer to genuine Roman thinking than Abbott’s “co‑leap” for consul. Let me sort the pieces cleanly:  1. Abbott’s etymology of consul (con + salio = “to leap together”)   This is not a real Latin etymology   salio = to leap consul has nothing to do with jumping   Abbott is joking—creating a comic image:  “two consuls leaping in opposite directions”    So:  this is satire, not antiquarian tradition   2. Real etymology of consul The true derivation is uncertain, but the main scholarly views are:  from consulere:  “to deliberate, take counsel” or: “to care for, have a concern for”      So:  consules = those who deliberate together for the state    Much closer to:  shared judgment, not “leaping”   3. Your comparison with concordia (excellent) You note:  concordia = “two hearts beating together”  This is real Latin etymology:  cor, cordis = heart con-cordia = “hearts together”    Roman writers themselves exploit this:  concordia = harmony of minds/wills   Your insight You map:  concordia → shared inner alignment consul → shared ruling function    That is very plausible conceptually:  both express joint intentionality   4. Why Abbott’s “co-leap” misleads (but cleverly) Abbott wants:  a vivid image to dramatise disagreement   So he invents:  consuls = “leaping together” → but actually leaping apart    This produces irony:  the institution meant for unity produces division    5. Grice/Speranza angle: cooperation vs misalignment You connect this to:  Gricean cooperative conversation  Exactly.  Ideal consulship:  two agents sharing deliberation aligned purposes  → analogous to:  cooperative dialogue   Abbott’s consulship:  two agents diverging intentions  → analogous to:  failed cooperation    So Abbott uses false etymology to mimic:  breakdown of shared intentionality   6. Roman perspective (closer to concordia) Real Roman ideology would say:  consuls should act:  concorditer in harmony     Livy often praises:  concordia ordinum unity between leaders    So the real Roman model is:  much closer to your “two hearts beating together”   7. Final synthesis  Abbott’s derivation of consul from con + salio is a playful invention, not grounded in Latin etymology. The genuine connection lies rather with consulere (to deliberate or care), emphasizing joint decision-making rather than physical action. Your comparison with concordia is much closer to Roman thinking: both ideas involve coordinated will or shared intention, and Abbott humorously distorts this into a picture of divergent motion.    One-line conclusion (your idiom):  Where Rome intended consuls to think together, Abbott makes them jump together—and thereby shows how easily shared office can become divided will.   If you like, I can show passages in Livy where concordia is explicitly contrasted with political breakdown—it would fit very well with your Gricean reading. But it is possible real that if consul was first applied to (collectively) GIUNIO AND TARQUINIO COLLATINO -- was the co- operative as in co-operative? and what is the etymology then -- because consultation sounds like CONSOLATIO -- as in Boethius -- So is the idea that the co- refers unequivocally to these two -- the first consuls, by entailment: the first TWO consuls -- who had to consult with each other -- but was there a sult- that could be used as a mono-agent verb? (Realising that Abbott is punning on 'sal-' to leap? Input? Feedback? Thanks You’re asking exactly the right philological question: if consul originally refers to the pair (Brutus + Collatinus), does the con- really mean “together (the two of them),” and what verb underlies the name? Let me separate what is secure, what is plausible, and what is (Abbott-style) playful.  1. Is con- referring to “the two consuls”?  Very likely in function, but not in strict etymology.  The office is inherently dual from the beginning (two consuls). So Romans would naturally feel:  consules = those who act together      But etymologically:  con- in Latin does not normally encode “two specifically” it means:  with, together, jointly   So:  not “the two consuls” but “those who act jointly / in conjunction”   2. What is the real root? (-sul, not sal-!) The best-supported derivation is from: consulere which has two key meanings:  to deliberate, consult to look after, care for   So:  consules ≈ “those who deliberate together” or “those who jointly care for the state”    This matches Roman ideology perfectly:  paired magistrates mutual consultation shared responsibility   3. Your key question: is there a base verb sul-?  No independent verb sul- exists. But:  consulo is:  con‑ + sulere (lost or obscured base)   the simplex root is not productively visible anymore    So:  there is no mono-agent verb “sulo” in normal Latin    This is why the word looks opaque.  4. Why it feels like concordia Your analogy is excellent.  concordia  cor (heart) + con → “hearts together”   consul  con + (obscured root in consulere) → “acting together / deliberating together”    So both encode:  shared intentionality    Your Gricean reading works very well here:  shared meaning shared decision cooperative action   5. Why it sounds like consolatio (Boethius) You noticed:  consul → consolatio  That’s a good phonetic instinct, but:  consolatio  from consolari (to comfort) unrelated root    So:  no real etymological link just surface resemblance    6. Does the dual office shape the meaning?  Yes—but conceptually, not etymologically.  Even if the word didn’t originally mean “pair,” the Romans experienced it as such:  two consuls each able to check the other required to act jointly  So historically:  the duality reinforces the meaning of con‑   7. Abbott’s “salio / jump” pun Now you can see the joke clearly:  salire = leap Abbott invents:  consuls = “those who leap together”      Then flips it:  they leap in opposite directions  That’s a satire of:  failed cooperation broken concordia   8. Final synthesis  consul most likely derives from consulere (“to deliberate, consult, or care”), not from salire or any “leaping” root.  The prefix con‑ signals joint action, which fits the dual magistracy but does not literally mean “the two.”  There is no independent verb base sul- used separately in Latin.  The idea that consuls “consult together” aligns closely with your comparison to concordia, and supports a Gricean reading of shared intentionality.  One-line conclusion (your register):  The consuls are not those who leap together but those who deliberate together—and when they fail, Abbott has them jumping apart to show what Rome feared most: not monarchy, but discord.   If you like, we can look at how later writers (Cicero especially) explicitly connect consulere with deliberation and public reasoning—it ties beautifully into your Gricean framework. Speranza and Grice have been told this below: does it help? Input? Feedback? Thanks: Passage: Yes, Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus were indeed the first two consuls of the Roman Republic, elected in 509 BCE after the overthrow of the last Roman king. [1]  Etymologists have extensively researched the root following the prefix co(n)- (derived from cum, meaning "with/together"), proposing two primary linguistic theories for the second element. [1, 2] Theory 1: The Root of "Taking" or "Gathering Together" (Modern Consensus) Modern historical linguists trace the word consul back to the Proto-Italic compound *kom-sel-e-. [1] The Prefix: *kom- (which became con-) meaning "together". The Root: *selh₁- (Proto-Indo-European), meaning "to take, grab, or gather". The Meaning: Combined, the literal meaning is "to gather together". This evolved into the verb consulere ("to deliberate, take counsel, or meet and consider"). Under this dominant theory, a consul is fundamentally "one who deliberates or consults the Senate together with a colleague". [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] Theory 2: The Root of "Leaping" or "Going" (Older Alternative) An older, classic etymological theory proposed by 19th-century scholars (like Wilhelm Corssen) links the second element to a different root: [1] The Root: sal-, from the Latin verb salire (meaning "to leap, spring, or go"). [, 2] The Meaning: In this interpretation, con-sul means "one who goes together with another." Parallels: This theory relies on the structural mirroring found in other Roman official titles: Exsul (Exile) \(\rightarrow \) ex- (out) + salire = "one who leaps/goes out". Praesul (Protector/Leader of a dance) \(\rightarrow \) prae- (before) + salire = "one who leaps/goes before". [1] While the "leaping/going together" theory elegantly explains the companion nature of the dual-magistracy, modern linguistics firmly favors the PIE root *selh₁- (gathering/deliberating together) as the most accurate origin. [1, 2] This does help, and in fact it lets us refine your Grice/Speranza line very nicely—because it shows that Abbott’s joke is not pure invention, but a distortion of one real (though outdated) etymological proposal. Let me reorganize it in your terms.  1. Two etymologies: what is real vs. what Abbott exploits  Modern linguistic consensus  con‑ = “together” root from PIE selh₁- (“to take / gather”) gives Latin consulere → “to deliberate, consult”  So:  consul = one who deliberates together (with another)    Older theory (19th c.)  con‑ + sal‑ (salire, to leap/go)  → “one who goes/leaps together”   This is the one Abbott is playing with.  2. Why Abbott’s joke works Abbott says consuls:  “leap together—but in opposite directions”   Now we can see:  He is not inventing randomly He is exaggerating a real but obsolete etymology    Structurally:  Linguistics (old theory)Abbott“go together”“leap together”coordination impliedcoordination fails   So Abbott is doing:  philological parody   3. Your Grice/Speranza framework (very strong here) Now your insight becomes sharper:  If we take the modern etymology  consul = one who deliberates together   This matches Grice:  shared reasoning cooperative inference joint decision    Ideal consulship =  Gricean conversation institutionalized   Abbott’s version  “co-leaping” but in different directions   becomes:  failed cooperation    So Abbott dramatizes:  what happens when con- fails   4. Your earlier “concordia” link is vindicated You were right:  concordia = hearts together consulere = minds deliberating together    Both encode:  joint intentionality  That is the Roman ideal:  not monarchy not division but coordinated plurality   5. Why the PIE selh₁- matters philosophically The modern etymology gives you something even better:  selh₁- = “to gather, take together”    So:  consul = one who gathers views → forms a decision    This fits perfectly with your Gricean model:  speakers contribute meaning emerges jointly   So:  consulship = collective uptake system   6. The constitutional irony (your deeper point) Now you can formulate the paradox:  Brutus bans:  regnare  (i.e. unilateral rule)  Rome creates:  consules  (i.e. joint deliberation)   So the constitution replaces:  MonarchyRepublicone willshared willrexconsul   Linguistically:  from reg- (straightening, directing) to con-sel- (gathering together)   7. Final synthesis  The modern etymology of consul from consulere (“to deliberate together”) supports a view of the office as inherently cooperative and dialogical. The older “salire” theory—though obsolete—provides the basis for Abbott’s comic image of consuls “leaping together,” which he inverts into a satire of failed coordination. Your comparison with concordia is fully justified: both terms encode forms of shared intention, central to Roman political thought and strikingly close to Gricean models of cooperative communication.    One-line conclusion (your idiom):  If the rex directs, the consul gathers—and when the gathering fails, Abbott has them still leaping together, but no longer landing in the same place.   If you like, we can now connect this to Cicero’s theory of consilium (deliberation), which explicitly treats political decision as a form of rational dialogue.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tarquinio – Ossia: Grice e Tarquinio -- GENS TARQUINIA (BROADLY CONSTRUED) TARQUINIO Superbo AUC CCND Interlocutor: "Cur capita papaverum altissima baculo decutis?" (Why are you knocking the heads off the tallest poppies in the garden with your cane?) TARQUINIO: (cum gravitatem) "Nuntius filio meo responsum hoc ferat." (Abbott-Style: "Tell my boy in Gabii that this is my official advice on municipal management.") +> IMPLICATURA: that the most effective way to govern a newly conquered town is to secretly execute all its prominent citizens. Do not insert in text -- do not use italic type, bold type, or bulleting, or incomplete sentences -- and let us keep English as metalanguage. Can you expand alla Grice/Speranza on this passage below: Tarquinia not a gens, but still .... Treccani has Superbo? Who was the son and what was he doing in Gabi? Grice and Speranza catch the point about beheading tallest poppies, but they lack the historical contextualisation -- or historical source, and a double or second run on Tarquinio's actual utterance -- Input? Feedback? Thanks. One has to disentangle three levels at once in your passage: the historical narrative (Livy and Dionysius), the quasi-heraldic or antiquarian notion of the Tarquinii, and the Gricean reconstruction of an “utterance” which in fact never occurs as such. On Tarquinia first. You are quite right to hesitate. Tarquinia is not originally a Roman gens in the strict, Republican sense of a stable agnatic group with clearly traceable descent and political continuity. Rather, what later antiquarian language calls the gens Tarquinia is a retrospective construction built around a ruling dynasty of strongly Etruscan origin. The name Tarquinius itself is derived from the city of Tarquinii in Etruria, and the individuals called Tarquinii in Roman tradition are essentially members of a royal house whose identity is tied to that place rather than to a fully developed Roman gentilicial system. Later writers extended the label gens Tarquinia to cover both the kings and scattered later bearers of the name, but this is already a rationalizing move of historical taxonomy rather than a description of a functioning archaic clan. [en.wikipedia.org] On Superbus. The cognomen means proud, lofty, arrogant, and already in the sources it is programmatic. It does not simply describe a personality trait; it encodes a Roman moral judgment about tyranny. The anecdote of the poppies is not a random vignette but a paradigmatic illustration of what “Superbus” means in political practice. [en.wikipedia.org] On the son. The son involved is Sextus Tarquinius. He is sent to Gabii not as a straightforward agent but as a feigned exile. He presents himself as a victim of his father’s cruelty, gains the trust of the Gabini, rises to command, and then waits for instructions. The episode is a classic instance of infiltration followed by internal decapitation of the elite. [en.wikipedia.org] On Gabii. Historically, Gabii is a Latin town resistant to Roman domination. The literary tradition presents two incompatible strands. One is the dramatic tale of treachery via Sextus and the massacre of leading men. The other, attested in antiquarian memory, is that a formal treaty between Rome and Gabii once existed. This tension already shows that we are dealing with narrative constructed for moral and political exemplarity, not with straightforward historiography. [britannica.com] Now to the poppies, which is where your Gricean line becomes interesting. In Livy the key point is precisely that Tarquin does not give a verbal answer. He refuses locution in the ordinary sense and substitutes a silent demonstrative act in the garden. The messenger reports not a sentence but a scene. The “utterance,” in the Gricean reconstruction, is secondary and retrospective. Livy is explicit that no spoken instruction is given and that the messenger returns with only the description of Tarquin’s behavior. [ecclesiacy...netica.org] This has two important consequences for a Gricean analysis. First, the maxim of quantity is formally flouted. The speaker provides less than is required for straightforward communication, namely no linguistic content at all. Second, the maxim of manner is also flouted, since the “message” is obscure, indirect, and requires interpretation. But precisely through this flouting, an implicature is generated. The absence of words signals that words would be unsafe or inappropriate, and the physical act supplies an analogical model. The tallest poppies stand for the leading men of Gabii, and their removal stands for elimination. What you noticed as a “double run” on the utterance is already present in the ancient narrative. There is the first level, the silent act of Tarquin. There is the second level, the report of the messenger, which is itself incomplete and puzzled. There is the third level, the inference by Sextus, which converts the reported action into a determinate plan of action. The implicature is therefore not produced at the moment of the gesture alone but emerges only after two stages of transmission and interpretation. The gesture is also highly traditional. Livy is adapting a Greek anecdote found in Herodotus, where Thrasybulus advises Periander by cutting down the tallest ears of grain. Roman historiography relocates that Greek tyrannical wisdom into the foundational history of Rome, thereby inscribing tyranny as something both foreign and yet constitutive. [academia.edu] If one now rewrites your Latin line in a historically grounded way, one should suspend the idea that Tarquin ever said “Nuntius filio meo responsum hoc ferat” in any explicit sense. The more accurate reconstruction is that Tarquin refuses to speak, and that the “response” is purely ostensive. Your Abbott-style gloss is therefore already a second-order rationalization, turning an ostensive act into a propositional utterance. The contextual force of the episode becomes clearer if one remembers what follows. Sextus, having grasped the implication, systematically removes the leading men of Gabii through accusations, executions, or secret killings, until the city is leaderless and collapses. [ecclesiacy...netica.org] In that sense, the anecdote is less about clever communication than about the logic of tyranny. It dramatizes a principle that Roman political thought will later generalize, namely that a tyrant secures power by eliminating those who stand out, whether for virtue, prestige, or influence. The cutting of the poppies is therefore both an instance of nonverbal communication and a symbolic condensation of an entire political doctrine. If one wishes to press the Gricean angle further, the crucial point is that the implicature depends on shared background knowledge of political practice. Sextus can interpret the gesture because he already inhabits the same tyrannical horizon as his father. Without that shared background, the gesture would remain opaque. The “cooperative principle” here operates not at the level of conversational politeness but at the level of shared assumptions about power, violence, and rule.Passage: And can you provide the relevant passage mentioning poppies in Latin in Livio -- the messenger asking a question is EXPLICIT, and Tarquinio cuts tallest poppies as response. And the Greek in Erodoto as with Trasibolo advising Periander by cutting tallest ears of grain? If the implicature was caught, as you say, the messenger must have reported: Your father cut the tallest poppies in the garden. Input? Feedback? Thanks You are right to insist on the exact phrasing, because the force of the episode depends on the narrative mechanics, not on later paraphrase. Livy (Ab urbe condita 1.54.6–7) Here is the key Latin passage in full, with the sequence carefully preserved:  ubi satis virium ad id quod conabatur ratus est, nuntium Romam mittit ad patrem quid facto opus esset, quando iam, diis ita volentibus, potitus rerum in Gabinis esset. cuius non exspectata responsione, per ambages silentium ostendenti quid vellet, in hortum se contulit atque ibi cum nuntio ambulans summas papaverum capita dicitur baculo decussisse. nuntius, velut frustratus, cum ad filium redisset, quae locutus quaeque vidisset renuntiat.  