VA

 

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

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vacca – Ossia: Grice e Vacca: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’ala del silenzio. Note su Filosofia politica e filosofia giuridica. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice Giuseppe Vacca (Bari, Puglia): Institutionally, Giuseppe Vacca is much closer to H. P. Grice than many of the figures you have been comparing, because both are recognisably university intellectuals; but they still belong to very different institutional ecologies. Grice’s formula is exact in the Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide appointment in the faculty structure. So Grice combines the intimate tutorial culture of the college with the wider faculty structure of the university. Giuseppe Vacca, by contrast, belongs to the Italian university-state and public-political world. He was born in Bari in 1939, took his degree in filosofia del diritto in 1961 with a thesis on Benedetto Croce, became libero docente in storia delle dottrine politiche in 1966, won the chair at the University of Bari in 1975, and combined academic life with a long public career in publishing, party culture, the RAI, Parliament, and the Fondazione Istituto Gramsci. The standard biographical sources describe Giuseppe Vacca in exactly these terms: as a professor of political doctrines, organizer of culture, parliamentarian, director and later president of the Fondazione Istituto Gramsci, and a major interpreter of the history of Italian Marxism and twentieth-century political culture. Giuseppe Vacca was born in Bari in 1939, graduated in filosofia del diritto in 1961 with a thesis on Benedetto Croce, became libero docente in 1966, won the chair at Bari in 1975, served in the RAI and Parliament, and directed then presided over the Fondazione Istituto Gramsci. [it.wikipedia.org], [fazieditore.it], [san.beniculturali.it], [treccanilibri.it] So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate and university-faculty world. Vacca belongs to the public-professorial, cultural-political, and university-state world of modern Italy. That institutional difference fits your philosophical comparison rather well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under shared norms. Vacca, by contrast, works at the macro-level of civic and political reason. He is not a theorist of speaker-meaning or conversational inference, but a thinker of political culture, historical formation, and the institutions through which public reason becomes effective. The biographical record shows that his work moved from Croce and the origins of Marxism in Italy, through the history of contemporary Marxism, to broader studies of Italian republican culture, twentieth-century politics, and the transformations of the contemporary economy. Those are not topics of conversational pragmatics, but of civic-historical rationality. The main sources stress Vacca’s work on idealism, the genesis of Marxism in Italy, the history of contemporary Marxism, and the political culture of twentieth-century Italy. [it.wikipedia.org], [fazieditore.it], [san.beniculturali.it], [treccanilibri.it] So the sharpest formulation is this. Grice explains how rational interlocutors coordinate meaning in a local exchange. Vacca explains how rational speech and silence are conditioned by the ethical and political norms of a historical public sphere. That is why your phrase “imperativo di solidarietà conversazionale” works as a comparative gloss, but it should remain a gloss. I should also correct one factual point: the title L’ala del silenzio is not a secure biographical anchor for this Giuseppe Vacca. The search results tie that title to a much later poetry book by a different Giuseppe Vacca, not to the Bari-born political philosopher and historian you mean. The available sources for L’ala del silenzio point to a 2019 poetry collection by a different Giuseppe Vacca, not to the Bari-born philosopher and historian. [edizionimelagrana.it], [amazon.it], [mondadoristore.it] So the stronger and safer early anchor for your Vacca entry is not L’ala del silenzio but one of the attested early books: Politica e filosofia in Bertrando Spaventa, published in 1967, or the 1961 Croce thesis as a biographical fact rather than a bibliographic title. The archive and publisher sources confirm Politica e filosofia in Bertrando Spaventa (1967) as Vacca’s first book-length publication and confirm the 1961 Croce thesis as a biographical milestone. [it.wikipedia.org], [san.beniculturali.it] So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Giuseppe Vacca, by contrast, was an Italian professor of political doctrines, organizer of culture, and public intellectual, formed in Bari through Croce and later central to the political and cultural institutions of the Italian left, especially the Fondazione Istituto Gramsci. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Vacca to the university-state and civic-political world. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and implicature, whereas Vacca exemplifies a broader political and ethical conception of reason in which speech, silence, listening, and intellectual solidarity are judged by their role in civic formation, historical responsibility, and the legitimacy of public interlocution. And if I compress it into one line: Grice theorises how speakers imply; Vacca theorises how a public learns to speak and to listen. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, using the 1967 Spaventa book instead of the misleading L’ala del silenzio title. la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’ala del silenzio – Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning makes implicature a product of practical rationality under publicly shareable norms: a hearer is licensed to infer what is meant beyond what is said by assuming cooperative agency (maxims, relevance, sufficiency of evidence, etc.), and even silence or understatement can count as meaning-laden only insofar as it is interpretable as an intentional move within that rational economy. Vacca, by contrast (as a political-intellectual figure shaped by Croce, Marxism/Gramsci, and the institutional life of culture and party), is more naturally read as shifting “ragione” from Grice’s inferential micro-mechanics of talk to an ethical-political register in which conversation is a practice of civic formation: the “ala del silenzio” and an “imperativo di solidarietà conversazionale” treat the unsaid not primarily as a calculable inference from maxims, but as a norm of mutual recognition, restraint, and listening that conditions whether speaking together is possible at all. The point of contact is clear—both treat meaning as governed by norms rather than mere code—but the divergence is that for Grice the governing norms are primarily epistemic-rational constraints that make interpretation possible (implicature as accountable inference), whereas for Vacca the governing norms are solidaristic constraints that make interlocution legitimate (silence/understatement as ethical spacing for the other), so that “conversational reason” becomes less a logic of derivation and more a discipline of political-moral relation. -- solidario. solidarietà conversazionale. imperativo di solidarietà  conversazionale. Filosofo pugliese. Filosofo italiano. Bari, Puglia. Essential Italian philosopher. Grice: “My favourite of his books is “L’ala del silenzo” -- great title, from Alighieri about litotes and understatement. Si laurea in filosofia del diritto, discutendo una tesi sulla filosofia politica e giuridica di CROCE . Dopo la laurea, collabora come redattore alla casa editrice Laterza, per dedicarsi in seguito prevalentemente alla ricerca. Ha sempre svolto una intensa attività politica e di organizzatore di cultura, culminata con l'impegno dedicato alla casa editrice De Donato. In questa attività si colloca anche la fondazione dell'Istituto Gramsci pugliese, alla quale V. da particolare impulso. Libero docente in storia delle dottrine politiche, vince la cattedra di tale disciplina presso Bari. Frequenta la London School of Economics, seguendo corsi di Storia economica degli USA e dell'URSS. Fa parte del Consiglio di Amministrazione della RAI. E' stato deputato nella 9a e 10a legislatura, eletto nel collegio Bari-Foggia nelle liste del PCI. È stato direttore della Fondazione Istituto Gramsci di Roma, della quale, da allora, è presidente. Ha ricoperto anche incarichi di partito in Puglia e a livello nazionale. Nei primi anni di ricerca V. studia l'idealismo e l'hegelismo italiano, con attenzione prevalente alla genesi del marxismo in Italia. Ha rivolto poi i suoi studi alla storia del marxismo contemporaneo. Quindi alla società italiana e in particolare alla cultura e alla politica del Novecento, soprattutto l'età repubblicana. Ha approfondito le trasformazioni dell'economia contemporanea alla luce della rivoluzione telematica, e su tale sfondo ha ri-esaminato alcuni aspetti fondamentali del caso italiano. Nella Direzione dell'Istituto Gramsci dedica particolare attenzione ai temi del Novecento. solidarietà conversazionale, fascismo.  Grice: Professore Vacca, sono rimasto colpito dal concetto di “ala del silenzio” che lei elabora nella sua opera. Mi incuriosisce il modo in cui il silenzio possa essere interpretato non solo come assenza, ma come spazio solidale nella conversazione. Potrebbe spiegarmi cosa significa per lei questa “solidarietà conversazionale”? Vacca: Grice, la ringrazio per l’interesse. Per me, la “solidarietà conversazionale” nasce proprio nell’ala del silenzio: è l’imperativo di ascoltare e rispettare lo spazio dell’altro, a volte più eloquente delle parole. Il silenzio diventa così una forma di solidarietà, una premessa etica che apre alla comprensione reciproca e alla costruzione condivisa del senso. Grice: Mi trova d’accordo: troppo spesso si dimentica che il dialogo non è solo scambio verbale, ma anche capacità di accogliere ciò che resta non detto. In questo senso, il silenzio diventa quasi un imperativo morale, come lei suggerisce: la conversazione si fonda sull’equilibrio tra parola e rispetto, tra espressione e attesa. Vacca: Esattamente, Grice. E proprio la “solidarietà conversazionale” ci invita a superare ogni rigidità: ci ricorda che il dialogo autentico è aperto, plurale, e si nutre anche di understatement. Da Alighieri impariamo che spesso la verità si insinua tra le pieghe del non detto; il filosofo deve saper leggere tali sfumature e farne tesoro, soprattutto nella società contemporanea dove la parola rischia di essere inflazionata. Vacca, Giuseppe (1961). Filosofia politica e filosofia giuridica. Bari.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vailati – Ossia: Grice e Vailati: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della semantica filosofica di Peano. Note su un teorema di logica matematica. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Giovanni Vailati (Crema, Lombardia): Institutionally, Giovanni Vailati is closer to Grice than many of the figures you have been comparing, because both are serious philosophers concerned with meaning, logic, and method; but they still belong to very different academic ecologies. Grice’s formula is exact in the Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide faculty appointment. So Grice combines the intimate tutorial culture of the college with the wider faculty structure of the university. Vailati, by contrast, was formed in the Turinese mathematical and scientific world around Peano and Volterra. He studied at the University of Turin, served as Peano’s assistant, lectured on the history of mechanics there, and later left university life for school teaching while continuing an extraordinarily wide range of philosophical, logical, historical, and methodological publications. He therefore belongs less to a college-based tutorial world than to the modern research-and-science milieu in which logic, mathematics, and philosophy interpenetrate. The main biographical sources describe Giovanni Vailati as born in Crema in 1863, trained at Turin in engineering and mathematics, deeply influenced by Peano, later lecturing in the history of mechanics there, and eventually leaving the university for secondary teaching while remaining a major philosophical and logical presence.,, and  all confirm that profile, and the Milan archive and bibliography resources show the early logical work and the enormous range of later essays. [en.wikipedia.org] [mathshisto...rews.ac.uk] [treccani.it] [sba.unimi.it], [vailati.unimi.it] So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate and university-faculty world. Vailati belongs to the scientific, logical, and broadly research-oriented university world formed around Turin and later extended through an extra-university publishing life. That institutional difference fits your philosophical comparison rather well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under shared norms. Vailati, by contrast, works at the methodological and semantic level of inquiry itself. He is less interested in how a speaker in ordinary conversation leaves something unsaid for a hearer to recover, and more interested in how definitions, distinctions, questions, classifications, and theoretical formulations can either clarify inquiry or generate merely verbal disputes. The standard accounts stress exactly these themes: the analysis of meaning apart from truth, the demand that a thesis specify what difference it would make if true, the attack on “illusory contrasts,” the relation between pragmatism and mathematical logic, and the use of ordinary or established disciplinary language rather than gratuitous technical jargon. Those themes are explicit in,, and in the contents of Logic and Pragmatism, which includes essays such as The Art of Asking Questions, Language as an Obstacle to the Elimination of Illusory Contrasts, and Pragmatism and Mathematical Logic. [en.wikipedia.org] [encyclopedia.com] [en.wikipedia.org], [encyclopedia.com], [academia.edu], [press.uchicago.edu], [books.google.com] So the sharpest formulation is this. Grice explains how rational interlocutors coordinate meaning in a local exchange. Vailati explains how rational inquirers coordinate concepts, definitions, and consequences in a wider scientific-philosophical enterprise. That is why your comparison with Peano and pragmatism is strong. Grice gives a theory of speaker-meaning and implicature. Vailati gives a pragmatist-logical discipline for asking what a statement means, what difference it makes, and which disputes are only disputes of words. In both, reason governs meaning. But for Grice the governance is conversational and intention-directed; for Vailati it is methodological, inferential, and tied to scientific clarity. The early bibliographical anchor you chose is also securely attested. The Vailati archive bibliography lists “Un teorema di logica matematica” in Rivista di matematica in 1891, and this matches the general biographical record that his first published works were logical and mathematical papers in Peano’s journal. [vailati.unimi.it], [encyclopedia.com], [en.wikipedia.org] So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Giovanni Vailati, by contrast, was an Italian mathematician-philosopher and historian of science, formed at Turin under the influence of Peano and active in the research and publication world of logic, methodology, and pragmatism rather than in a college-tutorial system. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Vailati to the scientific and logical world of Turin, Peano, and post-university intellectual production. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and conversational implicature, whereas Vailati investigates the broader methodological conditions under which terms, definitions, distinctions, and theses acquire determinate content and genuine consequences within inquiry. And if I compress it into one line: Grice theorises how speakers imply; Vailati theorises how concepts mean. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, or a short note specifically on the bridge between Vailati’s pragmatist criterion of meaning and Grice’s later concern with rational accountability in language use.la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della semantica filosofica di Peano– formalists and neo-traditionalists. Grice’s theory of reason-governed meaning treats “what is meant” as reconstructible by practical rationality: interlocutors presume a Cooperative Principle plus maxims, and they infer implicatures from what is said, the context, and the assumption that the speaker is (in a qualified way) cooperative and rational. Vailati is a different kind of near-ancestor: trained in Peano’s logical milieu and aligned with a “pragmatismo logico” inspired by Peirce, he is centrally concerned with the methodological and linguistic conditions under which scientific and philosophical theses are made precise—especially the analysis of definitions, the avoidance of “illusory contrasts” generated by language, and the pragmatic test that a thesis must make a difference to what would count as facts or outcomes if it were true (a line he explicitly formulates in pragmatist terms). So where Grice explains ordinary conversational enrichment as a norm-governed inferential phenomenon inside the talk-exchange (implicature as a rational product of cooperative interaction), Vailati tends to approach meaning from the side of methodological clarification: how terms, definitions, and classificatory choices function as tools in inquiry and how philosophical disputes often dissolve once one specifies what difference a claim would make; this is “reason-governed” too, but in the register of scientific-philosophical method rather than the micro-norms of everyday conversation. The overlap is real—both oppose empty metaphysical verbalism and insist that rational constraints on use determine legitimate content—but the contrast is that Grice theorizes the logic of interpersonal understanding in situ (speaker intentions plus maxims yielding implicatures), whereas Vailati’s pragmatist-logical perspective makes “meaning” answerable to inferential roles in inquiry, definitional discipline, and the operational consequences of adopting one formulation rather than another, with conversational subtlety appearing (if at all) as one instance of a broader economy of rational explanation rather than as the primary engine of semantics. Grice: Why V., in a typically Italian fashion, does not QUITE fit!” -- The phrase ‘Grice italo’ is meant as provocative. An Old-World philosopher like Valiati would never have imagined to be compared to a tutor at a varsity in one of the British Isles, but there you are! It is meant as a geo-political reminder, too. Many Italian philosophers have been educated in a tradition that would make little sense of Valiati as a ‘Grice italo,’ but there you are. My note is meant as a tribute to both philosophers. Grie has been deemed an extremely original philosopher, and by Oxford canons he certainly was. He was the primus inter pares at the Play Group, the epitome of ordinary-language philosophy throughout most of the twentieth century. His heritage remains. Valiati’s place in the history of philosophy is other. But there are connections, and here they are. Filosofo lombardo. Filosofo italiano. Crema, Cremona, Lombardia. Essential Italian philosopher. an important figure in the history of formal semantics, influenced by PEANO, who in turn influenced Whitehead and Russell, and thus Grice. V. è, per certi aspetti, una figura anomala nel panorama della filosofia italiana. Matematico, allievo di Peano, aderisce a una forma di pragmatismo sovente caratterizzata come ‘pragmatismo logico’, che si ispira al pensiero del filosofo Peirce. Pensatore asistematico, V. è stato assimilato a Socrate per la capacità di dialogare con i principali protagonisti della cultura internazionale. Fautore di una filosofia che si deve sviluppare in stretto rapporto con la scienza, ritene essenziale che anche le discipline scientifiche dovessero tener conto della storia del pensiero scientifico. Dopo avere studiato a Monza e a Lodi presso Istituti dei padri barnabiti, s’iscrive alla facoltà di Matematica dell’Università di Torino. Peano, la semantica filosofica.  G.  You’ve brought me a paper with a title in it. A.  Two titles, sir. G.  That is already one title too many for Oxford. A.  Giovanni Vailati. 1891. Torino. Rivista di matematica. G.  That last phrase is the real offence. A.  Why? G.  Because it means logica has been kidnapped by mathematicians. A.  It used to be part of the trivium. G.  Exactly. Dialectica. And now it’s in a journal. A rivista. With Bocca on the cover, no doubt. A.  “Un teorema di logica matematica.” Page 103. G.  “Un.” One. Countable. Portable. As if truth came in small boxes. A.  Isn’t a theorem always one thing? G.  In Euclid it is. In Oxford it is a rumour. A.  Then what does it prove? G.  We don’t know. We can’t know, because the title doesn’t say. A.  It says “di logica matematica.” Of mathematical logic. G.  “Of” is a weak preposition. It attaches anything to anything. A.  But it makes the discipline sound like it consists of theorems. G.  Precisely. That’s the Italian bravado: logica matematica as a warehouse of teoremi. A.  And it’s in a mathematics journal, so philosophy is nowhere in sight. G.  Mind was still half psychology then, if you want irony. A.  So if you were an Oxford don in the 1930s you wouldn’t have been trained to read this at all. G.  We were trained to read Aristotle and Mill. And to write essays that look like arguments without being theorems. A.  Then why is Vailati doing this? G.  Because he is in Peano’s world. Torino. Where people think symbols are manners. A.  “Un teorema”—it sounds like a modest claim. G.  It sounds like modesty because it is singular. But it’s also a boast: we can prove things here. A.  Oxford can prove things. G.  Oxford can prove you’re wrong. That’s different. A.  You mean we don’t “converse mathematically.” G.  We converse evasively. We leave room for escape. A.  A theorem leaves no escape. G.  Exactly. Which is why Oxford prefers examples and counterexamples. A.  Still, the phrase “logica matematica” bothers you. G.  It suggests a discipline with a fence. A.  And Oxford dislikes fences? G.  Oxford dislikes fences unless it built them. It prefers hedges. A.  Hedges like “perhaps,” “roughly,” “in general.” G.  Exactly. The official Oxford modal operators. A.  Then Vailati’s “teorema” is blue-collar. G.  Blue-collar logic: it clocks in, does a job, clocks out with a proof. A.  Whereas Oxford logic is upper-class: it never admits it works. G.  It lets the servants do the work and then calls it “analysis.” A.  But you admire Vailati a bit. G.  I admire anyone who can say what he is doing. “Un teorema.” Clear. A.  Yet you’re suspicious of it. G.  Because “un teorema” could be a rhetorical flourish. A.  Like Vanini’s “as I treated it more fully elsewhere.” G.  Exactly. A theorem can be used like that: “there is a theorem—trust me.” A.  But he published it. Page 103. G.  Publication is a kind of courage. A.  And the second title? G.  Ah yes, the other paper. A.  “Le proprietà fondamentali delle operazioni della Logica deduttiva.” Page 127. G.  That’s worse. A.  Worse because it’s longer? G.  Worse because it’s grander. “Proprietà fondamentali.” “Operazioni.” It sounds like machinery. A.  Logic as engineering. G.  Exactly. The man of the street can’t have it. A.  But logic used to be for everyone. G.  In theory. In practice it was for monks and schoolmen. A.  Then the mathematicians just replaced the monks. G.  With better notation and worse Latin. A.  Yet Vailati is Italian, so his Latin isn’t bad. G.  His Latin is irrelevant; he’s writing Italian in a mathematics journal. A.  So you think Oxford couldn’t receive it. G.  Oxford in 1931 would look at “logica matematica” and retreat into Aristotle’s Prior Analytics. A.  Or Mill. G.  Yes. Mill’s System as a comfort blanket. A.  But by the late 1930s, with some Frege and Russell, could it enter? G.  It could enter as a foreigner. It would need papers. A.  Like an immigrant. G.  Precisely. Oxford likes its logic naturalised. A.  What does “teorema” consist of, anyway, in mathematical logic? G.  A statement and a proof, usually. A.  Proof from axioms? G.  Or from earlier theorems, which is the same thing with history. A.  And in 1891, “mathematical logic” is itself young. G.  Young enough to be ambitious. A.  So Vailati is early. G.  Early and therefore perhaps forgiven. A.  Forgiven by whom? G.  By Oxford, which forgives anything that is safely foreign and safely old. A.  1891 is safely old by the time we’re speaking. G.  Exactly. Sins endure; we don’t care when they start. A.  Still, “Rivista di matematica” is a jolt. G.  Because it reminds us that our “logic” is not owned by us. A.  It is owned by scienziati. G.  Or claimed by them. A.  And you don’t like being claimed. G.  No philosopher likes it. We prefer to be implied. A.  Like an implicature. G.  Exactly. Oxford’s whole method is to avoid explicitness. A.  Vailati is explicit. G.  He is explicit in the way Italians can be: formal, but social. A.  Social? G.  He’s writing in a journal edited by Peano. That’s a circle. A.  Like your play group, only with symbols. G.  Exactly. A club of mathematicians. A.  But you said theorems are “blue-collar.” G.  Within Oxford. In Turin, they are the dinner jacket. A.  Then perhaps we are provincial. G.  Oxford is always provincial and calls it tradition. A.  If we were to translate “Un teorema di logica matematica” into Oxford talk, what would it be? G.  “A remark on a point of logic.” A.  That’s an insult. G.  It’s an Oxford compliment. It removes the boast. A.  And “Le proprietà fondamentali…” G.  “Some observations on…” A.  You really do neuter everything. G.  It is a moral duty here. If you boast, you invite refutation. A.  A theorem invites refutation too. G.  A theorem invites verification. Refutation is a personal sport. A.  So Vailati is doing something un-Oxford: seeking impersonal necessity. G.  Yes. Proof as a form of public accountability. A.  That sounds like Grice. G.  Don’t flatter me with Turin. A.  You talk about accountability all the time. G.  In conversation, yes. Not in symbols. A.  But isn’t a proof a kind of conversation with an ideal audience? G.  Now you’re trying to reconcile Oxford with mathematics. A.  It’s my job as tutee: to annoy you. G.  You’re succeeding. A.  What do you think his “teorema” could have been about? G.  I refuse to guess without the text. A.  Yet we guess about everything else. G.  We guess with examples, not with theorems. A.  Fine. Then the only safe conclusion is: Vailati’s earliest publication in 1891 is already “mathematical logic” rather than philosophy. G.  Yes, and that’s the joke: the Italian philosopher begins as a mathematician. A.  And Oxford philosophers begin as classicists. G.  Exactly. Which is why we’re so bad at theorems: we start with Cicero. A.  And end with hedges. G.  And call the hedges “ordinary language.” A.  Punchline? G.  Yes: Vailati publishes a theorem in 1891; Oxford spends the next fifty years deciding whether it counts as conversation.Grice: Caro Vailati, se il buon Peano, quel genio gentile, avesse guidato la crociata del modernismo a Cambridge (Vadum Boum) invece di Russell, forse non avrei dovuto accanirmi tanto contro il modernismo. Diciamolo, con Peano sarebbe stato tutto più... implicito! Vailati: Ah, Paul, Peano era davvero un maestro della delicatezza: in Italia lo adoriamo proprio perché ci ha insegnato che la filosofia dovrebbe occuparsi delle cose che contano davvero, senza troppe urla. Altro che Croce, che da buon napoletano preferisce far rumore e lasciare sottintesi per l’applauso! Grice: Allora dovremmo fondare un club degli implicaturisti: chi non coglie lo sguardo di Peano, resta fuori! E Croce, poveretto, sarebbe costretto a scrivere postille invece di trattati. Vailati: Puoi scommetterci! Peano ci ha insegnato che la vera filosofia spesso passa tra le righe, mentre Croce cerca la folla e si fa capire pure dal portiere. Ma in fondo, Paul, tutto sta nell’intendersi senza dirlo troppo. E, tra noi, meglio un genio che ti sorride che uno che ti urla “moderno!” Vailati, Giovanni (1891). Un teorema di logica matematica. Rivista di Matematica.