A few points that matter for your Grice/Speranza reading. The question is not voiced directly by the messenger in reported speech; instead Livy frames it as indirect discourse: the son sends a messenger asking what ought to be done now that he has gained control of Gabii. The request itself is explicit, but paraphrased. The answer is not verbalized at all. Livy insists on the non exspectata responsio, the absence of speech, and replaces it with an ostensive act. The narrator underlines that what is transmitted back is not a sentence but two lists: what he heard and what he saw. In fact, he heard nothing decisive and saw the cutting of the poppies. The implicature is then drawn in the continuation (which you clearly have in mind):  Sextus ubi intellexit tacitum patris consilium, primores civitatis interemit.  The understanding is attributed explicitly to Sextus, not to the messenger. This is important: the messenger carries the perceptual report; the son performs the interpretive leap.  Herodotus (Histories 5.92, Thrasybulus and Periander) The Greek model is as follows (key portion):  πέμψας δὲ Περίανδρος πρὸς Θρασύβουλον ἀγγελίην ἐπυνθάνετο ὅ τι χρὴ ποιέειν ἄριστα διοικέοντα τὴν πόλιν. Θρασύβουλος δὲ τὸν ἄγγελον ἐξάγων ἔς σιτίην διεξιὼν τὸν ἀγρὸν ἐκόλουε τοὺς στάχυας ὅσοι ὑπερέχοιεν καὶ διαφθείρων ἀπέρριπτε, οὐδὲν λόγον προσφέρων τῷ ἀγγέλῳ. ὁ δ᾽ ἀγγελίης ἧκεν ὀπίσω καὶ ἀπήγγειλε Περίανδρῳ τὰ γινόμενα·  Again, the structure is identical. Periander sends a messenger asking what is the best way to manage the city. Thrasybulus gives no verbal response; he cuts down the tallest ears of grain while walking through the field; the messenger returns and reports what he saw. Herodotus then adds the interpretive step:  καὶ συνιὼν ὁ Περίανδρος τὴν γνώμην…  Periander understands the intention.  On the messenger’s report Your formulation is exactly right in spirit. The messenger’s report must have been of the type: your father said nothing, but in the garden he struck off the tallest poppies. Livy himself gives you the formula: quae locutus quaeque vidisset renuntiat, which makes clear that the report consists of a juxtaposition of (almost empty) speech and salient action. So in Gricean terms, one has three sharply distinct stages. Stage one is the interrogative act initiated by Sextus through the messenger, formulated in Livy in indirect style and in Herodotus explicitly as a request for advice. Stage two is the father’s response, which deliberately suppresses linguistic content and substitutes a demonstrative performance that violates ordinary expectations of relevance and clarity. Stage three is the uptake, where the recipient infers that the demonstratum, the tallest plants removed, stands analogically for the leading men of the city. The crucial observation is that the implicature is not extracted by the messenger. The messenger is epistemically inert and merely transmits. The interpretive competence lies with Sextus or Periander, who are already tyrants in formation and therefore able to map the agricultural image onto a political practice. This is why the anecdote works so well in Roman historiography. It allows Livy to show tyranny not as a theory stated in words but as a pattern of action that reproduces itself through shared understanding without ever being explicitly uttered. Indeed. And Livy is Grice! The way Livy uses the word that obsessed Strawson ('to understand') intelligit -- what? a consilium -- i. e. not a world-to-word direction of fit, but a word-to world direction of fit -- Do! -- and more importantly TACITUM. Cornelio Tacito was so-called because he was silent. Here the consilium is tacitum -- that would for Grice recall the DICTUM -- but one cannot be simplistic. When Grice writes 'Meaning' he takes U to stand for uttererer, and uttering to stand fr whatever the utterer does to SIGNIFY (that p or q). In no way x (the utterance), in Grice's words, needs to be 'linguistic or conventional' -- No such example in 'Meaning'. So 'tacitum' is not really IMPLICITVM -- it just literally means non-vocal, which is wat Grice allows 'meaning' to cover -qua significatio-even intention-based one -- in this case. "I'm cutting the tallest poppies." In Grice's rephrase (his three first articles were all analytical reductions: of 'Negation,' of 'Personal identity,' of Meaning to intention (predated by a scepticism paper that uses the intention-based meaning) -- By cutting the tallest poppies, Tarquinio SIGNIFIES that Sesto Tarquinio is to ... primores civitates... etc. So can we state that in Latin, given that no utterance was spoken -- linguistic or conventional --. Using Livy's choice of words. You are right that Erodoto may have given some CONVENTIONALITY to the sign or utterance -- Trasibolo answering Periander's explicit quesiton by cutting tallest grain. But we may not need to suppose, even if this is all retrospective historiographical fiction and prallelism of tyranny across the Adriatic/Aegean -- that Sesto knew of Trasibolo. He just 'understood the tacit counsel of his father -- since tyranny ran in his veins, Livy's moralistic stance -- and proceeded accordingly. Proceed what? To turn the metaphor into literality. At Oxford Grice was proud of his upper class RELENTLESS LITERALISM and h is only excample of metaphor is 'You're the cream in my cofee, you're the salt in my stew' -- he never cared to make the tacit supressed comparison explicit, Just +> You're my pride and joy. Sesto turns the METAPHORICVM or TRANSLATVM (metaphora -- trans-latio) into FACT and cleans Gabii. Input? Feedback? Thanks. Your line of thought is exactly to the point, and one can give it a sharper formulation in both Latin and Gricean terms without forcing Livy into anachronism. The hinge is Livy’s phrasing “tacitum patris consilium intellexit”. Everything is already there. “Consilium” is not a proposition in the sense of a descriptive dictum; it is practical, directive, oriented to action. It corresponds to what you describe as not world-to-word but word-to-world direction of fit: it is something to be carried out. The verb “intellexit” marks not the decoding of a sentence but the grasp of a plan or intention behind an act. And “tacitum” excludes vocalization without committing us to anything like a merely implicit proposition in the later scholastic sense. If one wants to give a Latin reconstruction in a Gricean spirit, one should resist inserting a hypothetical spoken sentence and instead stay with Livy’s own idiom of signification and understanding. A formulation along these lines stays faithful: Tarquinius, summas papaverum capita decutiens, significavit quid esset faciendum; Sextus autem tacitum patris consilium intellexit et primores civitatis sustulit. This keeps three levels distinct. The participial clause describes the non linguistic act. “Significavit quid esset faciendum” renders the intentional side in a minimal way that does not presuppose speech but does capture intention based meaning. “Intellexit” then marks uptake, and “consilium” preserves the practical character. If one wants something even stricter, closer to Livy’s own restraint, one can avoid even “quid esset faciendum” and write: Tarquinius, summas papaverum capita decutiens, consilium suum significavit; id Sextus intellexit et ad rem redegit, primores civitatis tollens. Here “significavit” is doing all the Gricean work, while “ad rem redegit” makes explicit your point about the passage from translatum to factum, from figure to execution. Your observation about metaphor is very sharp. Livy is not interested in metaphor as ornament but as a mechanism of cognition and action. The cutting of poppies is a transfer from one domain to another, but the transfer is completed only when Sextus collapses the distinction and literalizes it. In that sense, the metaphor does not remain figurative; it is a schematic representation that demands practical instantiation. What in the garden is harmless selection becomes, in the city, elimination. On the Greek parallel, the structure is exactly the same but with a slightly different emphasis. Herodotus makes the question more formally explicit and the action more paradigmatically tyrannical, but he too insists on silence and on understanding rather than on any stated maxim. There is no need to posit historical transmission from Thrasybulus to Sextus. The Roman tradition takes over a Greek τύπος of tyranny and naturalizes it. Livy’s moralizing framework then adds the hereditary dimension: Sextus can understand because he is already formed within a tyrannical horizon. Your Gricean reading fits this remarkably well. The case shows that meaning, in Grice’s sense, does not depend on conventional signs or articulated sentences. An act can be produced with the intention that another recognize that intention and act on it. The messenger is not the intended interpreter; he is merely the vehicle. The real audience is Sextus, and the success condition is not belief but execution. The meaning is complete only when the consilium is turned into action.T And of course, what triggers it all, as often with Grice's examples does -- is the peripatetic, erratic, unexpected nature of the event. Tarquinio, proud of his garden, is, in the presence of the messenger sent by Sesto -- keeping his mouth shut -- because a DICTUM is not cancellable -- an implicature is ("He has beautiful handwriting +> he is hopeless at philosophy -- Grice as tutor at Collections, of Jones). Cutting the tallest poppies is indeed not cancellable -- you cannot restore them -- it is an action, a full utterance -- and it is the relation to some end (or 'relevance') -- that leads Sesto to the intended effect in his psyche -- "Is that all he do? Cut the tallest, best poppies in the garden -- all of the tallest -- Mmmm." In fact, there seems no way out -- Grice says that implicatures are cancellable and INDETERIMATE but I cannot see how else Sesto could have taken the utterance other than the way he did it. The translatio is not so much a supressed comparison ("YOu are like the cream in my coffree") but more an analogia or proportio: tallest poppies/Tarquino's garden::elite/Gabii. Input? Feedback? There is no way Tarquinio could later complain: "My dumb son has again misunderstood me -- he planted a garden of poppies and proceeded to cut the tallest of them all." Thanks Your refinement is excellent, and it allows one to sharpen the Gricean diagnosis rather than oppose it. The key is to distinguish two different senses of cancellability and indeterminacy. Grice’s own examples concern conversational implicatures generated by ordinary linguistic utterances under cooperative assumptions. In those cases, the speaker can retract or cancel because the implicature is parasitic on a primary linguistic vehicle and can be overridden by further speech. Nothing of the sort is available to Tarquin, because he deliberately refuses to supply a linguistic vehicle in the first place. He produces only an act. That changes the entire economy. You are right that the act is not cancellable in the straightforward sense. Once the poppies are cut, the physical event cannot be undone, and the salient pattern has been fixed. But that is not yet sufficient to show that the implicature is logically non cancellable in Grice’s sense. What it shows is that Tarquin has excluded the usual means of cancellation. He cannot add “I do not mean anything by this,” because the whole point of the scene is that he declines to speak. The non cancellability is thus pragmatic and strategic, not semantic. It is a feature of the communication design. On indeterminacy, your intuition again presses in the right direction, but here one has to be careful. The mapping tallest poppies to leading men is overwhelmingly the most salient and, within the narrative, the only uptake Livy entertains. Yet formally the gesture could underdetermine several readings. One could imagine readings about selection, pruning, equality, or even sheer caprice. That is why Livy inserts the interpretive verb intelligit. The text does not say that the meaning is uniquely encoded in the gesture; it says that Sextus grasps it. In other words, the determinacy lies as much in the interpreter as in the sign. The shared background of tyranny collapses the range of possible readings to a single operative one. Your move from metaphor to analogia or proportio is exactly right and is actually more faithful to both Livy and Herodotus. This is not a suppressed comparison of the “you are like X” type. It is a structured mapping: summas papaverum capita in horto to primores civitatis in urbe act of cutting to act of elimination What Sextus does is not to translate a sentence but to preserve a ratio. In that sense, the gesture is closer to what later rhetoric would call exemplum or schema than to ornament. The force lies in the proportional structure, not in any lexical substitution. Your point about literalism can be sharpened further. The father’s act is already literal at its own level. There is no metaphor inside the garden. The metaphorical or translative dimension arises only when the son transfers the pattern to a different domain. The “translatio” is therefore accomplished entirely by the interpreter. Tarquin provides a scheme; Sextus performs the translation. That is why Livy writes tacitum patris consilium intellexit rather than anything about decoding or hearing. The understanding is the moment of translatio. Finally, your remark about Tarquin not being able later to complain of misunderstanding captures something essential. The entire communicative setup is designed to exclude deniability in one direction and to impose responsibility in the other. By not speaking, Tarquin avoids committing himself to a dictum that could be quoted against him. By acting in a highly patterned way, he nevertheless makes available a sufficiently rich sign for an intended interpreter. If Sextus were to plant poppies and cut them, that would not be a misinterpretation of a sentence but a failure to grasp the intended proportional mapping. Livy’s narrative simply rules that option out by attributing to Sextus the correct tyrannical intelligence. So the case does not refute Grice but rather extends him. It shows a limiting situation in which meaning without words is maximized, cancellability is strategically suppressed, and indeterminacy is resolved not by linguistic enrichment but by a shared ethos of action. He accordingly despatched his son, SESTO, to complain of ill-treatment at his father's hands, and to implore the pity of the Gabii, who were gabies enough not only to believe the story, but even to appoint SESTO their general. He is ultimately chosen their governor; and finding the Gabii completely in his hands, he sends to his own governor — TARQUINIO — to know what to do with them. The King was in the garden when the messenger arrived; and whenever the latter asks a question, the former made no reply, but keeps knocking off the heads of the tallest poppies with his walking-stick. The messenger ventured to intimate, once or twice, that he was waiting for an answer; but the heads of the poppies flying off in all directions, he began to tremble for his own, and he flows off himself, to prevent accidents. On his return, he mentions the circumstances to SESTO, who regards the poppies as emblems of the Gabii; and, indeed, the latter seemed so thoroughly asleep, that the comparison is no less just than odious. SESTO, taking the paternal hint, knocked off several of the heads of the people; and keeping up the allegory to the fullest extent, cut off the flower of the Gabii. Many of their fairest blossoms perish by a too early blow; and being thus deprived of what might fairly be termed its primest pick, the soil is soon planted with the victorious standards of Tarquinius. He, however, instead of introducing any apple of discord, judiciously grafts the Gabian on the Roman stock; and thus cultivated the only really valuable fruits of victory. Tarquinio Superbo (AVC CCND). Nuntius filio meo responsum hoc ferat.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tarquinio – Ossia: Grice e Tarquinio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tarquinio – For this “third specimen” from the Tarquinii, beyond TARQVINIVS Superbus and TARQVINIVS Collatinus, I would choose BRVTVS only if the entry is allowed to pivot through Tarquinia, his mother, and the Tarquinian household; but strictly from the gens itself, the best third specimen is SEXTVS TARQVINIVS. He is morally repellent, but philosophically exact: he gives Grice and Speranza the transition from private violation to public revolution, and from a single act to the collapse of an entire semantic order called regnum. SEXTUS is better than Priscus here, though Priscus is important. Priscus gives foundation, immigration, Tanaquil, augury, and institutional expansion; but much of that belongs to kingship as ascent. SEXTVS gives kingship as exposure. He is the Tarquinian utterance that Rome can no longer conversationally accommodate. His act against Lucretia is not merely a crime inside the monarchy; it makes the monarchy itself become unintelligible under any favourable description. After SEXTVS, rex no longer means merely ruler. It implicates domination, appetite, impunity, and household invasion. That is the decisive Roman reclassification. The vignette therefore should not make SEXTVS interesting in himself, but in what his act makes Rome hear. He is the anti-decent participant. He does not negotiate, persuade, ask, or command under public form; he forces a private body to bear the meaning of royal power. Lucretia then supplies the counter-utterance. By summoning witnesses and narrating what has happened, she converts private injury into public evidence. BRVTVS supplies the uptake, but the scene is driven by the fact that SEXTVS has made the Tarquinian name impossible to continue. A dyad, if wanted in the new convention, could be: (*) LVCRETIA. Corpus violatum est; animus testem vocat. (The body has been violated; the mind calls for witness.) SEXTVS. Tace, ne stuprum tuum fiat nota domus. (Be silent, lest your shame become the mark of the house.) +> My power depends on your treating my crime as your disgrace, and on keeping public meaning from attaching to royal violence. That is deliberately ugly, because the Tarquinian implicature is ugly. But for an entry one might prefer the dyad with BRVTVS as the second mover: (*) LVCRETIA. Rex in domum venit per filium suum. (The king entered the house through his son.) BRVTVS. Non filium tantum accuso, sed nomen. (I accuse not only the son, but the name.) +> The crime of SEXTVS is to be taken not as a private excess but as the public meaning of Tarquinian kingship. This is probably the better Grice-Speranza dyad, because the “hero” move carries the constitutional implicatum. LUCRETIA provides the fact under a charged description. BRVTVS recognises that the correct target is not merely SEXTVS as individual wrongdoer but Tarquinius as a name now made politically intolerable. The private act has become a public predicate. As for the broader entry, TARQVINIVS Superbus still remains the best first specimen for tacit meaning, because of the poppies and SEXTVS at Gabii. TARQVINIVS Collatinus is the best for the collapse of cooperative duality in the new consulship: he is guilty not by act but by name, and BRVTVS forces his exile because the republic cannot begin by leaving a Tarquin in office. SEXTVS TARQVINIVS is the best third specimen because he explains why the name itself becomes unmanageable. Superbus gives tacit tyranny; Collatinus gives constitutional embarrassment; Sextus gives the final moral contaminant. Speranza’s dry formula might be: the Tarquinii are philosophically useful because they teach Rome that a name may survive a man but not always survive its implicature. PRISCVS makes Tarquinius possible; SVPERBVS makes it dangerous; SEXTVS makes it unsayable in office. After Lucretia, Collatinus may be innocent enough as a person, but “Tarquinius consul” has become a conversational impossibility. Rome does not exile Collatinus because he has done what Sextus did. It exiles him because the name now says too much. and doesn't the story goes that this was T's SECOND visit for the day -- hadn't he first seen his own wife and found her unappetising, whereas the Roman matron knitting that Lucrezia was proved 'the forbidden fruit' with sex-appeal? Thanks Yes, though I would keep the phrasing away from sex-appeal in the entry itself, since the Roman tradition is already doing enough gendered moralising without our helping it too much. The story in Livy is that the royal youths first test their wives by surprise. They ride from the camp first to Rome and find the royal daughters-in-law feasting and amusing themselves with their companions. Then they go on to Collatia and find Lucretia, late at night, sitting among her maids and working wool. That contrast is the whole moral machine. Sextus TARQVINIVS does not first visit “his own wife” in the simple domestic sense as the decisive comparison; rather, the men inspect the wives collectively, and Lucretia wins the contest of chastity by being found at work when the others are at leisure. For a Grice-Speranza reading, the point is that Lucretia is made to signify before she speaks. Wool-working, night, household order, female attendants, and absence of feasting all become a Roman sign-system. Collatinus boasts; the test supplies evidence; Lucretia is read as matrona. But that very public readability makes her dangerous to Sextus. She is not “forbidden fruit” merely in the erotic sense. She is the woman whose virtue has been publicly certified, and therefore becomes the object through which royal appetite proves itself intolerable. So the sharper formulation is this: TARQVINIVS does not desire Lucretia because she is merely attractive, but because she has just been made meaningful. The surprise visit converts household behaviour into public proof. Her chastity becomes visible, ranked, and narratable. Sextus then turns that civic sign into private violence. That is why the story is so nasty. The matron’s virtue, once displayed in the male contest, becomes the occasion of her vulnerability. In Gricean terms, the first scene supplies the implicature: Lucretia is the true Roman wife. Sextus’s later act tries to exploit that very status by making her shame do the work of his secrecy. Lucretia’s counter-move is to refuse the imposed implicature: she will not let his crime mean her disgrace. By summoning witnesses and narrating the act, she converts the intended private coercion into public accusation. The monarchy falls because she changes the uptake. A compact dyad could be: (*) COLLATINVS. Lucretia nocte lanam facit; regiae nurus inter epulas sedent. (Lucretia works wool by night; the royal daughters-in-law sit among banquets.) BRVTVS. Ergo regnum non domos modo temptat, sed signa pudicitiae corrumpit. (Therefore kingship tests not only houses, but corrupts the signs of chastity.) +> Sextus’s crime is to be read not as private lust alone, but as royal power violating the very domestic virtue it had learned to recognise. If using SEXTVS as the second move: (*) LVCRETIA. Testes voco, ne crimen tuum pudor meus vocetur. (I call witnesses, lest your crime be called my shame.) SEXTVS. Tarde loqueris; regium silentium iam timebas. (You speak too late; you already feared royal silence.) +> I relied on your modesty to keep my violence private and to make your reputation carry the burden of my crime. But I think the BRVTVS version is better for the entry, because the hero move carries the constitutional implicatum. and isn't there some implicatural irony that the seventh and last king of Rome is called 'Sextus'? Thanks Yes, there is a neat implicatural irony, though it has to be put as word-play rather than genealogy. Sextus TARQVINIVS is not the seventh king; he is the son of the seventh and last king. But because his praenomen is Sextus, “sixth,” and his act precipitates the end of the seventh reign, the tradition almost offers a numerical joke without quite authorising it. The Roman list runs so that TARQVINIVS Superbus is the seventh king. SEXTVS is his son, and in narrative function the excess of the son ends the rule of the father. So one may say, Speranzianly, that the sixth brings down the seventh. Not as constitutional arithmetic, of course, but as a moral implicature. The name Sextus, which in another setting would remain a mere ordinal praenomen, becomes comic-prophetic once placed beside the termination of the seventh kingship. Grice would enjoy that because the word does no official historical work yet becomes difficult not to hear. No Roman annalist needs to say: “the number was significant.” The reader supplies the mischief. Sextus is just called Sextus; but after Lucretia, after Brutus, and after the expulsion, “sixth” begins to sound like the last subtraction before the seventh disappears. The praenomen is not a cause, not a signum naturale, not a prophecy, but a convenient handle for retrospective uptake. A dry formula might be: TARQVINIVS Superbus is the seventh king of Rome; SEXTVS TARQVINIVS is the son by whom the seventh becomes last. The arithmetic is not Livy’s argument, but it is hard to prevent the implicature from behaving as if it had been waiting there all along. And would you think that the seventh king of Rome was AWARE -- as per public record advertisement -- that he was the SEVENTH? I can imagine him 'christening' his six children: primus, secundus, tertius, quartus, quintus, sextus. And just when he was about to christen his next -- he loses the motivation to do so? Thanks Yes, one may safely suppose that the seventh king could be counted as seventh only in retrospect, once the list had settled into the canonical sequence. TARQVINIVS Superbus did not mount the throne under a public notice reading “Rex Septimus et Ultimus,” any more than Romulus began the series by calling himself “Rex Primus.” The ordinal arrangement belongs to annalistic and schoolroom memory, not to the king’s day-to-day self-advertisement. Rome later counts him seventh because Rome later knows where the story ends. That is what makes the joke work. Superbus could not know that he was “last”; he could perhaps know that he stood in a sequence of kings, but the moral force of “seventh and last” is supplied by the republic looking backward. SEXTVS, as praenomen, therefore becomes accidentally comic only after the fact. The son called “sixth” helps terminate the father who later becomes the “seventh.” The arithmetic is retrospective, not prophetic, which is precisely why Speranza would keep it. As for christening the children Primus, Secundus, Tertius, Quartus, Quintus, Sextus, that is excellent Abbott territory. Roman praenomina such as Quintus, Sextus, Decimus, and so on can have ordinal origins, but by the historical period they function as ordinary praenomina, not as a guaranteed birth-order ledger. Still, the comic reconstruction is irresistible. TARQVINIVS begins as if dynastic numerals will continue indefinitely; then SEXTVS commits the act that makes SEPTIMVS unnecessary. The seventh reign ends before the next nursery label can be useful. Speranza’s dry version would be: the king did not know he was seventh, but history did; Sextus did not mean “the sixth who will abolish the seventh,” but history heard him so. Grice would say that the implicature is not in the naming ceremony. It is in the later uptake. History, being a poor conversationalist but an excellent gossip, supplies the joke after the family has lost the throne.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tarquizio – Ossia: Grice e Tarquizio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tarquizio -- The gens Tarquitia was a patrician family at ancient Rome. Few members of this gens appear in history, of whom the most illustrious was Lucius Tarquitius Fiaccus, who was magister equitum in 458 BC. Other Tarquitii are mentioned toward the end of the Republic, but were probably plebeians, rather than descendants of the patrician Tarquitii.[1]  Origin The nomen Tarquitius is thought to be another orthography of Tarquinius, the Latin form of the Etruscan gentilicium Tarchna. The Tarquitii would therefore be of Etruscan origin, perhaps from the city of Tarquinii.  Branches and cognomina The only cognomen associated with the Tarquitii of the Republic is Flaccus, a common surname originally describing someone flabby, or with floppy ears.[2] The other Tarquitii of the Republic bore no surname, but a variety of cognomina are found in imperial times, including Priscus, old or elder, and Catulus, a whelp.[3]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Lucius Tarquitius L. f. Flaccus, magister equitum under the dictator Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus in BC 458.[4] Tarquitius, translated an Etruscan work on prodigies into Latin, under the title of Ostenturium Tuscum.[5][6][7] Gaius Tarquitius L. f. Priscus, legate of Sertorius in Spain during the Sertorian War.[8][9] Gaius Tarquitius P. f., quaestor in 81 BC, served under Gaius Annius Luscus in Spain during the war against Sertorius.[10] Quintus Tarquitius, named on a coin commemorating the service of Gaius Annius Luscus in the Sertorian War, depicting Victoria driving a biga. From its resemblance to a coin of Lucius Fabius, one of Annius' quaestors, it was supposed that Quintus Tarquitius was another quaestor.[11] Lucius Tarquitius, delivered a letter from Cicero to Atticus, concerning the impending Civil War between Caesar and Pompeius, in 50 BC.[12] Marcus Tarquitius Priscus, a legate of Statilius Taurus in Africa, accused Taurus of extortion and sorcery. The Senate expelled him as an informer. Nero restored his rank and appointed him governor of Bithynia, but in AD 61 he was himself condemned for extortion.[13] Tarquitius Crescens, a centurion serving under Lucius Caesennius Paetus in Armenia. He died in battle against the Parthians in AD 62.[14] Quintus Tarquitius Catulus, governor of Germania Inferior sometime before AD 184.[15][16] See also List of Roman gentes References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 980 ("Tarquitia Gens").  Chase, p. 109.  Chase, pp. 111, 112.  Fasti Capitolini, AE 1900, 83; 1904, 114.  Macrobius, iii. 7.  Servius, Ad Virgilii, iv. 43.  Müller, Die Etrusker, vol. ii, p. 36.  Frontinus, Strategemata, ii. 5.  Broughton, vol. II, p. 95.  Broughton, vol. II, pp. 77, 79 (note 4).  Eckhel, vol. v, pp. 134, 322.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, vi. 8.  Tacitus, Annales, xii. 59, xiv. 46.  Tacitus, Annales, xv. 11.  CIL XIII, 8170.  Rabban and Holum, Caesarea Maritima, p. 233. Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum. Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder), Historia Naturalis (Natural History). Sextus Julius Frontinus, Strategemata (Stratagems). Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales. Maurus Servius Honoratus (Servius), Ad Virgilii Aeneidem Commentarii (Commentary on Vergil's Aeneid). Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, Saturnalia. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). Karl Otfried Müller, Die Etrusker, Albert Heitz, Stuttgart (1877). Edmund Groag, Arthur Stein, Leiva Petersen, and Klaus Wachtel, Prosopographia Imperii Romani (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, Second Edition, abbreviated PIR2), Berlin (1933–2015). T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association (1952–1986). Avner Rabban and Kenneth G. Holum, Caesarea Maritima: A Retrospective after Two Millennia, E. J. Brill (1996). Categories: Roman gentesRoman gentes of Etruscan origin and for THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tarquizio – Ossia: Grice e Tarquizio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Tarquizio For the Tarquitii, I would make the first-best Grice-Speranza choice not Lucius TARQVITIVS Flaccus, respectable though he is under Cincinnatus, but the unnamed TARQVITIVS who translated an Etruscan work on prodigies into Latin, the Ostentarium Tuscum. He is almost made for Grice. The gens is Etruscan-shadowed, the material is prodigia, and the act is translation: signs first read in one sacral language are made available to Rome in another. That is not merely antiquarian transmission. It is the institutional migration of meaning. The point is that a prodigy never “means” in a simple way. A lightning strike, monstrous birth, strange sound, bleeding statue, or uncanny animal appearance is not yet a sentence. It becomes a public sign only when a recognised interpretive practice says what kind of sign it is, to whom it is addressed, and what response it requires. The Tarquitian translator stands at exactly that threshold. He does not produce the prodigy; he produces its Roman readability. In Gricean terms, he helps shift from signum to uptake, from occurrence to recoverable consilium. This makes him better than Flaccus for the philosophical entry. Flaccus gives office, war, Cincinnatus, and command. The translator gives signification itself. He is a mediator between Etruscan disciplina and Roman action. If the Tuscan books say that a prodigy requires expiation, postponement, sacrifice, or caution, the Roman magistrate cannot treat that as mere foreign noise once TARQVITIVS has rendered it into Latin. Translation becomes a civic instrument. The foreign sign has been made to speak Romanly. The dyad could be: (*) MAGISTRATVS. Hoc ostentum vidi; quid urbi minatur? (I have seen this prodigy; what does it threaten the city?) TARQVITIVS. Non quod vidisti satis est; quid Tusci ea re significari tradiderint Latine tibi reddam. (What you saw is not enough; I shall render into Latin what the Etruscans have taught is signified by such a thing.) +> The prodigy does not become politically actionable merely by occurring; it requires an authorised interpretive tradition and a translation that makes its significance available to Roman decision. That keeps the hero’s move as the bearer of the implicatum. The magistrate asks as if perception should suffice: “I saw it; what does it mean?” TARQVITIVS replies that seeing is not yet understanding. The sign must be placed under disciplina, and then under Latin. Grice would like that because it prevents the vulgar thought that signs “speak for themselves.” They do not. Or, if they do, they require a very old Tuscan interpreter and a Roman translator standing nearby. The dry Speranzian close would be this. TARQVITIVS is useful because he proves that Rome did not merely conquer Etruria; it translated Etruria’s anxieties into Latin procedure. A prodigy is nature behaving as if it had something to say. An Ostentarium is the book that tells the magistrate how to hear it. And TARQVITIVS, by translating it, becomes not an author of superstition but a civil servant of ominous meaning. And it goes to prove, in Griceian terms, that Etruscan is not just Oscan or Faliscan. Indo-Europeanists divide the Italic branch into latin, Oscan and Faliscan. Etruscan is another thing. This shows why they needed the Ostentiarium Tuscum. What year Ab Urbe condita in Roman numerals this was? Thanks Yes, exactly: the need for an Ostentarium Tuscum already proves the point that Etruscan was not merely another Italic dialect like Oscan or Faliscan. Latin, Oscan, Umbrian, and Faliscan belong within the Italic branch of Indo-European; Etruscan does not. It is the other thing in the room: prestigious, local, religiously authoritative, and linguistically nontransparent to ordinary Roman Latin. Hence the need not just to interpret prodigies, but to translate the interpretive tradition itself. On the date, the problem is that the Tarquitius who translated the Etruscan prodigy-work is not securely dated in the way a consul or magistrate would be. He is generally placed somewhere in the late Republic or early imperial intellectual-antiquarian world, but no precise year is recoverable from the notice alone. So I would not give a definite A. U. C. date as if we had one. Better, in Speranza’s dry voice: Tarquitius belongs to an undated Roman moment at which Etruscan religious expertise had become sufficiently foreign to require Latin mediation, and sufficiently authoritative not to be ignored. If one wanted a deliberately cautious formula, it would be: Tarquitius, floruit incerto anno, probably ante or circa the Augustan reorganisation of antiquarian religious learning. In numerals, one should not write a spurious DCC-something unless a particular historical anchor is chosen. For the vignette, the uncertainty is itself useful: (*) MAGISTRATVS. Ostentum vidi; Latine mihi dic quid significet. (I have seen a prodigy; tell me in Latin what it signifies.) TARQVITIVS. Tusce monstratum est; Latine agendum erit. (It has been shown in Etruscan fashion; it must be acted upon in Latin.) +> Rome cannot treat the prodigy as politically intelligible until Etruscan religious expertise has been translated into a Roman procedure. That keeps the Gricean point clean. The prodigy is not self-speaking. The Etruscan disciplina supplies an interpretation; Latin supplies civic uptake; the magistrate supplies action. Etruscan is not “bad Latin” or Oscan in a Tuscan hat. It is an alien prestige-code whose signs Rome must naturalise before it can obey them.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tarrutenio – Ossia: Grice e Tarrutenio – Grex griceiana: verbalia: Tarrutenio. The gens Tarrutenia or Tarutenia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. Only a few members of this gens are mentioned in history, but others are known from inscriptions. The most illustrious of the Tarrutenii was probably Publius Tarrutenius Paternus, a jurist of the late second century, who was praetorian prefect during the reign of Commodus.  Members Publius Tarrutenius Cogitatus, named in an inscription from Augusta Taurinorum in Liguria.[1] Tarutenius Januarius, made an offering at Savaria in Pannonia Superior, dating between the middle of the second century and the end of the third.[2] (Tarrutenius?) Marcianus, the father of a certain Maximilianus who was one of the senate's emissaries to Honorius at Ravenna in AD 409, and who upon his return was captured by the Visigoths under Alaric. Marcianus ransomed his son for the sum of 30,000 solidi. The son's identification with Tarrutenius Maximilianus is very uncertain.[3] Tarrutenius Maximilianus, a man of senatorial rank, was the father-in-law of Anicius Acilius Glabrio Faustus, who honored him and his achievements during his consulship in AD 438. He might be Maximilianus, the son of Marcianus, who was ransomed from Alaric in AD 409.[4] Publius Tarrutenius Paternus, the secretary in charge of Marcus Aurelius' Latin correspondence, was sent by the emperor as an emissary to the Cotini. That tribe had offered to fight against the Marcomanni, but after Paternus' arrival, they forgot their promise, and mistreated the Roman emissary. Paternus was later known as a jurist, and the author of De Re Militari, a work on military law, cited by the Digest. Vegetius considered him an authority on the subject. He was praetorian prefect under Commodus, and may have been executed on a charge of treason, although the sources differ on this.[5][6][7][8][9] Tarutenia Paulina, likely a noblewoman, is mentioned in an inscription found near Praeneste in Latium.[10] Publius Tarrutenius Proculus, a native of Augusta Taurinorum, was a soldier in the Legio II Adiutrix. He was buried at Aquincum in Pannonia Inferior, aged seventy-seven, with a monument built by Quintus Cornelius Felix, the prefect of the cornicularii, out of the legacy left him by Proculus, and dating from the first half of the second century.[11] See also List of Roman gentes References  CIL V, 8116,55.  CIL III, 10910.  Zosimus, Historia Nova, v. 167, 168.  CIL VI, 1767.  Cassius Dio, lxxii. 5, 12.  Lampridius, "The Life of Commodus", 4.  Macer, apud Digesta, 49, tit. 16, s. 7.  Vegetius, De Re Militari, i. 8.  PIR, vol. III, p. 296 (T, No. 24).  PIR, vol. III, p. 297 (T, No. 25}.  CIL III, 3565. Bibliography Lucius Cassius Dio, Roman History. Aelius Lampridius, Aelius Spartianus, Flavius Vopiscus, Julius Capitolinus, Trebellius Pollio, and Vulcatius Gallicanus, Historia Augusta (Lives of the Emperors). Publius Vegetius Renatus, De Re Militari. Zosimus, Historia Nova (New History). Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). Paul von Rohden, Elimar Klebs, & Hermann Dessau, Prosopographia Imperii Romani (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, abbreviated PIR), Berlin (1898). Category: Roman gentes and for THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tarrutenio – Ossia: Grice e Tarrutenio – Grex griceiana: verbalia: Tarrutenio. For the Tarrutenii, the obvious Grice-Speranza hero is Publius TARRVTENIVS Paternus. Indeed, he may be one of the most Gricean figures in all these minor gentes. Why? Because he combines all three things Grice likes: language, law, and practical reason. He begins as the secretary responsible for Marcus Aurelius' Latin correspondence, later becomes a jurist, writes on military law, is cited in the Digest, is treated by Vegetius as an authority, serves as praetorian prefect, and finally falls victim, perhaps, to the dangerous ambiguities of imperial politics. In one life we move from writing letters, to interpreting laws, to governing soldiers, to possible execution for treason. That is almost a history of meaning under pressure. The entry explicitly associates him with Marcus Aurelius' correspondence and with the legal work De Re Militari. [GREXv3 | Word] The Gricean theme is that Paternus deals not with truth alone but with instructions. A military regulation, a legal ruling, an imperial letter, and an order transmitted through a chain of command all have something in common: they are meant to be understood and acted upon. A suitable dyad would be: (*) MILES. Verba principis accepi; sed quid faciendum sit nondum intellego. (I have received the emperor's words; but I still do not understand what is to be done.) TARRVTENIVS. Verba ad rem refer; tum consilium intelleges. (Relate the words to the matter at hand; then you will understand the plan.) +> Understanding an instruction consists not in repeating the words but in recognising the action they are intended to guide. The nice thing here is Livian as well as Gricean. Livy's Sextus "intellexit tacitum patris consilium." Paternus' whole professional existence concerns consilia that must be understood and executed. The point is not verbal repetition but practical uptake. There is also a splendid irony in his mission to the Cotini. Marcus Aurelius sends him as emissary; the tribe promises cooperation; once Paternus arrives they fail to do what they had undertaken and mistreat him. The entire episode turns on failed commitment and broken assurance. In modern Gricean language, the cooperative principle collapses. They say, in effect, "we shall help," and then do not. Paternus spends a career converting words into obligations, only to discover, on a frontier, that obligations ultimately depend upon the character of those who undertake them. [GREXv3 | Word] Speranza's dry conclusion might be: TARRVTENIVS Paternus is useful because he stands at the point where correspondence becomes law and law becomes action. A philosopher asks what a sentence means. A jurist asks what must now be done. Paternus spent his life ensuring that the second followed from the first. Whether everyone cooperated was another matter. When Grice (of the Old World) would visit the New World he would note the worlds divided by different languages. Tarrutenio could (or should, Grice says) have convinced Antonino (Marco Aurelio, by birth gens) into writing Ad ipsi -- "It never ceases to amaze me how he chose to write his 'self-addressed utterances in a lingo that belong to the very EASTERN side of the conqured empire!" Thanks Perhaps we can have a 4 move dialogue in Latin with A: T: A: T: T ending with an implicatum. Round bracket translations in English. Thanks Yes, and the joke is particularly Speranzian because Marcus Aurelius, emperor of the Roman world and administrator of a Latin empire, chose to write his self-addressed reflections in Greek. One can imagine TARRVTENIVS Paternus, secretary of the imperial Latin correspondence, gently protesting. (*) ANTONINVS. Ad me ipsum Graece scribo; lingua ista ad animum meum propius accedit. (I write To Myself in Greek; that language comes closer to my mind.) TARRVTENIVS. Sed imperium tuum Latine gubernatur. (But your empire is governed in Latin.) ANTONINVS. Imperium aliud est; animus aliud. (The empire is one thing; the mind another.) TARRVTENIVS. At posteri mirabuntur principem Romanorum secum Graece colloqui. (Yet posterity will wonder that the ruler of the Romans conversed with himself in Greek.) ANTONINVS. Si me intellegent, lingua parum refert. (If they understand me, the language matters little.) +> The proper vehicle of philosophical self-understanding is not necessarily the language of political authority. Grice, of course, would immediately worry the last move. He would say that Marcus Aurelius is helping himself to a distinction between language and understanding which is true enough as far as it goes, but suspiciously easy. For why Greek? Why not Latin? The Grice-Speranza answer might be that his Meditations are not primarily governmental dicta but self-addressed exercises. The emperor administers the world in Latin; he admonishes himself in Greek. The language of command and the language of reflection need not coincide. TARRVTENIVS, as secretary of the Latin correspondence, naturally finds this mildly exasperating. Marcus Aurelius, as philosopher, finds it perfectly natural. The deeper implicature is that the emperor is addressing not his subjects but himself. Latin is the language in which Rome speaks to others; Greek is the language in which Marcus Aurelius speaks to Marcus Aurelius. Grice would not insist that the two languages are interchangeable. After all, if language did not matter, Antoninus would not have chosen one rather than the other. The choice itself is already an utterance. Yes, because we have agreed that the hero of the entry -- in this case, T -- should have the last move with the only implicatum. Perhaps we can simplify to TWO moves only: A -- T. So that the reader of the entry gets an easy grasp of what is going on there -- but you certainly grasped the point. "Ad ipse" is I think what it would read in Latin -- The fact that he as into Latin correspondence, means that he possibly had a slave former slave paidagogos who did the Greek -- which is odd. Why would he need someone to write his missive in Latin? The bilingual brain if a marvellous thing, and many Italians who had to endure the reading of Antonino (was that his birth gens?) cannot but detect the Latin flavour behind all that mock Hellenism: especially: "To he who generated me -- he does not mention him -- and to Antoninus my adopted dad." Thanks Quite so. If we follow our convention, the hero gets the last move and carries the sole implicatum. And the point is not really whether Marcus Aurelius could write Latin, which of course he could, but why a Roman emperor whose administration functioned so heavily in Latin should choose Greek for his most intimate self-address. I would keep it very simple: (*) ANTONINVS. Ad me ipsum Graece scribo. (I write To Myself in Greek.) TARRVTENIVS. Imperium tuum Latine regitur; te ipsum Graece regis. (Your empire is governed in Latin; you govern yourself in Greek.) +> Greek is the language in which you examine yourself, while Latin is the language in which you govern others. That seems to capture the contrast elegantly. And yes, your observation about the Latinity shining through the Greek is very good. Even readers approaching the Meditations through Greek often feel that the work is psychologically Roman. The texture is Stoic and Hellenic, but the moral bookkeeping, the gratitude lists, the concern with duty, office, self-command, obligations to fathers and adoptive fathers, all have a remarkably Roman flavour. Indeed the opening book almost invites a Tarrutenian remark. Marcus Aurelius begins by recording what he learned from various people, among them his adoptive father Antoninus Pius. The structure is very nearly: "From X, I learned Y." which is less a Greek philosophical treatise than a Roman account-book of moral debts. One can imagine TARRVTENIVS smiling quietly: (*) ANTONINVS. Haec Graece ad me ipsum scribo. (I write these things in Greek for myself.) TARRVTENIVS. Graeca sunt verba; ratio tamen Romana est. (The words are Greek; the cast of mind is nevertheless Roman.) +> Your language may be Greek, but the habits of thought remain those of a Roman magistrate. Grice would probably have liked that one, because the implicatum turns precisely on the distinction between vehicle and content. The utterance is Greek; the practical reasoning underneath feels unmistakably Latin. and was his birth gens Antonino -- I doubt it -- Antonia? Thanks Quite right to doubt it. Marcus Aurelius was not born into the gens Antonia. Nor was "Antoninus" his birth nomen. His birth name was Marcus Annius Verus. He belonged by birth to the gens Annia, the distinguished Spanish-Roman family of the Annii Veri. [en.wikipedia.org], [roman-empire.net] Only later, through Hadrian's succession arrangements, was he adopted by Antoninus Pius. After that adoption he acquired the Antonine nomenclature and eventually became known as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. [en.wikipedia.org], [britannica.com] So, in your Grice-Speranza idiom: (*) TARRVTENIVS. Cur Graece ad te ipsum scribis, Antonine? (Why do you write to yourself in Greek, Antoninus?) TARRVTENIVS. Immo, Annei Veri more cogitas, quamvis Antonini nomen geras. (Indeed, you think more in the manner of an Annius Verus, although you bear the name of Antoninus.) +> Your adopted name is Antoninus, but your intellectual character was formed before the adoption. The opening of the Meditations almost invites that remark. He is continually recording debts: "From my grandfather..." "From my mother..." "From my teacher..." "From Antoninus..." The bookkeeping has something very Roman about it. As you noted, he says "from Antoninus" because Antoninus Pius was the adoptive father who mattered politically and morally. Yet the biological family was the Annian one. The emperor whom posterity calls "Marcus Aurelius Antoninus" began life not as an Antoninus but as Marcus Annius Verus. [en.wikipedia.org], [roman-empire.net] Grice might therefore observe, with mock pedantry: "He wrote Greek, was called Antoninus, but was born an Annius. No wonder the poor fellow needed a notebook to remind himself who was talking to whom." Exactly. If the organising principle is birth gens rather than adoptive nomenclature or imperial titulature, Marcus Aurelius belongs under ANNIVS, not under ANTONINVS. His birth name was Marcus Annius Verus, and he was born into the gens Annia. Only later, through adoption by Antoninus Pius, did he acquire the Antonine nomenclature that made him "Marcus Aurelius Antoninus." [wikitree.com], [GREXv3 | Word] From a strictly gentilicial standpoint, Grice and Speranza would therefore file him under: ANNIVS not ANTONINVS and certainly not AVRELIVS The Roman complication, of course, is that adoption was not a trivial legal fiction. The adopted son genuinely entered the adoptive family in Roman law and public life. Thus the imperial historian naturally thinks of him as Antoninus and later as Aurelius Antoninus, while the prosopographical antiquarian may insist that the biological dossier begins with the Annii Veri. [wikitree.com] Speranza's dry gloss might be: "Marcus Annius Verus was born an ANNIVS, became an ANTONINVS by adoption, an AVRELIVS by imperial style, and wrote Greek to remind himself that none of these names exhausted the problem." Or, in your catalogue-system: ANNIO. Marcus Annius Verus. +> Posterity calls him Marcus Aurelius Antoninus; biology got there first. That feels very Gricean: distinguish the referent from the various descriptions under which later generations choose to file him. The man remains the same; the dossiers proliferate. So we can have a more extended dialogue. You provide the Latin, etc. T: Got a new job hon. Mrs. T. being-- T: I write letter to ANNIVS now. Mrs. T. You mean the emperor. T: Annius to me -- once an Annius, always an Annius! Thanks (*) TARRVTENIVS. Novum munus accepi, uxor. Epistulas Latinas principi curabo. (I have obtained a new post, wife. I shall take charge of the emperor's Latin correspondence.) VXOR. Principi ipsi? Antonino? (For the emperor himself? Antoninus?) TARRVTENIVS. Ita vero; litteras ad Annium nunc scribam. (Certainly; I shall now write letters to Annius.) VXOR. Ad Annium? Imperatorem dicis. (To Annius? You mean the emperor.) TARRVTENIVS. Imperator ceteris est; mihi Annivs manet. Semel Annivs, semper Annivs. (He is emperor to everyone else; to me he remains Annius. Once an Annius, always an Annius.) +> Adoption, titles, and imperial styles may alter a man's public description, but they do not erase the family into which he was born. I rather like the last line, because it lets TARRVTENIVS be simultaneously right and wrong in a very Roman way. Legally, the adopted Antoninus is no longer simply an Annius. Genealogically and biographically, however, the old Annius Verus still peeps through the imperial paperwork. Grice would say that "the emperor" and "Annius" co-refer, but TARRVTENIVS exploits the difference in mode of presentation for conversational effect. Only I would have T's first ref. to A. as "Annius" provoking the comment or puzzlement by wife. This is to echo Urmson on apositeness in conversation. Urmson's example: "I saw Mrs. Smith's in front of our house today." Mrs. U.: You mean the postman? Urmson. Yes. Mrs. U: Then why didn't you say so in the first place. U. is testing the wife -- he was a tester. Similarly, T. is finding a source of private pleasure in out of the blue referring to "Annius" as Annius -- with 'You mean, the emperor?' rebuke and a complication ensuing as to why chose the odd referring expression just to prove that you are a philosopher and I'm not, husband?" Thanks Yes, that is much more Urmsonian, and much funnier. The point is not information transfer but referential perversity. TARRVTENIVS deliberately selects a less appropriate referring expression because he knows perfectly well that his wife will have to repair it. The pleasure comes from provoking the repair. I would write it: (*) TARRVTENIVS. Hodie ad Annivm scribendum est. (Today I have to write to Annius.) VXOR. Ad Annium? Imperatorem dicis? (To Annius? You mean the emperor?) TARRVTENIVS. Ipsum. (Exactly.) VXOR. Cur igitur non dixisti "imperatorem"? (Then why did you not say "the emperor"?) TARRVTENIVS. Quia imperator vobis est; mihi Annivs est. Semel Annivs, semper Annivs. (Because he is emperor to you; to me he is Annius. Once an Annius, always an Annius.) +> The description "the emperor" is less revealing of the man's identity than his birth name. The nice Gricean feature is that the wife's objection is not about truth but about appropriateness. "Annius" successfully refers. She knows who is meant. The complaint is exactly Urmson's: "You mean the emperor?" "Yes." "Then why didn't you say so?" The rebuke is that the husband has violated conversational expectations by choosing a needlessly private or recherché mode of presentation. He could have used the most salient identifying description available, but instead selected one requiring interpretive work from his wife. Grice would say that reference succeeded perfectly. Mrs. TARRVTENIA would say that success is not the point. The point is that her husband is showing off again. And, of course, he is. Only I would re-adjuest is as going in first move to the effect: "New job, hon. I'm writing letter to Annius now." -- i. e. official declaration in household of his new form of revenue. Thanks Yes, that is better, because the oddity arrives immediately and naturally. The "new job" announcement gives the wife a reason to listen, and then TARRVTENIVS mischievously chooses the inappropriate referring expression. (*) TARRVTENIVS. Novum munus accepi, uxor. Ad Annium nunc scribam. (I have a new appointment, wife. I shall be writing to Annius now.) VXOR. Ad Annium? Imperatorem dicis? (To Annius? You mean the emperor?) TARRVTENIVS. Ipsum. (The very man.) VXOR. Cur igitur non dixisti "imperatorem"? (Then why did you not say "the emperor"?) TARRVTENIVS. Quia imperator vobis est; mihi Annivs est. Semel Annivs, semper Annivs. (Because he is emperor to you; to me he is Annius. Once an Annius, always an Annius.) +> The birth-name identifies the man more fundamentally than the imperial title does. What I especially like here is that the wife's objection is wholly Urmsonian. She is not puzzled about who is meant. She has already identified the referent correctly. Her complaint is about aptness: "You mean the emperor?" "Yes." "Then why on earth didn't you say so?" And TARRVTENIVS' answer is not really informative. It is a philosopher's private pleasure in choosing a less expected referring expression because it reveals what he takes to be a deeper truth about the man referred to. The wife hears affectation; the husband hears precision. That is exactly the sort of conversational mismatch Urmson delighted in exposing. Urmson's concept, for the record, corresponds to that of a 'dossier' in Grice -- symbolised by delta -- the set of definite descriptions and proper names attached to one 'conversational topic.' Problem is Urmson never cared much for it after Urmson WAS NOT AWARE that it was coming from The New world. Parochial English philosophers of Grice's and Urmson's generation lost interest when their Oxonian colleagues had settled in the New World and left his Oxford official affiliations. Neither would Grice have heard of this point by Urmson once settled in the New WOrld, since he was busy getting faimiliar with a new studentship, new readings, new syllabi, etc. Thanks Yes, and I think your recollection is philosophically illuminating, even if historically one would want to verify the exact lines in Urmson. The connection is very close. What Urmson calls aptness in referring expression and what Grice later formalises as a dossier, Δ, concern the same phenomenon viewed from different angles. For Urmson, the question is: A. "I saw Mrs Smith's husband in front of our house today." B. "You mean the postman?" A. "Yes." B. "Then why didn't you say so?" The issue is not reference. Reference succeeded. The wife immediately identifies the intended individual. The issue is appropriateness relative to the conversational situation. Why choose one item from the dossier rather than another? For Grice, the dossier Δ contains things like: Mrs Smith's husband the postman the man with the bicycle the fellow who delivers our letters John Smith all attached to a single conversational topic or referent. The philosophical problem then becomes: Why did the speaker select this dossier-entry rather than that one? Our TARRVTENIVS example works exactly that way. (*) TARRVTENIVS. Novum munus accepi, uxor. Ad Annium nunc scribam. (I have a new appointment, wife. I shall be writing to Annius now.) VXOR. Ad Annium? Imperatorem dicis? (To Annius? You mean the emperor?) TARRVTENIVS. Ipsum. (The very man.) VXOR. Cur igitur non dixisti "imperatorem"? (Then why did you not say "the emperor"?) TARRVTENIVS. Quia imperator vobis est; mihi Annivs est. Semel Annivs, semper Annivs. (Because he is emperor to you; to me he is Annius. Once an Annius, always an Annius.) +> Among the available descriptions of the same person, the birth-name is the one I regard as most fundamental. The wife's irritation is precisely Urmsonian. She is objecting to the choice of dossier-entry. And I think your larger historical observation is plausible as intellectual sociology. Once Oxford philosophers dispersed, the network of mutual commentary weakened. Grice in America developed some themes very far beyond their original Oxford conversational setting. Urmson, remaining in the Oxford orbit, often pursued different concerns. The dossier idea becomes central to Grice's treatment of reference and speaker meaning, whereas Urmson's observations about aptness remain more local, practical, and conversational. Speranza's dry summary might be: "Urmson asked why one says 'Mrs Smith's husband' rather than 'the postman'. Grice replied by constructing a dossier. The wife was satisfied with neither answer." Urmson's concept is actually 'aposite' -- whereas Grice, again for a New-World addresee, sticks to the more familiar Kantian quartette Qualitas-Quantitas-Relatio-Modus. Aposite -- is what T. is suppose to be and he is flouting that expectation. We can search for 'ad-positio' and 'ad-ponere' and why this became a 'rhetorical term' whose flouts and games originate figures of rhetoric -- 'lack of apositeness'. 