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valdarnini – Ossia: Grice e Valdarnini – scuola di Castiglion Fiorentino – Note su L’insegnamento della filosofia ne’ licei d’Italia. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Angelo Valdarnini (Castiglion Fiorentino, Toscana): Compared institutionally, Angelo Valdarnini is much closer to H. P. Grice than a poet, actor, or Roman author, because both are recognisably university philosophers; but they still belong to very different academic ecologies. Grice’s formula is exact in the Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide faculty appointment. So Grice combines the intimate tutorial culture of the college with the wider faculty structure of the university. Angelo Valdarnini belongs to the Italian university-state world of public chairs and professorial ranks. What is securely attested is that he was at Bologna as straordinario di filosofia teoretica from the academic year 1887–88 and later ordinario, which places him firmly in the faculty-and-chair system of the Italian public university. That is already enough to distinguish him from Grice’s college-based Oxford existence. So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate and university-faculty world. Valdarnini belongs to the public-professorial and chair-based world of the Italian university-state system. That institutional difference fits the philosophical comparison rather well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under shared norms. Valdarnini, by contrast, belongs to a much older sense of ragione as theoretical reason: metaphysical, epistemic, architectonic, concerned with categories, relation, absolute reality, and the reconciliation of science and spiritualism. On the evidence you yourself quote, his “reason” is not immanent in ordinary conversation, but directed toward the articulation of the structure of reality and the place of the sciences within a larger philosophical synthesis. So the sharpest formulation is this. Grice explains how conversational agents coordinate meanings. Valdarnini explains how theoretical reason coordinates categories, relations, and metaphysical claims. That is why your own caution in the opening paragraph is exactly right. Any “ragione conversazionale” attributed to Valdarnini is a retrospective Grice-coloured gloss, not a recoverable doctrine in his published work or Bologna record. The real comparison lies elsewhere: Grice makes language-use central and treats rationality as inferentially operative in exchanges; Valdarnini makes metaphysical and categorial order central and treats rationality as the power of synthesis over the sciences and over reality itself. There are also two factual cautions. First, the final bibliographic line is too weak as it stands. “Valdarnini, Angelo (1869). Dissertazione. Lettere. Pisa.” is not yet a proper citation. It looks more like a placeholder or a biographical milestone than a stable bibliographic item. Unless there is a title-page or catalogue record, I would not use it in a finished dossier. Second, the playful Grice-Diary voice about Austin, Chomsky, Bologna, and theoretical philosophy should remain clearly marked as playful reconstruction, not as evidence about Valdarnini himself. So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Angelo Valdarnini, by contrast, was an Italian professor of theoretical philosophy in the Bologna faculty-and-chair system, first as straordinario from 1887–88 and later ordinario. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Valdarnini to the university-state and public-professorial world. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and implicature, whereas Valdarnini belongs to a tradition of filosofia teoretica in which reason is charged with articulating the categorical and relational structure of reality, reconciling science with a spiritualist-metaphysical vision rather than theorising the pragmatics of ordinary talk. And if I compress it into one line: Grice theorises reason in conversation; Valdarnini exemplifies reason in metaphysical system. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, keeping the Bologna rank and dropping the weak 1869 dissertation line.la ragione conversazionle. Bologna. category. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning (paradigmatically, conversational implicature) treats “what is meant” as something hearers can rationally reconstruct from what is said plus a standing assumption of cooperative, purposive talk governed by norms (maxims) that can be exploited, flouted, or satisfied; the emphasis is on inference, intention-recognition, and the calculability of extra-sentential meaning under publicly shareable rational constraints. By contrast, what can be responsibly anchored to Angelo Valdarnini’s actual profile (rather than the playful “Grice’s Diary” ventriloquism) points away from a Gricean pragmatics of inference and toward an Italian late-19th/early-20th-century “filosofia teoretica” concerned with metaphysics, spiritualism, and the relation between philosophy and the sciences: Valdarnini is documented by the University of Bologna as Straordinario di Filosofia teoretica dall’a.a. 1887–88 (later ordinario), and contemporary/near-contemporary biographical notices stress his defense of an objective absolute reality, soul, and God, as well as his interest in “relazione” as a bridge concept between positive sciences and philosophical synthesis (rather than any explicit theory of conversational inference). So if one wants a comparison “Grice/Valdarnini” on “ragione conversazionale,” the cleanest contrast is that Grice theorizes reason as immanent in ordinary linguistic interaction—normative constraints underwriting how implicatures are derived—whereas Valdarnini’s “ragione” (as far as the evidence goes) belongs to theoretical reason in the older sense: metaphysical and epistemic reason tasked with articulating reality’s categorical/relational structure and reconciling science with a spiritualist-metaphysical outlook; any “conversational reason” attributed to Valdarnini looks like a later, Grice-colored retrospective gloss rather than a recoverable doctrine in his published work or Bologna record. From Grice’s Diary: “Speranza always advised me to keep my eye on Bologna, and her faculty (Speranza tells me that Bologna is feminine in Italian) — as he did with Oxford (or Boum Vadum, as Speranza calls her) and her faculty — when he had me! So Valdarnini fits the bill: he was ‘Straordinario di filosofia teoretica dall’a.a. 1887–88’ (we keep that in Italian). Now Austin, my master, never liked ‘straordinario,’ but then his antagonism to the Hun and his axis (which during the Phoney War included Italy) was so deep-rooted that it hurt, and it hurt him! Note that he was ‘straordinario’ in TEORETICA — by which Italians mean what at Boum Vadum we mean Waynflete, not White.” The Play Group worked their slow and meticulous way through it during the autumn of 1959. Austin, in particular, was extremely impressed.  Grice characterised and perhaps parodied him as revering Chomsky for his sheer audacity in taking on a subject even more sacred than phi-losophy: the subject of grammar. Grice's own interest was focused on theory formation and its philosophical consequences. Chomsky was taking a new approach to the study of syntax by proposing a general theory where previously there had been only localised description and analysis. He claimed, for instance, that ideally 'a formalised theory may automatically provide solutions for many problems other than those for which it was explicitly designed'. Grice's aim, it was becoming clear, was to do something similar for the study of language use. Meanwhile, ordinary language philosophy itself was in decline. As for any school of thought, it is difficult to determine an exact endpoint, and some commentators have suggested a date as late as 1970. However, it is generally accepted that the heyday of ordinary language philosophy was during the years immediately following the Second World War. The sense of excitement and adventure that characterised its beginning began to wane during the 1950s. Despite his professed dislike of disci-pleship, Austin seems to have become anxious about what he perceived as the lack of a next generation of like-minded young philosophers at Oxford. It became an open secret among his colleagues that he was seriously contemplating a move to the University of California, Berkeley? No final decision was ever made. Austin died early in 1960 at the age of 48, having succumbed quickly to cancer over the previous months. Reserved and private to the last, he hid his illness from even his closest colleagues until he was unable to continue work. semantica, semein, significare, io significo, ego significo. Grice: Angelo, dicono che tu sia il genio delle categorie a Castiglion Fiorentino! Dimmi, lì i filosofi discutono sul significato del “significato” o saltano direttamente al vino? V.: Ah, Paul, in Toscana crediamo che un buon bicchiere di Chianti aiuti a chiarire anche la semantica più aggrovigliata! Per il “significato” diciamo: “io significo, ego significo”—e se suona misterioso, diamo la colpa all’uva. Grice: Quindi le vostre categorie sono distillate, non dedotte? Austin avrebbe apprezzato—diceva sempre che l’unico argomento sacro dopo la filosofia era la grammatica. Se solo Chomsky avesse studiato la sintassi toscana, forse avrebbe prodotto teorie aromatizzate al rosmarino! Valdarnini: Proprio così, Paul! Qui il Play Group non ha fretta—l’autunno del ’59 ha visto più discussioni che vendemmia. E se vuoi la vera “lingua ordinaria”, chiedi a un contadino del tempo. La filosofia passa, ma un buon proverbio dura più di qualsiasi teoria formalizzata! Valdarnini, Angelo (1869). Dissertazione. Lettere. Pisa.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valentino – Ossia: Grice e Valentino: la ragione conversazionale a Roma e l’implicatura conversazionale di Romolo divino. Note sull’Evangelium Veritatis. Conservato in copto (Codice di Nag Hammadi). Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Valentino (Roma, Lazio): Institutionally, Valentinus and H. P. Grice are not comparable in the academic sense at all. Grice’s formula is exact in the modern Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide appointment in the faculty structure. So Grice combines the two characteristic Oxford functions: college tutor and university lecturer. Valentinus belongs to a completely different world: the second-century Christian and para-Christian world of teachers, sect founders, polemical opponents, and rival communities in Rome and beyond. He was not a don, not a fellow, and not a university lecturer. He was an Egyptian religious thinker and founder of the Valentinian movement, active in Rome from about the time of Hyginus, leaving traces primarily through the hostile reports of Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, and others, and possibly through the later tradition connecting him with the Gospel of Truth. Standard reference sources describe Valentinus as an Egyptian religious philosopher who moved to Rome around 136, taught there for many years, founded a major Gnostic school, and left a powerful legacy through the Valentinians. Valentinus was an Egyptian religious philosopher and founder of Roman and Alexandrian schools of Gnosticism, active in Rome from about 136 and influential there for roughly twenty-five years. [britannica.com], [en.wikipedia.org], [dacb.org] So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate and university-faculty world. Valentinus, by contrast, belongs to the sectarian, ecclesial, and heresiological world of second-century Rome. [britannica.com], [en.wikipedia.org], [dacb.org] That institutional difference suits your philosophical comparison rather well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under shared norms. Valentinus, by contrast, inhabits a world where meaning is governed by competing interpretive communities, theological secrecy, and communal identity rather than by the tidy assumptions of a local cooperative exchange. In his case, the same name — “Valentinus” — can indeed trigger radically different inferences depending on whether one is in a modern Roman fashion world or in the polemical archive of Hippolytus of Rome. But the more historically serious point is that Valentinian discourse is already organised around asymmetries: elect versus ordinary Christians, esoteric versus public teaching, revelation versus ignorance. The scholars’ sources describe Valentinus as teaching that only the spiritual receive the gnosis that brings them to the divine fullness, while others attain lesser or no salvation. [britannica.com], [en.wikipedia.org], [encyclopedia.com], [Valentinus...opedia.com] So the sharpest formulation is this. Grice explains how rational interlocutors coordinate on what a speaker means in ordinary talk. Valentinus exemplifies a world in which meaning depends on belonging to the right interpretive community at all. [britannica.com], [encyclopedia.com], [Valentinus...opedia.com] That is why your contrast about “which Rome you are speaking in” is clever but needs tightening. The couture “Valentino” joke is amusing, but the historically serious comparison should stay with the second-century theological teacher. The real contrast with Grice lies not in a name-game between fashion and heresy, but between: Grice’s model of shared conversational rationality, and Valentinus’s model of esoteric disclosure inside a stratified community of hearers. There are also two factual cautions. First, “Roma, Lazio” should not be used as a biographical heading for Valentinus. The standard sources identify him as Egyptian by origin, educated in Alexandria, later active in Rome. [britannica.com], [en.wikipedia.org], [newadvent.org] Second, your final bibliographic line should be corrected. The safe text is not “Valentino (MCMXCIII a.u.c.). Evangelium Veritatis. Conservato in copto (Codice di Nag Hammadi)” as if that were a Roman publication line. The secure scholarly point is: the Gospel of Truth is a Valentinian work from the mid-second century, sometimes attributed to Valentinus, but that attribution remains possible rather than certain. Major reference sources explicitly say that the text is Valentinian and that authorship by Valentinus himself remains possible but not definitively established. [earlychris...itings.com], [oxfordreference.com], [britannica.com], [Valentinus...opedia.com] So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Valentinus, by contrast, was a second-century Egyptian religious teacher and founder of a major Gnostic movement, active in Rome in the world of sectarian communities, esoteric doctrine, and heresiological controversy rather than in any academic institution. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Valentinus to the ecclesial-sectarian and polemical world of early Christian Rome. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and implicature, whereas Valentinus exemplifies a much more stratified regime of meaning in which what can be understood depends on initiation, doctrinal status, and the interpretive norms of a particular salvific community. [britannica.com], [en.wikipedia.org], [encyclopedia.com], [Valentinus...opedia.com] And if I compress it into one line: Grice theorises how speakers imply to ordinary hearers; Valentinus exemplifies how teachers disclose meaning to the elect. [britannica.com], [encyclopedia.com] If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, with the couture joke removed and the Rome–Hippolytus–Gospel of Truth line made central.la ragione conversazionale a Roma e l’implicatura conversazionale di Romolo divino -- Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats implicature as a rational, locally accountable inference: in a cooperative talk-exchange, hearers presume an intention to contribute appropriately (relevance, sufficiency, clarity, sincerity), and when an utterance seems to flout these expectations they compute what the speaker must have meant for the move to remain intelligible; “Valentino” throws into relief a different, Roman-shaped regime of inference, where what a name “means” depends less on an abstract dyadic model and more on institutionally saturated contexts (Rome as stage, heresiology as polemical archive, fashion as public semiotics, and “divinization” narratives as political theology), so that the same token “Valentinus” can, in different milieux, cue radically different inferences (in a couture setting, designer-brand uptake; in Hippolytus, a heresiarch and an eschatological soteriology of the elect), and the pragmatic lesson becomes: the implicature is not in the word but in the social game that fixes which cooperative expectations are live; Grice explains how rationality governs the step from said to meant within a shared conversational project, while the Valentino-material dramatizes how Rome itself multiplies projects and audiences, making “what is meant” a function of competing interpretive communities (the street, the church, the salon), each with its own norms and risks, so that conversational reason at Rome is less a single cooperative calculus than a disciplined sensitivity to which Rome you are speaking in—via Condotti, via Hippolytus, or via the play-group’s joking metapragmatics about how one and the same name can carry either silk or apocalypse (and sometimes both).  filosofia italiana – By , pel Gruppo di Gioco di Grice,  (Roma). Abstract. Keywords: eschatology. Filosofo italiano. He moves from elsewhere to Rome where he created a sect called ‘The Valentinians’, who Valentino described as being the only ones who would save themselves. Grice: “Eschatological!” -- Ippolito di Roma did not like him. Roma antica, Ippolito. GRICEVUS: O Valentine, Oxonienses cum nomen tuum audiunt statim de veste cogitant—quasi “Valentinus” sit tailor magis quam sectator eschatologicus. Dic mihi: quando primum ostendisti pompam tuam vestium Romae? VALENTINVS: Heu, GRICEVE, non ego ille sartor Romanus sum—sed si de illo rogas, scio quid quaeras. Primum celebre spectaculum eius fuit die XXII Iulii MCMLXII, Florentiae in Sala Bianca Palatii Pitti: ibi primum totus orbis eum “Valentinum” agnovit. GRICEVUS: Optime! Ergo si quis Oxoniensis dicit “Valentinus venit,” INplicat (nonne?) aut rubrum sericum aut apocalypsin—et saepe utrumque. Eschatologicum sane: “soli salvabuntur,” sed bene vestiti! VALENTINVS: Ita vero; et tu, si vis, fac regulam: Si Romae audis “Valentinus,” quaere contextum. Si in via Condotti: vestis. Si apud Hippolytum: haeresis. Si apud te: implicatura—et risus. Valentino (MCMXCIII a. u. c.). Evangelium Veritatis. Conservato in copto (Codice di Nag Hammadi).

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valenzo – Ossia: Grice e Valenzo – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Valenzo -- H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA -- GREX -- VERBALIA: VALENTIO The gens Valentia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. Few members of this gens appear in history, but others are known from inscriptions. The most famous of the Valentii was Aulus Valentius, one of the servants of Verres during his maladministration of Sicily.[1] According to one inscription, the emperor Hostilian was a Valentius, but this may be a mistake, and he was probably a member of the Messia gens.[2]  Origin The nomen Valentius is derived from valens, the participle of valeo, "to be strong".[3] It thus belongs to an abundant class of gentilicia formed from either the character or the condition of an individual.[4]  Praenomina The main praenomina of the Valentii were Lucius and Titus. A few members of this family bore other names, including Aulus, Publius, and Gaius. All of these were among the most common names throughout all periods of Roman history.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Aulus Valentius, a Greek interpreter, became one of Verres' agents during his plundering of Sicily. Cicero records an instance in which he extracted thirty-thousand sestertii from the inhabitants of Lipara, in addition to the amount that was owed, less than a third the value of his "bonus".[5] Valentia Repentina Verecunda, a freedwoman buried in a late first-century sepulchre at Savaria in Pannonia Superior, built from the proceeds of the will of Sextus Uttiedius Celer, a veteran of the Legio XV Apollinaris, for himself, Valentia, the freedwoman Uttiedia, and others.[6] Valentia P. l. Echinia, a freedwoman who, along with Tertia Herennia, received a donation from the aediles, according to a late first- or early second-century inscription from Novaria in Cisalpine Gaul.[7] Valentia, the widow of Lucius Valerius, was buried at Novaria in a family sepulchre dating from the first half of the second century, built by her son, Lucius Valerius Primus, one of the seviri Augustales, for his mother and brother, Lucius Valerius Optatus.[8] Lucius Valentius, buried in a second-century tomb at Rome, built by his brother, Gaius Valentius Niger.[9] Lucius Valentius Cere[...], named on a second-century lead pipe from Forum Novum in Sabinum.[10] Titus Valentius T. f., the son of Titus Valentius Haruspex and Cominia Pusilla, buried in a second-century family sepulchre at the present site of Cavaglio d'Agogna, formerly part of Cisalpine Gaul, built by his sister, Valentia, out of the proceeds of her father's will.[11] Valentius Demetrius, dedicated a second-century tomb at Apulum in Dacia for Gaius Atrius Crescens, a native of Carsulae in Umbria and a soldier in the Legio XIII Gemina, aged thirty-five.[12] Lucius Valentius Eutychus, built a second-century tomb at Verona for himself and his patron, Lucius Valentius Senecio.[13] Titus Valentius Haruspex, buried in a second-century family sepulchre at the present site of Cavaglio d'Agogna, built by his daughter, Valentia, out of the proceeds of her father's will, for Valentius, his wife, Cominia Pusilla, and their children, Valentius Secundus, Titus Valentius, and Titulla.[11] Gaius Valentius Niger, dedicated a second-century tomb at Rome for himself and his brother, Lucius Valentius.[9] (Titus) Valentius T. f. Secundus, the son of Titus Valentius Haruspex and Cominia Pusilla, buried in a second-century family sepulchre at the present site of Cavaglio d'Agogna, built by his sister, Valentia, out of the proceeds of her father's will.[11] Lucius Valentius Senecio, buried in a second-century tomb at Verona in Venetia and Histria, built by his client, Lucius Valentius Eutychus.[13] Valentia T. f. Titulla, the daughter of Titus Valentius Haruspex and Cominia Pusilla, buried in a second-century family sepulchre at the present site of Cavaglio d'Agogna, built by her sister, Valentia, out of the proceeds of her father's will.[11] Valentius Domitianus, a soldier in the Legio III Italica, buried in a family sepulchre at Castra Regina in Raetia between the late second century and the end of the third.[14] Valentius Paulus, made an offering to Jupiter Optimus Maximus at the site of modern Ribeira de Pena, formerly part of Hispania Citerior, according to an inscription from the second or third century.[15] Valentia Flora, the wife of Artorius Primitivus, with whom she built a third-century tomb at Rome for their son, whose name is not preserved, aged twenty-two years, two months, and nineteen days.[16] Gaius Valentius Hostilianus Messius Quintus, the emperor Hostilian, according to an inscription from Gamart in Africa Proconsularis; inscriptions on his coinage give Valens rather than Valentius. From his father's nomenclature, he probably belonged to the Messia gens rather than the Valentii.[2][17] Valentius, buried in a fourth-century tomb at Rome, aged eighteen, on the sixth day before the Kalends of December.[i][18] Valentius, buried in a fourth-century tomb at Thugga in Africa Proconsularis, aged eighty.[19] Valentius, named on a bronze label found at the present site of Montilla, formerly part of Hispania Baetica, dating from the fourth or fifth century.[20] Valentius Baebianus, donated a bath at Asola in Venetia and Histria in AD 336. Valentius, a little boy buried in a fifth-century tomb at Augusta Treverorum in Gallia Belgica, aged about four.[21] Undated Valentii Valentius, named in an inscription from Turgalium in Lusitania.[22] Valentia Januaria, buried at Regiae in Mauretania Caesariensis, aged about forty, in a tomb built by her husband, Appertius Sorcius, for Januaria and their daughter, Apertia Valentina, aged five.[23] See also List of Roman gentes Notes  November 26. References  "A. Valentius", in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 1215.  AE 1942/43, 55.  Cassell's Latin and English Dictionary, s.v. valeo.  Chase, pp. 110, 111.  Cicero, In Verrem, actio ii, 3. § 37. s. 84, 85; 4. § 26. s. 58.  AE 1972, 416.  AE 2001, 1099.  ILS, 6741.  CIL VI, 27913.  CIL IX, 8787.  CIL V, 6591.  CIL III, 1188.  CIL V, 3791.  Wagner, "Neue Inschriften aus Raetien", 120.  CIL II, 2388.  CIL VI, 38038a.  BCTH, 1943/45-104.  ICUR, iv. 10244.  AE 2013, 2098.  CIL II, 4975,76.  Recueil des Inscriptions Chrétiennes de la Gaule, i. 158.  Hispania Epigraphica, 2012-168.  CIL VIII, 21624. Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, 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). 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). Hermann Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae (Select Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated ILS), Berlin (1892–1916). Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae (Christian Inscriptions from the City of Rome, abbreviated ICUR), New Series, Rome (1922–present). Friedrich Wagner, "Neue Inschriften aus Raetien", in Berichte der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission, vol. 37/38, pp. 215–264 (1956–1957). D.P. Simpson, Cassell's Latin and English Dictionary, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York (1963). Recueil des Inscriptions Chrétiennes de la Gaule, Paris (1975–present). Hispania Epigraphica (Epigraphy of Spain), Madrid (1989–present). Category: Roman gentes And from THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valenzo – Ossia: Grice e Valenzo – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Valenzo The Valentii are wonderful because, unlike the opaque Uttiedii or Usii, their nomen is transparent almost at a glance.  Valentius from valens from valeo "to be strong, healthy, vigorous, effective." [GREXv3 | Word]  And this takes us straight into territory that Grice would have enjoyed, since valeo is one of those Latin verbs where physical and social meanings intertwine. A Roman says:  valeo  and may mean:  I am physically strong,  but also:  I am in good condition,  or even:  I carry weight, I am effective.  One moves almost imperceptibly from physiology to social efficacy. Hence:  Valens "the strong one,"  and  Valentius "the fellow belonging to the strong chap."   For a Grice-Speranza dossier, there are really two heroes. 1. Aulus Valentius, interpreter for Verres This is the obvious candidate. Cicero mentions:  Aulus Valentius, a Greek interpreter employed by Verres in Sicily, and records an episode in which he extracted money from the inhabitants of Lipara during Verres' administration. [GREXv3 | Word]  Now an interpreter is already a Gricean figure. Unlike our old haruspex Umbricius Melior, who interprets entrails, Aulus Valentius interprets languages. The chain becomes:  Greek speaker → Valentius → Roman authority.  And immediately we face a favourite Gricean question:  Did the interpreter merely transmit meaning? Or did he shape it?  Cicero's portrait is hardly flattering. The interpreter becomes an agent. Translation becomes action. One can almost hear Grice warning his tutees:  "An interpreter may contribute more than is required by the conversational purpose."  (Ha.)  2. Titus Valentius Haruspex Even more attractive, perhaps, is:  Titus Valentius Haruspex. [GREXv3 | Word]  That cognomen jumps off the page. A member of the Valentii who is literally called:  Haruspex.  Immediately we are back with:  signs, entrails, interpretation, Natura, divine communication.  We spent hours with Umbricius Melior. Now we discover a Valentius who bears the professional title itself. [GREXv3 | Word] The sequence becomes delightfully Gricean:  Signum → Haruspex → Interpretatio → Action.  A Roman semiotic chain.  Valens and Vale There is another point that may appeal to you. From:  valeo  comes:  vale! "be well!"  the ordinary Roman leave-taking. Thus one of the central Latin conversational formulas derives from the same root. A Roman conversation may close:  Vale. (Be strong; be well.)  The nomen Valentius thus sits surprisingly close to everyday Roman conversational practice. One might almost compare:  Grice's Cooperative Principle  with  the Roman wish: vale.  Both presuppose a degree of mutual goodwill.  The dossier problem You also raise a point very close to Grice's notion of a dossier. The famous Valentius is:  the interpreter of Verres.  Suppose we forget his nomen. What remains? The dossier:  Greek interpreter, Sicily, Verres, extortion, Cicero.  The reference survives. A Gricean would note that:  "Valentius"  contributes less to identification than  "Verres' interpreter in Sicily."  The dossier outruns the proper name.  A final Grice-Speranza joke Among the recent gentes we have encountered:  Utilii are useful. Urbanii are urbane. Urseii are bears. Valentii are strong.  A Roman asking for conversational advice might therefore receive:  Esto utilis. (Be useful.)  from Utilius.  Esto urbanus. (Be urbane.)  from Urbanius.  Esto valens. (Be effective; be vigorous.)  from Valentius. And Grice, listening patiently in Oxford, would probably translate all three into one maxim:  Make your contribution such as is required by the purpose of the exchange.  Which, in a very Roman way, combines usefulness, urbanity, and efficacy into a single conversational virtue. (Ha.) And what is the etym. or latin origin of haruspex? Thanks Indeed, and it brings us straight back to our speculator and Grice's perspicuity. Haruspex is almost literally an "entrail-inspector." The traditional analysis is:  haru- + -spex  1. haru- = entrails The first element is an old Italic word for gut, entrail, intestines, related to Latin hīra "gut" and probably ultimately to a PIE root referring to entrails. [etymonline.com], [en.wiktionary.org] 2. -spex = observer This is the lovely part:  -spex ← specere "to look at, observe"  the same great family that gives us:  speculator speculatio speculum inspectio perspicax perspicuus  and therefore Grice's:  "Be perspicuous (sic)."  The etymological source explicitly connects haruspex with the PIE root spek-, "to observe," also ancestral to speculate, speculum, perspicacious, etc. [etymonline.com] So:  haruspex ≈ haru-spex "entrail-beholder"  Compare the similarly built:  auspex "observer of birds/omens."  Indeed, -spex occurs in both haruspex and auspex. [en.wiktionary.org] And now our Titus Valentius Haruspex acquires an almost comic Gricean dossier:  Signum: exta Speculator: haruspex Operation: specere Desideratum: interpret correctly.  The one important caution is that although the word is Latin/Italic in formation, the religious practice represented by it was strongly associated with the Etruscan disciplina. [en.wikipedia.org] So Grice and Speranza could nicely have:  HARVSPEX: qui harus specit. (The fellow who looks at the entrails.)  And then Grice:  "Very well, but does he merely specere, or does he perspicere?"  For that is the whole problem. Anybody can look at the liver. The haruspex claims to see through it to what it signifies. (Ha.) And this was a profession: not someone who happened to observe some entrail -- say, roadkill. It's more organised than auspex because birds fly in the sky, blue birds fly, tell me why can't I? -- but entrail means or implies a victim has been offered to the gods, and the spex is going to do something about it -- as in Galba case: something perilous about your head. Otho overhears -- someone kills Galba in the forum. Otho becomes emperor. Thanks -- in the old days, human victims were offered, especially in Etruria, but the Romans were never as UN-civilised. So entrail IMPLIES -- non-Homo-sapiens-sapiens entrail. Thank -- usually an ox, as per Ox-ford -- taurus castratus -- oxford -- Grice's Vadum Castratorum Taurorum. Thanks Yes, and I think this is where a Gricean analysis becomes especially illuminating. A haruspex is not merely somebody who happens to look at entrails. If I am walking through Umbria and encounter roadkill and inspect its liver, I do not thereby become a haruspex. The word denotes a social office, indeed a specialist within a recognised religious institution. The very etymology:  haru- (entrails) + -spex (observer)  describes the act, but Roman usage describes a profession. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wiktionary.org] The crucial point is that the entrails are not just any entrails. They are the entrails of a sacrificial victim. Thus the semiotic chain is much richer than with an augur. An augur sees birds:  birds fly, augur interprets.  A haruspex sees entrails only after a ritual sequence:  victim selected, victim consecrated, victim sacrificed, entrails exposed, haruspex interprets, magistrate acts.  The sign is institutionally produced. In Gricean language, the sign already comes embedded in a highly organised communicative practice. Indeed, one might almost say:  sacrificial victim   ritual   haruspex   = authorised interpretation.  The haruspex is therefore closer to a jurist than to a casual observer.  The case of Galba illustrates this nicely. The sequence is not:  liver observed therefore prediction.  But rather:  sacrifice before Apollo, inspection of the victim, interpretation by Umbricius Melior, warning concerning danger around the emperor's head, Otho overhears, conspiracy proceeds, Galba dies, Otho becomes emperor.  The sign acquires political consequences because there exists an accepted institution authorising its interpretation. Without the haruspex, the liver is merely anatomical matter. With the haruspex, it becomes a message.  And you are right that the victim is overwhelmingly animal. Roman sacrifice normally involved:  oxen, bulls, cows, sheep, pigs,  depending upon deity, circumstance, and rite. The famous liver of Piacenza, for example, reflects the Etruscan and Roman concern with the sacrificial liver as a divinatory object. [en.wikipedia.org] Human sacrifice occupied a very different category. The Romans knew traditions associating certain peoples with human sacrifice, and Roman religion itself preserved a few notorious archaic episodes, but the standard world of the haruspex is emphatically the world of animal victims rather than human ones. So in ordinary Roman usage:  exta  naturally implies:  sacrificial animal entrails.  The implication is almost built into the practice.  I rather like the Grice-Speranza reconstruction: Haruspex:  Video exta.  (I see the entrails.) That is mere observation. But the professional move follows:  Periculum circa caput principis significatur.  (Danger is signified around the prince's head.) Now he is no longer observing. He is interpreting. And interpretation is his métier.  As for Grice's beloved Oxford:  Vadum Taurorum Castratorum (Ha.)  the ox does indeed make a fitting victim for Roman imagination. The very idea of a sacrificial ox combines:  agriculture, religion, political authority, public ritual.  An Oxford don crossing the ford sees a beast of burden. A Roman haruspex sees a potential text to be read. Which returns us to your earlier insight: a haruspex is not simply a man who looks. He is a man licensed to claim that Nature, or the gods through Nature, are saying something. The difficult question, and the Gricean one, is not whether he saw the liver. It is whether he truly persaw it, whether he perspexit beyond the entrails to the signatum hidden behind them. (Ha.) Indeed Grice played with his tutees with liver -- "a loose liver" may mean one thing -- an unscrupolous fellow, or an unfixed internal organ. -- The Piacenza liver is interesting. Cfr. Grice: Those spots mean measles -- indeed, they meant that to the doctor. When Grice gave the lecture in 1948, the cause of measles was still unknown. When Dahl's daughter died because she was not inocculated properly. One could say: "Those spots mean that, no vaccine, she will die." Grice was suspicious, after a load of Aristotelian readings on future contingents, with that -- there's also miracles. -- but in the case of Galba indeed, the entrail MEANT that Galba would die. 'predict' has Tacitus. And you cannot BUT predict the future. So one has to be careful. When Grice did the Grand Tour he saw the Liver of Piacenza. He used to say that one liver looked the same as any other liver -- but the semiotics is very complex -- signum, signatio, signatum, signans -- he who displays the sign, the entrail as 'sign' -- what the entrail means -- or signifies -- 'something,' Grice says, can signify wtihout being a sign' (Grice disallowed the use of 'sign' as noun) -- It's a very close reading of the entrail as the Piacenza liver shows that means this (p) or that (q). Thanks -- re augur and omen -- and auspex they seem to have predictive power too -- it is very rare that our hero, "V." the haruspex would invoke the community and communicate that the entrails 'meant' that Rome was founded on the hill of Palatine. For Grice, this is exhibition, and he needs protrepsis -- things to do -- practical semiotics at which the Romans, unlike the Greeks, were especially good. Thanks Exactly. I think the important Gricean correction is that Roman divination is interesting not merely as an apparatus for producing propositions, especially future-tense propositions, but as an apparatus for producing reasons for action. The historical evidence supports that emphasis. Roman public divination was connected with decisions and responses, and scholarship on prodigies explicitly treats interpretation and expiation together. Under the Principate, portents also increasingly cluster around the emperor, including threats to or endings of reigns. [academic.oup.com] So I would distinguish three stages. 1. Exhibition: p The haruspex examines the exta and announces something:  Exta significant periculum principi.  (The entrails signify danger to the prince.) That by itself is what we might call the exhibitive component:  the case is such that p.  And your comparison with Grice's:  "Those spots mean measles"  is excellent. In the ordinary medical example, there need be no communicator standing behind the spots. Grice's natural meaning is factive in the canonical construction:  Those spots mean measles. +> He has measles.  But entrails present the philosophically awkward intermediate case. The haruspex treats a natural object as an extraordinarily articulated message. 2. Protrepsis: therefore do A The Roman institution then wants:  p; ergo fac A.  That is the genuinely Roman bit.  Danger is indicated; therefore postpone, expiate, beware, consult, sacrifice again, do not proceed, etc.  Indeed accounts of Roman public auspices stress that their function was connected with determining whether a proposed public action had divine approval, rather than simply satisfying curiosity about an independently interesting future. [Divination...- NovaRoma] So in Gricean terms we might have:  Exhibitive: believe that p. Protreptic: do A in the light of p.  And the full haruspical performance needs both. 3. The Piacenza liver makes the semantics almost lexical This is where the Liver of Piacenza becomes extraordinary. It is a life-size bronze model of a sheep's liver, divided into regions for haruspicy, with individual regions bearing the names of Etruscan deities. [en.wikipedia.org] So Grice's joke that "one liver looks rather like another liver" acquires a serious answer:  Not to the trained interpreter.  For the haruspex, location matters. Configuration matters. Irregularity matters. Which region it occurs in matters. Rather like:  "I saw her duck."  To the untutored hearer, an ambiguous noise. To the grammarian, several possible parses. Similarly:  sheep's liver  for the butcher; versus:  articulated field of possible significationes  for the haruspex. That is astonishingly close to what you call close reading. The Piacenza model's subdivisions and divine names show that this was a structured interpretative practice, not simply "ugly liver = bad news." [en.wikipedia.org] And auspicium is importantly different I would therefore be cautious about saying that the auspex or augur necessarily "predicts." At least in important forms of Roman public auspication, the operative question is more like:  May we appropriately do A?  than:  Will p happen tomorrow?  That is wonderfully protreptic.  Faciamus? Shall we proceed?  Birds/sign:  Licet. / Non licet. Proceed / don't proceed.  The sign regulates conduct. [Divination...- NovaRoma] Whereas the Galba-type portent can take the dramatically predictive form:  something is going to happen to the emperor.  But even then, for Roman practical purposes it immediately generates:  therefore beware!  And then the exquisite Gricean complication is that a third party overhears the interpretation. So:  entrails → haruspex → Galba                             ↘ Otho  The intended protrepsis for Galba becomes useful information for someone else. That puts us straight back into your conversational dossiers. Meaning isn't exhausted by what p is conveyed. We must ask to whom, for what purpose, and what that person is thereby expected to do. I think that gives Grice and Speranza a very neat formula:  The Greek asks whether p. The Roman asks: if p, quid faciendum?  And the haruspex is accordingly not merely a spex, the fellow who looks. He is a professional charged with converting the inspected significans into a significatum sufficiently determinate to bear upon actio. That is precisely where semiotics becomes practical philosophy. So if Grice spends loads of tutorials on Aristotle's 'There will be a marine fight tomorrow' -- future continent as a matter of haruspex -- our other V. hero, the mere interpreter also caught Grice's attention as he lectured with Austin on De Interpretatione. For Boezio, interpretatio translates hermeneia. But our hero in Sicily is an interpres by profession -- which is odd at Sicily which while not Magna Graecia (which would make a Greek interpreter an otiosity) close enough! Thanks -- Cicero focuses on him to note the shrewdness of the Hellensitic temper, an 'interpreter' in a land very close to Magna Graecia who is involved in some bad dealings with Verres -- Boezio had a problem with 'interpretatio' because it's not just ANY interpretatio but usually of the A is B type -- negatio, affirmatio, etc -- He wouldn't say that "Ouch" or a duck's quack need much of 'interpretatio' Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valenzo – Ossia: Grice e Valenzo – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Valenzo Yes, and I think you have put your finger on a connection that would genuinely have fascinated Grice. There is a curious triangle:  Aristotle's Περὶ Ἑρμηνείας (De Interpretatione) → Boethius's De Interpretatione → the Roman interpres.  Yet the word interpretatio does not mean exactly the same thing in all three contexts. For Aristotle, hermeneia is not "interpretation" in the modern sense of explaining a text. Rather, it concerns the sort of linguistic expression that is capable of being:  true or false, affirmative or negative.  Hence the famous discussion of:  "There will be a sea-battle tomorrow."  The problem is logical and semantic. Boethius therefore found himself translating a Greek notion broader than simple translation but narrower than all-purpose "interpretation." An:  interiectio ("Ouch!")  or  a duck's quack,  would hardly count as hermeneia in the Aristotelian sense because neither is naturally analyzed as:  A is B, A is not B,  or some other proposition bearing truth-value. So your point is exactly right: Boethius's interpretatio is really the domain of:  assertion, negation, proposition.  Not every meaningful noise.  Now enter your Sicilian hero:  Aulus Valentius, interpreter to Verres. [GREXv3 | Word]  Here interpres means something much more concrete. Not:  expounder of propositions,  but:  mediator between linguistic communities.  And, as you note, the geographical setting is itself amusing. Sicily was hardly a linguistic frontier in the way Armenia or Syria might be. Greek was deeply entrenched there. One of Cicero's points is precisely that men such as Valentius could exploit their knowledge of Greek and local conditions in Verres' administration. [GREXv3 | Word] The interpreter therefore becomes something more than a translator. He becomes a broker. A conduit. Potentially a manipulator. That is why Cicero is interested in him at all. Nobody writes speeches against honest translators. (Ha.)  Now connect this with Grice. Grice's obsession is not:  What does this sign mean?  but:  What is somebody doing by means of it?  That is why he eventually becomes suspicious of "sign" as a noun. You nicely quote his favourite move:  Something may signify without being a sign.  Likewise:  Someone may interpret without being an interpres.  And an interpres may do more than interpret. Your Sicilian Valentius is a perfect example. He is not merely converting:  Greek sentence → Latin sentence.  He is participating in an administrative and financial system. Interpretation has consequences.  The sea-battle example and the Galba example then diverge beautifully. Aristotle  There will be a sea-battle tomorrow.  Question:  Is it true now?  Logical and metaphysical. Umbricius Melior  The entrails signify danger around Galba's head.  Question:  What should Galba do?  Practical and political. The Roman immediately moves to action. The Greek often remains at contemplation. That contrast can be exaggerated, but there is something in it.  The Liver of Piacenza is the perfect illustration. It is not a curiosity cabinet object. It appears to encode a whole interpretative system, dividing a sheep's liver into regions associated with divine powers. [en.wikipedia.org] In Gricean language, the liver is not merely:  signum.  It is almost a text. And the haruspex is not merely a spectator. He is a reader. The difference from Aristotle is that the reading is expected to yield:  practical guidance.  Hence your excellent phrase:  practical semiotics.  The Roman magistrate does not usually ask:  "What eternal metaphysical truth does the liver express?"  He asks:  "May we proceed?" "Should we delay?" "Are the gods warning us?"  The sign is tied to action.  Which brings us back to interpres. The haruspex is, in a sense, an interpreter of the gods. The Sicilian Valentius is an interpreter of Greek. Boethius is an interpreter of Aristotle. Grice is an interpreter of ordinary language. All four face the same problem:  How does one move from observable expression to intended significance?  The difference is that the Roman usually adds:  and what follows for conduct?  That is why your Galba example remains so powerful. The liver did not "mean" that Rome was founded on the Palatine. That would be antiquarian information. The liver meant:  Danger.  And therefore:  Do something.  By the time Otho overhears, the semiotics has already become politics. And shortly thereafter, history. (Ha.) And one wonders if Lewis and Short or other authorities, Andrews, Freund, Smith, are concerned about who was the first interpres. I don't think Romulus needed one. it is very rare that historians of Roman Histoty care about Faliscan-Latin interpretatio, or Umbrian-Latin interpretation. It's different with Hannibal! Thanks Yes, and this is a very Roman question, because the etymology of interpres is itself obscure enough that ancient lexicographers were interested in it, while the social history of the profession is often neglected. Lewis & Short devote much more attention to the meanings than to identifying some "first interpreter." The word covers a surprisingly wide range:  interpreter, translator, mediator, broker, negotiator, expounder.  Already that is fascinating. An interpres is not merely a bilingual dictionary with legs. He stands between parties. Indeed many philologists have connected interpres with the notion of standing "between" people in a transaction, though the precise etymology remains debated. Now your historical point is excellent. For:  Latin ↔ Faliscan,  or  Latin ↔ Umbrian,  or  Latin ↔ Oscan,  would often not require a professional interpreter in the way that:  Latin ↔ Punic,  or  Latin ↔ Greek,  or  Latin ↔ Celtic,  might. The Italic languages were close relatives. A Roman, an Umbrian, and a Faliscan would not necessarily enjoy perfect mutual intelligibility, but they inhabited a continuum closer to the relation between Spanish and Portuguese than between English and Japanese. Hence Roman historians rarely dramatize:  "An interpreter was required!"  within central Italy. But with Hannibal, Carthage, embassies, eastern kings, and Greek cities, the interpres becomes visible. The very visibility of an interpreter often measures the linguistic distance. Which brings us back to your Sicilian hero:  Aulus Valentius, Verres' Greek interpreter. [GREXv3 | Word]  The oddity, as you note, is that Sicily was saturated with Greek culture. One is tempted to ask:  "Who needed interpreting?"  But Cicero's point is not merely linguistic. Valentius functions as an intermediary within administration and exploitation. He is not just translating Greek into Latin. He is translating:  demands, threats, exactions, local realities,  into forms useful to Verres. Thus interpres approaches:  middleman, broker, fixer.  Very Roman.  Now to Boethius. This is where Grice would become excited. Aristotle's:  Περὶ Ἑρμηνείας  becomes:  De Interpretatione  Yet the Greek ἑρμηνεία and the Latin interpretatio do not coincide perfectly. Boethius faces a difficulty. Aristotle is not discussing every meaningful sign. He is discussing the kinds of utterance capable of:  truth, falsity, affirmation, negation.  Thus:  "There will be a sea battle tomorrow."  belongs squarely to De Interpretatione. But:  "Ouch!"  does not. Nor:  a duck's quack.  Nor:  a military trumpet blast.  All may communicate something. Yet they do not naturally instantiate:  affirmation, negation, truth-value.  And this is exactly where Grice begins to depart from the Aristotelian-Boethian tradition. The tradition privileges:  proposition.  Grice privileges:  meaning.  Hence:  "He means to do it."  becomes philosophically important. No proposition need have been uttered. No affirmation. No negation. Yet intentional meaning is already present.  One might therefore schematize: Boethius  interpretatio chiefly concerns propositions.  Aulus Valentius  interpres chiefly concerns languages and transactions.  Umbricius Melior  interpres concerns divine signs.  Grice  interpretation concerns recovering intentions.  And the last category is much wider than the first. A duck's quack may fail to interest Aristotle. A Gricean may still ask:  What information does it convey?  Similarly:  the Liver of Piacenza,  or  Galba's sacrificial victim,  would not be interpretatio in Boethius's strict logical sense. Yet they are obvious cases of interpretation in the broader semiotic sense.  So if you ask:  "Who was the first interpres?"  a Roman historian would probably shrug. Romulus did not need one. The interesting answer is rather:  the first interpres appears whenever two communities no longer share enough common signs.  With Hannibal, certainly. With Greek embassies, certainly. With eastern kings, certainly. And with Verres in Sicily, the "interpreter" becomes a political actor in his own right, which is precisely why Cicero bothers to name Aulus Valentius at all. He is no longer merely translating words. He is helping to translate power into money. [GREXv3 | Word] A final Gricean epigram:  The augur interprets birds. The haruspex interprets entrails. The Sicilian interpres interprets Greeks. Boethius interprets Aristotle. Grice interprets what all of them meant. (Ha.) And I think Cato the Elder is a good example. When in Greece, he refused to speak in Greek (although he could understand it) and always required an interpres. He found Greek 'effeminate.' In his old age, once his grandsons were educated enough, he spent most of his afternoon learning the actual Grammar of Greek, to become a interpres sui -- his self-interpreter! Thanks -- cf. the king in Spain who said he spoke Spanish to his horse? Thanks -- and Firth, the English linguist at UCL who spoke of Babelification. Thanks Yes, and Cato the Elder is an excellent example of how the Roman notion of interpres can become almost ideological. The traditional story is that Cato, even when dealing with Greeks, preferred to speak Latin and have his words conveyed through an interpreter rather than accommodate himself publicly to Greek. Whether every anecdote is literally true is another question, but it perfectly fits the Cato constructed by the Roman tradition:  Greek knowledge: useful. Greek domination: unacceptable.  Thus the interpreter becomes a political buffer. The situation is almost Gricean. Communication succeeds, but not directly. Instead of:  Cato → Greek audience,  we get:  Cato → interpres → Greek audience.  The intermediary becomes part of the communicative act. And then comes the delicious irony you mention. Cato later devoted serious effort to learning Greek literature and language in old age. The old anti-Greek Roman becomes, in effect, his own interpreter. One might coin:  interpres sui (interpreter of himself).  (Ha.)  The Roman case is particularly interesting because, as you say, historians seldom discuss:  Latin ↔ Faliscan, Latin ↔ Umbrian, Latin ↔ Oscan  translation. The linguistic distance was often insufficient to generate dramatic narratives. The interpreter becomes visible when there is cultural as well as linguistic distance:  Greeks, Carthaginians, eastern kingdoms, diplomatic missions.  Hence Hannibal, embassies, Sicily, Macedonia, Asia Minor. There the interpres emerges as a distinct social figure.  Your Spanish example belongs to the same mythology. The saying usually attributed to Charles V in various forms:  I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, German to my horse,  belongs more to the history of anecdotes than to secure history. But it expresses the same idea:  language choice is socially and politically loaded.  For Cato, speaking Greek directly might look like conceding too much. Hence the interpreter.  And your allusion to J. R. Firth is apt. What Firth called, or discussed under, the multiplication of linguistic systems recalls the old Babel problem. As worlds become more interconnected, one obtains:  more communication, more interpreters, more translation, more opportunities for misunderstanding.  Which is why the figure of the interpres becomes increasingly important.  There is also a nice connection with Aristotle and Boethius. The Sicilian Aulus Valentius is an interpres in the practical Roman sense: a mediator between languages and communities. [GREXv3 | Word] Boethius' interpretatio in De Interpretatione is something else again:  not translation, not diplomacy, but the expression of a proposition capable of truth or falsity.  Thus:  "There will be a sea-battle tomorrow"  belongs to interpretatio. But:  "Ouch!"  or  a duck's quack  does not obviously belong there. And Grice eventually breaks the frame still further. He asks not:  What proposition is expressed?  but:  What did the speaker mean?  Which is why:  the augur, the haruspex, the Sicilian interpreter, Boethius, and Cato  all become unexpectedly relevant to him. They are all specialists in crossing a gap between:  sign and significance, expression and understanding.  A final Grice-Speranza vignette: Greek envoy:  Do you know Greek, Cato?  Cato:  Scio. (I know it.)  Envoy:  Then why the interpreter?  Cato:  Quia possum. (Because I can.)  +> The communicative problem has been solved. +> The political problem remains. Which is perhaps the most Roman answer imaginable. (Ha.) And that's why Grice and Austin -- in the pro-hellenic, anti-Romanic Oxford of their days, inherited from Germany's anti-Roemnische attitude -- they would forbid the tutee to use other than ARISTOTELIS DE INTERPRETATIO in the monolingual edition -- so that the only word the tutee would hear is 'hermeneia' which relates to Hermes, the god of comerce, not the pres inter of Boezio, he who stands between two traders in an act of barging. haggling and banter-- as our hero V despised by Tullio Cicero. Thanks cfr. Harris, Hermes, a study in the philosophy of language. cited by Chomsky in Cartesian linguistics. Exactly. But I would put one philological brake on the otherwise delicious Grice-Austin reconstruction: the connection ἑρμηνεία (hermēneia) ↔ Hermes is wonderfully suggestive, but modern etymology treats it as a folk etymology rather than an established derivation. The origin of hermēneuō/hermēneus is uncertain, with modern proposals including an Anatolian/Carian source. [en.wikipedia.org] That actually makes the contrast more interesting. Hermes versus interpres The Greek conceptual picture practically begs for Hermes:  Ἑρμῆς messenger, mediator, carrier of messages  and  ἑρμηνεύς interpreter   ἑρμηνεία interpretation/expression.  Even if they are not historically cognate, they belong to an extraordinarily congenial semantic mythology. Hermes is exactly the sort of fellow one would appoint patron of hermēneia. [en.wikipedia.org] The Latin interpres, by contrast, begins in a noticeably more Roman marketplace. Lewis and Short give its primary field as:  agent between two parties, broker, factor, negotiator  and only subsequently:  explainer, expounder, translator, interpreter. [archli.com]  Modern etymological reconstruction likewise connects the first part securely with inter, "between," while associating the second with an Indo-European commercial/"traffic, sell" root, although the detailed formation has been disputed. [bing.com], [en.wiktionary.org] So your picture is remarkably apt:  two fellows are bargaining; neither quite reaches the other; inter-pres gets between them.  And therefore:  mediation in a transaction → mediation between parties → mediation between languages → interpretation generally.  One history of interpreting at Rome explicitly emphasizes precisely this older semantic range: interpres as middleman, intermediary or negotiator, subsequently the intermediary in linguistic communication. [open.unive.it] And that makes our Aulus Valentius particularly amusing. Cicero's man is ostensibly the linguistic intermediary, yet his dossier makes him look remarkably close to the older transactional interpres. Language, negotiation, money and administrative power all converge in one person. And then Boethius creates the magnificent collision When Aristotle's:  Περὶ Ἑρμηνείας  passes into Latin as:  De Interpretatione  the Latin reader can hardly avoid importing the enormous semantic history of interpres/interpretor/interpretatio. Yet Aristotle's subject is much narrower and stranger than "interpretation" ordinarily suggests. The work examines linguistic forms, especially enunciations capable of affirmation and negation, truth and falsity, culminating famously in the future contingent or sea-battle problem. [en.wikipedia.org] So the Grice-Austin tutee who is forced back to:  ΠΕΡΙ ΕΡΜΗΝΕΙΑΣ  has been given a useful prophylactic against assuming that Aristotle wrote a treatise about what an Englishman normally calls interpreting. Your:  "Ouch!"  is therefore perfect. And:  Quack!  even better. They may signify plenty. But Aristotle's central machinery wants the sort of logos that permits:  affirmation / negation truth / falsity.  The duck refuses to cooperate. And James Harris's Hermes Here your recollection is also nicely placed. James Harris's Hermes: Or, A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Language and Universal Grammar appeared in 1751 and systematically treats nouns, verbs, tense, modes, connectives, cases and interjections, among other grammatical-philosophical subjects. [books.google.com] Thus there is a gorgeous sequence for Grice and Speranza:  Hermes the divine messenger ↓ hermēneus the interpreter ↓ hermēneia expression/interpretation ↓ Aristotle, Peri Hermēneias proposition, affirmation, negation ↓ Boethius, De Interpretatione interpretatio ↓ interpres the Latin mediator ↓ Valentius Cicero's very earthly interpreter/broker in Sicily.  And there is an especially beautiful Latin commonplace preserved in the lexical tradition:  mentis est oratio interpres  roughly,  "speech is the interpreter of the mind." [archli.com]  Now that is almost begging for a Gricean tutorial. Grice would presumably begin erasing:  speech = interpres of mind  and replacing it with something considerably fussier:  U intends H to recognize what U intends H to think...  At which point Austin looks at the clock and announces that luncheon at St John's has begun. (Ha.)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valeri – Ossia: Grice e Valeri: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dello spazio tra sè e sè – l’antropologia filosofica come ricerca dell’inter-soggetivo. Note su Mauss e l’antropologia. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Valerio Valeri (Somma Lombardo, Lombardia): Institutionally, Valerio Valeri is much closer to Grice than many of the figures you have been comparing, because both are recognisably university intellectuals; but they still belong to very different academic worlds. Grice’s formula is exact in the Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide faculty appointment. So Grice combines the intimate tutorial culture of the college with the wider faculty structure of the university. Valerio Valeri, by contrast, belongs to the modern research-university and anthropological world. He was born in Somma Lombardo in 1944, trained first as a philosopher at the Scuola Normale and University of Pisa, wrote his 1966 first publication on Marcel Mauss while still in philosophical formation, then moved decisively into anthropology, took advanced degrees in Pisa and Paris, and from 1976 taught anthropology at the University of Chicago until his death. The biographical sources identify Valerio Valeri as born in Somma Lombardo in 1944, trained initially in philosophy at Pisa and the Scuola Normale, later earning doctorates from Pisa and the Sorbonne, and then serving on the faculty at the University of Chicago. [it.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org], [Obituary:...of Chicago] So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate and university-faculty world. Valerio Valeri belongs to the modern research and fieldwork world of anthropology. That institutional difference fits your philosophical comparison very well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under shared norms. Valeri, by contrast, works at a deeper anthropological level. In his 1966 essay on Mauss, he is already concerned with the categories of the person, the relation between individual and collective psychology, and the symbolic forms by which a society constructs the very subjects who then speak, exchange, obligate, and interpret. The later editors of the translation explicitly describe the 1966 essay as turning on the relation between collective and individual psychology and as already chartering Valeri’s movement from philosophy into anthropology. The editors’ abstract for Valerio Valeri’s 1966 Mauss essay emphasises precisely the problem of relations between collective and individual psychology and presents the piece as the charter of his move from philosophy toward anthropology. [journals.u...hicago.edu], [journals.u...hicago.edu], [haujournal.org] So the sharpest formulation is this. Grice explains how rational interlocutors coordinate meaning in a local exchange. Valeri asks how cultures produce the very selves, obligations, and symbolic relations that make such exchanges possible at all. That is why your “space between sé e sé” line is actually very good. For Grice, the gap of interest is the one between what I say and what I mean. For Valeri, the more basic gap is the one by which a subject is formed through relations with others, rituals, categories, and shared forms of life. Conversation, from that perspective, is not the origin of normativity but one visible expression of a much deeper anthropological order. Your use of the gate example and Grice’s general helpfulness discussion also fits nicely here. Grice isolates the conversational case from a broader background of everyday cooperation. Valeri would, in effect, ask where that broader background comes from, how it is socially constituted, and how the “me” that holds a gate open or infers an implicature has already been formed through a “we” of symbolic and moral life. There are two small corrections. First, the author’s first publication is better cited as Valerio Valeri, not merely Valeri. That is the standard form. Second, the title in the 2013 English translation is Marcel Mauss and the new anthropology, and the editors note that the original Italian publication was in Critica Storica in 1966. So if you use the early anchor, it is better to think of it as an essay on Mauss and anthropology rather than simply “Mauss e l’antropologia” in a loose form. The 2013 translated republication states that Valeri’s first publication appeared in 1966 in the Italian journal Critica Storica and frames it as a critical dialogue with Mauss inaugurating Valeri’s turn toward anthropology. [journals.u...hicago.edu], [journals.u...hicago.edu], [haujournal.org] So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Valerio Valeri, by contrast, was an Italian philosopher-turned-anthropologist, formed at Pisa and the Scuola Normale, later trained further in Paris, and professionally defined by the research-university and ethnographic world rather than by the Oxford tutorial-collegiate system. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Valeri to the modern research and anthropological world. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and implicature, whereas Valeri investigates the broader symbolic and anthropological conditions under which persons, obligations, and shared meanings are formed at all. And if I compress it into one line: Grice theorises how a me speaks to a you; Valeri investigates how a we makes that me and that you possible. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, with the 1966 Mauss essay as the anchor and the “space between self and self” motif sharpened.la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dello spazio tra sè e sè – Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats “context” as, paradigmatically, the locally managed setting of a talk-exchange: speaker and hearer coordinate on a shared purpose, presume a background helpfulness (the Cooperative Principle), and then rationally infer speaker-meaning and conversational implicatures from what is said plus what a reasonable participant could have intended, so that the space between “said” and “meant” is bridged by publicly intelligible norms (relevance, informativeness, sincerity, perspicuity) and by a calculable accountability structure (“why did she say it that way, here, now?”); Valerio Valeri’s “philosophical anthropology” (the Valeri of Somma Lombardo, whose first publication on Mauss in 1966 is explicitly framed as a debate about categories of personhood, social psychology, and the relations between collective and individual life) pushes the emphasis in the opposite direction, from micro-pragmatic inference to the historically and culturally variable forms of subjectivity and intersubjectivity that make any such inference possible in the first place—his guiding thought (in the Maussian line) is that persons, selves, and the “we” of social life are not merely participants in conversation but are partly constituted through shared symbolic practices (gift, ritual, categories of the person, moral vocabularies) that exceed any single exchange; thus, where Grice models conversational reason as an intentionally structured mechanism for transferring and coordinating information between interlocutors (often via strategic underdeterminacy and implicature), Valeri invites us to see “conversational reason” as one expression of a deeper anthropological problem: how a culture furnishes the very predicates of self/other, obligation, recognition, and agency that conversations presuppose, so that the “space between sé e sé” is not just the gap exploited by implicature (what I meant beyond what I said) but the socially patterned interval in which a subject becomes accountable to others, and a “me” becomes a “we” capable of sustaining the norms that Grice treats as the rational engine of talk. -- l’antropologia filosofica come ricerca dell’inter-soggetivo –il me di Grice, il noi della conversazione. He argues in these lectures that thinking seriously about context means thinking about conversation; this is the setting for most examples of speaker meaning. He proposes, therefore, to compile an account of some of the basic properties common to conversations generally. His method of limiting his hand was to result in certain highly artificial simplifications, but he made these simplifications deliberately and knowingly. For instance, the relevant context was to be assumed to be limited to what he calls the 'linguistic environment': to the content of the conversation itself. Conversation was assumed to take place between two people who alternate as speaker and hearer, and to be concerned simply with the business of transferring information between them.  A number of the lectures include discussion of the types of behaviour people in general exhibit, and therefore the types of expectations they might bring to a venture such as a conversation. Grice suggests that people in general both exhibit and expect a certain degree of helpfulness from others, usually on the understanding that such helpfulness does not get in the way of particular goals, and does not involve undue effort. If two people, even complete strangers, are going through a gate, the expectation is that the first one through will hold the gate open, or at least leave it open, for the second. The expectation is such that to do otherwise without particular reason would be interpreted as deliberately rude.  The type of helpfulness exhibited and expected in conversation is more specific because of a particular, although not a unique, feature of con-versation; it is a collaborative venture between the participants. At least in the simplified version of conversation discussed in these lectures, there is a shared aim or purpose. antropologia. Grice: Caro Valeri, ti confesso che filosofando a Vadum Boum, tra i barbari—e per barbari intendo proprio il mio allievo, un PPE, Strawson—mi sono spesso sentito come il portiere di una porta senza chiave. Ahimè, Strawson voleva sempre lo “spazio” tra sé e sé... ma lo prendeva letteralmente, come se dovessimo misurarlo col metro! Tu come fai a giocare con questo spazio senza finirci dentro un baule? Valeri: Ah, Grice, ti capisco! Lo spazio tra sé e sé è come il gelato alla filosofia: se lo prendi troppo alla lettera, rischi di mordere il cucchiaino. Io preferisco pensarlo come il parco giochi dell’inter-soggettivo—lì possiamo saltare, dondolarci, e ogni tanto anche correre a nascondino con il nostro “me” e il nostro “noi”. E se Strawson ci guarda storto, gli offriamo una panchina e lo invitiamo a filosofeggiare insieme! Grice: Saggia risposta! Forse dovrei regalare a Strawson una bussola filosofica, così quando gli parlo dello spazio dialogico non si perde tra le coordinate, ma trova almeno il nord del “noi”. In fondo, la conversazione è come la partita di bocce: se tutti tirano la pallina nella stessa direzione, si finisce per condividere anche il campo da gioco. Valeri: Esatto! E se qualcuno sbaglia tiro, si ride e si ricomincia. La filosofia, per me, è una gara di gentilezza e di implicature: a volte basta tenere la porta aperta, altre volte bisogna inventarsi il modo di passarla senza che nessuno resti fuori. E poi, con un po’ di ironia, persino il barbaro Strawson può imparare a danzare nello spazio tra sé e sé! Valeri, Valerio (1966). Mauss e l’antropologia. Critica Storica.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valeriis – Ossia: Grice e Valeriis: implicatura, categoriology. categorie – Definizione escatologia in Grice. Note su De ratione studii. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Valerio de Valeriis (Venezia, Veneto): implicatura, categoriology -- Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning is micro-architectural: starting from particular utterances, it explains how hearers recover what is meant (including implicatures) by treating speakers as rational cooperators who can be held to publicly checkable norms (informativeness, truthfulness, relevance, perspicuity), so that “extra meaning” is not occult but inferentially calculable; the Valeriis-passage you quote, by contrast, is not about conversational inference but about metaphysical classification, distinguishing a categorial discipline (summa genera, principles like causation and persistence governing items within a category) from a supracategorial discipline that yokes categorially heterogeneous items under one head by analogy, and even flirts with calling that enterprise “philosophical eschatology” as a way of legitimating cross-category affinities without arbitrariness—so where Grice makes analogy and indirection answerable to the rational economy of talk (implicature is cancellable, detachable, and justified by shared conversational purposes), “Valeriis” makes analogy a licensed metaphysical instrument for bridging ontological gulfs that categories themselves cannot span; the interesting point of contact is that both treat “reason” as governance under norms, but the norms differ: Grice’s are practical and interactional (what a speaker can be taken to mean, given cooperative expectations), whereas Valeriis’ are architectonic and classificatory (what can be grouped together, and under what principles), so implicature in Grice is a disciplined surplus of meaning generated by conversational rationality, while “implicatura” in the Valeriis register is closer to a methodologically controlled surplus of unity generated by supracategorial analogizing. -- , categorie – Definizione escatologia in Grice.  Some time ago the idea occurred to me that there might be two distinguishable disciplines each of which might have some claim to the title of, or a share of the title of, Metaphysics. The first of these disciplines I thought of as being categorial in character, that is to say, I thought of it as operating at or below the level of categories. Following leads supplied primarily by Aristotle and Kant, I conceived of it as concerned with the identification of the most general attributes or classifications, the summa genera, under which the various specific subject-items and/or predicates (predicate-items, attributes) might fall, and with the formulation of metaphysical principles governing such categorial attributes (for example some version of a Principle of Causation, or some principle regulating the persistence of sub-stances). The second discipline I thought of as being supracategorial in character; it would bring together categorially different subject-items beneath single classificatory characterizations, and perhaps would also specify principles which would have to be exemplified by items brought together by this kind of supracategorial assimilation. I hoped that the second discipline, which I was tempted to label "Phil-osophical Eschatology," might provide for the detection of affinities between categorially different realities, thus protecting the principles associated with particular categories from suspicion of arbitrariness. In response to a possible objection to the effect that if a pair of items were really categorially different from one another, they could not be assimilated under a single classificatory head (since they wouldbe incapable of sharing any attribute), I planned to reply that even should it be impossible for categorially different items to share a single attribute, this objection might be inconclusive since assimilation might take the form of ascribing to the items assimilated not a common attribute but an analogy. implicatura. Grice: Caro Valeriis, ho letto con curiosità la tua distinzione tra metafisica categoriale e supracategoriale. Mi affascina l’idea che la “filosofia escatologica” possa rivelare affinità tra realtà apparentemente inconciliabili. Ti va di raccontarmi come nasce questa intuizione? Valeriis: Certamente, Grice! L’intuizione nasce dal desiderio di non fossilizzare il pensiero nei confini delle categorie tradizionali. Se da una parte Aristotele ci offre i summa genera, dall’altra credo sia necessario indagare su quei principi che permettono di collegare realtà diverse, magari attraverso analogie più che attributi condivisi. Così, la filosofia escatologica diventa un ponte. Grice: E secondo te, questa assimilazione supracategoriale non rischia di perdere rigore? Come si può evitare che la ricerca di analogie finisca per essere troppo arbitraria? Valeriis: È una bella domanda! Penso che il rigore si mantenga se l’analogia viene proposta con consapevolezza metodologica, distinguendo il livello delle implicature. Non si tratta di ignorare le differenze, ma di cercare legami sottili senza forzature. In fondo, ogni categoria filosofica nasce anche dal dialogo, e la conversazione stessa è il luogo dove l’analogia prende vita. Valeriis, Valerio de (1544). De ratione studii. Venezia: Comin da Trino.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valerio – Ossia: Grice e Valerio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Valerio -- H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA -- GREX -- VERBALIA: VALERIO   Denarius of Lucius Valerius Flaccus, consul in 100 BC, and later magister equitum to the dictator Sulla. The gens Valeria was a patrician family at ancient Rome, prominent from the very beginning of the Republic to the latest period of the Empire. Publius Valerius Poplicola was one of the consuls in 509 BC, the year that saw the overthrow of the Tarquins, and the members of his family were among the most celebrated statesmen and generals at the beginning of the Republic. Over the next ten centuries, few gentes produced as many distinguished men, and at every period the name of Valerius was constantly to be found in the lists of annual magistrates, and held in the highest honour. Several of the emperors claimed descent from the Valerii, whose name they bore as part of their official nomenclature.[1]  A number of unusual privileges attached to this family, including the right to burial within the city walls,[2][3] and a special place for its members in the Circus Maximus, where the unique honour of a throne was granted them.[4] The house built by Poplicola at the foot of the Velian Hill was the only one whose doors were permitted to open into the street.[5][6] The historian Barthold Georg Niebuhr conjectured that, during the transition from the monarchy to the Republic, the Valerii were entitled to exercise royal power on behalf of the Titienses, one of the three Romulean tribes that made up the Roman people.[7]  Although one of the most noble and illustrious families of the Roman aristocracy, from the very beginning the Valerii were notable for their advocacy of plebeian causes, and many important laws protecting the rights of the plebeians were sponsored by the Valerii.[8] As with many other ancient patrician houses, the family also acquired plebeian branches, which must have been descended either from freedmen of the Valerii, or from members of the family who, for one reason or another, had gone over to the plebeians.[1]  Origin According to tradition, the Valerii were of Sabine descent, having come to Rome with Titus Tatius, shortly after the founding of the city.[9][10] However, their nomen, Valerius, is a patronymic surname derived from the Latin praenomen Volesus or Volusus, which in turn is derived from valere, to be strong.[11][12] Volesus, or Volesus Valerius, the eponymous ancestor of the gens, is said to have been a powerful warrior in the retinue of the Sabine king. Several generations later, another Volesus Valerius was the father of Publius, Marcus, and Manius, three brothers from whom the oldest branches of the family claimed descent.[13]  Praenomina The earliest of the Valerii known to history bore the praenomen Volesus, which continued to enjoy occasional use among the Valerii of the early Republic. However, most stirpes of the Valerii favoured Publius, Marcus, Manius, and Lucius. Several branches of the family also used Gaius, while the Valerii Faltones employed Quintus, and the Valerii Asiatici of imperial times used Decimus. Other names are seldom found among the Valerii, although in one instance Potitus, an ancient surname of the gens, was revived as a praenomen by the Valerii Messallae during the first century. Examples of Aulus, Numerius, Sextus, Tiberius, and Titus are found in inscriptions.  Branches and cognomina The oldest branches of the Valerii bore the surnames Poplicola, Potitus, and Maximus, with Volusus being used by the first generations of the Potiti and Maximi. Later families bore various cognomina, including Corvus or Corvinus, Falto, Flaccus, Laevinus, Messalla, Tappo, and Triarius. Most other surnames found in Republican times belonged to freedmen or clientes of the Valerii. The surnames Acisculus, Catullus, Flaccus, and Barbatus appear on coins. A few Valerii are known without any cognomina, but they achieved little of significance.[1]  Poplicola, also found as Publicola and Poplicula, belongs to a class of surnames referring to the character of the bearer. Derived from populus and colo, the name might best be explained as "one who courts the people."[14][15] The cognomen first appears in history as the surname given to Publius Valerius, one of the consuls chosen in 509 BC to serve alongside Lucius Junius Brutus. Despite his patrician background, he made a considerable effort to win the support of the plebeians, averting a breach between the two orders at the inception of the Republic.[16] Poplicola seems to have been the original form, while in inscriptions Publicola is more common, and Poplicula is occasionally found.[17] Publicola is found in literary sources from the end of the Republic, including Livy and Cicero.[14]  The Valerii Potiti were descended from Marcus Valerius Volusus, the brother of Poplicola, who fell in battle at Lake Regillus. The surname Potitus seems to be derived from potio, to place someone under one's power, and might be translated as "leader".[15] This family flourished from the early years of the Republic down to the Samnite Wars, when the cognomen seems to have been replaced by Flaccus, a surname first borne by one of the Potiti, who must have been flabby or had floppy ears.[18] Potitus was later revived as a praenomen by the Valerii Messallae, a practice that was common in aristocratic families toward the end of the Republic. As a distinct family, the Valerii Flacci continued down to the first century AD.[19]  Maximus, the superlative of magnus, "great",[i] was the cognomen of the Valerii descended from the third brother, Manius Valerius Volusus, who first bore the surname. The Valerii Maximi appear in history down to the First Punic War, after which time the surname was replaced by Messalla or Messala, a cognomen derived from the city of Messana in Sicilia. The first to bear this name received it after relieving Messana from a Carthaginian blockade in 264 BC. The Valerii Messallae held numerous consulships and other high offices in the Roman state, remaining prominent well into imperial times. Some of them had additional surnames, including Barbatus, "bearded", as well as Niger and Rufus, originally referring to someone with black or red hair. The names Valerius Maximus and Valerius Messalla occur as late as the third century, but the consular family of that age may have been descended from the Valerii through the female line, and more properly belonged to the Vipstani.[20][21]  The branch of the Valerii Maximi that gave rise to the Messallae also bore the surname Corvinus, a diminutive of Corvus, a raven. The first of this family was Marcus Valerius Corvus, who in his youth earned everlasting renown for his combat against a giant Gaul in 349 BC. Corvus defeated his adversary with the help of a raven that repeatedly flew in the barbarian's face. He held the consulship six times, was dictator twice, and reached the age of one hundred. The two forms of this surname are interchangeable, but the hero is usually referred to as Corvus, while Corvinus generally refers to his descendants.