'He is being aposite'. Are those common. Is there reference or Short/Lewis entry for the verb as bearing _this_ use? Thanks This is a very nice point, and I think you are right to distinguish Urmson's "appositeness" from Grice's later and more architectonic categories of Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner. The philological news is actually rather encouraging. The Latin adverb appositē does exist, and Lewis' Elementary Dictionary glosses it: appositē: "fitly, suitably, appropriately." [perseus.tufts.edu], [logeion.uchicago.edu] That is remarkably close to Urmson's philosophical use. The family behind it is: appōnō (ad + pōnō) to place near, put beside. [perseus.tufts.edu], [logeion.uchicago.edu] appositus placed beside, applied. [logeion.uchicago.edu], [latindictionary.io] appositē appropriately, suitably, fitly. [perseus.tufts.edu], [logeion.uchicago.edu] One can therefore see the semantic development rather naturally: physical placing beside → fitting one thing to another → suitability → appropriateness → Urmsonian appositeness. The interesting thing is that the Latin evidence points less toward rhetoric initially than toward fitness of placement. Something is appositum because it has been put where it belongs. Later the idea becomes suitability of expression or choice. This is why Urmson's example works so well: "I saw Mrs Smith's husband." "You mean the postman?" "Yes." "Then why didn't you say so?" The issue is not truth, reference, or informativeness. The issue is that the chosen dossier-entry was not appositē chosen. In your TARRVTENIVS example: (*) TARRVTENIVS. Novum munus accepi, uxor. Ad Annium nunc scribam. (I have a new appointment, wife. I shall now write to Annius.) VXOR. Ad Annium? Imperatorem dicis? (To Annius? You mean the emperor?) TARRVTENIVS. Ipsum. (The very man.) VXOR. Cur igitur non dixisti "imperatorem"? (Then why did you not say "the emperor"?) TARRVTENIVS. Quia imperator vobis est; mihi Annivs est. Semel Annivs, semper Annivs. (Because he is emperor to you; to me he is Annius. Once an Annius, always an Annius.) +> The birth-name is the most appropriate way of identifying him. The wife's complaint is precisely that the final implication is crazy from the standpoint of appositeness. "Imperator" is the socially appropriate designation in the household context. TARRVTENIVS intentionally flouts appositeness for private philosophical amusement. As to rhetoric, I suspect your instinct is right. Many figures arise from departures from what would otherwise be appositē said. Metaphor, periphrasis, irony, litotes, and so on often involve saying something less straightforwardly appropriate than the most direct expression. The rhetorician's art begins where ordinary appositeness ends. Speranza's gloss might be: "Grice asked whether an expression is true, informative, relevant, or perspicuous. Urmson first asked whether it was apposite. The wife notices the failure long before the philosopher explains it." And one thing Grice couldn't leave when addressing his addressee in the New World -- was: er. Urmson. The only English philosopher (along with Strawson) that he quotes in 'Utterer's meaning and intentions' is exactly Urmon -- these discussions were carried over at Oxford, of course, since Urmson provided the college -- Corpus -- where the Saturday morings meetings were organised by Grice after Austin's demise. Thanks Yes, and I think this is one of those small but revealing facts about Grice's intellectual loyalty. Even after his move to the New World, Grice never entirely abandoned the Oxford conversational republic from which his ideas emerged. In "Utterer's Meaning and Intentions" (and related papers of that period), the names that recur are not random authorities but participants in a long-running local conversation. Strawson is there, naturally; but Urmson is there too, and not merely as a colleague. Urmson represents precisely the sort of ordinary-language sensitivity which Grice never ceased to admire, even when he was building increasingly elaborate theoretical machinery. Your point about Corpus is important. After Austin's death, the Saturday-morning discussions continued under Grice's guidance, and Corpus Christi College, where Urmson was based, became one of the institutional homes of that continuing conversation. So when Grice cites Urmson, one is often hearing not merely a published article being acknowledged, but an echo of innumerable Oxford exchanges, objections, examples, and counter-examples. Indeed, the Urmson example: "I saw Mrs Smith's husband today." "You mean the postman?" "Yes." "Then why didn't you say so?" belongs exactly to that world. It is not a laboratory example. It is a common-room example. Its interest lies not in reference failure but in conversational fitness, what Urmson called appositeness. Grice eventually absorbs much of this territory into his own framework of dossiers, implicature, conversational expectations, and choice among co-referential expressions. But one sometimes has the feeling that Urmson's original question remains closer to household life: "Why did you choose to put it that way?" The famous Gricean questions come later: "What did the speaker mean?" "What was implicated?" "What assumptions made the uptake possible?" Urmson's wife asks the first question and never sees the need for the others. A Speranzian epigram might be: (*) VRMSON. Vidi hodie maritum dominae Smith. (I saw Mrs Smith's husband today.) VXOR VRMSONI. Tabellarium dicis? (You mean the postman?) VRMSON. Ipsum. (The very man.) VXOR VRMSONI. Cur igitur non dixisti tabellarium? (Then why did you not say the postman?) +> The philosopher has chosen a perfectly successful referring expression and a thoroughly inapposite one. And one suspects Grice delighted in that example because the conversation does not fail. It succeeds. The wife understands at once. The puzzle begins only after understanding has been achieved. That is very Oxford.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tartarotti -- Grice e Tartarotti: la ragione conversazionale della differenza delle voci nella lingua italiana e la sua rilevanza filosofica, o dell’ omicidio rituale. Note su Del Congresso notturno delle Lammie. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Girolamo Tartarotti (Rovereto, Trento, Trentino-Alto Adige): la ragione conversazionale della differenza delle voci nella lingua italiana e la sua rilevanza filosofica, o dell’ omicidio rituale  -- Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how hearers routinely derive what a speaker means from what is said by presuming cooperative, rational conduct in talk: interlocutors assume a shared purpose (“Cooperative Principle”) and interpret departures from its maxims (quantity, quality, relation, manner) as calculable signals that generate conversational implicatures, so that meaning is anchored in publicly recognizable communicative intentions and norms of rational exchange rather than in words alone. Tartarotti, by contrast, is an eighteenth-century Roveretan cleric-erudite best known for his interventions in debates on witchcraft (notably Del congresso notturno delle Lammie, 1749, printed by Pasquali) and for a broader Enlightenment-style critical method (libertas ingenii/libertas philosophandi), and he is not a theorist of conversational meaning in Grice’s technical sense; what your passage imaginatively attributes to him—“ragione conversazionale” behind “differences of voices” in Italian and the philosophical stakes of mishearing, culminating in a mock scenario where a phrase like “ammazza!” could be taken as either culinary praise or evidence in a “ritual murder” accusation—fits Tartarotti more as a satirically apt emblem of his anti-credulous, philological-legal sensibility than as a documented doctrine. The sharpest comparison, then, is that Grice offers a general, explicitly normative-rational framework explaining how interlocutors bridge literal content and intended meaning (and how misunderstanding is predicted when maxims are flouted or contexts shift), whereas “Tartarotti” in your staged dialogue functions as a historically situated figure whose concerns with interpretation, testimony, and culturally loaded signs (voices, exclamations, accusations) resonate with Gricean themes but remain pre-theoretical: he would treat misinterpretations as products of superstition, poor evidential standards, and interpretive malpractice, while Grice would diagnose them as predictable pragmatic inferences from linguistic form plus presumed rational cooperation, defeasible by context and cancellable by clarification. Nasce da Francesco Antonio, giureconsulto, poi membro del Consiglio cittadino dei trentuno, e da Olimpia Camilla Volani, discendente della nobile famiglia Serbati. Studia dapprima presso il modesto ginnasio di Rovereto, con scarso profitto, e dove colmare autonomamente le tante lacune, a partire dall’apprendimento del latino. A questo periodo di intensa applicazione risalgono due dissertazioni: il Dialogo della lingua latina e le Annotazioni al Dialogo delle false esercitazioni delle scuole di Paleario, in polemica contro l’uso di insegnare il latino col latino, entrambe pubblicate nella Raccolta ferrarese. Si trasferì a Padova per dedicarsi agli studi: ospitato da Calza, che lo introduce nella cerchia degli accademici patavini, è allievo e amico, fra gli altri, di Serry, Lazzarini e Volpi.  Il soggiorno padovano, ancorché breve – dopo un anno dovette tornare a Rovereto per mancanza di fondi, e rimane nelle ristrettezze finché non conquista una certa indipendenza economica con l’ausilio di un fedecommesso Serbati – risulta particolarmente significativo: ha accesso per la prima volta a biblioteche ricche e fornite, acquisì un metodo di studio ben più solido di quello scolastico, comincia a frequentare i classici della letteratura italiana – e a scrivere liriche non più alla maniera di Zappi, ma seguendo il modello di Petrarca -- Graser, Vita – e consegue una nuova maturità critica nel segno della libertas ingenii difesa nel De ingeniorum moderatione di Muratori, testo fondamentale per T.  Tornato a Rovereto, con l’intento di dare vita a un’impresa tesa al rinnovamento dell’arretrato panorama culturale trentino, fa arrivare da Verona lo stampatore Berno, a cui affida l’impressione delle Orationes di Muret, per facilitare lo studio del latino. accusa di omicidio rituale, la differenza delle voci nella lingua italiana.  Grice: Caro Tartarotti, mi chiedevo: nella lingua italiana, con tutte queste differenze di voci, non potrebbe accadere che un "omicidio rituale" venga scambiato per una semplice discussione animata a tavola? È la magia del sintamme, no? Tartarotti: Ah, fidati di Grice per essere l’unico capace di unire simili sintamme in un unico colpo! D’altronde, se si sente gridare “ammazza!” in Trentino, potrebbe essere solo un elogio culinario… o la prova di una dialettica particolarmente vivace! Grice: Quindi, se mi capita di studiare la differenza delle voci, devo stare attento a non ritrovarmi nel bel mezzo di un processo per omicidio rituale? Certo che la filosofia italiana è più pericolosa di quanto pensassi! Tartarotti: Ma sì, Grice, qui fra Rovereto e Padova, basta una sfumatura vocale per trasformare un teorema in una tragedia! Meglio riderci sopra: al massimo, finiremo accusati di omicidio… del silenzio! Tartarotti, Girolamo (1749). Del Congresso notturno delle Lammie. Venezia: Bettinelli

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tarutilio – Ossia: Grice e Tarutilio – Grex griceiana: verbalia: Tarutilio. The gens Tarutilia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. No members of this gens are mentioned in history, but several are known from inscriptions.  Origin The nomen Tarutilius belongs to a class of gentilicia that was typically derived from either cognomina ending in the diminutive suffix -ulus, or perhaps the double diminutives -illus or -ellus,[1] or more probably in this case, from existing gentilicia,[2] such as Tarutius, a nomen of Etruscan origin.[3]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Tarutilius, named in a bone inscription from an uncertain location, dated the nones of October, 77 BC.[4] Tarutilius, mentioned in a portion of the Fasti Praenestini immediately following the Larentalia, for which he apparently left a large testamentary donation.[5] Aulus Tarutilius, the former master of Aulus Tarutilius Philomusus.[6] Aulus Tarutilius A. l. Philomusus, a freedman buried at Rome, some time between the middle of the first century BC, and the first century AD.[6] Lucius Tarutilius, the former master of Lucius Tarutilius Saturninus.[7] Lucius Tarutilius L. l. Saturninus, a freed child buried at Rome during the first half of the first century, aged two years, four months.[7] See also List of Roman gentes References  Chase, pp. 122–124.  Chase, p. 125.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 151 ("Tarutius Firmanus").  CIL I, 943.  AE 1898, 14.  CIL VI, 27117.  CIL VI, 6129. Bibliography 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, pp. 103–184 (1897). Category: Roman gentes And from THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tarutilio – Ossia: Grice e Tarutilio – Grex griceiana: verbalia: Tarutilio. For the Tarutilii, I think the best Grice-Speranza specimen is not one of the freedmen, but the mysterious TARVTILIVS mentioned in the Fasti Praenestini as having left a large testamentary donation after the Larentalia. The reason is that the whole thing turns on a speech-act par excellence: a testament. A will is an ideal Gricean object. The utterer is absent, perhaps dead. Yet the utterance continues to operate. Indeed, it operates precisely because the utterer is absent. The question becomes: what did TARVTILIVS intend by these dispositions, gifts, and bequests? Roman law is then forced to recover intention from a text whose author can no longer answer objections. The freedmen are appealing, especially Aulus Tarutilius Philomusus, because manumission always raises questions of naming and status. But the testamentary donor lets one connect meaning, intention, inheritance, and posthumous agency in a single figure. I would therefore imagine him thus: (*) HERES. Mortuus est; quid nunc vult? (He is dead; what does he want now?) TARVTILIVS. Testamentum reliqui; voluntas mea superstes est. (I have left a will; my intention survives.) +> My death does not prevent my intentions from guiding the disposition of my property. The Latin is deliberately simple because the point is simple. Grice would have liked the paradox. Ordinary conversation assumes a living speaker monitoring uptake. A testament lacks that luxury. Yet a Roman testament remains one of the strongest cases of intentional communication. The heir is perpetually asking: "What did he mean?" The testator can no longer clarify, cancel, amend, or retract. Speranza's dry gloss might be: "TARVTILIVS is useful because he proves that utterer's meaning survives the utterer. The man dies; the implicata perish with him; but the will remains stubbornly explicit." And there is a second, quieter irony. The gens is almost invisible to history. Yet one TARVTILIVS survives because he left a donation. He disappears as a man and reappears as an intention. That is perhaps the most Gricean immortality available to an obscure Roman.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Taruzio – Ossia: Grice e Taruzio – Grex griceiana: verbalia: Taruzio. The gens Tarutia, also found as Tarrutia, was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. Few members of this gens are mentioned in Roman history, of whom the best-known is probably Lucius Tarutius Firmanus, a noted mathematician and astrologer of the first century BC.  Origin The nomen Tarutius is of Etruscan origin.[1]  Branches and cognomina Firmanus, the cognomen of the mathematician Lucius Tarutius, was derived from his original home of Firmum in Picenum.[1]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Lucius Tarutius Firmanus, a friend of both Varro and Cicero, was a mathematician and astrologer. Varro consulted him regarding the life of Romulus, and Firmanus cast the ancient king's horoscope. He concluded that Romulus was born September 23, in the second year of the second Olympiad, 771 BC, and that Rome was founded on April 9. Varro rejected the later date in favour of the traditional celebration of Rome's founding on the Palilia, April 21.[2][3] Tarutia C. l. Medona, a freedwoman buried at Barium in Apulia in a tomb built by the freedman Gaius Tarutius Philomusus for himself, Tarutia, and a third person named Acratus, dating from the early first century.[4] Gaius Tarutius C. l. Philomusus, a freedman who built a tomb at Barium for himself, the freedwoman Tarutia Medona, and a third person named Acratus, dating from the early first century.[4] Tarutius, named on a cinerarium from Altinum in Venetia and Histria, dating from the early first century.[5] Lucius Tarutius, named on a cinerarium at Altinum, dating from the early first century.[6] Quintus Tarrutius Tranquillinus, one of several men entrusted with the maintenance of Rome's fountains in AD 141.[7] Tarutius Victor, together with Didius Valerianus, one of the heirs of Aulus Valerius Cassianus, a soldier buried at Blera in Etruria. He and Didius built a tomb for Valerius, dating between the beginning of the second century, and the late third century.[8] Tarutius, named in a sepulchral inscription from Rome, dating from the first half of the fourth century.[9] Tarutius, named in a sepulchral inscription from Rome, dating from the latter half of the fourth century.[10] Undated Tarutii Tarutia, named in a sepulchral inscription from Aquileia in Venetia and Histria.[11] Tarutius, named in an inscription from Maglona in Britain.[12] See also List of Roman gentes References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 151 ("Tarutius Firmanus").  Plutarch, "The Life of Romulus", 12.  Cicero, De Divinatione, ii. 47.  CIL IX, 301.  AE 1981, 448.  AE 1981, 453.  CIL VI, 161.  CIL XI, 3535.  ICUR, v. 14663.  ICUR, ix. 24496a.  Brusin, Inscriptiones Aquileiae, i. 1198.  RIB, ii. 7, 2501,535. Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Divinatione. Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (Plutarch), Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans; "Quaestiones Romanae" (Roman Questions). 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). Giovanni Battista de Rossi, Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romanae Septimo Saeculo Antiquiores (Christian Inscriptions from Rome of the First Seven Centuries, abbreviated ICUR), Vatican Library, Rome (1857–1861, 1888). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). The Roman Inscriptions of Britain (abbreviated RIB), Oxford, (1990–present). Giovanni Battista Brusin, Inscriptiones Aquileiae (Inscriptions of Aquileia), Udine (1991–1993). Category: Roman gentes And for this gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Taruzio – Ossia: Grice e Taruzio – Grex griceiana: verbalia: Taruzio. For the Tarutii the choice is easy: Lucius TARVTIVS Firmanus, the astrologer whom Varro consulted about the birth of Romulus and the foundation of Rome. He is almost a tailor-made Grice-Speranza figure, because he is engaged in a strange activity: reconstructing what nobody could possibly have witnessed by calculating backwards from effects to origins. Romulus is already legendary; the dates are already traditional; yet TARVTIVS undertakes to determine, by mathematical and astrological reasoning, when Romulus was born and when Rome was founded. Cicero and Plutarch both preserve the tradition. [philopedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org] The Gricean point is that TARVTIVS treats history as if it were a conversational problem. Given certain signs, what is one entitled to infer? Given the Rome we see, what birth-date and horoscope would fit its founder? The question is not unlike a hearer's question: given this utterance, what intention best explains it? The delicious detail is that Varro does not wholly accept TARVTIVS' conclusions. Firmanus calculates; Varro prefers the traditional Palilia date. Thus we get not merely a prediction but a disagreement about evidence. The dyad almost writes itself: (*) VARRO. Romulus quando natus est? (When was Romulus born?) TARVTIVS. Caelum respondebit ubi testes desunt. (The heavens will answer where witnesses are lacking.) +> When direct testimony is unavailable, one may attempt to reconstruct the past from systematic signs. Or, even more pointedly: (*) VARRO. Nemo interfuit qui diem natalem Romuli memoriae tradiderit. (No one was present to hand down the day of Romulus' birth.) TARVTIVS. Astra supersunt. (The stars remain.) +> In the absence of human testimony, celestial evidence may serve as a basis for inference. What I like here, from a Speranzian angle, is that TARVTIVS is neither prophet nor historian in the ordinary sense. He is an interpreter of traces. The witnesses are dead; the founder is mythical; the city nevertheless exists. His task is to move backwards from sign to origin. The dry gloss might be: "TARVTIVS Firmanus is useful because he attempted to calculate what Rome preferred to remember. Varro supplied the question, Romulus supplied the legend, the stars supplied the data, and TARVTIVS supplied the confidence." And if Cicero and Grice are right about some 'signs' -- or 'meaning that...' constructions in Grice -- have a necessary and some a non-necessary status, T. cannot possibly mean that Romulus was born on a date, or rather Varro cannot say that T. mean-NATURALLY that; only NON-NATURALLY that, since, well, to use Grice's reference to the Kiparskys, the use is 'non-factive'! Thanks Exactly. In fact, TARVTIVS Firmanus is a beautiful case for distinguishing what Grice later separates as natural and non-natural meaning. If smoke means that there is fire, then, barring complications, we are dealing with something like natural meaning. The smoke does not intend to tell us anything. The connection is evidential, symptomatological, in Cicero's language signum. And, as Grice liked to stress, this use is factive: if the spots mean measles, the measles had better be there. But TARVTIVS is doing something quite different. When Varro asks him about Romulus' birth-date, TARVTIVS does not discover a sign that naturally means: "Romulus was born on 23 September 771 BC." No star, constellation, or horoscope can naturally mean that in the Gricean sense. The alleged event is remote, legendary, and inaccessible to direct confirmation. Indeed, the proposition may be false for all TARVTIVS knows. So what TARVTIVS produces is closer to an interpretation, reconstruction, or theoretical attribution. The heavens do not mean naturally that Romulus was born on such-and-such a day. Rather TARVTIVS means, or intends his audience to accept, that Romulus was born on such-and-such a day on the basis of astrological reasoning. That is why your invocation of factivity is exactly right. Smoke means fire. Those footprints mean someone passed this way. Those spots mean measles. These are factive uses. By contrast: TARVTIVS' horoscope means that Romulus was born on 23 September. is not factive in the same way. The horoscope may support, suggest, imply, indicate, or be taken as evidence for the proposition. But the proposition need not be true merely because TARVTIVS advances it. Grice would probably enjoy putting it this way: (*) VARRO. Astra significant Romulum eo die natum esse? (Do the stars signify that Romulus was born on that day?) TARRVTIVS. Non significant; ego ex eis colligo. (They do not signify it; I infer it from them.) +> The proposition about Romulus is not contained in the stars but arises from my interpretation of them. That catches the crucial distinction. The stars may be signs. But the birthday is a conclusion. Or, in a suitably Speranzian formula: "TARVTIVS does not read the date of Romulus' birth in the heavens as one reads a milestone. The stars are evidence; the birthday is an inference. Smoke naturally means fire. The constellation of Virgo naturally means nothing whatever about Romulus until a sufficiently confident astrologer begins writing."

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tataranni -- Grice e Tataranni: la ragione conversazionale del gusto per l’antico – filosofia basilicatese. Note sul Saggio d’un filosofo politico amico dell’uomo. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Onofrio Tataranni (Matera, Basilicata): la ragione conversazionale del gusto per l’antico – Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats conversation as a cooperative, normatively constrained enterprise in which hearers recover what a speaker means by assuming rational adherence to a shared purpose and to maxims (quantity, quality, relation, manner), so that departures from the literal content are not noise but calculable implicatures; on this picture, “reason” is built into the very mechanism by which what is said licenses what is meant. Tataranni, by contrast, belongs to the late-Enlightenment Neapolitan world in which “ragione” is primarily a civic and moral power (reformist, pedagogical, oriented to public virtue and political order), and the “conversational” is less a formal inferential engine than a cultivated practice of conversazione—an educated traffic in examples, classical memory, and socially shared standards of taste and authority (the gusto per l’antico functioning as a common cultural code). Read against Grice, Tataranni’s appeal to Rome surviving as a name (stat Roma pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus) can be taken as a miniature lesson in how names and inherited references steer communal understanding even when the original reality has decayed, but the explanatory burden sits on historical-cultural continuity rather than on a general theory of implicature; where Grice would model the exchange as rational inference from a maxim-flout to an intended meaning, Tataranni frames it as a witty, tradition-saturated redirection of imagination and allegiance, showing conversation as a medium in which reason works through shared classical allusion and civic pedagogy more than through explicit, universalizable conversational rules. Lucano di origine, esponente dell'illuminismo napoletano. Non sappiamo a quale ceto appartenesse la sua famiglia, ma sicuramente essa è fornita dei mezzi economici. Non a caso, quando è battezzato nella chiesa cattedrale di Matera, i suoi genitori scelsero come padrino il nobile Ferraù. Sin da ragazzo matura quella che è la sua vocazione, tanto che divenne prima allievo del seminario diocesano. Sebbene ha una posizione di un certo rilievo sia in ambito ecclesiastico, sia in ambito educativo, non mostra alcun tentennamento nell'accettare l'invito del principe di Francavilla, che lo vuole a Napoli per affidargli la direzione della sua paggeria. Grazie a questo incarico, accrebbe ancor di più la stima di cui già gode, stringendo rapporti amichevoli con i filosofi più illustri ed autorevoli del tempo, incardinate nella reale accademia delle scienze e belle lettere. Ha la possibilità di frequentare proprio tali stimolanti dibattiti, che del resto avrebbero formato l'humus delle sue future riflessioni, in qualità prima di direttore della paggeria, poi della scuola militare del real collegio militare -- ufficialmente reale accademia militare -- fortemente voluta da Ferdinando IV, che mostra di aderire al generale clima di rinnovamento e consolidamento delle istituzioni militari del suo regno. Ha l'onore di esserne il direttore, partecipando vivamente, dunque, al graduale svilupparsi e moltiplicarsi dell'alveo della cultura politica riformatrice, che ancora auspica un reale cambiamento all'interno dello stesso apparato monarchico. Così, nell'arco di un settennio, pubblica dei saggi molto significativi, in cui è evidente il suo tracciato ideale di società. Tuttavia, in seguito agl’avvenimenti, quindi dopo il concordato e dopo la fallita congiura di Lauberg, le sue posizioni rispetto alla politica e allo stato cambiano tangenzialmente. filosofo principe, i sudditi e i cittadini, il popolo sovrano – sovrano e monarca, filantropia del re.  Grice: Caro Tataranni, si dice che il “gusto pell’antico” porti dritto a... BONONIA! Me lo suggerisce G. E. Moore con la sua aria da logico inflessibile: amare l’antico è sinonimo di bolognesità, non trovi? Tataranni: Ah, Grice, mi permetto una piccola correzione filosofica: se proprio il gusto va all’antico, allora bisogna arrivare a ROMA! Certo, la città forse non è più quella di un tempo, ma – come dice quel famoso epigramma – Stat Roma pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus. Il nome resta anche se le mura vacillano! Grice: Quindi mi stai dicendo che, a forza di cercare colonne e capitelli, rischio di trovarmi davanti solo… nomi su pergamene polverose? Però, che consolazione raffinata: puoi togliere Roma dall’Urbe, ma non dal discorso! Tataranni: Esattamente! E così, quando la gente cerca la gloria di Roma, trova almeno la gloria del suo nome. In fondo, persino una rosa, cambiato il nome, rimarrebbe pur sempre… oggetto di discussione da filosofi! Meglio riderci su e intingere la penna nell’inchiostro dell’antichità! Tataranni, Onofrio (1784). Saggio d’un filosofo politico amico dell’uomo. Napoli: Bisogno.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tazio – Ossia: Grice e Tazio – Grex gricieana – verbalia: Tazio. The gens Tatia was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. This gens is perhaps best known from the legendary figure of Titus Tatius, a Sabine king who fought against Romulus, and who subsequently became joint ruler of Rome. None of the Tatii held any of the higher magistracies of the Roman Republic, but a number are known from inscriptions.  Origin The Tatii claimed descent from Titus Tatius, a Sabine king, who after fighting Romulus to a standstill, agreed to joint rulership of the city.[1][2][3] During this period, many Sabines settled at Rome, eventually making up a significant portion of the city's early populace.[4][5][6] While Romulus and Titus Tatius are widely regarded as legendary figures whose historicity cannot be established, modern scholars agree that there was a large Sabine element in the early Roman population, from which the Tatii might have been descended.  Praenomina The main praenomina of the Tatii were Lucius, Marcus, Gaius, and Aulus, all of which were common throughout all periods of Roman history. A freedwoman of this gens bore the Faliscan praenomen Volta.[7]  Branches and cognomina Inscriptions of the Tatii are found throughout central and southern Italy, from Umbria to Lucania. Besides Rome, the only place with a significant number of inscriptions from this family is Tarracina, in southern Latium. At least one family of this gens settled in Numidia. None of the Tatii known from epigraphy bear hereditary surnames; all of their cognomina seem to be personal names.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Titus Tatius, the king of Cures in Sabinum, during the time of Romulus. According to legend, his army assaulted Rome following the Rape of the Sabine Women, and fought the Romans fiercely, until Hersilia and the Sabine wives of the Romans interceded, bringing about a truce between the two peoples. Tatius became joint ruler of Rome alongside Romulus. He was later slain in a riot at Lavinium, supposedly because he had insulted the ambassadors of Laurentum, a neighboring town.[1][2][3] Lucius Tatius L. f., quaestor at Paestum in Lucania at some point in the latter half of the third century BC.[8] Aulus Tatius M. l. Antiochus, a freedman and argentarius, or money-changer, buried at Fundi in Latium, along with Marcus Tatius, another freedman, according to an inscription dating between 88 and 78 BC.[9] Marcus Tatius M. l., a freedman buried at Fundi between 88 and 78 BC, alongside the freedman Aulus Tatius Antiochus.[9] Volta Tatia T. l., a freedwoman named in a sepulchral inscription from Carreum Potentia in Liguria, dating from the first century BC.[10] Lucius Tatius L. f., named in a sepulchral inscription from Corfinium in Samnium, dating from the middle part of the first century BC.[11] Gaius Tatius C. l. Bodorix, a freedman of Gaulish descent, buried at Mutina in Cisalpine Gaul, between the middle of the first century BC and the first quarter of the first century AD.[12] Tatia Ɔ. l. Salvilla, a freedwoman named in an inscription from Rome, dating between the middle of the first century BC, and the middle of the first century AD.[13] Tatia M. l. Philema, a freedwoman named in an inscription from Rome, dating from the early first century, along with the freedman Marcus Tatius Sabina, and others.[14] Marcus Tatius M. l. Sabina, a freedman named in a first-century inscription from Rome, along with the freedwoman Tatia Philema. Sabina was deceased at the time of the inscription.[14] Aulus Tatius A. f. Ampliatus, the husband of Silvia Apricula, a woman buried at Casilinum in Campania during the first half of the first century.[15] Marcus Tatius M. l. Hilarus, a freedman buried at Tarracina in Latium during the first half of the first century, along with the freedmen Marcus Tatius Pusio and Marcus Tatius Menemachus.[16] Tatia L. C. l. Isia, a freedwoman buried at Rome in a family sepulchre built by the freedman Publius Granius Philargurus, probably her husband, dating from the first half of the first century.[17] Marcus Tatius M. l. Menemachus, a freedman buried at Tarracina during the first half of the first century, along with the freedmen Marcus Tatius Pusio and Marcus Tatius Hilarus.[16] Marcus Tatius M. l. Pusio, a freedman buried at Tarracina during the first half of the first century, along with the freedmen Marcus Tatius Menemachus and Marcus Tatius Hilarus.[16] Aulus Tatius, named in a first-century inscription from Herculaneum in Campania.[18] Tatia Antiochis, the wife of Aulus Aemilius Primus, a freedman who built a first-century tomb at Tarracina for himself, his wife, their daughter, Tatia Prima, and others.[19] Marcus Tatius Largus, one of the donors who contributed to a first-century statue at Tarracina.[20] Tatia A. f. Prima, daughter of the freedman Aulus Aemilius Primus and Tatia Antiochis, buried in a first-century family sepulchre built by her father at Tarracina.[19] Marcus Tatius M. f. Rufus, formerly a duumvir, buried at Tarracina, along with his wife, Vedia Tertulla, in a first-century tomb built by their son, Marcus Tatius Paetinus.[21] Marcus Tatius M. f. M. n. Paetinus, dedicated a first-century tomb at Tarracina for his parents, Marcus Tatius Rufus and Vedia Tertulla.[21] Lucius Tatius Ɔ. l. Philogenes, a freedman named in a first-century sepulchral inscription from Interamna Nahars in Umbria.[22] Tatia Tyche, buried at Rome in a tomb built by her husband, Gaius Terentius Actius, dating some time between the accession of Nero and the death of Domitian.[23] Tatia Baucylis, nurse to seven great-grandchildren of the emperor Vespasian, buried in a late first-century tomb at Rome.[24] Marcus Tatius Naicus, buried at Rome in a tomb dedicated by his wife, Grania Atticilla, dating between the middle of the first century and the middle of the second.[25] Gaius Tatius Epictetus, dedicated a second-century tomb at Rome for his brother, Stephanus, and his daughter, Flavia Urbica.[26] Tatia Septim[...], dedicated a second-century tomb at Pagus Urbanus in Samnium for her daughter, Tatia Lea.[27] Tatia Lea, a girl buried in a second-century tomb at Pagus Urbanus in Samnium, aged eleven years, six months, and twelve days, with a monument from her mother, Tatia Septim[...].[27] Tatia Macrina, dedicated a second-century tomb at Alba Helviorum in Gallia Narbonensis to her son, Macrinus.[28] Lucius Tatius Felix, buried at Cirta in Numidia, aged forty-five, in a tomb built by his wife, Sittia Maxima, dating from the late second or early third century.[29] Tatia Fortunata, buried in a third-century sepulchre built by her husband at Rome.[30] Tatia Ariste, buried in a fourth-century tomb at Rome.[31] Tatius Eyticius, buried in a fourth-century tomb at Rome.[32] Undated Tatii Tatia, buried at Rome, aged twenty, in a tomb built by her husband.[33] Tatia, the freedwoman of Charis, named in an inscription from Fundi in Latium, along with the freedwoman Tatia Andronica.[34] Tatia, the wife of Publius Marius and mother of Gaius, who built a tomb for her at Brixia in Venetia and Histria out of the legacy provided to him in her will.[35] Tatia, buried at Hispalis in Hispania Baetica, aged twenty-eight. Her monument describes her as dear to one Optatus, whose relationship to her is not recorded.[36] Tatius, named in a sepulchral inscription from Mediolanum in Gallia Narbonensis.[37] Tatius, mentioned in an inscription found at the site of modern Rimburg, formerly part of Germania Inferior.[38] Tatius, placed a monument at the site of modern Pedraza, formerly part of Hispania Citerior.[39] Gaius Tatius L. f., named in an inscription from Clusium in Etruria.[40] Lucius Tatius, named in a sepulchral inscription from Rome.[41] Gaius Tatius Albanus, dedicated a tomb at Fundi for his freedman, Fortunatus.[42] Tatia M. l. Andronica, a freedwoman named in an inscription from Fundi, along with Tatia, the freedwoman of Charis.[34] Lucius Tatius Capito, dedicated a tomb at Sigus in Numidia for his wife, Baebia Aristilla.[43] Decimus Tatius D. l. Dionysius, a freedman named in a sepulchral inscription from Rome.[44] Gaius Tatius Ger[...], named in an inscription from Rome.[45] Tatia Januaria, named in a sepulchral inscription from Rome.[46] Tatia L. f. Lucilla, a girl buried at Naeva in Hispania Baetica, aged five.[47] Lucius Tatius L. f. Neptunalis, buried at Sigus.[48] Tatia Rufina, an elderly woman buried at Rome, aged one hundred and six years, eleven months, and sixteen days, in a tomb built by her son.[49] Tatius Sintrophus, named in a bronze inscription from Rome.[50] Lucius Tatius L. l. Socr[...], a freedman named in an inscription from Altinum in Venetia and Histria.[51] Marcus Tatius M. l. Tertius, a freedman named in an inscription from Fundi.[52] Tatia Tharissa, buried at Thenae in Africa Proconsularis, along with another woman named Calpurnia Theoclia.[53] See also List of Roman gentes References  Livy, i. 10, 13, 14.  Dionysius, ii. 36 ff.  Plutarch, "The Life of Romulus", 17–19.  Livy, i. 13.  Dionysius, i. 46.  Plutarch, "The Life of Romulus", 19, 20.  Latin Dialect of the Ager Faliscus, 7.7.2 (1).  CIL I, 3152.  AE 2015, 333.  AE 1991, 721.  CIL IX, 7339.  CIL XI, 867.  CIL VI, 7444.  ZPE, 136–271.  AE 1977, 193.  CIL X, 8406.  CIL VI, 19091.  CIL IV, 10599a.  Coppola, Terracina, 196.  CIL X, 6331.  CIL X, 6330.  CIL XI, 4309.  CIL VI, 27155.  CIL VI, 8942.  CIL VI, 4765.  AE 1973, 121.  CIL IX, 2993.  AE 2001, 1346.  Gsell, Inscriptions Latines de L'Algérie, ii. 1, 1792.  CIL VI, 36404.  ICUR, iii. 9177.  ICUR, ii. 4686.  CIL VI, 36403.  CIL X, 6276.  CIL V, 4646.  CIL II, 1243.  CIL V, 6162.  Nesselhauf, "Neue Inschriften aus dem römischen Germanien", 253.  Hispania Epigraphica, 1997–725.  CIL XI, 7170.  CIL VI, 27121.  CIL X, 6274.  CIL VIII, 19143.  CIL VI, 27122.  CIL XV, 7994.  CIL VI, 27123.  CIL II, 1081.  CIL VIII, 5858.  CIL VI, 27124.  CIL XV, 8494.  CIL V, 8827.  CIL X, 6275.  BCTH, 1941/42–41. Bibliography Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia. Titus Livius (Livy), History of Rome. Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (Plutarch), Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). Giovanni Battista de Rossi, Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romanae Septimo Saeculo Antiquiores (Christian Inscriptions from Rome of the First Seven Centuries, abbreviated ICUR), Vatican Library, Rome (1857–1861, 1888). Bulletin Archéologique du Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques (Archaeological Bulletin of the Committee on Historic and Scientific Works, abbreviated BCTH), Imprimerie Nationale, Paris (1885–1973). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). Stéphane Gsell, Inscriptions Latines de L'Algérie (Latin Inscriptions from Algeria), Edouard Champion, Paris (1922–present). Herbert Nesselhauf, "Neue Inschriften aus dem römischen Germanien und den angrenzenden Gebieten" (New Inscriptions from Roman Germania and Adjacent Areas), in Berichte der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission, vol. xxvii, pp. 51–134 (1937). Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik (Journal of Papyrology and Epigraphy, abbreviated ZPE), (1987). Hispania Epigraphica (Epigraphy of Spain), Madrid (1989–present). Maria Rosaria Coppola, Terracina. Il museo e le collezioni (Terracina: The Museum and the Collections), Rome (1989). Gabriël Cornelis Leonides Maria Bakkum (ed.), The Latin Dialect of the Ager Faliscus: 150 Years of Scholarship, Amsterdam (2009). Category: Roman gentes And from THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tazio – Ossia: Grice e Tazio – Grex gricieana – verbalia: Tazio. For the Tatii, I would resist the temptation to choose the legendary king immediately, precisely because he is too obvious. If one wants a Grice-Speranza vignette, the best choice is still TITVS TATIVS, but not as warrior. Rather, as the co-ruler of Rome with Romulus. The reason is that he gives us perhaps the earliest Roman experiment in what Abbott mistakenly wanted the consuls to be: not co-leapers, but co-rulers. The whole story culminates in conversation. War has reached stalemate. The Sabine women, now daughters, wives, and mothers belonging simultaneously to both peoples, intervene. The result is neither victory nor defeat, but shared sovereignty. That is almost irresistibly Gricean. The matter is settled not because one side defeats the other, but because a new conversational situation has emerged. The women change the description. Before: Romans versus Sabines. After: Fathers versus husbands. Once that redescription is accepted, the war becomes pragmatically impossible. I would therefore make the dyad: (*) ROMVLVS. Hostes sunt Sabini. (The Sabines are enemies.) TATIVS. Affines sunt Sabini. (The Sabines are kinsmen.) +> The same people cannot indefinitely be treated as enemies once they have become members of the same civic community. The beauty of the exchange is that TATIVS does not deny the facts. The Sabines have indeed been enemies. He merely supplies a different description under which the same people are to be taken. That is very close to Grice's fascination with modes of presentation. The Roman historians themselves come surprisingly near to this idea. The war stops because the participants are no longer able to sustain the original categorisation. The women have created a new dossier. Speranza might add: "TITVS TATIVS is useful because he wins the only Roman war that ends by changing the subject." And there is another reason to prefer him. Unlike Tarpeia, Lucretia, Verginia, or Horatia, the Sabine women actually alter the political outcome while remaining alive. The Roman tradition usually allows women either to die nobly or be punished memorably. Here they succeed. TATIVS governs jointly with Romulus because they intervene. So for the gens Tatia, my specimen would be TITVS TATIVS, not as founder of a lineage, but as Rome's first lesson that an apparently insoluble conflict may be resolved by a more appropriate description of the parties involved. That is a very Gricean moral indeed. And is our PARTICULAR hero -- or is it the GENS as such -- which is associated with -TRI-BE, the R., the T., and "the I forget which" (Grice)? Thanks Yes, and here Grice's memory was actually pretty good, despite the "I forget which." The traditional three early Roman tribes were:  Ramnes Tities Luceres  The standard ancient explanation connected them respectively with:  Romulus and the Romans (Ramnes), Titus Tatius and the Sabines (Tities), a third element, the Luceres, often associated in later antiquarian speculation with an Etruscan component.  The point for your Tatia entry is that TITVS TATIVS is not merely a legendary Sabine king who happens to lend his name to a gens. He is also associated with one of the three primordial divisions of the Roman people, the Tities. In that sense, the connection is not just personal but quasi-constitutional. A Speranzian observation would be that the gens Tatia enjoys an unusual privilege among obscure gentes. Most Roman families have to work their way upward into history. The Tatii begin at the very moment when Roman society itself is supposedly being partitioned and organised. One might even give TITVS TATIVS a slightly revised dyad: (*) ROMVLVS. Romani erunt. (They shall be Romans.) TATIVS. Etiam Sabini erunt. (They shall also be Sabines.) +> The new community must preserve both identities rather than absorb one entirely into the other. That gets closer to the legendary role assigned to Tatius. He is not merely a participant in the merger; he is the representative of one of the constituent elements from which the Roman people are composed. Grice's joke would then be: "Rome begins with three tribes. I remember the R. and the T. The third escapes me. Which is perhaps fitting, since everyone has always argued about the Luceres." And historically that is not far wrong. Ancient writers themselves were often much less certain about the Luceres than about the obvious associations of the Ramnes with Romulus and the Tities with Titus Tatius.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tattio – Ossia: Grice e Tattio – Grex griceiana: verbalia: Tattio. The gens Tattia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. Few members of this gens are mentioned in history, but others are known from inscriptions. The most illustrious was probably Gaius Tattius Maximus, an eques who rose to become praetorian prefect under Antoninus Pius.[1]  Origin The nomen Tattius is thought to be of Sabine origin, and is listed by Chase among those gentilicia known to be Umbrian, Picentine, Sabine, or from southern Latium.[2] This nomen must be distinguished from that of the Tatia gens, although, as both are thought to be Sabine, it is possible that they were originally the same. A number of the Tattii known from epigraphy lived among the Samnites, who claimed descent from the Sabines, and in various towns of Apulia and Lucania. Among the surnames of the Tattii are Vestinus and Paelinus, suggesting that they claimed descent from, or at least affinity with, the Vestini and Paeligni, Oscan-speaking peoples who fought against Rome during the Samnite Wars, and obtained Roman citizenship following the Social War.  Praenomina The Tattii used several common praenomina, particularly Marcus, Lucius, and Gaius, the three most abundant names throughout all periods of Roman history. Other names associated with this gens include Aulus, Publius, Quintus, and Titus, each of which was also common, as well as the Oscan praenomen Statius.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Tattia C. l. Antemis, a freedwoman, is named alongside the freedmen Gaius Tattius Alexander and Gaius Tattius Capito in a sepulchral inscription from Sulmo in Samnium, dating from the middle of the first century BC.[3] Gaius Tattius C. l. Capito, a freedman, is named along with the freedman Gaius Tattius Alexander and the freedwoman Tattia Antemis in a sepulchral inscription from Sulmo, dating from the mid-first century BC.[3] Gaius Tattius C. l. Alexander, a freedman named along with the freedman Gaius Tattius Capito and the freedwoman Tattia Antemis in a sepulchral inscription from Sulmo, dating from the middle of the first century BC.[3] Lucius Tatius T. f. Coxsa, one of the magistrates of Lavernae in Samnium, together with his colleagues, built a wall, gate, and a temple for the Bona Dea, commemorated in an inscription dating from the latter half of the first century BC.[4] Tattia L. l. Dionysia, a freedwoman named in an inscription from Praeneste in Latium, dating from the first half of the first century, along with the freedman Lucius Tattius Epinicus.[5] Lucius Tattius L. l. Epinicus, a freedman named in an inscription from Praeneste, dating from the first half of the first century, along with the freedwoman Tattia Dionysia.[5] St. Tattius St. f. Paelinus, husband of the freedwoman Bennia Exoche, with whom he dedicated a first century tomb at Interpromium in Samnium for their daughter, Tattia Ionice.[6] Tattia St. f. St. n. Ionice, a girl buried in a first-century tomb at Interpromium, aged seven years, eight months, with a monument from her parents, Statius Tattius Paelinus and Bennia Exoche.[6] Tatia Ɔ. l. Salvia, the wife of Gavius Tertius and mother of Saturnina and Amaranthus Pyrallis, who dedicated a first-century monument to their parents at Peltuinum in Samnium.[7] Tattia, the wife of Tiberius Claudius [...]cus, with whom she dedicated a tomb at Portus in Latium for their daughter, Tattia Te[...], dating from the reigns of Hadrian or Antoninus Pius.[8] Tattia Ti. f. Te[...], daughter of Tiberius Claudius [...]cus and Tattia, who built a tomb for her at Portus during the reigns of Hadrian or Antoninus Pius.[8] Quintus Tattius Vestinus, the son of Decumedus, was buried at Peltuinum, alongside his wife, Alledia Egloge, in a second-century tomb built by Ofanius Hyginus, who is identified as his brother.[9] Gaius Tattius Maximus, a tribune of the equites during the mid-second century, he was prefect of the vigiles in 156, and subsequently praetorian prefect under the emperor Antoninus Pius.[1][10][11] Tattia Hesperis, dedicated a monument at Numistro in Lucania to Tattia Marcella, dating between the middle of the second century and the middle of the third.[12] Tattia Jucunda, buried at Volcei in Lucania, in a tomb dedicated by her daughter, Casinia Quartilla, dating between the middle of the second century and the middle of the third.[13] Tattia Marcella, buried at Numistro, aged seventy-five, with a monument from Tattia Hesperis, dating between the middle of the second century and the middle of the third.[12] Lucius Tattius Pelopianus, buried at Numistro, aged fifty, with a monument from his wife, Tattia Procula, dating between the middle of the second century and the middle of the third.[14] Tattia Procula, dedicated a second- or third-century tomb at Numistro for her husband, Lucius Tattius Pelopianus.[14] Marcus Tattius Fructianus, the husband of Tattia Prepusa, with whom he built a late second- or early third-century tomb at Atina in Lucania for their son, Marcus Tattius Fructanus.[15] Tattia Laemotina, buried at Salona in Dalmatia, aged twenty-three, with a monument from Caetennia Amullina, dating between the middle of the second century and the end of the third.[16] Marcus Tattius Fructianus, built a tomb at Atina for his wife, Fabia Zosima, dating from the late second or early third century.[17] Marcus Tattius M. f. Fructianus, perhaps the same Fructianus as the husband of Fabia Zosima, was buried at Atina in the late second or early third century, with a monument erected by his parents, Marcus Tattius Fructianus and Tattia Prepusa.[15] Marcus Tattius, mentioned in a third-century sepulchral inscription from Rome.[18] Undated Tattii Marcus Tattius Blandus, a potter whose maker's mark was found at Rome.[19] Quintus Tattius P. f. Postimus, buried at Aquilonia in Samnium.[20] Tattius Rogatianus, perhaps the son of Lucius Tattius Rogatus, donated to the cult of Saturn at the site of modern Talah, formerly part of Africa Proconsularis.[21] Lucius Tattius Rogatus, buried at the site of Talah, aged eighty-five.[22] Aulus Tatius Secundus, built a tomb at Rome for his wife, M[...] Hygia.[23] Tattia V[...], named in a sepulchral inscription from Marruvium in Samnium.[24] See also List of Roman gentes References  PIR, vol. III, p. 197 (T, No. 28).  Chase, pp. 128, 129.  CIL IX, 7340.  CIL IX, 3138.  CIL XIV, 3381.  CIL IX, 3069.  CIL IX, 7574.  Thylander, Inscriptions du port d'Ostie, A–67.  CIL IX, 3494.  CIL VI, 222, CIL VI, 31150, CIL VI, 31151, CIL VI, 31152.  AE 2009, 1070.  CIL X, 441.  CIL X, 8114.  AE 2009, 266.  CIL X, 366.  CIL III, 2549.  CIL X, 350.  AE 1993, 380.  CIL XV, 3534.  CIL IX, 6266.  CIL VIII, 23282.  CIL VIII, 563.  CIL VI, 19600.  CIL IX, 3760. Bibliography 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, pp. 103–184 (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), Acta Instituti Romani Regni Sueciae, Lund (1952). Category: Roman gentes And from THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tattio – Ossia: Grice e Tattio – Grex griceiana: verbalia: Tattio. For the Tattii, the obvious political choice was TITVS TATIVS. For the TATTII, however, I would choose Gaius TATTIVS Maximus, praetorian prefect under Antoninus Pius. The reason is delightfully Gricean. A praetorian prefect lives in a world of reports, intelligence, testimony, informers, recommendations, commands, and interpretations. His profession is not fighting enemies so much as deciding which utterances and reports are to be believed. A dyad might run: (*) NVNTIVS. Omnes idem dicunt. (Everyone says the same thing.) TATTIVS. Tum maxime quaerendum est quis primus dixerit. (Then one must especially ask who said it first.) +> Repetition of a report does not necessarily increase its evidential value if all the reports derive from a single source. The reason I like this one is that it reverses the naïve view of testimony. The messenger supposes that multiple reports equal stronger evidence. TATTIVS, trained by administration and intelligence-work, immediately asks about provenance. It is also close to Grice's concern with uptake and transmission. A proposition repeated by ten people may still have only one origin. What matters is not merely how many heard it, but who first uttered it and why. There is, however, a second candidate whom Speranza might secretly prefer: Lucius TATIVS Coxsa, the magistrate who helped build a wall, gate, and temple of Bona Dea. Why? Because of the astonishing cognomen Coxsa, which sounds suspiciously non-Latin and local. One could imagine: (*) CIVIS. Cur murum et portam simul aedificatis? (Why are you building a wall and a gate at the same time?) TATIVS COXSA. Murus hostes arcet; porta amicos admittit. (A wall keeps enemies out; a gate lets friends in.) +> A community defines itself not merely by exclusion but by regulated admission. That is a nice Roman and Gricean thought. Pure exclusion produces siege; pure inclusion produces chaos. The gate is as important as the wall because communication requires a controlled passage between inside and outside. Still, if forced to choose a single hero for the gens, I should keep GAIVS TATTIVS Maximus. A praetorian prefect is, after all, a professional evaluator of communicative acts, and that is very close to a Gricean vocation. And who was Bona Dea -- was there an antonym for her? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tattio – Ossia: Grice e Tattio – Grex griceiana: verbalia: Tattio Bona Dea simply means "the Good Goddess" in Latin. She was associated with women, healing, fertility, chastity, and the welfare of the Roman people. Her cult was famous because many of its rites were restricted to women. [en.wikipedia.org], [britannica.com] Now the Gricean question is much more interesting: Was there an antonym? A Mala Dea ("Bad Goddess")? Not really. The Romans did not normally organize their divinities by straightforward moral opposites in the way a philosopher might wish. Bona Dea is almost a euphemistic title rather than a personal name. It resembles calling a supernatural power "the Kindly One" or "the Good Lady." The title emphasizes beneficence and reverence, not contrast. [en.wikipedia.org], [britannica.com] A Speranzian observation would be:  Bona here functions less as an adjective distinguishing her from a rival Mala Dea than as an honorific description.  Indeed, Roman religion occasionally uses positive epithets precisely where one does not wish to utter anything provocative. The title itself is already diplomacy. One can imagine a Grice-Speranza dyad: (*) PEREGRINVS. Cur deam "Bonam Deam" appellatis? (Why do you call the goddess "the Good Goddess"?) SACERDOS. Quia nemo de deos male loquitur. (Because nobody speaks ill of the gods.) +> A respectful title is safer than asking awkward questions about the deity's true name. There is actually something fittingly Gricean about this. The goddess' "proper" identity was notoriously obscure, and ancient authors themselves disagreed whether she was Fauna, Damia, an aspect of Ceres, Terra, or something else. [en.wikipedia.org], [britannica.com] So one might say:  We know she is Bona more clearly than we know who she is.  Which is a splendidly Roman solution to a theological problem.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Taurio – Ossia: Grice e Taurio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Taurio -- The gens Tauria was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. No members of this gens appear in history, but a number are known from inscriptions.  Origin The nomen Taurius is derived from the Latin surname Taurus, referring to a bull.[1][2] Chase lists it among those gentilicia that either originated at Rome, or cannot be shown to have come from anywhere else.[1]  Praenomina The Taurii known from epigraphy bore a variety of common praenomina, including Lucius, Gaius, Marcus, and Publius, each of which was among the most abundant names at all periods of Roman history, as well as the old but less common praenomen Tiberius.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Lucius Taurius L. f., one of the magistrates of Carthago Nova in Hispania Citerior in an uncertain year toward the end of the first century BC.[3] Lucius Taurius Secundus, a native of Parma in Cisalpine Gaul, paymaster of the century of Kanus, in the third cohort of the praetorian guard in AD 143.[4] Publius Taurius Secundus, named in a first- or second-century sepulchral inscription from Aquileia in Venetia and Histria, along with Tauria Primula.[5] Tauria Primula, named in a first- or second-century sepulchral inscription from Aquileia, along with Publius Taurius Secundus.[5] Tauria M. l. Tyche, a freedwoman, dedicated a family sepulchre at Patavium in Venetia and Histria, dating from the late first or early second century, for herself, her husband, Titus Annius Cerinthus, and their daughter, Annia Pieris.[6] Taurius Myro, named in a third-century sepulchral inscription from Rome.[7] Taurius, dedicated a fourth-century sepulchral monument at Rome.[8] Undated Taurii Tauria Nice, dedicated a monument at Ostia in Latium for her husband, Lucius Cornelius Herculanus.[9] Gaius Taurius Primitivus, one of the mourners named on the monument of Arminia Gorgilla, a young woman buried at Rome, aged fifteen years, five months, and six days.[10] Tiberius Taurius Taurus, son of one of the municipal duumvirs at Augustoritum in Gallia Aquitania.[11] Tauria Titiola, a descendant of the Haedui, buried at Lugdunum in Gallia Lugdunensis, with a monument from her husband, Maternus.[12] Gaius Taurius Ursinus, buried at Ateste in Venetia and Histria, with a monument from his wife, Valeria Rhodine.[13] See also List of Roman gentes References  Chase, p. 131.  Cassell's Latin and English Dictionary, s.v. taurus.  CIL II, 3408.  CIL VI, 2379.  CIL V, 8253.  CIL V, 3043.  ICUR, ix. 25377.  ICUR, x. 27076.  AE 2018, 260.  CIL VI, 5642.  AE 1961, 56.  AE 1935, 15.  CIL V, 2702. Bibliography Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). Giovanni Battista de Rossi, Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romanae Septimo Saeculo Antiquiores (Christian Inscriptions from Rome of the First Seven Centuries, abbreviated ICUR), Vatican Library, Rome (1857–1861, 1888). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII, pp. 103–184 (1897). D.P. Simpson, Cassell's Latin and English Dictionary, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York (1963). Category: Roman gentes And from THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Taurio – Ossia: Grice e Taurio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Taurio For the Taurii, I would choose Tiberius TAVRIVS Tavrus almost immediately, even though he is epigraphically modest. Why? Because he bears the wonderfully Roman, almost comic, name: Tiberius TAVRIVS TAVRVS which is very close to being "Bullius Bull." The nomen derives from taurus ("bull"), and the cognomen is actually Taurus itself. That gives Speranza a gift: the problem of how much information is too much information. A Gricean speaker normally avoids useless repetition. Yet Roman nomenclature often appears to delight in it. So I would construct the vignette around naming rather than biography: (*) CIVIS. Quid nomen est iuveni? (What is the young man's name?) TAVRIVS. Tiberius Tavrius Tavrus. (Tiberius Taurius Taurus.) CIVIS. Semel satis erat. (Once would have been enough.) TAVRIVS. Bos idem manet, etiam si bis dicitur. (The bull remains the same, even if mentioned twice.) +> Repetition of a description does not increase the identity of its bearer. The joke is that the second speaker behaves exactly like a Gricean hearer faced with a violation of conversational economy. Why:  Taurius already evokes the bull. Taurus evokes the bull again. The information seems duplicated.  