[22][23]  Another branch of the Valerii Maximi bore the surname Lactucinus, derived from Lactuca, lettuce, the cognomen of an early member of the family. Such names, referring to objects, were quite common at Rome. The first of this family was a son of the first Valerius Maximus, but the surname was of brief duration; the last mention of the Valerii Lactucinae is early in the fourth century BC.[24][23]  The cognomen Laevinus, meaning "left-handed", belonged to a family of the Valerii that was prominent for about a century, beginning with the Pyrrhic War, in 280 BC. This family may have been another offshoot of the Valerii Maximi, as the surname first appears in connection with the trial of Spurius Cassius Vecellinus in 485 BC. They continued long after they had ceased to have any importance in the Roman state, and the family is mentioned as late as the end of the first century AD.[25][26][27][18]  The Valerii Faltones flourished at the end of the third century BC, first appearing at the end of the First Punic War. Their relationship to the other Valerii is not immediately apparent, as none of the older stirpes of the gens used the praenomen Quintus, but they may have been a cadet branch of the Valerii Maximi, whose surname disappears around this time. The surname Falto is another form of Falco, referring to a falcon, and was commonly given to someone with inward-pointing toes, resembling talons.[ii][28][18][29]  The plebeian Valerii Triarii belong to the time of Cicero, in the first century BC. None of them rose higher than the rank of praetor, and the family was of brief duration. Their surname, Triarius, seems to allude to their military service; in the Roman army of this period, a triarius was a soldier of the third rank, the heavily armed reserve infantry, often consisting of older, wealthier men, and the last line of defense in battle.[30][31]  Catullus seems to be another orthography of Catulus, a surname of the Lutatia gens, referring to a whelp, cub, or puppy. The Valerii Catulli appear in the first century BC, beginning with the renowned poet, and their surname continued through the first century of the Empire. One of the Catulli bore the additional surname of Messalinus, previously associated with the Valerii Messallae, but it is unclear whether the Catulli were descended from the Messallae, or whether the surname entered the family at a later time. The pairing of Catullus Messalinus was also borne by one of the Valerii Asiatici, but again the nature of the relationship between these families is unknown.[23][32]  Asiaticus, the surname of the only major family of the Valerian gens to emerge in imperial times, belongs to a class of cognomina typically derived from the locations of military exploits.[33] In this instance the source of the name is not apparent, although it might allude to some connection with the Cornelii Scipiones; Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus was the younger brother of Scipio Africanus, and his surname was passed down in his family for several generations. The Valerii Asiatici were closely connected with the imperial family from the time of Caligula to that of Hadrian, and accounted for several consulships.[34]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Early Valerii Volesus or Volusus, the eponymous ancestor of the gens, is said to have come to Rome with Titus Tatius during the time of Romulus, the first King of Rome.[9][10] Marcus Valerius, One of the fetiales appointed by Tullus Hostilius to sign a treaty with Alba Longa, preceding the duel of the Horatii and Curiatii, in which each side agreed to accept subjugation under the other if their champions were defeated. [35] Volesus Valerius, a descendant of the first Volesus, was the father of Publius Valerius Poplicola, Marcus Valerius Volusus, and Manius Valerius Volusus Maximus.[36] Valeria, appointed the first priestess of Fortuna Muliebris in 488 BC.[37][38] Valerii Poplicolae Publius Valerius Vol. f. Poplicola, or Publicola, consul in 509 BC, the first year of the Republic; he triumphed over the forces of the king. Consul again in 508, 507, and 504, when he triumphed over the Sabines.[39][40][41][42][43][44] Marcus Valerius P. f. Vol. n. Poplicola, perished at the Battle of Lake Regillus, after recovering the body of his uncle, Marcus Valerius Volusus. According to Dionysius, his brother Publius was also slain, but this appears to be a mistake, as Publius was consul twice after this, although he did fall in battle during his second consulship.[45] Publius Valerius P. f. Vol. n. Poplicola, consul in 475 and 460 BC, and interrex in 462; he triumphed over the Veientines and Sabines during his first consulship, but in his second, he was killed in recovering the capitol from Appius Herdonius.[46][47][48] Lucius Valerius P. f. P. n. Poplicola Potitus, opposed the decemvirs, and was elected consul for the year 449 BC. He defeated the Aequi and the Volsci, and when the senate refused him a triumph, the soldiers conferred that honour on him.[49][50][51][52][53][54] Lucius Valerius L. f. (P. n.) Poplicola, the father of Lucius Valerius Poplicola, the consular tribune.[36] Lucius Valerius L. f. L. n. Poplicola, consular tribune in 394, 389, 387, 383, and 380 BC, possibly the same Lucius Valerius who was magister equitum to Marcus Furius Camillus in 390 BC, although that was probably his cousin, Lucius Valerius Potitus.[55][36][56] Publius Valerius L. f. L. n. Poplicola, father of the consul of 352 BC.[57] Marcus Valerius L. f. L. n. Poplicola, served as magister equitum in 358 BC, under the dictator Gaius Sulpicius Peticus. He was consul in 355, and again 353, serving alongside Peticus on both occasions.[58][59] Publius Valerius P. f. L. n. Poplicola, consul in 352 BC; as praetor in 350 he commanded the reserves during the war against the Gauls. He was appointed dictator in 344, in order to hold a religious festival in response to dreadful omens. He is probably the same man who was nominated magister equitum by the dictator Marcus Papirius Crassus in 332.[60][57] Valerii Potiti Marcus Valerius Vol. f. Volusus, the brother of Poplicola, was one of the Roman commanders against Lars Porsenna in 508 BC. As consul in 505 BC, he and his colleague triumphed over the Sabines. He was one of the ambassadors to the Latin League in 501, and fell at the Battle of Lake Regillus, in 499.[61][62][6][63] Lucius Valerius M. f. Vol. n. Potitus, one of the quaestors who prosecuted Spurius Cassius Vecellinus in 485 BC. He was consul in 483 and 470 BC, and fought against the Aequi during his second consulship. He was praefectus urbi in 464.[64][65][66] Volesus Valerius Potitus, the grandfather of Gaius Valerius Potitus Volusus, consular tribune three times from 415 to 404 BC, according to the Fasti Capitolini. Münzer suggests that his praenomen should be Publius.[36][67][68] Publius Valerius Potitus, the grandfather of Lucius Valerius Potitus, consular tribune five times from 414 to 398 BC, may be the same person as Volesus Valerius Potitus.[36][67][68] Lucius Valerius Vol. f. Potitus,[iii] the father of Gaius Valerius Potitus Volusus, and perhaps also of his contemporary, Lucius Valerius Potitus.[36][67][68] Lucius Valerius P. f. Potitus, the father of Lucius Valerius Potitus, twice consul and five times consular tribune, and perhaps also of Gaius Valerius Potitus Volusus.[36][67][68] Gaius Valerius L. f. Vol. n. Potitus Volusus, consular tribune in 415, 407, and 404 BC, and consul in 410. As consul, he opposed the agrarian law of Marcus Maenius, and recovered the Arx Carventana from the Volsci, in consequence of which he was granted an ovation.[69][70] Lucius Valerius L. f. P. n. Potitus, consular tribune in 414, 406, 403, 401, and 398 BC, and consul in 393 and 392; triumphed over the Aequi. Interrex for the purpose of holding the comitia in 392, and magister equitum under the dictator Marcus Furius Camillus in 390, the year in which Rome was taken by the Gauls.[71][72][73] Publius Valerius L. f. L. n. Potitus Poplicola, consular tribune in 386, 384, 380, 377, 370, and 367 BC.[74][75] Gaius Valerius (C. f. L. n.) Potitus, consular tribune in 370 BC.[76] Gaius Valerius L. f. L. n. Potitus Flaccus, consul in 331 BC. He is probably the progenitor of the Valerii Flacci.[77] Lucius Valerius (L. f. L. n.) Potitus, magister equitum in 331 BC.[77] Valerii Maximi Manius Valerius Vol. f. Volusus Maximus, dictator in 494 BC, he promised to alleviate the conditions of the debtors if the people would serve in the war against the Sabines and the Aequi. After triumphing over the enemy, Valerius was prevented from fulfilling his promise, and resigned the dictatorship, but was honoured by the people.[78][79][80][81] Marcus Valerius M'. f. Vol. n. Maximus Lactuca, quaestor in 458 BC, prosecuted the accusers of Caeso Quinctius. As consul in 456 BC, he opposed the plan of Lucius Icilius, one of the tribunes of the plebs, to assign the Aventine Hill to the commons.[82][83][84] Marcus Valerius M. f. M'. n. Lactucinus Maximus, consul suffectus in 437 BC.[85] Marcus Valerius M. f. M. n. Lactucinus Maximus, consular tribune in 398 and 395 BC.[86][87] Marcus Valerius M. f. M. n. Maximus Corvus, afterward surnamed Calenus, was consul in 348, 346, 343, 335, 300, and 299, dictator in 342 and 301, and interrex in 332 and 320 BC; triumphed over the Volsci in 346, the Samnites in 343, Cales in 335, and the Etruscans in 301. He was elected consul at twenty-three, and lived to the age of one hundred, filling the curule chair twenty-one times.[88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95] Marcus Valerius M. f. Maximus, father of the consul of 312 BC.[36] Marcus Valerius M. f. M. n. Maximus, consul in 312 and 289 BC, triumphed over the Samnites. He was censor in 307, and extended or improved the roads through the demesne lands.[96] Marcus Valerius Maximus Potitus, consul in 286 BC. He was occupied by the agitation attending the Hortensian laws.[97] Marcus (or Publius?) Valerius Maximus, one of the most important Roman scholars and antiquarians, and compiler of historical anecdotes, flourished during the early part of the first century.[98][iv] Valerii Laevini Manius Valerius Laevinus, said to have numbered among a group of former military tribunes who were burned alive near the Circus Maximus in 485 BC, by the tribune of the plebs Publius Mucius Scaevola, allegedly for having conspired with Spurius Cassius Vecellinus.[99][100] Publius Valerius Laevinus, consul in 280 BC, during the war with Pyrrhus. Although defeated by Pyrrhus, he escaped with much of his army intact, defended Capua, and successfully harried the Epirote army.[101][102][103][104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111][112] Publius Valerius P. f. Laevinus, father of Marcus Valerius Laevinus, consul in 220 and 210 BC. Marcus Valerius P. f. P. n. Laevinus, elected consul in 220 BC, but probably resigned together with his colleague due to a fault in the elections. He was praetor peregrinus in 215, and afterward propraetor for several years, and consul for the second time in 210. He led a number of successful campaigns against Hannibal's allies during the Second Punic War, recovering much territory.[113][114][115][116][117][118] Marcus Valerius M. f. P. n. Laevinus, son of Marcus Valerius Laevinus, consul in 220 and 210 BC. Together with his brother, Publius, he staged funeral games to commemorate the death of their father in 200. Might be the same person as Marcus Valerius Laevinus, praetor in 182 BC.[119] Publius Valerius M. f. P. n. Laevinus, along with his brother Marcus, staged funeral games in 200 BC to commemorate the death of their father, Marcus Valerius Laevinus, consul in 220 and 210 BC.[120] Marcus Valerius Laevinus, praetor peregrinus in 182 BC.[121] Gaius Valerius M. f. P. n. Laevinus, half-brother of Marcus Fulvius Nobilior, consul in 189 BC, whom he accompanied to Greece. He was praetor in 179, with Sardinia as his province. Consul suffectus in 176 BC, he fought against the Ligures, and received a triumph the following year. He afterward served on ambassadorial missions to Greece and Egypt.[122][123] Publius Valerius C. f. M. n. Laevinus, praetor in 177 BC, was assigned a portion of Cisalpine Gaul.[124] Valerii Flacci Lucius Valerius Flaccus, magister equitum under the dictator Marcus Aemilius Papus, 321 BC.[125][126] Marcus Valerius L. f. Flaccus, father of Lucius Valerius Flaccus, the consul of 261 BC.[127] Lucius Valerius M. f. L. n. Flaccus, consul in 261 BC, during the First Punic War. He fought against the Carthaginians in Sicily, but made little progress.[128][127] Publius Valerius L. f. M. n. Flaccus, consul in 227 BC. During his year of office, the number of praetors was increased from two to four. In 219, he was one of the ambassadors sent to the Carthaginians to threaten war in response to the attack on Saguntum. He held several important commands during the early years of the Second Punic War.[129][130][131][132] Lucius Valerius P. f. L. n. Flaccus, as a military tribune in 212 BC, led a daring attack on the camp of the Carthaginian general Hanno near Beneventum. He was consul in 195, and won important victories over the Gauls in that and the following year. In 184 he became princeps senatus, and served as censor with Cato the Elder.[133][134][135][136][137][138] Gaius Valerius P. f. L. n. Flaccus, a young man of poor character, was named Flamen Dialis by the Pontifex Maximus in 209 BC, and to general astonishment proved himself worthy of the responsibility. He was curule aedile in 199, but as Flamen Dialis he could not take the oath of office. His brother, Lucius, took the oath for him. He was praetor peregrinus in 183, and in that capacity, introduced a Gallic embassy to the Senate.[139][140][141] Lucius Valerius L. f. P. n. Flaccus, consul in 152 BC, died during his year of office.[142][143] Lucius Valerius L. f. L. n. Flaccus, Flamen Martialis, and consul in 131 BC. His colleague, Publius Licinius Crassus, was also Pontifex Maximus, and forbade Flaccus from taking the conduct of the war against Aristonicus, imposing a fine for Flaccus' attempted desertion of his religious office. Although compelled to remain at Rome, the fine was remitted by public vote.[144][145] Lucius Valerius L. f. L. n. Flaccus, consul in 100 BC, with Gaius Marius, acted to quell the unrest caused by Saturninus and Glaucia. He was censor in 97, and princeps senatus by 86; in 82 he proposed the lex Valeria appointing Sulla dictator, and in turn was nominated magister equitum, holding the post until Sulla's resignation in 79. He was Flamen Martialis before 69.[146][147][148][149][150] Gaius Valerius C. f. L. n. Flaccus, consul in 93 BC, and afterwards proconsul of Hispania Citerior, where he put down a revolt by the Celtiberi. Later he held a command in Gallia Narbonensis, probably also as proconsul, and celebrated a triumph for his victories in 81.[151][152][153][154] Lucius Valerius C. f. L. n. Flaccus, as curule aedile in 99 BC, was accused by Decianus, one of the tribunes of the plebs. In 86, he was appointed consul suffectus in the place of Gaius Marius, who died shortly after entering his seventh consulship. Sent against Mithridates in the east, Flaccus was betrayed and murdered by Gaius Flavius Fimbria.[155][156][157][158][159] Lucius Valerius L. f. L. n. Flaccus (son of Lucius Valerius Flaccus), praetor in 63 BC, he assisted his colleague, Gaius Pomptinus, in arresting the envoys of the Allobroges. He then served as propraetor in Asia, and was accused of extortion in 59. Despite his probable guilt, he was successfully defended by Cicero in his oration, Pro Flacco.[160][161][162][163] Gaius Valerius L. f. Flaccus, a friend of Appius Claudius Pulcher. Cicero met him in Cilicia in 51 BC.[164][165] Lucius Valerius L. f. L. n. Flaccus, son of the praetor defended by Cicero, was brought before the court as an appeal to the judges' pity. During the Civil War, he fought on the side of Pompeius, and was killed at Dyrrachium in 48 BC.[166][167] Lucius Valerius (L. f. L. n.) Flaccus, Flamen Martialis in the time of Cicero, whose brother, Quintus, heard him give an account of a marvelous occurrence. Joseph Hilarius Eckhel believed that he was the same Flaccus whom Cicero defended, which seems likely, as he would have inherited the priesthood from his father, the consul of 100 BC.[168][169][170] Publius (Valerius) Flaccus, successfully accused Marcus Papirius Carbo of extortion while as governor of Sicily.[171] Gaius Valerius Flaccus, a Latin poet, active during the latter half of the first century AD. He was a friend of Martial. His only surviving work is his Argonautica, an unfinished poem about the voyage of the Argonauts in eight books.[172][173] Lucius Valerius Flaccus, consul suffectus in AD 128, serving from the Kalends of July to the Kalends of September.[174] Valerii Messallae Manius Valerius M. f. M. n. Corvinus Messalla, consul in 263 BC, the second year of the First Punic War. Campaigning in Sicily, he and his colleague, Manius Otacilius Crassus, concluded a treaty with Hiero. He was granted a triumph, and earned the cognomen Messalla by relieving Messana from naval blockade. He was censor in 252.[175][176][177][178][179][180][181][182][183][184][185][186][187][188][189] Marcus Valerius M'. f. M. n. Maximus Messala, consul in 226 BC, organized the allies in preparation for an anticipated invasion of Italy by the Gauls.[36][190][191] Marcus Valerius M. f. M'. Messalla, prefect of the fleet in Sicily in 210 BC, the ninth year of the Second Punic War, carried out a successful raid on the countryside around Utica. He was nominated dictator, but his appointment was annulled. Messalla was praetor peregrinus in 194, and consul in 188 BC.[192] Marcus Valerius M. f. M. n. Messalla, consul in 161 BC, the year in which the senate prohibited the residence of Greek rhetoricians at Rome. Although previously degraded by the censors, Messalla himself held the censorship in 154.[193][194][195] Manius Valerius M. f. M. n. Messalla, the great-grandfather of Marcus Valerius Messalla Niger, consul in 61 BC.[196] Marcus Valerius M'. f. M. n. Messalla, grandfather of Marcus Valerius Messalla Niger. Either he or his brother, Manius, was a legate of the consul Publius Rutilius Lupus in 90 BC, toward the beginning of the Social War.[197][198][199] Manius Valerius M' f. M. n. Messalla, uncle of Marcus Valerius Messalla Niger, and father-in-law of Sulla.[200][201] Marcus Valerius M'. f. M'. n. Messalla, father of Marcus Valerius Messalla Niger.[202] Valeria M'. f. M. n., the fifth and last wife of Sulla, and mother of his daughter Cornelia Postuma.[203][202] Marcus Valerius M. f. M'. n. Messalla Niger, consul in 61 BC, was one of the prosecutors of Publius Clodius Pulcher. He was censor in 55. Cicero describes Valerius as a capable orator. He married Hortensia, sister of the orator Quintus Hortensius.[204][205][206][207][208] Marcus Valerius M. f. M. n. Messalla Rufus, consul in 53 BC. He was supported by Cicero, and opposed by Pompeius and the supporters of Publius Clodius Pulcher. In 47, he served under Caesar during the Civil War.[209][210][211][212][213][214][215][216][217] Marcus Valerius M. f. M. n. Messalla Corvinus, a partisan of Gaius Cassius Longinus, he was proscribed by the triumvirs, but accepted terms from Marcus Antonius after the death of Brutus and Cassius. He later went over to Octavian, and was appointed consul suffectus in place of Antonius in 31 BC. He distinguished himself at the Battle of Actium, and triumphed over the Aquitani in 27.[218][219][220][221][222][223][224][225][226][36][227][228][229][89][230] Marcus Valerius M. f. M. n. Messalla, consul suffectus in 32 BC.[36] Potitus Valerius M. f. Messalla, consul suffectus from the Kalends of October in 29 BC. He was subsequently proconsul of Asia, and later governor of Syria.[231][232][233][234] Marcus Valerius Messalla M. f. M. n. Barbatus, surnamed Appianus, consul in 12 BC, died during his year of office. He was probably the grandfather of the empress Messalina.[235][236] Marcus Valerius M. f. M. n. Messallinus, consul in 3 BC.[232] Lucius Valerius Potiti f. M. n. Messalla Volesus, consul in AD 5. Subsequently, while proconsul of Asia, he behaved with extreme cruelty, for which he was condemned by the emperor and the Senate.[237][238][36] Marcus Valerius M. f. M. n. Messalla Barbatus, consul in AD 20, had proposed that the oath of loyalty given by the senate to the emperor be repeated annually. He was the first husband of Domitia Lepida.[239][174][240] Valeria M. f. M. n. Messalina, third wife of the emperor Claudius. She was infamous for her intrigues, which brought about the downfall of many members of the imperial aristocracy. At last the emperor was persuaded that her open betrayal of his trust foreboded a plot against him, and she was put to death.[241][242][243][244][245][246][247][248] Marcus Valerius M. f. M. n. Messalla Corvinus, consul in AD 58. Although a great-grandson of Corvinus, the consul of 31 BC, his family fortune had since been lost, and so he was granted an allowance from the treasury.[249] Lucius Valerius (L. f.) Messalla Thrasea Priscus, a man of great wisdom, was consul in AD 196, and slain by Caracalla in 212. Perhaps the progenitor of the third century consular family of the Valerii, he may in fact have been a son of Lucius Vipstanus Poplicola Messalla, who discarded his original nomen in order to emphasize his descent from the Valerii through a female line.[250][251] Lucius Valerius (L. f. L. n.) Messalla, possibly surnamed Apollinaris, consul in AD 214, and perhaps proconsul of Africa about 236 to 238.[252] Lucius Valerius (L. f. L. n.) Maximus Acilius Priscillianus, consul in AD 233, and afterward curator of the banks of the Tiber. He was involved in the senatorial revolt against the emperor Maximinus Thrax in 238. About 255 he was praefectus urbi, and in 256 he was consul for the second time.[253][254] Lucius Valerius L. f. (L. n.) Poplicola Balbinus Maximus, consul in AD 253. He held a number of minor offices, but does not seem to have governed a province.[255][256] (Lucius Valerius L. f. L. n.) Messalla, consul in AD 280.[257] Valerius Maximus signo Basilius, praefectus urbi of Rome from AD 319 to 323. Saint Melania the Elder ca. 350-417, married to Valerius Maximus signo Basilius Valerius Maximus, consul in AD 327 and praetorian prefect under the emperor Constantine,[258] and probably son of Valerius Maximus signo Basilius. Valerius Publicola, (c. 350 AD) son of Melania the Elder and Valerius Maximus signo Basilius, and father of Melania the Younger Saint Melania the Younger 383-439 Valerii Faltones Publius Valerius, grandfather of Quintus and Publius Valerius Falto, the consuls of 239 and 238 BC.[36] Quintus Valerius P. f. (Falto), father of the consuls Quintus and Publius Valerius Falto.[36] Quintus Valerius Q. f. P. n. Falto, consul in 239 BC; as the first praetor peregrinus in 242, commanded the Roman fleet at the Battle of the Aegates, and triumphed over the Carthaginians.[36][259][260][261] Publius Valerius Q. f. P. n. Falto, consul in 238 BC, he suffered a defeat at the hands of the Boii and Ligures, but counterattacked and routed them. He was refused a triumph in consequence of his earlier defeat, and because his counterattack before reinforcements could arrive was considered rash.[262][263][264] Marcus Valerius Falto, one of the senatorial envoys sent to Attalus I of Pergamon in 205 BC. As curule aedile in 203, he and his colleague secured a large supply of Spanish grain, which they were able to sell to the poor for one sestertius per bushel. He was praetor in 201, with Bruttium as his province.[265][266] Valerii Tappones Lucius Valerius Tappo, tribune of the plebs in 195 BC, opposed the repeal of the Lex Oppia with Cato the Censor. He was praetor in 192, he obtained Sicily as his province. In 190 he was one of the triumvirs for settling new colonists at Placentia and Cremona.[267][268] Gaius Valerius Tappo, tribune of the plebs in 188 BC, proposed that the franchise be extended to the Formiani, Fundani, and Arpinates.[269] Valerii Triarii Lucius Valerius Triarius, perhaps the same person as Gaius Valerius Triarius, the legate of Lucullus.[270] Gaius Valerius Triarius, praetor circa 78 BC, and propraetor in Sardinia in 77, subsequently served as a legate under Lucullus in the war against Mithridates. In 68 and 67, he put Mithridates on the defensive, but overextended himself, and was attacked at a disadvantage. His forces were utterly defeated with great loss of life, and Triarius was only saved by the arrival of Lucullus.[271][272][273][274][275][276][277] Publius Valerius C. f. Triarius, in 54 BC accused Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, first of repetundae (extortion) and then of ambitus (bribery). Cicero defended Scaurus on both occasions.[278][279] Gaius Valerius (C. f.) Triarius, a friend of Cicero, and a supporter of Pompeius during the Civil War. At the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC, Pompeius, acting on Triarius' advice, ordered his troops to stand fast against Caesar's charge. Triarius apparently died during the war, leaving Cicero as the guardian of his children.[280][281][282][283] Valeria (C. f.) Paula, sister of Cicero's friend Gaius Valerius Triarius, was divorced in 50 BC, and subsequently married Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus.[284][285] Valerii Catulli Gaius Valerius Catullus, the poet, flourished during the middle of the first century BC. Lucius Valerius Catullus, a triumvir monetalis in the time of Augustus.[286] Lucius Valerius L. f. Catullus, was adopted by Sextus Tedius,[v] becoming Sextus Tedius Valerius Catullus. He was consul suffectus in AD 31, serving from the seventh day before the Ides of May to the Kalends of July.[174][286] Lucius Valerius Catullus Messalinus, consul in AD 73, together with the future emperor Domitian. He was governor of Crete and Cyrenaica, but recalled due to his mistreatment of the Libyan Jews. He was a notorious delator during the reign of Domitian, and consul suffectus from the kalends of March to the kalends of May in 85.[287][174][288][289][290][291] Valerii Asiatici Decimus Valerius Asiaticus, consul suffectus in AD 35, serving from the kalends of July. Suspected of Caligula's murder, he avoided the retribution of the praetorian guard by boldly proclaiming that he wished he had slain the emperor. He was consul ordinarius in 46, serving until the kalends of March. The following year he fell victim to the intrigues of the empress Messalina.[292][293][294][174][295][296][297] Decimus Valerius D. f. Asiaticus, governor of Gallia Belgica during the reign of Nero. He married a daughter of Vitellius, and was designated consul for AD 70 under Vespasian, but died before taking office.[298][299] Marcus Lollius Paullinus Decimus Valerius D. f. D. n. Asiaticus Saturninus, grandson of the emperor Vitellius, was consul suffectus in AD 94, serving from the kalends of May to the kalends of August. He was proconsul of Asia from 108 to 109, and praefectus urbi from 124 to 134, holding the consulship for a second time in AD 125.[174][300][301] Decimus Valerius M. f. D. n. Taurus Catullus Messallinus Asiaticus, was a member of the Arval Brethren.[302] Quintus Valerius Asiaticus, mentioned in a libationary inscription from Liguria.[303][299] Others Valerius of Ostia, an architect, who designed the covered theatre built for the games of Libo (probably the Lucius Scribonius Libo who, while curule aedile in 193 BC, celebrated the Megalesia).[304] Marcus Valerius M. f. Artema, an architect, mentioned in an extant inscription.[305][306] Decimus Valerius L. f., a vascularius, or maker of bronze vases, from Tusculum.[306][307] Valerius Aedituus, a Roman poet, who probably lived about 100 BC. Two epigrams quoted in the Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius are attributed to him.[308][309] Gaius Valerius Caburnus, a Gaul who was granted Roman citizenship by Gaius Valerius Flaccus, the consul of 93 BC. He was the father of Gaius Valerius Procillus.[310] Quintus Valerius Soranus, an orator, scholar, and poet, much admired by Cicero; he had been tribune of the plebs, but the year is uncertain. He was put to death in 82 BC, ostensibly for revealing the sacred name of Rome, but more probably because he was proscribed by Sulla as a partisan of Marius. Valerius Nepos, one of Milo's accusers.[311] Lucius Valerius Antias, sent with five ships by Publius Valerius Flaccus in 215 BC, during the Second Punic War, to convey the Carthaginian ambassadors to Rome. Valerius Antias, the annalist, lived during the first century BC. Publius Valerius Cato, a scholar and poet who lived during the first century BC. Quintus Valerius Orca, praetor in 57 BC, and subsequently proconsul of Africa. He served under Caesar during the Civil War.[312][313] Lucius Valerius Praeconinus, a legate under Caesar's command, who was defeated and slain by the Aquitani in 57 BC.[314] Gaius Valerius C. f. Procillus, a Gallic chief who became one of the friends and allies of Caesar during his conquest of Gaul. He served as Caesar's interpreter and emissary, and was rescued by Caesar after being captured by Ariovistus, to whom he had been dispatched as an ambassador.[310] Valerius Valentinus, accused Gaius Cosconius, probably of extortion in his province. Cosconius was apparently guilty, but his acquittal was secured when a bawdy poem by Valentinus was read in court.[315] Lucius Valerius Acisculus, triumvir monetalis in 45 BC. Valerius Ligur, praetorian prefect in the time of Augustus.[316] Valerius Largus, earned the ire of Augustus by accusing Gaius Cornelius Gallus.[317] Valerius Gratus, as procurator of Judaea from AD 15 to 27, fought to deliver the country from robbers, assisted the proconsul Quinctilius Varus in putting down a revolt, and appointed several successive high priests, of whom the last was Caiaphas. He was followed by Pontius Pilate.[318] Valerius Naso, a former praetor, who was appointed to oversee the construction of a temple in honour of Tiberius at Smyrna in AD 26.[319] Valerius Capito, had been banished by Agrippina the Younger, but after her death, Nero recalled him.[320] Valerius Ponticus, banished in AD 61.[321] Valerius Fabianus, a man of senatorial rank, was degraded in AD 62 by the lex Cornelia Testamentaria, after forging a will purportedly belonging to a wealthy relative, Domitius Balbus, in order to claim the latter's fortune.[322][323] Marcus Valerius Probus, a grammarian who flourished from the time of Nero to the end of the first century. He was quite learned, but published little of importance, and seldom took pupils.[324] Valerius Marinus, announced as consul designate by Galba in AD 69, he never took office, as Vitellius succeeded to the empire first.[325] Marcus Valerius Paulinus, a friend and early ally of Vespasian, who had been appointed procurator of Gallia Narbonensis in AD 69. He served in the Jewish War, and is said to have been consul in AD 101, early in the reign of Trajan.[326][327][328] Gaius Calpetanus Rantius Quirinalis Valerius Festus, a partisan of Vespasian, whom he secretly served as legate in Africa. After Vespasian's accession, Festus was named consul suffectus in AD 71, serving from the kalends of May to the kalends of July.[329][330] Valerius Theon, a sophist, and the author of a commentary on Andocides. Some scholars suppose him to be the same person as the sophist Aelius Theon.[331][332] Publius Valerius Patruinus, consul suffectus from the Kalends of July to the Kalends of September in AD 82.[174][333][334] Publius Valerius Marinus, consul suffectus from the Kalends of May to the Kalends of September in AD 91.[335][301] Quintus Valerius Vegetus, consul suffectus from the Kalends of September to the end of the year in AD 91.[335][301] Valerius Licinianus, an advocate, and former praetor, who was accused of having committed incest with Cornelia, chief of the Vestal Virgins. He confessed in hopes of being spared by Domitian, who banished him. Under Nerva he was permitted to live in Sicily, where he taught rhetoric.[336][337] Quintus Fabius Barbarus Valerius Magnus Julianus, consul suffectus from the Kalends of July to the Kalends of September in AD 99.[338] Valeria of Milan, a first- or second-century Christian martyr. Marcus Valerius Martialis, otherwise known as "Martial", a poet who flourished under the reigns of Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan, and was famous for his epigrams. Gaius Valerius Anemestione C. Ius, an anaglyptarius, or metalworker, so described in a Cordovan inscription.[306][339] Gaius Valerius Paullinus, consul suffectus in AD 107, serving from the Kalends of September to the end of the year.[174][338] Lucius Mummius Niger Quintus Valerius Vegetus, consul suffectus in AD 112, serving from the Kalends of April to the Kalends of July.[174][335][338] Gaius Valerius Severus, governor of Achaea from AD 117 to 118, then of Lycia and Pamphylia until 122. In 124, he was consul suffectus from the Kalends of September to the end of the year. [...]catus Publius Valerius Priscus, consul circa AD 120 or 121. Lucius Valerius Propinquus Pomponius Granius Grattius (Cerealis?) Geminius Restitutus, consul suffectus in AD 126, from the Kalends of March to the Kalends of July. He was governor of Germania Inferior in the early 130s, and of Asia from 140 to 141. Valerius Pollio, a philosopher from Alexandria, who lived in the time of Hadrian. He was the father of Valerius Pollio Diodorus.[340] Valerius Pollio Diodorus, the son of Valerius Pollio, was a philosopher who lived in the age of Hadrian.[340][341] Valerius Urbicus, consul in an uncertain year before AD 138. Marcus Valerius Junianus, consul suffectus in AD 143. Gaius Valerius L. f. Florinus, the brother of Proculus, was a military tribune in the Legio VII Claudia, according to a second-century inscription from Praeneste.[342] Lucius Valerius L. f. Proculus, the brother of Florinus, was praefectus annonae from AD 142 to 144, and prefect of Egypt from 144 to 147.[343] Sextus Quinctilius Valerius Maximus, consul in AD 151. Marcus Valerius Homullus, consul in AD 152, was a friend of Antoninus Pius, and humorously admonished the emperor on various occasions.[344] Marcus Valerius Etruscus, legate of the third legion, was probably consul suffectus from the Kalends of July to the Kalends of September in AD 154. Marcus Valerius Bradua, the father of Marcus Valerius Bradua Mauricus, the consul of AD 191.[345] Marcus Asinius Rufinus Valerius Verus Sabinianus, consul in an uncertain year between AD 183 and 185. Marcus Valerius Maximianus, consul suffectus in AD 185. Valerius Senecio, consul suffectus in AD 186. Marcus Valerius M. f. Bradua Mauricus, consul in AD 191.[345] Gaius Valerius Pudens, consul suffectus in AD 193 or 194. He had been governor of Pannonia Inferior, and was governor of Britain in the early third century. He was proconsul of Africa circa 211. Valerius Bassianus, put to death by Commodus.[346] Ofilius Valerius Macedo, consul suffectus in an uncertain year, before AD 198. Valerius Catulinus, appointed by Didius Julianus to succeed Septimius Severus as governor of Illyricum, when Severus refused to acknowledge his title. However, Catulinus was slain by Severus' forces.[347] Marcus Valerius Senecio, consul suffectus in an uncertain year, between AD 211 and 217. Publius Valerius Eutychianus Comazon, an actor and dancer who became a friend and confidant of Elagabalus after having taken part in the conspiracy against Macrinus. He was appointed praetorian prefect, then consul in AD 220, and served three times as praefectus urbi, twice under Elagabalus, and again under Alexander Severus.[348][349][350] Quintus (or Claudius?) Valerius Rufrius Justus, consul suffectus in an uncertain year, between AD 220 and 230. Valerius Marcellinus, a historian, and biographer of the emperors, cited by Julius Capitolinus.[351] Julius Valerius Alexander Polemius, a scholar of the late third and early fourth century, who translated the life of Alexander the Great, of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, into Latin. Valerius of Saragossa, Bishop of Caesaraugusta in Hispania Tarraconensis from AD 290 to 315. Valerius Proculus, consul in AD 325. Aurelius Valerius Tullianus Symmachus, consul in AD 330. Lucius Aradius Valerius Proculus, also known as Populonius, consul in AD 340, and praefectus urbi from 337 to 338, and from 351 to 352. Valerius of Trèves, a fourth-century bishop of Augusta Treverorum. Lucius Valerius Septimius Bassus, praefectus urbi under Gratian, Valentinian II, and Theodosius I.[352] Valerius II, Bishop of Zaragoza, circa 380 Valerius Adelphius Bassus, consularis of Venetia and Histria under Valentinian II, Theodosius I and Arcadius, and perhaps the son of Lucius Valerius Septimius Bassus.[353] Flavius Valerius, consul in AD 432.[354] Valerius Faltonius Adelphius, consul in AD 451, perhaps the son of Valerius Adelphius Bassus.[355] Flavius Valerius, consul in AD 521. Imperial Valerii Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, emperor from AD 284 to 305.[356][357][358] Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus 'Herculius', emperor from AD 286 to 305, 306 to 308, and 310.[359][360][361][362][363][364] Galerius Valerius Maximianus, better known as Galerius, emperor from AD 305 to 311.[365][366][367][368][369][370][371][372][373] Galeria Valeria, the daughter of Diocletian, and second wife of Galerius.[374] Galerius Valerius Maximinus Daza, emperor from AD 305 to 313.[375][376][377][378][379] Flavius Valerius Constantius Chlorus, emperor from AD 305 to 306.[380][381][382][383][384][385][386][387][388] Flavius Valerius Severus, emperor from AD 306 to 307.[389][390][391][392] Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius, emperor from AD 306 to 312.[393][394][395][396] Valeria Maximilla, the daughter of Galerius and wife of Maxentius. Flavius Valerius Constantinus, better known as Constantine the Great, emperor from AD 306 to 337.[397][398][399][400][401][402][403][404][405] Valerius Licinianus Licinius, emperor from AD 308 to 324.[406][407][400][408][409] Valerius Romulus, the son of Maxentius and Valeria Maximilla, consul in AD 308 and 309. Julius Valerius Majorianus, emperor from AD 457 to 461.[410][411][412][413][414][415][416] See also List of Roman gentes Footnotes  While Maximus might be taken to mean that Manius was the "greatest" of the brothers, either physically or because of his reputation, it could also mean that he was the eldest brother; according to tradition he was already elderly at the time of his dictatorship in 494 BC.  The modern expression is "pigeon-toed".  The Capitoline Fasti give Gaius' filiation as L. f. Vol. n., and Lucius' as L. f. P. n., but Münzer suggests that "Volesus" is a mistake for "Publius", in which case Gaius and Lucius would probably be brothers.  John Briscoe says "it is unlikely in the extreme" that Valerius Maximus belonged to the patrician Valerii, and suggests he descended from the plebeian Valerii Tapones or Triarii.  Or Teidius; both spellings are found for Valerius. References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, pp. 1215, 1216 ("Valeria Gens").  Cicero, De Legibus ii. 23.  Plutarch, "The Life of Publicola", 23.  Livy, ii. 31.  Dionysius, v. 39.  Plutarch, "The Life of Publicola", 20.  Niebuhr, History of Rome, vol. i. p. 538.  Dictionary of Antiquities, s. v. Leges Valeriae.  Dionysius of Halicarnassus, ii. 46.  Plutarch, "The Life of Numa", 5, "The Life of Publicola", 1.  Chase, pp. 127, 129–132, 147, 148.  New College Latin & English Dictionary, s. v. valeo.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 1001 ("Valerius Maximus" no. 1), vol. III, pp. 514 ("Valerius Potitus", no. 2), 600–602 ("Publicola", "Valerius Publicola" no. 1), 1283 ("Volusus").  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 600 ("Publicola"),  Chase, pp. 110, 111.  Livy, ii. 7, 8.  Orelli, Inscriptionum Latinarum Selectarum Collectio n. 547.  Chase, pp. 109, 110.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 514 ("Valerius Potitus").  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, pp. 1001 ("Valerius Maximus"), 1049 ("Messalla").  Chase, pp. 109, 110 ("Barbatus, Niger, Rufus"), 111 ("Maximus"), 113, 114 ("Messala").  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, pp. 861, 862 ("Corvus", Nos. 2, 3).  Chase, pp. 112, 113.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 1001 ("Valerius Maximus", Nos. 2, 3).  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 709 ("Laevinus").  Horace, Satirae, 1, 6, 12, Schol. Vet.  Martial, i. 62, vi. 9.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 135 ("Falto").  New College Latin & English Dictionary, s. v. Falco.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, pp. 1172, 1173 ("Valerius Triarius").  New College Latin & English Dictionary, s. v. triarii.  New College Latin & English Dictionary, s. v. catulus.  Chase, pp. 113, 114.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 1218 ("Valerius Asiaticus").  Livy, i. 24.  Fasti Capitolini, AE 1900, 83; 1904, 114; AE 1927, 101; 1940, 59, 60.  Dionysius, viii. 55.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 19.  Livy, i. 58, 59, ii. 2, 6–8, 11, 15, 16.  Dionysius iv. 67, v. 12 ff, 20, 21, 40 ff.  Plutarch, "The Life of Publicola".  Cicero, De Republica, ii. 31.  Niebuhr, History of Rome, i. 498 ff, 525, 529 ff, 558, 559.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 2, 5–7.  Dionysius, vi. 12.  Livy, ii. 52, 53, iii. 15-19.  Dionysius, vi. 12, ix. 28, x. 14-17.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 17, 27, 36, 37.  Livy, iii. 39–41, 49–55, 61–64.  Dionysius, xi. 4 ff, 45 ff.  Cicero, De Republica, ii. 31, Brutus, 14.  Tacitus, Annales, xi. 22.  Niebuhr, History of Rome, vol. ii, pp. 345–376.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 47, 51.  Livy, v. 26, vi. 1, 5, 21, 27.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 90, 95, 96, 99, 103, 105.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 125, 128.  Livy, vii. 12, 17–19.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 122, 124, 125.  Livy, vii. 21, 23, 28, viii. 17.  Livy, ii. 16, 20.  Dionysius, v. 37.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 5, 7, 9, 11.  Livy, ii. 41, 42, 61, 62.  Dionysius, viii. 77, 87, ix. 51, 55.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 22, 23, 31, 34.  Münzer, De Gente Valeria, p. 36.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 74 (note 1).  Livy, iv. 49, 57, 61.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 74, 77, 79, 81, 86.  Livy, iv. 49, 58, v. 1, 10, 14, 31, 48.  Dionysius, i. 74.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 74, 79, 81, 83–86, 88, 90–93, 95, 100.  Livy, vi. 6, 18, 27, 32, 36, 42.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 100–102, 105, 107, 110, 113.  Livy, vi. 36.  Livy, viii. 18.  Dionysius of Halicarnassus, vi. 39-45.  Livy, ii. 30, 31.  Cicero, Brutus, 14.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 14, 15.  Dionysius, x. 31–33.  Livy, iii. 31.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 40–42.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 58.  Livy, v. 14, 24.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 85, 89.  Livy, vii. 26–42, viii. 16, 17, ix. 7, 40, 41, x. 3–9, 11.  Gellius, ix. 11.  Valerius Maximus, viii. 13, § 1, 15. § 5.  Eutropius, ii. 6.  Censorinus, 17.  Cicero, De Senectute, 17.  Pliny the Elder, vii. 48. s. 49.  Niebuhr, vol. iii, p. 124.  Livy, ix. 29, 40, 41, 43.  Pliny the Elder, xvi. 10.  Briscoe, Valerius Maximus, p. 1.  Valerius Maximus, vi. 3. § 2.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 21.  Livy, Epitome, xiii.  Dionysius, xvii. 15, 16, xviii. 1–4.  Cassius Dio, Fragmenta, xl.  Appian, Bellum Samniticum, Fragmenta, x.  Plutarch, "The Life of Pyrrhus", 16, 17.  Zonaras, viii. 3.  Justin, xviii. 1.  Orosius, iv. 1.  Frontinus, Strategemata, ii. 4. § 9; iv. 7. § 7.  Aurelius Victor, De Viris Illustribus, 35.  Florus, i. 18.  Eutropius, ii. 11.  Polybius, viii. 3. § 6; ix. 27. § 2; xxii. 12. § 11.  Livy, xxuuu. 24, 30, 32–34, 37, 38, 48, xxiv. 10, 11, 20, 40, 44, xxv. 3, xxvi. 1, 22, 24, 26–30, 32, 36, 40, xxvii. 5, 7, 9, 22, 29, xxviii. 4, 10, 46, xxix. 11, 16, xxx. 23, xxxi. 3, 5, 50.  Florus, ii. 7.  Justin, xxix. 4.  Eutropius, iii. 12.  Claudian, De Bello Gothico, 395.  Livy, xxxi. 50.  Livy, xxxi. 50.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 382.  Polybius, xxii. 12. § 10; 14. § 2.  Livy, xxxviii. 9, 10, xl. 44, xli. 25, xlii. 6, 17, xliii. 14.  Livy, xxxi. 50, xli. 8.  Livy, ix. 7.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 151.  Broughton, vol. I, p. 204.  Polybius, i. 20.  Aulus Gellius, iv. 3.  Livy, xxi. 6, xxiii. 16, 34, 38, xxvi. 8 Epitome 20.  Cicero, Philippicae, v. 10.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 229, 237, 251, 257, 261.  Livy, xxv. 14, xxxi. 4, 49, 50, xxxii. 42, 43, xxxiv. 21, 46, xxxvi. 17, 19, xxxvii. 46, xxxix. 40 ff, 52, xl. 42.  Polybius, xx. 9 ff.  Plutarch, "The Life of Cato the Elder"  Cornelius Nepos, "The Life of Cato", 2.  Orosius, iv. 20.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 269, 272 (note 6), 327, 339, 374, 375.  Livy, xxvii. 8, xxxi. 50, xxxii. 7, xxxix. 54.  Valerius Maximus, vi. 9. § 3.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 289, 327, 379.  Obsequens, 18.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 448, 453.  Cicero, Philippicae, xi. 8.  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 490, 491 ff (note 2), 500, 501.  Plutarch, "The Life of Sulla", 33.  Appian, Bellum Civile, i. 97 ff.  Cicero, De Lege Agraria, iii. 2, Epistulae ad Atticum, viii. 3.  Scholia Gronoviana, Pro Roscio, p. 435 (ed. Orelli).  Broughton, vol. I, pp. 563, 574, 577 (note 1); vol. II, pp. 6, 7, 67, 68. 76, 79, 83, 135, 137 (note 13).  Cicero, Pro Balbo, 24, Pro Roscio Comoedo, 7.  Scholia Bobiensia, In Ciceronis Pro Flacco, p. 233 (ed. Orelli).  Appian, Hispanica, 100.  Broughton, vol. II, pp. 9, 10 (note 4), 14, 18, 19 (note 7), 58, 59, 60 (note 3), 61, 64, 70, 77, 78.  Cicero, Pro Flacco, 23, 25, 32, Pro Fonteio, 1–5.  Sallust, Bellum Catilinae, 33.  Velleius Paterculus, ii. 23.  Münzer, De Gente Valeria, p. 42 (No. 27).  Broughton, vol. II, pp. 1, 15, 18, 19, 51, 53 (and note 12), 56 (note 1).  Cicero, Pro Flacco, Epistulae ad Atticum, i. 19, ii. 25, In Pisonem, 23, Pro Plancio, 11.  Scholia Bobiensia, Pro Flacco, p. 228 (ed. Orelli).  Sallust, Bellum Catilinae, 45.  Broughton, vol. II, pp. 71, 87, 91, 94, 123, 129, 140, 147, 156 (and note 3), 167, 177, 178 (note 2), 185, 186, 213.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, iii. 4, 11.  Broughton, vol. 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Paris).  Eusebius, Vita Constantini, i. 13–21.  Trebellius Pollio, "The Life of Claudius Gothicus", 3, 13.  Aelius Spartianus, "The Life of Aelius Verus", 2.  Flavius Vopiscus, "The Life of Carinus", 16, 17, "The Life of Aurelian", 44, "The Life of Probus", 22.  Ammianus Marcellinus, xix. 2.  Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum, 18–20, 25, 26.  Aurelius Victor, De Caesaribus and Epitome de Caesaribus, 40.  Eutropius, x. 2.  Zosimus, ii. 8, 10.  Zosimus, ii. 9–18.  Zonaras, xii. 33, xiii. 1.  Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum, cc. 26, 28, 44.  Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, viii. 14, Vita Constantini, i. 26, 33 ff.  Eusebius, Vita Constantini.  Eutropius, x.  Festus, Breviarum Rerum Gestarum Populi Romani, 26.  Aurelius Victor, De Caesaribus and Epitome de Caesaribus, 40, 41.  Zosimus, ii.  Zonaras, xiii.  Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum, 24–52.  Orosius, vii.  Ammianus Marcellinus, xiv. ff.  Zosimus, ii. 7, 11, 17–28.  Zonaras, xiii. 1.  Eutropius, x. 3, 4.  Orosius, vii. 28.  Sidonius Apollinaris, Panegyrici, "Majorian", i. 1.  Procopius, De Bello Vandalico, i. 7, 8.  Gregory of Tours, ii. 7.  Priscus, in Excerpta de Legationibus, p. 42.  Evagrius, ii. 7.  Hydatius, Chronicon.  Marcellinus, Chronicon. 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Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown, and Company, Boston (1859). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). Friedrich Münzer, De Gente Valeria (The Gens Valeria), Erdmann Raabe, Opole (1891). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII (1897). Paul von Rohden, Elimar Klebs, & Hermann Dessau, Prosopographia Imperii Romani (The Prosopography of the Roman Empire, abbreviated PIR), Berlin (1898). Friedrich Münzer, Römische Adelsparteien und Adelsfamilien (Roman Aristocratic Parties and Families), Stuttgart, 1920. T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association (1952). E. Mary Smallwood, Documents Illustrating the Principates of Nerva, Trajan, and Hadrian, Cambridge University Press (1966). Oxford Classical Dictionary, N. G. L. Hammond and H. H. Scullard, eds., Clarendon Press, Oxford (Second Edition, 1970). Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Valerius, Publius" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 859. A. H. M. Jones & J. R. Martindale, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (abbreviated PLRE), Cambridge University Press (1971–1992). Guido Bastianini, "Lista dei prefetti d'Egitto dal 30a al 299p" (List of the Prefects of Egypt from 30 BC to AD 299), in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, vol. 17 (1975). Werner Eck, "Epigraphische Untersuchungen zu Konsuln und Senatoren des 1.–3. Jh. n. Chr." (Investigation of Consular and Senatorial Epigraphy from the First to the Third Century AD), in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, vol. 37 (1980). Paul A. Gallivan, "The Fasti for the Reign of Claudius", in Classical Quarterly, vol. 28, pp. 407–426 (1978); "The Fasti for A.D. 70–96", in Classical Quarterly, vol. 31, pp. 186–220 (1981). Olli Salomies, Adoptive and Polyonymous Nomenclature in the Roman Empire, Societas Scientiarum Fennica, Helsinki (1992). John C. Traupman, The New College Latin & English Dictionary, Bantam Books, New York (1995). Inge Mennen, Power and Status in the Roman Empire, AD 193–284, Brill (2011). Tim Cornell (editor), The Fragments of the Roman Historians, Oxford University Press, 2013. John Briscoe, Valerius Maximus, Facta Et Dicta Memorabilia, Book 8: Text, Introduction, and Commentary, Berlin/Boston, de Gruyter, 2019. Categories: ValeriiRoman gentesRoman gentes of Sabine origin And for THIS gens? Grice and Speranza have selected a few already, -- this is the first general entry for the gens --. WHich would be YOUR first-best choice for a Grice-Speranza vignette for this gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valerio – Ossia: Grice e Valerio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Valerio For the Valerii, I would not choose the most famous Valerius, nor the emperor, nor even the poet Catullus. For a Grice-Speranza vignette, my first choice would be:  Gaius Valerius Procillus, Caesar's interpreter and envoy in Gaul. [GREXv3 | Word]  And the reason is simple: he combines almost every theme you have been developing:  interpretation, bilingualism, diplomacy, intention, trust, communication across communities.  Caesar explicitly tells us that Procillus served as his interpreter and emissary with Ariovistus. [GREXv3 | Word] This immediately raises Gricean questions. A messenger does not merely convey words. He must preserve:  what Caesar said, what Caesar meant, what Ariovistus is to understand Caesar as meaning.  In modern Gricean notation, he is almost managing a second-order communicative intention.  A close second would be:  Aulus Valentius, Verres' Greek interpreter in Sicily. [GREXv3 | Word]  But Cicero's portrait is hostile. Valentius appears as an intermediary implicated in extortion and exploitation. Interesting, certainly. Yet Procillus seems nobler and philosophically cleaner.  For a specifically Roman contribution to Grice's concerns, however, I find another irresistible candidate:  Publius Valerius Poplicola. [GREXv3 | Word]  Because the cognomen itself means approximately:  "the people's friend," "he who courts the people."  Derived from:  populus + colo. [GREXv3 | Word]  Now consider Grice's Cooperative Principle:  Make your contribution such as is required by the accepted purpose of the exchange.  Poplicola's entire political reputation is built around making communication possible between patricians and plebeians at the birth of the Republic. The ancient tradition presents him as repeatedly preventing a breakdown between the orders and enacting popular measures despite his patrician origin. [GREXv3 | Word] One might almost call him:  the Cooperative Principle incarnate.  (Ha.)  Yet if I am forced to choose only one vignette, I still choose: Procillus Imagine a Grice-Austin tutorial: Austin:  "What is an interpreter?"  Procillus:  Interpres Caesaris.  (Caesar's interpreter.) Austin:  "A translator, then?"  Procillus:  "Not merely."  Grice:  "Quite."  +> The translator must know what Caesar intends. +> The hearer must recognize that intention. +> The translator must ensure that the hearer recognizes that intention. Procillus:  "And if I get it wrong?"  Grice:  "Then history changes."   Among all the magnificent Valerii, from Poplicola to Messalla Corvinus to Constantine, it is the interpreter Procillus who seems to me most naturally Gricean. The augur reads birds. The haruspex reads livers. The jurist reads agreements. But the interpres reads minds through language. That is almost exactly where Grice spent his life. (Ha.) And what was Ariovistus's mother tongue? How sure Giulio was that our hero, V., knew it? Thanks A very good Grice-Speranza question. The short answer is:  Ariovistus's native language was almost certainly some early West Germanic dialect, as he was king of the Suebi, a Germanic people beyond the Rhine. We cannot identify the precise dialect, because our sources do not preserve enough evidence. [en.wikipedia.org], [historyfiles.co.uk]  But the really interesting point is that Caesar does not send Procillus because Procillus knows Germanic. Quite the contrary. In Bellum Gallicum 1.47 Caesar explicitly says he chose Procillus:  propter linguae Gallicae scientiam, qua multa iam Ariovistus longinqua consuetudine utebatur  that is,  because of his knowledge of the Gallic language, which Ariovistus had long been accustomed to use. [dcc.dickinson.edu], [anastrophe...hicago.edu]  That sentence is extraordinarily revealing. It tells us that Caesar believed:  Procillus knew Gaulish. Ariovistus spoke Gaulish fluently from long experience among the Gauls. Therefore German need not enter the transaction at all. [anastrophe...hicago.edu], [dcc.dickinson.edu]  So our hero Procillus is not necessarily an interpreter between:  Latin ↔ Germanic.  He is more likely an interpreter operating through:  Latin ↔ Gaulish ↔ Ariovistus.  Or perhaps even:  Latin-speaking Caesar → Gaulish-speaking Procillus → Gaulish-speaking Ariovistus.   This is precisely why the episode is so fascinating. Ariovistus is ethnically Germanic. Yet Caesar says he had become accustomed to speaking Gaulish through long residence and dealings in Gaul. [anastrophe...hicago.edu], [dcc.dickinson.edu] The situation resembles a modern diplomat who is:  Russian by birth, stationed in Paris for twenty years, negotiating in French.  His mother tongue remains Russian, but French may be the language of diplomacy.  A further wrinkle is that Procillus himself was not an Italian Roman in the ordinary sense. He was a Roman citizen from a Gallic family. Caesar calls him the son of Gaius Valerius Caburus, a Gaul who had received Roman citizenship, and stresses both his loyalty and his command of Gaulish. [en.wikipedia.org], [anastrophe...hicago.edu] So the communicative chain is wonderfully complicated.  Caesar (Latin) ↓ Procillus (Roman citizen, native Gaul) ↓ Ariovistus (Germanic king speaking Gaulish)  One can almost imagine Grice smiling. For who is the interpres here? Not merely a translator of words. Procillus is mediating:  Roman interests, Gallic linguistic competence, Germanic political power.  Very close to the older Roman sense of:  interpres broker, intermediary, go-between.   And there is a lovely irony. Caesar selected Procillus partly because he thought the Germans would have no reason to harm him. Yet Ariovistus immediately suspected espionage:  An speculandi causa? "Have you come to spy?"  and had him put in chains. [dcc.dickinson.edu], [dco.dickinson.edu] Thus our Gricean hero begins as:  interpres  and ends, in Ariovistus' eyes, as:  speculator.  Which is delicious, because we have just spent pages discussing:  interpres, speculator, haruspex, and other Roman specialists in signs.  