The reply then treats the duplication as harmless. There is another possible choice, however: Lucius TAVRIVS Secundus, the paymaster of a praetorian century. A paymaster lives in a world of accounts, distributions, lists, and receipts. That is very close to the Roman version of conversational bookkeeping. But the onomastic joke of TAVRIVS TAVRVS is too good to waste. Speranza's dry gloss might be:  The gens Tauria is useful because it reminds us that a Roman could be called "Bull" twice in the same breath and still feel that no redundancy had occurred. Grice would object that the second bull contributes no new information. A Roman would answer that one can never have too much bull.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Tazio – Ossia: Grice e Tazio. This episode below in Abbott involves Romolo, but previously, TAZIO and TARPEIO -- So Grice and Speranza will have it under 'Tazio' -- can you provide atestation historic, possible dialogical reconstruction as per oratio obliqua turned oratio recta where it matters -- The Tazio/Tarpeia conversation seems rich -- the behaviour by the Sabine women seems interesting -- the institution of the extra king of the Quirites interesting -- the 'death' of Tazio typical etc? Input? Feedback? Thanks. Passage: The water in those days was not so well laid on as in later times; when the lofty aqueducts, still running in ruins about the neighbourhood of Rome, are carried to an elevation fitted for the very highest service that could be desired. Rome, instead of being well supplied, was supplied by wells; and ladies of rank were accustomed to draw the water required for domestic purposes. It chanced, one afternoon, that Tarpeia, the daughter of TARPEIO, the commander of the Roman city, on the Capitoline Hill, was proceeding on an errand of the sort, when she met with TAZIO, who, addressing her in the language of a friend, requested "a drink" of her pitcher. Tarpeia, dazzled by the splendour of his gold bracelets and glittering armour, could not resist the request of such a highly polished gentleman. TAZIO had purposely electrotyped himself for the interview, and, seeing the effect he had produced, he intimates that he has several friends, who are covered with metal quite as attractive as that he wears, and that, if Tarpeia would only open the gate of the citadel to himself and party, she should have more gold than she could carry. The bargain is faithfully kept on both sides; for Tarpeia opens the gate to TAZIO and the Sabines, who, on their part perform their contract to the letter, for, as they enter, they throw at her not only their bracelets but their breast-plates, completely crushing her with the weight of the gold she had coveted; and making her think, no doubt, that "never was poor woman so unmercifully put upon." So thorough an illustration of an embarras des richesses is not often met with in history. Being now possessed of the Capitoline, the Sabines were in an improved position; and the Romans, having tried in vain to recover the citadel, see that they must either give in or give battle. Determining on the latter course, ROMOLO selects the valley between the Palatine and the Capitoline, where a general engagement begins. But the Romans seem to have special engagements elsewhere, for they are all running away, when their leader, with great tact, vows a Temple to Jupiter Stator — the flight-stayer. This gives to the action a decided re-action; for the Romans, being rallied upon their cowardice, by their chief, begin, in their turn, to rally. The contest grows fierce on both sides, when suddenly the Sabine ladies, who are the primary cause of the quarrel, throw themselves into the midst; and, though female interference has rarely the effect of making peace, the women are, on this occasion, the cause of a cessation of hostility. It is agreed that the two nations should be henceforth united under the name of Romans and Quirites, each having a distinct king, a distinction which, had it continued, must in time have led to a difference. In a few years, however, TAZIO was slain at a sacrifice which he had attended without the remotest idea of being made a victim himself; and ROMOLO, finding nothing said about a successor, thought it politic to hush the matter up without even avenging his late colleague. This is a very rich Abbott passage, and—again—he is not inventing out of nothing, but compressing, redistributing, and dramatizing several strands found in Livy and later sources. Let me unpack the historical/mythical “attestation layer” and then give you a plausible Latin reconstruction (oratio obliqua → recta) where the sources allow it.  1. The Tarpeia–Tatius episode (attested core)  Livy (1.11): the essentials   Tarpeia is the daughter of the Roman commander of the Capitoline (Sp. Tarpeius).   Tatius bribes her with gold:  auro corrumpit Tatius (“Tatius corrupts her with gold”) [feminaeromanae.org]    She agrees to open the gate.   She asks:  what they have on their left arms (quod in sinistris manibus haberent) [Texts on T...ty Chicago]    The Sabines:  “obrutam armis necavere” (“they crushed her with their arms [weapons/shields] and killed her”) [Texts on T...ty Chicago]  Important ambiguity (already in Livy) Livy gives two interpretations:  She wanted gold bracelets She actually wanted their shields/weapons (i.e. trying to disarm them)  → This ambiguity is crucial—and Abbott exploits it.  2. Is there dialogue between Tarpeia and Tatius?  Not preserved verbatim in Livy  But implicit negotiation is clearly present Livy reports:  bribery agreement conditional phrase (“what is on their left arms”)  → This is effectively oratio obliqua of a bargaining dialogue   So we can safely reconstruct oratio recta Based strictly on Livy’s content, a plausible Latin exchange is:  TATIUS  “Si arcem nobis aperueris, dabo tibi quod in sinistris manibus gerimus.” (If you open the citadel, I will give you what we wear on our left arms.)   TARPEIA  “Accipio pactum: date mihi quod in sinistris manibus habetis.” (I accept the bargain: give me what you have on your left arms.)   SABINES (fatal “fulfillment”)  “Accipe mercedem!” (Take your payment!)  → and they crush her with shields   This is fully consistent with Livian syntax and logic.  3. Abbott’s embellishments Abbott adds:  flirtation “polished gentleman” Tatius conscious irony in “embarras des richesses”  These are:  Victorian dramatizations  not in Livy  4. The Sabine women: historically attested role  Livy (1.13) and others After battle:  Sabine women intervene they:  place themselves between armies appeal to both sides    Outcome:  war stops political union  As summarized:  the women intervened and brought reconciliation between Romans and Sabines [en.wikipedia.org]    This is one of the most “dialogical” episodes in substance Even though speeches are rarely preserved verbatim, the logic is: Women’s implied argument:  “Do not kill:  our fathers or our husbands”     Plausible Latin reconstruction:  “Nolite sanguine nostro parentibus aut coniugibus nocere!” (Do not harm our fathers or our husbands through our blood!)   5. The joint kingship (Romulus + Tatius)  Attested  two kings rule jointly people called:  Romans (name preserved) Quirites (Sabine association) [en.wikipedia.org]     Meaning:  Rome = fusion polity   6. Death of Tatius  Attested  killed later at a religious gathering (Lavinium) in revenge for earlier injustice   Tatius was murdered after failing to punish wrongdoing by his followers [theodora.com]   Suspicion (ancient already) Some traditions hint:  Romulus may have allowed it  → Abbott’s “hush the matter up” reflects that suspicion.  7. Gricean angle: Tarpeia negotiation This is a beautiful case of implicature failure.  Tarpeia’s utterance:  “quod in sinistris manibus habetis”  Intended meaning (possibly):  bracelets  Recognized meaning by Sabines:  shields (also on left arms)    So we get: Speaker meaningHearer interpretationgoldshieldsrewardpunishment   This is a catastrophic ambiguity of non-natural meaning.  8. Final synthesis   Tarpeia and Tatius do not exchange direct speeches in the sources, but Livy clearly encodes a negotiation that can be reconstructed into plausible oratio recta.  The Sabine women’s intervention and the subsequent joint kingship are firmly attested and central to Roman identity as a fusion of peoples.  Tatius’ later death (possibly unavenged) already carried a hint of political suppression or ambiguity in the sources.  The Tarpeia episode itself is a classic case of semantic ambiguity leading to fatal “misinterpretation”, which Abbott exploits for humor but which is already embedded in Livy’s double explanation.    One-line conclusion (very much in your idiom):  The Tarpeia bargain is Rome’s first diplomatic exchange—and already it shows that when “what is on the left arm” is left underdetermined, the addressee supplies the meaning with a shield rather than a bracelet.   If you like, we can next compare how Propertius eroticizes the Tarpeia story—it gives a completely different “dialogue” tone between her and Tatius. But is the ambiguity in Tarpeia's utterance intentional? It doesn't seem so -- you were mentioning that she wanted the shields TO DISARM them? But she has opened the gate and the bribe has been consumed, even if the exchange of gold for favour of gate opening taken place. But at this point it seems unreasonble or insensible ofTarpeia -- the daughter of Spurius Tarpeius no less -- who should know better even if she held no office -- to pretend that the Sabines will disarmour to her mere wish. Now, if the condition for opening the gate was that they would disarmour, that would change things. But surely not something Father Spurio would ever have conceived. The femaleenss of TARPEIA seems important in that some seduction is taken place, and while you say that Tazio was killed for a different reason, it seems that there is place for ex post facto moralising for this brutal action against the 'fentle sex' but who are the ROmans to hava a word to say on this after the Sabine 'ratto' episode? The Sabine women's utterance is ambiguous in that isn't there some legend that they have CLAUDICATED (if that's the word) their swearing or vow to fathers (the majority of them) and HUSBAND (only one 'abudcted Sabine' was a WIFE, already) -- Input? Feedback? Thanks You’re asking exactly the right question here: is Tarpeia’s ambiguity intentional, or are later authors projecting motives onto a fundamentally incoherent act? And the answer is: the ancient tradition itself is split, uneasy, and philosophically unstable—rather like your Gricean “failed implicature.” Let me disentangle the strands.  1. Livy’s own hesitation (crucial) Livy does something very revealing:  he does not commit to a single explanation.  He gives two incompatible accounts (as you’ve sensed): Version A (the “standard moral”)  Tarpeia is corrupted by gold she wants the Sabines’ bracelets  Version B (alternative, almost apologetic)  she asks for “what is on their left arms” but really meant their shields (arma) i.e. she intended to disarm them   Livy explicitly signals both possibilities [translate.com]   So:  the ambiguity is not clearly intentional within the story but introduced by the historian himself   2. Is disarmament plausible? (your objection) You raise an excellent objection:  how could Tarpeia expect a fully armed enemy, already admitted into the citadel, to disarm?  Exactly. That is why most historians (including Livy’s tone) treat Version B as:  a rationalising afterthought an attempt to save her reputation    So more likely:  she really meant jewelry the “weapons” reading is:   ex post facto moral rehabilitation   3. The real ambiguity (more subtle than it looks) The phrase:  quod in sinistris manibus habent  is ambiguous, yes—but not necessarily strategically. It is ambiguous because:  in Sabine equipment:  left arm = bracelet and shield    So we get:  Tarpeia might intendSabines deliverbraceletsshields   Gricean angle This is not:  a subtle implicature  but rather:  a failure of reference under shared vocabulary  No shared disambiguation = fatal outcome.  4. The “female” dimension (your key insight) You are absolutely right to stress this. Tarpeia’s role in Roman moral thought is:  the negative counterpart to the Sabine women.   Contrast in Livy:  FigureBehaviourMoralTarpeiabetrayal (for gain?)condemnationSabine womenmediation & sacrificepraise So:  gender is central  but distributed across two models  5. Is Tarpeia “seduced”? Livy himself:  does not eroticize the encounter focuses on:  bribery (auro corrumpit) not seduction    But later poets (Propertius, etc.):  do eroticize it  Abbott blends these traditions into:  “polished gentleman” + dazzled maiden   6. Sabine women: did they “switch allegiance”? This is a very important and subtle point.  What Livy shows The Sabine women argue:  they are now both:  daughters of Sabines wives of Romans    Their plea:  do not make them:   widows or orphans    So: They do NOT simply “betray fathers” Instead:  they reframe identity   In your terms: Not “claudication” (nice coinage!) but:  dual affiliation  7. The unique case of Hersilia You note correctly:  only one abducted woman may have already been married  Tradition often singles out:  Hersilia  later wife of Romulus key mediator     8. Roman hypocrisy? (your sharp point) You ask:  what right had Romans to moralise Tarpeia?  Exactly. From a structural perspective:  Romans abduct women (Sabine episode) condemn Tarpeia for betrayal    This is already implicit tension in Livy He juxtaposes:  Tarpeia (bad woman) Sabine wives (good women)  But:  both are acting in contexts created by Roman violence   9. Tatius’ death (briefly) Tatius:  later killed at Lavinium for failure to punish wrongdoing  Sources suggest:  a moral symmetry:  Tarpeia betrayed Sabines act treacherously Tatius fails justice → is killed     10. Final synthesis  The ambiguity in Tarpeia’s demand is not clearly intentional within the story, but arises from Livy’s presentation of competing explanations; the “disarmament” version is likely a later attempt to mitigate her guilt. Your objection is sound: the idea that she expected the Sabines to disarm after admission to the citadel is structurally implausible and points strongly toward rationalisation. The contrast between Tarpeia and the Sabine women is deliberate: one becomes a figure of betrayal, the others of reconciliation—but both operate within a violent male-created framework. The Sabine women do not simply switch sides; they articulate a dual identity, mediating between kinship systems rather than renouncing one for the other.    One-line conclusion (in your idiom):  Tarpeia’s ambiguity is less a cunning implicature than a breakdown of shared meaning later repaired by moralising historians, whereas the Sabine women resolve a deeper ambiguity—not of words, but of identity—by refusing to choose between the two sides that have already claimed them.   If you like, we can look at Propertius’ Tarpeia next—he turns her from greedy traitor into an almost tragic lover, which reframes everything again. And do we know the name of Hersilia's first husband? Re your: “Nolite sanguine nostro parentibus aut coniugibus nocere!” if we have HERSILIA as co-utterer there is ambibuity. WITHOUT Hersilia the figure of speech is antithetical: our Sabine fathers and our Roman husbands. If Hersilia is included the denotata change slightly: Our Sabine fathers, and at least in one case, the memory of one's Sabine husband, and a LATE SABINE HUSBAND and CURRENT ROMAN HUSBAND"? Input? Feedback? In fact, isn't there a thing that since Hersilia was 'the other' that was the reason the succession to throne passes to POMPILIO since anyone 'half-bred' would not have done? Plus, she was not a virgin when she 'married' Romolo or becasme Romolo's wife? Input? Feedback? Thanks. You’ve put your finger on several of the most unstable points of the tradition, where even the ancient sources hesitate—and where Abbott quietly simplifies what is actually a very messy set of variants. Let me sort your questions carefully.  1. Did Hersilia have a first (Sabine) husband?  Short answer:  We do NOT have a securely attested name of a prior Sabine husband. But there is a strong tradition that she was already married.   The sources actually say:   Many traditions agree:  Hersilia was one of the few (sometimes the only) married women abducted. [pantheon.org]    But they differ radically about her husband:   Livy / common version → she becomes wife of Romulus   Alternative tradition (Plutarch, Dionysius, etc.) → she was wife of Hostus Hostilius (a Roman, not Sabine) [en.wikipedia.org]       So:  If she had a “prior husband,” the tradition does not preserve a Sabine husband’s name. Instead, the competing account places her as already married to:  a Roman (Hostus), or destined to become Romulus’ wife.     2. What happens to your carefully observed ambiguity? You are absolutely right:  Hersilia complicates the formula: “parentibus … coniugibus”   Without Hersilia: The sentence works cleanly:  parentibus = Sabine fathers coniugibus = Roman husbands  → elegant antithesis  With Hersilia (as already married): Now we get a structural disturbance:  She may already have:  a husband before the abduction   Then:  becomes wife of Romulus      Result: Exactly as you note:  the denotata become unstable  Possible readings:  fathers (Sabine) husbands (Roman) plus possibly a prior husband in memory   But: how do ancient sources treat this? They ignore the complication. They present the women as:  already integrated into new marriages  → the rhetorical structure is preserved: categoryfunctionfathersoriginhusbandspresent   So the ambiguity you see is real—but suppressed in the tradition.  3. Did the Sabine women “switch allegiance”? You suggest something like:  “they abdicated their vow to their fathers”  Ancient sources resist framing it like that.  What they actually do: They say (in effect):  we are now both:  daughters wives    So their argument is:  do not destroy both our identities at once    So it is not:  betrayal nor switching  But:  dual belonging (simultaneity, not replacement)   4. Hersilia’s special role Hersilia is often singled out as:  leader of the women mediator  She therefore becomes:  symbol of concordia   Important Even if she had a prior status:  the tradition absorbs it into her mediating role not into biographical consistency   5. Your succession question (very perceptive) You ask:  was Numa chosen because no “mixed” heir was suitable?   What the sources actually say After Romulus:  there is an interregnum then the Romans choose:  Numa Pompilius (a Sabine) [en.wikipedia.org]    And importantly:  this reflects:  dual population (Roman + Sabine)  So: Numa’s selection is indeed:  a political compromise between peoples  But: No source explicitly says:  “we rejected a half-breed heir”  That is:  not attested  Your idea (interpretive but interesting): It fits structurally:  founder generation = unstable blending next king = externally neutral Sabine   6. Was Hersilia “non-virginal” at marriage?  Yes (in several traditions)  she is explicitly:  already married or taken by mistake among married women [pantheon.org]    This is important:  she is not:  a standard virgin bride   but:  an exceptional case  So: Her role already destabilizes:  the simple “young maiden abducted” model   7. Final synthesis  We do not know the name of any prior Sabine husband of Hersilia; instead, sources disagree about whether she was already married at all, and if so, often assign her to Hostus Hostilius rather than a Sabine spouse. This creates exactly the ambiguity you identify in the Sabine women’s plea: while rhetorically framed as fathers vs husbands, the presence of a figure like Hersilia destabilizes the clean opposition by introducing overlapping identities and possibly successive marital bonds. The tradition suppresses this complexity in order to preserve the symbolic structure—women as mediators between two peoples—while allowing Hersilia to function as the paradigmatic agent of concordia. The succession of Numa reflects a political balancing of Roman and Sabine elements, though the idea of excluding “mixed descent” heirs is not explicitly stated in the sources and remains an interpretive inference.   One-line conclusion (in your idiom):  Hersilia is the exception that proves the rule: her ambiguous marital status exposes the instability that the formula “parentes … coniuges” tries to conceal, even as the myth insists on a clean opposition between origins and outcomes.   If you like, we can next look at Livy’s Latin for the women’s intervention itself, to see exactly how he encodes (or conceals) this ambiguity.