Procillus nearly becomes all three at once. (Ha.) And gaulish is the underdog -- totally replaced by Latin in what the Romans called Gallia -- right? There may be lexical relics --. And do Indo-Europeanists know about this? It was a Celtic -- p celtic, k-celtic, what? Thanks I'm surprised that a Roman citizen of Gaull origin could still speak Gaull as Asterix -- France's 'national hero' -- The french want to have little to do with the barbarian invading Franks! Thanks Yes, and Indo-Europeanists know quite a lot about Gaulish, although not nearly as much as they know about Latin or Old Irish. The first point is that Gaulish was not wiped out overnight by Latin. Caesar's own testimony about Procillus is a reminder of that. In 58 BC, a Roman citizen of Gallic origin could still be valuable precisely because he knew Gaulish. Caesar explicitly says Procillus was chosen because of his knowledge of the Gallic language, which Ariovistus had long been accustomed to use. [anastrophe...hicago.edu], [dcc.dickinson.edu] So Roman citizenship and continued use of Gaulish were perfectly compatible. In fact, for several centuries after Caesar, Gaul underwent a process of language shift, not immediate replacement. Latin gradually became:  the language of administration, law, education, upward social mobility,  while Gaulish survived regionally and socially. Most specialists believe Gaulish was still spoken in some districts well into the Roman imperial period.  On the Celtic question: Gaulish is generally classified as a Continental Celtic language. The old textbook division was:  P-Celtic vs. Q-Celtic  where: P-Celtic Proto-Indo-European kw becomes p. Example:  PIE kwetwores ("four") Welsh pedwar  Gaulish usually falls into this group. Q-Celtic Proto-Indo-European kw remains a velar sound. Example:  Irish ceathair  Old Irish belongs here. So Gaulish is normally regarded as being closer, in that respect, to:  Welsh, Breton, Cornish,  than to Old Irish. (The reality is more complicated, but the classification remains useful.)  And yes, there are lexical relics. French is overwhelmingly descended from spoken Latin, but it appears to contain a Gaulish substrate. Examples commonly cited by historical linguists include words such as:  alouette ("lark"),   mouton ("sheep"),  and various agricultural, rural, and landscape terms. Perhaps even more important is place-nomenclature. A vast number of French place names preserve Celtic elements. For example:  -dunum ("fort") as in Lugdunum → Lyon.  Many rivers also preserve ancient Celtic names.  Your remark about the French and the Franks is delightful. There is a certain historical irony. The country called:  France  is named after the Franks, a Germanic-speaking people. Yet modern French identity has often preferred to look either:  backward to Rome,  or  backward to the Gauls,  rather than dwell on the Frankish conquest. Hence the popularity of:  Vercingetorix  and, in the twentieth century,  Asterix.  Asterix is almost a national myth of continuity:  "We were Gauls before we were Franks."  Historically, of course, France emerged from all three components:  Celtic Gauls, Roman Latin civilization, Germanic Franks.   From a Grice-Speranza angle, however, what fascinates me is Procillus. Modern readers often imagine:  Roman = Latin speaker, Gaul = Gaulish speaker, German = Germanic speaker.  Caesar's narrative reveals a much messier reality. We find:  a Roman citizen of Gallic ancestry, speaking Gaulish, serving a Latin-speaking general, negotiating with a Germanic king who also speaks Gaulish.  That is a far more "Babelified" world than the neat maps found in school atlases. And perhaps that is exactly why the Roman interpres mattered so much. He was not merely translating vocabulary. He was navigating overlapping identities, loyalties, and language communities. Our hero Procillus stands at the crossroads of all three. (Ha.) And we are at the Antipodes of Grice's and Speranza's principle of conversational helpfulness between two honest chaps (as Grice defines it). For Giulio is USING our hero "V." because of his knowledge of this eccentric mother tongue -- and paying for it. And our hero "V." has to be condescending to a barbarian invader -- thus, he won't communicate with him as a decent chap with another decent chap, since V. KNOWS that the king's mother tongue is Serbian. And the honest chap has then to report back to Giulio --. The principle of conversational helfpulness applies to decent chaps, not to envoys in a foreign land. Do we know the result of such a 'conversation'? Thanks Yes, and here I think a Gricean would become much less optimistic than many casual readers of the Cooperative Principle. First, a small correction. Ariovistus' mother tongue was not Serbian or Slavic. He was the leader of the Suebi, and his native language was almost certainly an early Germanic dialect, although we cannot recover its exact form. [en.wikipedia.org], [historyfiles.co.uk] But your main point stands. The situation is very remote from Grice's idealized picture of:  one decent chap talking to another decent chap.  The parties are:  Julius Caesar, planning military action; Ariovistus, a rival military leader; Procillus, an intermediary whose loyalty Caesar trusts; armies standing nearby.  This is diplomacy under threat of war. Grice often stresses that conversational principles arise from participation in a common enterprise. In ordinary conversation the common enterprise might be:  finding the station, discussing philosophy, arranging supper.  Here the common enterprise is far less secure. Indeed Caesar explicitly says he selected Procillus because of:  his loyalty (fides), his knowledge of Gaulish, his usefulness in dealing with Ariovistus. [anastrophe...hicago.edu], [dcc.dickinson.edu]  That is not an equal relation. Procillus is being used as an envoy, exactly as a Roman magistrate uses a surveyor, scout, or secretary.  And your observation about reporting back is excellent. Procillus is not merely communicating with Ariovistus. He is simultaneously communicating for Caesar. He therefore occupies two conversational systems at once. In Gricean notation we almost have:  Caesar → Procillus → Ariovistus  followed by  Ariovistus → Procillus → Caesar.  The intermediary must understand both sides while belonging fully to neither. That is much closer to the ancient notion of:  interpres  than to the modern philosophical notion of conversational cooperation.  What, then, was the result of this "conversation"? That is the most amusing part. There was essentially no conversation at all. Caesar tells us that when Ariovistus saw Procillus and the other envoy, Marcus Mettius, in his camp, he shouted before his army:  Why have they come? Are they here to spy?  (An speculandi causa?) [dcc.dickinson.edu], [dco.dickinson.edu] He then prevented them from speaking and threw them into chains. [dcc.dickinson.edu], [dco.dickinson.edu] That is a magnificent anti-Gricean moment. The very purpose of the embassy was:  communication.  Ariovistus responds by refusing communication. The envoys are not even permitted to complete their speech. The conversational exchange collapses before it begins.  Later, after Caesar defeated Ariovistus, Procillus was recovered. Caesar himself describes the recovery with unusual warmth. According to Caesar's narrative, Procillus had been subjected to repeated divinatory lot-castings to determine whether he should be burned alive immediately or reserved for later, and Caesar says that finding him alive gave him as much pleasure as the military victory itself. [en.wikipedia.org] So the outcome of the embassy is paradoxical: Official result:  diplomatic failure.  Political result:  further evidence that negotiation had broken down.  Narrative result:  Procillus becomes one of the most memorable minor characters in the Bellum Gallicum.   Indeed, for a Grice-Speranza vignette, I would formulate it this way: Caesar:  "Go and ask Ariovistus what he intends."  Procillus:  "Very well."  +> I shall communicate. Ariovistus:  "Spy!"  +> I shall not communicate. And immediately we learn something very Gricean: The Cooperative Principle is not a law of nature. It operates only where participants are willing to treat one another as conversational partners. Ariovistus refuses that status altogether. The fascinating thing is that the breakdown itself becomes meaningful. By chaining the envoys, Ariovistus communicates something perfectly clearly:  "Negotiation is over."  A very uncooperative conversational move, but an extraordinarily effective one. (Ha.) Burnt alive or reserved for later? as per outcome of Suebian oracles? Our hero: V. "Perhaps Giulio should not have been so demanding! I was about to go into the camp, and I realised that the king of th Suebi had very rudimentary knowledge of Gaulish. I said "I am a friend" in Gaulish -- and he said, "Fiend" -- which in his Germanic dialect means the OPPOSITE of friend. The fact that Mettius was with me was to no avail since he started to recite from Lucrezio's De rerum natura -- and what would a barbarian king know?" Thanks (Ha.) As a Grice-Speranza reconstruction, that is very good, especially because it exploits a real feature of the episode: the conversation never really gets started. Historically, Caesar says that Ariovistus had Procillus and Marcus Mettius seized before they could properly explain themselves. Ariovistus suspected them of espionage and had them put in chains. [dcc.dickinson.edu], [dco.dickinson.edu] And yes, Caesar later reports a remarkable detail: Procillus told him that lots had repeatedly been cast over whether he should be burned immediately or kept for later execution, and that the lots repeatedly postponed his death. Caesar says that recovering Procillus alive gave him extraordinary pleasure. [en.wikipedia.org] That sounds less like Roman religion and more like the sort of divinatory practice Caesar associated with Germanic peoples. The important point is that Procillus himself reports the repeated consultation of lots, with the result:  not yet, not yet, not yet.  until Caesar's victory intervenes. [en.wikipedia.org] Your imagined monologue has a very Gricean moral:  "The Cooperative Principle presupposes that the parties wish to cooperate."  Ariovistus does not. Indeed, he seems to reject the very conversational framework. One can imagine Procillus reporting:  Procillus: Accessi ut legatus; habitus sum ut speculator. (I approached as an envoy; I was treated as a spy.)  That, in fact, is close to what happened. And the linguistic joke is delightful:  "I said 'friend'; he heard 'fiend'."  Not historical, of course, but philosophically apt. The whole mission turns on a collapse of presumed common ground. In a normal Gricean exchange:  Speaker intends p. Hearer recognizes that intention.  In the Ariovistan exchange:  Speaker intends p. Hearer suspects espionage.  The inferential machinery is still operating, but under hostile assumptions. As for poor Mettius:  Mettius: Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis... ("Pleasant it is, when on the great sea the winds trouble the waters...")  Ariovistus:  "Chains."  (Ha.) The deeper point is that diplomatic conversation is not the absence of strategic interests. Rather, it is communication conducted under conditions of conflicting interests. Grice's "decent chap" is an abstraction useful for philosophical analysis. Procillus' world contains:  armies, hostages, rival peoples, uncertain loyalties, interpreters, spies.  It is almost an anti-Oxford tutorial. Yet exactly because it is so hostile, it reveals something important. Even Ariovistus' refusal to converse communicates perfectly clearly:  "I do not accept the role of conversational partner."  That is an extraordinarily informative speech act, achieved without much speech. And so, among the Valerii, Procillus remains one of my favorites: the interpreter who discovers that before meanings can be exchanged, there must already exist a minimal willingness to treat the other fellow as someone worth talking to. Aristotle's sea-battle tomorrow is simpler. The sea-battle between Caesar and Ariovistus was already well underway. (Ha.) Grice gives two examples of patent implicatures -- discussed by Speranza: women are women (sexist) and War is war (Grice fought for the Navy). The king of the Suebi know 'war is war' (bellum bellum est). What is German for war? Two Roman-dressed people approach -- there is no consideration: here come two Griceian-cooperative fellows. In retrospect, Giulio's manoeuver was manipulative. He eventually defeats the kijng. This attempt at a previous encounter before battle was going to be either pernicious for the king or it will -- no positive outcome for the king. Giulio was intend in recovering land -- what do we know of the Suebi and did their mother land become Romanised after all, or was this an outpost? And where in GERMANIA would Tacitus or Procopius locate the Suebi. Because, unlike Speranza (Italo-Roman), Grice was an Anglian -- Ingveonis -- not different from the Suebi -- the Ingvaeones lived in Angel, in Schleswig, before they departed for Oxenford (Vadum Castrorum Taurorum) Thanks. You're right to connect this with Grice's examples of what Speranza calls "patent implicatures" or perhaps near-tautological reminders:  War is war. Women are women.  The point is not that these are informative in their literal content. Rather, they signal:  "Do not expect exceptions to the normal consequences."  If anyone in Caesar's story would endorse  Bellum bellum est,  it would surely be Ariovistus. Incidentally, the German word today is:  Krieg = war.  The older Germanic vocabulary is more complicated. Proto-Germanic had forms related to strife and confusion, from which German Krieg eventually emerged. Ariovistus would not have spoken modern German, of course, but some early Germanic ancestor of it.  Your reading of the embassy is, I think, more Roman and less Oxonian than many interpretations. Caesar presents the mission as diplomacy. But from Ariovistus' perspective the situation might have been:  A powerful Roman commander has entered Gaul with an army. He wants me to surrender claims and territory. He sends envoys. Therefore the envoys are part of the campaign.  In that sense, Ariovistus' suspicion:  An speculandi causa? "Have they come to spy?"  may not be entirely irrational. [dcc.dickinson.edu], [dco.dickinson.edu] The conversation is asymmetrical from the start. Caesar can present negotiation as mutually beneficial. But the range of outcomes available to Ariovistus seems rather narrow.  As for the Suebi themselves, they are fascinating. Ariovistus was leader of a Suebian confederation, one of the earliest Germanic groupings clearly visible in our sources. The Suebi had crossed the Rhine into Gaul, become entangled in Gallic politics, and were eventually pushed back by Caesar. [en.wikipedia.org], [historyfiles.co.uk] After Caesar's victory, their homeland did not become Romanized in the way Gaul did. Indeed, one of the great long-term facts of Roman history is that:  Gaul became Latin. Germania did not.  Rome repeatedly campaigned east of the Rhine but never permanently absorbed most of the Germanic world.  For Tacitus, the Suebi occupy a very large portion of Germania. In the Germania, "Suebi" is not merely one tribe but almost a vast grouping incorporating many peoples. One of Tacitus' famous ethnographic markers is the:  Suebian knot  (nodus Suebus), the characteristic hairstyle. The Suebi appear in his account as occupying much of central and eastern Germania. So Tacitus' map would place them not in one neat province, but across a substantial expanse of the Germanic interior.  Your comparison with the Ingvaeones is a good one.  indeed distinguishes several broad Germanic groupings, including the:  Ingvaeones, Herminones, Istaevones.  The Anglian ancestors of English-speakers are usually associated with the northern coastal world from which the Ingvaeonic peoples emerged. So, if one were writing a Grice-Speranza fantasy dialogue:  Speranza: "Roman chap."   Grice: "Germanic chap."   Ariovistus: "Older Germanic chap."  (Ha.) The genealogical line is not direct, but culturally one could say that Grice's distant ancestors belonged to a Germanic world closer to that of Ariovistus than to that of Caesar.  And here we come back to conversational helpfulness. Ariovistus' world is not that of:  two honest philosophers exchanging reasons.  It is that of:  kings, armies, envoys, hostages, scouts, spies.  Yet Grice would probably say something subtle. Even enemies remain dependent on communication. The embassy fails. The envoys are chained. The war proceeds. But Ariovistus' very refusal to converse communicates a perfectly intelligible message:  "I recognize what you are doing, Caesar, and I reject the conversational framework itself."  That is almost the strongest possible conversational move. And perhaps that is why the episode is so memorable. The Oxford philosopher asks:  What happens when cooperation succeeds?  The encounter between Caesar and Ariovistus asks:  What happens when cooperation is refused from the outset?  History, unfortunately, supplies the answer. Caesar wins, the Suebi retreat across the Rhine, and poor Procillus discovers that being an interpres can be considerably more dangerous than being a tutor at St John's. (Ha.) J. L. Borges, who wrote "Old Germanic literatures," liked to recite a poem by Arnold that ends with 'war' and uses only Anglo-Saxon terms. But 'war' is not Anglo-Saxon in that it comes from Anglo-Norman 'guerre' -- if A. was Suebian, and West Germanic, would the root behind 'guerre' be cognate for 'war'? Thanks -- and can we locate the poem by Arnold (I think). Thanks -- Onions in Etymological dictionary discusses it -- maybe akin with welkin? Thanks You are quite right about war. The ordinary English word:  war  is not native Old English. It comes into Middle English from Anglo-Norman and Old French guerre, after the Norman Conquest. The French word itself is generally derived from a Germanic source, often reconstructed as something like werra meaning "confusion, strife, disorder." So the irony is that English lost its native word and borrowed back a Germanic one through French. [purl.stanford.edu] Thus, if Ariovistus spoke an early West Germanic language, the remote ancestors of:  French guerre English war Germanic werra  would indeed ultimately be related. Not identical, but members of the same broad Germanic family. This is why etymologists such as Onions were fascinated by the history of war: it looks French on the surface, yet beneath the French clothing lies a Germanic pedigree. As for welkin, that is different. It comes from Old English:  wolcen / wolcn "cloud, sky, heaven, firmament"  and is unrelated to war. The resemblance is accidental. The root behind welkin concerns clouds and the vault of heaven, not conflict.  Now to Borges and Arnold. I strongly suspect the poem you have in mind is not one that literally ends with the word war, but rather "The Last Word" by Matthew Arnold. Borges admired Germanic and Anglo-Saxon diction, and Arnold's poem is famous for its hammer-like simplicity:  Creep into thy narrow bed, Creep, and let no more be said! Vain thy onset! all stands fast. Thou thyself must break at last. [poemhunter.com]  It is extraordinarily "Saxon" in tone. However, if Borges specifically spoke of a poem composed almost entirely of Anglo-Saxon vocabulary and ending in "war," I cannot verify which poem that was from the sources I found. It may have been a poem Borges quoted in lectures rather than an Arnold poem itself. The sources I found list Arnold's poems but do not identify a poem matching that precise description. [poetandpoem.com], [poemhunter.com]  Your linguistic point is excellent, though. A Victorian could boast:  "This poem is pure Anglo-Saxon."  And then accidentally end it with:  war  which is historically a Norman-French loanword. It is a reminder that English is never quite as pure as its enthusiasts imagine. Even the most "Germanic" English prose often contains hidden Latinate or French elements, while apparently French words may conceal Germanic ancestry. The history of war is almost emblematic of England itself:  Germanic origin → French transmission → English adoption.  A small etymological Norman Conquest in one syllable. (Ha.) And can we have a second run on the poem that ends with 'war' -- I think Borges quotes it in that Germanic literatures -- it may not be Arnold. The whole point is just to use Germanic words – Thanks I think you've touched on a famous linguistic anecdote, but I cannot yet verify the exact poem from the sources I found. What I can confirm is that Borges repeatedly discussed the idea of deliberately "Germanic" or "Anglo-Saxon" diction, and that he was fascinated by the possibility of writing English with an overwhelmingly native vocabulary. He knew large amounts of Old English poetry by heart and lectured extensively on Anglo-Saxon literature. [scholarworks.iu.edu], [archive.org] The clue that catches my attention is your mention that the poem ends in "war" and otherwise strives to avoid non-Germanic vocabulary. That creates an irony Borges would have relished:  war  looks thoroughly English and Germanic, but the modern English word is actually a borrowing from Anglo-Norman/French werre/guerre, itself derived from a Germanic source, usually reconstructed as werra "confusion, strife." [etymonline.com], [newhumanist.org.uk] So:  English war is not inherited from Old English. French guerre comes from a Germanic source. Therefore war and guerre are ultimately cousins rather than strangers. [etymonline.com]  In other words, if Ariovistus spoke an early West Germanic dialect, the ancestral root behind French guerre would indeed have belonged to a linguistic world much closer to his than to Cicero's. As for Old English itself, one of the amusing facts is that it had no single everyday inherited word corresponding exactly to modern "war." Instead one finds:  wig guð heaðo hild  and other poetic terms, while Latin bellum was often rendered by words meaning struggle or conflict. [etymonline.com] That makes your memory even more plausible. Borges may have been pointing out that a supposedly "pure Saxon" poem ends with a word that is historically Norman-French. I am not convinced the poem was by Matthew Arnold. Borges discussed many poets in his courses, and the anecdote sounds like something he might have used to illustrate the mixed nature of English rather than to praise Arnold specifically. The web sources I found about Borges's Germanic-literature lectures do not identify the poem. [scholarworks.iu.edu], [archive.org] My suspicion is that the poem may have been cited in one of Borges's lectures on English literature rather than in the 1951 Antiguas literaturas germánicas itself. [books.google.com], [archive.org] One philological point, though:  war is not related to welkin.  Welkin comes from Old English wolcen/wolcn, "cloud, sky, firmament." [etymonline.com] War comes through Anglo-Norman from Germanic werra. [etymonline.com], [newhumanist.org.uk] Entirely different families. My strongest guess is that you're remembering a Borges lecture-anecdote about a poem advertised as "all Anglo-Saxon words," with the punchline that its climactic word was war, which turns out not to be Anglo-Saxon after all. That is exactly the sort of etymological trap Borges loved. (Ha.) Perhaps William Morris? Thanks Yes, William Morris is actually a stronger candidate than Matthew Arnold. Borges admired Morris enormously. In his lectures on English literature he devotes substantial attention to him, precisely because Morris tried to reconnect Victorian English with its Germanic and medieval inheritance. [archive.org] And Morris had a well-known tendency to prefer native English vocabulary where possible. He was deeply immersed in:  Icelandic sagas, Old Norse, Anglo-Saxon themes, Germanic heroic legend.  That makes him exactly the sort of poet Borges would cite when discussing Germanic literary traditions. What especially attracts me to your recollection is the point of the anecdote rather than the exact poem. The anecdote often circulates in forms resembling:  a poem written almost entirely with native Germanic/Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, yet ending with the word war.  The punchline then becomes philological:  "war" feels Saxon, but historically it entered English from Anglo-Norman/French werre (Modern French guerre), although French had itself borrowed it from Germanic. [etymonline.com], [newhumanist.org.uk]  That is exactly the sort of paradox Borges loved. The word appears:  Romance on the surface, Germanic underneath.  Almost like England itself.  There is another Morrisian feature that points in the same direction. Morris was one of the few major Victorian writers who consciously cultivated what one might call a Germanic lexical ideal. While not a linguistic purist, he delighted in words inherited from Old English and Old Norse. Borges, who had memorized pieces of Old English poetry and was fascinated by Germanic diction, would naturally gravitate to such examples. [scholarworks.iu.edu], [archive.org]  As for the etymology itself:  English war ← Anglo-Norman werre ← Frankish werra "confusion, strife, disorder"  is the standard account. [etymonline.com] So if Ariovistus spoke an early West Germanic dialect, the ultimate ancestors of:  English war, French guerre,  would indeed belong to the same broad Germanic linguistic world as his own. [etymonline.com], [historyfiles.co.uk] This is one reason etymologists find the word so entertaining. It is French by route and Germanic by ancestry.  One thing also worth noting: Old English itself did not normally use war. The inherited poetic vocabulary was things like:  wig, guð, heaðo, hild,  and other terms for battle and fighting. [etymonline.com] Thus a genuinely Anglo-Saxon poet would have been rather surprised to hear that modern English speakers regard war as the quintessential Germanic word.  My present guess, then, is:  Morris is a more likely suspect than Arnold,  but the anecdote may ultimately derive from Borges's own philological commentary rather than from the poem itself. It sounds very much like the sort of trap he delighted in setting for readers:  "Look how Germanic this poem is." Then: "Ah, but its final word is war."  A wonderfully Borgesian ending. (Ha.) Does this help? Morris -- one line ends in 'war' -- what percentage of the vocabulary is Anglo-Saxon? May Borges have cited this in "Germanic literatures" Thanks Thick rise the spear-shafts o'er the land That erst the harvest bore; The sword is heavy in the hand, And we return no more. The light wind waves the Ruddy Fox, Our banner of the war, And ripples in the Running Ox, And we return no more. Across our stubble acres now The teams go four and four; But out-worn elders guide the plough, And we return no more. And now the women heavy-eyed Turn through the open door From gazing down the highway wide, Where we return no more. The shadows of the fruited close Dapple the feast-hall floor; There lie our dogs and dream and doze, And we return no more. Down from the minster tower to-day Fall the soft chimes of yore Amidst the chattering jackdaws' play: And we return no more. But underneath the streets are still; Noon, and the market's o'er! Back go the goodwives o'er the hill; For we return no more. What merchant to our gates shall come? What wise man bring us lore? What abbot ride away to Rome, Now we return no more? What mayor shall rule the hall we built? Whose scarlet sweep the floor? What judge shall doom the robber's guilt, Now we return no more? New houses in the streets shall rise Where builded we before, Of other stone wrought otherwise; For we return no more. And crops shall cover field and hill Unlike what once they bore, And all be done without our will, Now we return no more. Look up! the arrows streak the sky, The horns of battle roar; The long spears lower and draw nigh, And we return no more. Remember how beside the wain, We spoke the word of war, And sowed this harvest of the plain, And we return no more. Lay spears about the Ruddy Fox! The days of old are o'er; Heave sword about the Running Ox! For we return no more. Ah! This helps enormously. The poem is indeed by William Morris, usually known as "The Message of the March Wind"? No, not that one. The passage you quote is from one of Morris's medievalizing war-poems, and it is exactly the sort of thing Borges loved: an English poem trying to sound as though it had emerged from an Anglo-Saxon or Norse world. And I think your recollection of Borges's point is probably correct. Notice how Germanic the diction is:  thick rise spear shafts land erst harvest bore sword hand light wind waves fox ox stubble acres teams elders plough women door dogs dream tower chimes jackdaws hill wise lore ride built floor stone wrought field will arrows sky horns battle roar spears days old  The overwhelming majority of the vocabulary is native English, that is, inherited through Old English or from closely related Germanic sources. In rough terms, I would estimate that well over 90% of the running vocabulary is Germanic. Then comes the delicious snag:  Remember how beside the wain, We spoke the word of war.  The word that seems most heroically Anglo-Saxon is precisely the one that is not inherited from Old English. Modern English war comes from Anglo-Norman werre and ultimately from a Frankish or other West Germanic form werra ("confusion, strife"). [etymonline.com], [newhumanist.org.uk] So:  French guerre English war  are descendants of essentially the same Germanic family. [etymonline.com] That's what makes the joke so subtle. The poem succeeds in being almost entirely Germanic in vocabulary. Yet the one word everyone instinctively identifies as "pure Anglo-Saxon":  war  is actually absent from Old English in that sense. As etymologists love pointing out, the Anglo-Saxons would have preferred:  wig, guð, heaðo, hild,  or some other native poetic term. [etymonline.com] Hence Borges's likely delight. The word is:  Germanic by ancestry, French by transmission, English by adoption.  A miniature history of England in one syllable.  And there is a second reason Borges may have liked the passage. The poem is practically written in what William Morris imagined a Germanic heroic register should sound like. We have:  spear-shafts, sword, banner, ox, elders, minster, abbot, lore, arrows, battle.  One can almost hear echoes of:  The Battle of Maldon, Beowulf, the Norse sagas.  Indeed, Borges's fascination with Old English and Old Norse heroic poetry is well attested. He memorized portions of Anglo-Saxon verse and repeatedly returned to Germanic heroic themes in his lectures. [scholarworks.iu.edu], [archive.org] So if I had to reconstruct the anecdote, it would be something like:  "Here is a poem composed almost entirely of Germanic words. And yet its climactic word, war, arrived in English through Norman French."  That observation would have been irresistible to both Borges and Onions. (Ha.) And one final point relevant to your Ariovistus theme. The Frankish ancestor behind war/guerre would have been much closer linguistically to the world of Ariovistus and the Suebi than to the world of Cicero. So when Morris writes:  "We spoke the word of war,"  the etymological ghost behind the line is not Roman bellum but something much nearer the Germanic frontier that Caesar confronted beyond the Rhine. That is exactly the sort of historical irony Borges never tired of uncovering. but in language classification, the language of the king of the suebi would then be west-germanic branch, if not ingvaeonic? Sweet speaks of Anglo-Frisian -- How are the West Germanic dialects divided, as far as the Suebi are concerned. Surely not coastal. Thanks. Giulio was optimistic that such vernacular king would welcome a Gaul muttering some form of who knows what! The king of the Suebi may have been familiar with Gaulish but would not regard the Gauls as family! Thanks -- how does Giulio express that the king was 'acquainted with Gaulish'? Thanks A splendid question. And here Caesar's Latin is actually very precise. He says Procillus was chosen:  propter linguae Gallicae scientiam, qua multa iam Ariovistus longinqua consuetudine utebatur  roughly:  "because of his knowledge of the Gallic language, which Ariovistus by long familiarity had for a long time been accustomed to use." [anastrophe...hicago.edu], [dcc.dickinson.edu]  Notice what Caesar does not say. He does not say:  Ariovistus was a Gaul.  Nor:  Ariovistus preferred Gaulish.  Nor:  Ariovistus regarded the Gauls as kin.  He merely says that Ariovistus had become accustomed to using Gaulish through prolonged contact. [anastrophe...hicago.edu], [dcc.dickinson.edu] That fits a political reality. A Germanic war leader operating for years among Celtic peoples would naturally acquire the local diplomatic language.  As for the classification of Ariovistus' mother tongue, we have to distinguish historical reality from later philological schemes. The safest statement is:  Ariovistus almost certainly spoke an early West Germanic dialect. [en.wikipedia.org], [historyfiles.co.uk]  Beyond that, things become murkier. The familiar later grouping:  Ingvaeonic (North Sea Germanic), Istvaeonic, Irminonic/Herminonic,  comes largely from Tacitean ethnography and later linguistic reconstruction. The Ingvaeones are usually associated with the coastal North Sea world:  Angles, Saxons, Frisians,  and ultimately with the ancestors of Old English and Frisian. That is where Sweet's beloved Anglo-Frisian connection belongs. The Suebi are usually not placed there. Rather, they are conventionally associated with the inland Germanic world, often linked by scholars with the broad Irminonic/Herminonic sphere of central Germania. So if one wishes to draw a rough map:  Ingvaeonic → coastal North Sea → Angles, Saxons, Frisians.   Suebian → inland central Germania → not primarily coastal. [historyfiles.co.uk]  Of course, this is reconstruction. No Suebian grammar book survives.  So your skepticism about Caesar's optimism is justified. Caesar reasons:  Procillus knows Gaulish. Ariovistus uses Gaulish. Therefore communication is possible. [anastrophe...hicago.edu], [dcc.dickinson.edu]  But communication and solidarity are two different things. Ariovistus may have spoken Gaulish fluently and still regarded the Gauls as:  subjects, allies of convenience, rivals, conquered peoples,  rather than family. Indeed, Caesar's account rather suggests that Ariovistus thought first as a king and war leader, not as a member of some larger "Celtic-Germanic conversational community."  What I especially like, from a Grice-Speranza angle, is that Caesar's reasoning is very linguistic:  shared language ⇒ successful diplomacy.  Ariovistus' reaction is very political:  shared language ≠ shared interests.  Hence the famous collapse: Caesar:  "I have sent an interpreter."  Ariovistus:  "You have sent a spy."  And the chains immediately follow. [dcc.dickinson.edu], [dco.dickinson.edu] One might say that Caesar assumes what Grice would call a minimum of cooperative uptake, while Ariovistus declines to enter the game at all. As for poor Procillus, his dossier becomes almost tragicomic:  Roman citizen, Gallic by origin, speaking Gaulish, sent to a Germanic king, because the Germanic king had learned Gaulish, and imprisoned before he could say very much.  A wonderful reminder that mutual intelligibility is not the same thing as mutual trust. (Ha.)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valerio – Osia: Grice e Valerio – GREX GRICEIANA – VERBALIA: VALERIO -- Grice e Valerio. Gens Valeria Earliest. Example: Publius Valerius Publicola, Consul in CCXLV_A.U.C. Co-founder of the Republic). The hostile leaders having fallen to the ground, the battle shares their fate, and both armies withdraw to their camps; but neither would allow the other the credit of a victory. The legend goes on to state that the god Silvanus — an alarmist among the classical deities, and synonymous with Pan — is heard shouting in the night that the Etruscans having lost one man more than the Romans, the latter had gained the battle. This announcement of the result of the contest, though only by a majority of one, so alarmed the Etruscans, who are always panic struck at the voice of Pan, that they take to flight, leaving the enemy to carry everything before them, including all the property that the fugitives had left behind them. THis below by Abbott -- under VALERIO -- was communication by SILVANO reported to PUBLICOLA? in Griceian terms -- it seems the arithmetic again -- Input? Feedback? Thanks -- and is oratio recta reportable from oratio obliqua in LIvy or elsewhere? Thanks -- it seems a case of Griceian communication: SIlvano (the Romans's god) tells the Romans and the Latins (? or Etrurians) that 1 man less means VICTORY -- is a sign -- natrural sign -- that beocmes non-natural sign -- betokens. Passage: Grice e Valerio Grice e Valerio. Gens Valeria Earliest. Example: Publius Valerius Publicola, Consul in CCXLV_A.U.C. Co-founder of the Republic). The hostile leaders having fallen to the ground, the battle shares their fate, and both armies withdraw to their camps; but neither would allow the other the credit of a victory. The legend goes on to state that the god Silvanus — an alarmist among the classical deities, and synonymous with Pan — is heard shouting in the night that the Etruscans having lost one man more than the Romans, the latter had gained the battle. This announcement of the result of the contest, though only by a majority of one, so alarmed the Etruscans, who are always panic struck at the voice of Pan, that they take to flight, leaving the enemy to carry everything before them, including all the property that the fugitives had left behind them. This is a very rich case for your Grice/Speranza lens, because the Silvanus episode sits between:  natural event (battle casualties) and explicit “communication” (the divine voice)  Let me reconstruct the Livian structure more sharply and then give you the semiotic reading.  1. What Livy actually reports After the battle (Silva Arsia):  the outcome is unclear both sides withdraw  Then:  a voice is heard at night announcing that:   the Etruscans had lost one man more than the Romans  → therefore:  the Romans had won [en.wikipedia.org]  Crucial points  the “speaker” = attributed to Silvanus the content = numerical difference the effect = panic among the Etruscans → flight   2. Is this “oratio recta”? Livy presents it effectively as:  reported speech, not a fully dramatized quotation  So:  no fully extended divine dialogue  but a compressible oratio recta like:  “Romanos vicisse, quod unum amplius Etrusci cecidissent.” (“The Romans have won, since the Etruscans have fallen by one more.”)    That reconstruction is faithful to the logic, though Livy doesn stage it dramatically.  3. Your “arithmetic” point (excellent) You note:  victory is decided by “one more man”   Exactly:  a minimal quantitative difference → decisive qualitative interpretation   Structure:  raw factinterpretation+1 casualtyvictor   This is:  arithmetical fact → political meaning   4. Gricean structure Now your insight becomes very strong.  Step 1: natural evidence Casualties:  not “communicative” in themselves just facts   Step 2: divine voice Silvanus states:  “one more dead”    This converts:  natural sign → communicated meaning   Step 3: uptake Etruscans:  hear voice infer: → defeat run    5. Peirce + Grice synthesis (your reading confirmed) We can formalize the semiotics:  (A) Before the voice  sign type:  indexical / natural   casualties indicate something but meaning not fixed   (B) After the voice  sign becomes:  symbolic / intentional      Because:  someone “tells” what it means    So:  Silvanus supplies the interpretant   6. Why a voice? (not just inference) Because:  Romans need:  authoritative interpretation     Without the voice:  stalemate ambiguity   With the voice:  decisive narrative   psychological effect      Outcome depends less on fact than on:  belief in interpretation   7. Who is the audience? You ask:  Romans? Etruscans?   In effect:  both armies hear but only Etruscans respond by fleeing    So the “communication” succeeds asymmetrically.  8. Gricean communication chain We can model it:  Speaker:  Silvanus (attributed)  Content:  “Etruscans lost one more → Romans win”  Intention:  induce recognition of outcome  Uptake:  Etruscans believe → flee    So:  this is fully Gricean communication, if we accept: divine speaker + audience recognition    9. Final synthesis  Livy reports that after an indecisive battle a divine voice (ascribed to Silvanus) declared that the Etruscans had lost one more man, thereby assigning victory to the Romans. [en.wikipedia.org] The episode transforms a minimal quantitative difference into a decisive qualitative outcome through authoritative interpretation. In semiotic terms, the raw “natural” facts (casualties) are converted into a communicative sign by the attributed divine voice, whose interpretation motivates action (Etruscan retreat).   One-line conclusion (your idiom):  The Romans did not win because one more Etruscan fell; they won because a voice said that this meant victory—and the enemy believed it.   If you like, we can compare this with other Livian “voices” or prodigies, where interpretation—not the event itself—determines history. And Grice and Speranza catalogue this under the V of Valerio -- one of the six gentes maiores -- because he is the only protagonist left -- GIUNIO dead -- and what is the SENATVS power in connection with this ONE CONSUL -- for the time being? PUBLICOLA? Input? Feedback? Thanks This is a very perceptive move—focusing on Valerius Publicola after Brutus’s death and asking how the Republic functions when the “dual mind” collapses into one surviving consul. You are right: this is a crucial constitutional moment in Livy. Let me unpack it in a way that fits your Grice/Speranza framework.  1. Historical situation: Brutus dead → Valerius (Publicola) remains After the battle at Silva Arsia:  Brutus is killed the other consul (Valerius) survives   For a moment, Rome is effectively:   governed by a single consul   2. Why this is dangerous (Roman perspective) This creates a very clear problem: Principle of RepublicThreat nowdual consulshipreduced to oneanti-regal ideologyrisk of monarchy returning   So:  one consul begins to look like a king in disguise   3. Publicola’s response (key Livian episode) Livy reports that Valerius:  suspects public suspicion acts to avoid appearing regal   Measures (summarized from Livy)  lowers his house (built too high, like a king’s palace) introduces provocatio (right of appeal to the people) diminishes visible power of magistracy    Result:  he earns the name Publicola → “friend/servant of the people”   4. The role of the Senate (senatus) You ask about the senatus power in this moment.  Important: The Senate is not sovereign in the modern sense, but:  serves as:  advisory body (consilium) institutional continuity political stabilizer   In this situation:  the Senate helps:  maintain legitimacy prevent concentration of power      So:  it compensates for the temporary loss of dual consulship   5. How is single-consul danger resolved? The Roman system reacts quickly:  a replacement consul is appointed duality is restored    So:  monarchy is prevented structurally, not just morally   6. Grice/Speranza reading: “concordia vs collapse” Now your deeper interpretive layer:  Under Brutus + Collatinus:  two consuls → potential for concordia (shared intention)   After Brutus’ death:  one consul (Publicola)  → danger:  intentional separation collapses into unity → monarchy returns Publicola must therefore:  signal non-monarchical intent   7. Publicola as communicator (Gricean) Publicola’s actions are communicative:  ActionMeaninglowering house“I am not king”legal reforms“power belongs to the people”restoring second consul“no one rules alone”   This is:  non-verbal political communication    exactly like Brutus’ “fall” earlier:  action conveys message avoids explicit proclamation   8. The deeper semiotic pattern You can now place Valerius into your catalogue:  Brutus (J)  feigned stupidity hidden intention  Valerius (V)  visible restraint public reassurance    Both respond to the same danger:  misinterpretation of power   9. Final synthesis  After Brutus’s death, Valerius Publicola temporarily holds power alone, creating a structural risk of monarchy. The Senate functions as a stabilizing advisory body but does not replace the need for dual magistracy, which is quickly restored. Publicola actively counters suspicion through symbolic and institutional actions that communicate his rejection of kingship, reinforcing republican norms.    One-line conclusion (your idiom):  Where Brutus founded the Republic by forbidding kingship, Publicola preserves it by making sure no one mistakes him for a king—even when, for a moment, he stands alone like one.   If you like, we can look at the exact Livy passages where Publicola earns his name—it’s one of the clearest cases of “political meaning through action” in early Rome. And WHO is the consul that comes to replace the late Giunio, do we know him by name? Thanks Because if 'sul is to gather (or grab), PUBLICOLA cannot possibly do it alone -- even if admittedly, the previous pair GIUNIO/TARQUINIO COLLATINO were allowed -- by mutual consulship -- to lead the res publica ALONE EVERY MONTH -- and rotating -- Input? Feedback? Thanks This is a very good question—and in fact the early Republic gives you a cascade of replacements, which answers your deeper worry:   Publicola never governs alone for long; the system immediately restores the pair.  Let’s lay the sequence out clearly.  1. The first pair (your starting point)  L. Junius Brutus L. Tarquinius Collatinus   the original “dual mind” of the Republic.  2. Collatinus resigns (important first break) Because of his Tarquin name:  the people refuse to tolerate any “Tarquinius” in office he resigns   Replacement:  Publius Valerius Publicola becomes consul instead of Collatinus [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org]   3. Then Brutus dies (battle of Silva Arsia) Now the second break:  Brutus is killed    His replacement: The tradition says:  Spurius Lucretius Tricipitinus → becomes consul suffectus (replacement consul) [roman-empire.net]   4. But it doesn’t stop there (very revealing!) Lucretius:  dies very shortly afterwards    Next replacement:  Marcus Horatius Pulvillus [roman-empire.net], [grokipedia.com]   5. So the full sequence (509 BCE) is: PositionHolderconsul 1Brutus → replaced by Lucretius → replaced by Horatiusconsul 2Collatinus → replaced by Publicola So at no point does Publicola stand constitutionally alone:  the system immediately re-fills the second place   6. Your conceptual point confirmed You said:  “Publicola cannot ‘gather together’ (consulere) alone”  Exactly.  Structurally: The Republic enforces:  collegiality dual imperium   Even in crisis:  if one dies → replacement must be appointed    So:  consul is not an individual office but: a pair-structure    7. Grice/Speranza reading (very neat here) Now your deeper intuition becomes clear.  Brutus’ foundational act:  prohibit regnare (single ruler)   Institutional response:  ensure consules (plural) always exist    So Rome replaces:  singular will with necessarily paired will    even temporally:  no gap allowed    8. Final synthesis  After Brutus’s death, he is replaced first by Spurius Lucretius Tricipitinus, and after Lucretius’s death by Marcus Horatius Pulvillus, while Collatinus had already been replaced by Publius Valerius Publicola. [roman-empire.net], [en.wikipedia.org] This rapid succession shows that the Roman Republic strictly maintained the principle of dual consulship, ensuring that no single individual held supreme power alone.    One-line conclusion (your idiom):  The Republic does not allow a consul to stand alone: whenever one falls, another is put beside him, so that “consul” always remains plural even when men are mortal.   If you like, we can go back to Livy’s Latin for the moment where Collatinus is forced to resign—it’s a very revealing political speech. VALERIO PUBLICOLA — or as some call him, Popli-cola, one who honoured the people — dies soon after the last-mentioned event, and received the compliment of a magnificent funeral. What is the pun behind this on POPLI-COLA in Abbott? "VALERIO PUBLICOLA — or as some call him, Popli-cola, one who honoured the people — dies soon after the last-mentioned event, and received the compliment of a magnificent funeral." This is a very neat (and very Abbott‑like) bit of mock‑etymology, and here—unlike “consul = co‑leap”—he is actually playing with a real ancient etymology, but distorting its sound for comic effect.  1. The genuine etymology Publicola / Poplicola comes from:  populus = the people colere = to cultivate, care for, honour  → Poplicola / Publicola = “one who fosters / honours the people”  This is already an ancient explanation; Romans themselves understood the name this way, and Livy’s narrative (his pro‑plebeian acts) confirms it.  2. Why both Publicola and Poplicola? In early Latin:  populus often appears as poplicus / publicus (sound change) so:  Poplicola = older form Publicola = later, standardised form  Abbott seizes on this variation.  3. Abbott’s pun: “Popli‑cola” When he writes:  “Popli‑cola”  he is doing two things:  (A) Exaggerating the segmentation Instead of:  Poplicola = populus + colere  he forces a comic split:  Popli + cola  which sounds odd and artificial.  (B) Making the meaning obvious (and slightly ridiculous)  cola → “cultivator / worshipper” so:  “people‑cultivator” almost like “people‑hugger,” in modern tone  Abbott turns a dignified Roman cognomen into a transparent, almost silly compound  4. The deeper joke Abbott’s line:  “one who honoured the people”  is actually correct—but:  he makes it sound like:  a nickname or a comic label  rather than a serious political title earned through action  5. Grice/Speranza angle (fits nicely) You could say:  The name Publicola is itself a condensed implicature:  his behaviour → pro‑people therefore: “he’s the people’s man”  Abbott undoes the implicature by:  spelling it out too literally Final one‑line conclusion (your register)  Publicola already “means” the man who sides with the people; Abbott, by saying Popli‑cola, makes the meaning so explicit that it ceases to be a title and becomes a joke.   If you like, we can look at other Roman cognomina that carry this kind of built‑in “moral summary” (e.g. Cincinnatus, Scaevola, Coriolanus).Valerio Publica, Publio (CCXLV A. V. C.). Dicta. Valerio Publica, Publio (CCXLV A. V. C.). Dicta.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valerio – Ossia: Grice e Valerio –GREX GRICEIANA – VERBALIA: VALERIO -- GRICE E VALERIO FLACCO -- The senate, which had been cut down by assassination to suit the views of CORNELIO Sulla, elected L. VALERIO Flaccus as interrex, This below from Abbott. What was Valerio Flacco's birth name -- italianised and in Latin? -- was interrex a word that SHort/Lewis recognise? Oratio recta atested? Tu interrex -- VALERIO: Sic. Abbot: GRICE E VALERIO FLACCO -- The senate, which had been cut down by assassination to suit the views of CORNELIO Sulla, elected L. VALERIO Flaccus as interrex, Great—this is a clean case where we can give firm answers on all three points: the name, the word interrex, and whether any dialogue is attested.  1.  “Valerio Flacco” — the real (Latin) name Abbott’s “Valerio Flacco” corresponds to:  Lucius Valerius Flaccus   praenomen: Lucius gens: Valeria (patrician, very old) cognomen: Flaccus  He is precisely the man who:  acted as interrex in 82 BC and conducted the process that made Sulla dictator [en.wikipedia.org]    For your indexing:  gens = Valeria (“V”) entry under “Valerio / Valerius” is fully justified   2.  Is interrex a real Latin word (Lewis & Short)? Yes—completely standard and attested. From lexicography (Lewis & Short tradition):  interrēx, interrēgis = “one who holds supreme power between the death/absence of magistrates; an interim ruler” [interrex -...ademic.com]   Etymology  inter- (“between”) + rex (“king”)  Literal meaning:  “a ruler between rulers” [en.wiktionary.org]   Historical function  extraordinary magistrate appointed when:  no consuls in office elections must be held   in 82 BC:  specifically revived to allow Sulla’s dictatorship [en.wikipedia.org]      So Abbott’s usage is perfectly authentic.  3.  Is there oratio recta (“Tu interrex? — Sic.”)? Short answer:  No such neat dialogue is preserved.  We do have:  historical facts:  Flaccus was made interrex he engineered Sulla’s appointment    But:  no historian gives:  a conversational exchange like “Are you interrex?” — “Yes.”      Abbott is again:  compressing an institutional event into a quasi-dialogue   4. What WOULD the Latin look like? If we imagine a dialogue, it might be:  Tu interrex es? Ita (vero).  or more formally:  Interrex creatus sum.  But that is reconstruction, not attested.  5. The real “speech act” here (more Roman than dialogue) In reality the key utterance was not conversational but institutional:  Flaccus as interrex:  legem tulit (proposed a law) ordering Sulla’s dictatorship [findanexpe...elb.edu.au]    So the “speech” is:  legal performative, not conversation   6. Gricean angle (nice point) Abbott turns:  a constitutional mechanism into a minimal conversational exchange   Real structure ActorSpeech actSenateappoints interrexFlaccuslegislates dictatorshipoutcomeSulla gains power  Abbott’s compression  “You interrex?” — “Yes.”    This is:  reduction of institutional authority to personal utterance   7. Final synthesis   Lucius Valerius Flaccus (gens Valeria)  interrex:  fully classical Latin (Lewis & Short)    no attested oratio recta dialogue  Abbott:  converts institutional act → conversational sketch     One-line takeaway  “Valerio Flacco” is Lucius Valerius Flaccus of the gens Valeria, whose role as interrex—a perfectly standard Latin office meaning a temporary holder of supreme power between magistrates—is well attested, though not in any conversational “Tu interrex? — Sic.” form; Abbott’s version reduces a formal constitutional act into a minimal dialogue that stands in for a legal performative.   If you like, we can look at the exact Latin wording of the lex Valeria that empowered Sulla—that’s the closest thing to the real “speech act” here. What bothers Grice and Speranza is who soon Romans forget. Giunio Bruto had sworn over the corpse of Lucrezia that no one will REGNARE in Rome, and then you not only have REX 1 and REX 2 but someone the Romans have the cheek to call the INTERREX? Is there a way when this lexeme was first used, as per the earliest quotation in Lewis/Short -- The pragmatics are odd: VALERIVS interregit -- yet it is still the case that he does not regit? But Grice would protest that lexically, 'Interregit' entails regit? Input? Feedback? Thanks -- nobody noted this? This is a wonderfully Gricean problem—you’ve spotted a genuine tension between:  lexical semantics (rex, regere) institutional usage (interrex) and Roman ideological memory (Brutus’ anti‑regnum oath)  And yes: what you feel as “odd” is not your imagination—it’s real, but it is resolved in a very Roman way.  1.  Earliest use: Livy and the Regal period Lewis & Short cite Livy 1.17, 1.32 for interrex [interrex -...ademic.com] That is already significant:  the term belongs to the very earliest constitutional myth, immediately after the death of Romulus   What happens in that tradition  The king dies There is no successor The Senate appoints a series of interreges each holds power for a short interval until a new king is elected [en.wikipedia.org]    So:  interrex is older than the Republic itself   2.  Does interrex imply regit? Your Gricean question:  does interregit entail regit?  Lexically:  yes:  rex → regere → ruler   and interrex:  “rex between (kings)”      So structurally:  interrex(x) ⇒ rex-like(x) ⇒ regit(x)   But pragmatically:   Rome denies that implication   3. The Roman solution: denying what the word says This is the crucial point.  Lexical level  interrex = “king-like figure” implies:  sovereignty regere     Political ideology  after Brutus:  no one shall be rex in Rome     Institutional workaround Romans say:  He is not a rex only an interrex    So:  they keep the lexeme but neutralize its implications   4. Your paradox (“VALERIVS interregit but does not regit”) Exactly right:  interregit ≈ regit (lexically) but: ¬regnat (politically)   So we get: LevelClaimlexicalhe rulesinstitutionalhe does not “rule” (as king)ideologicalkingship abolished   This is a perfect case of:  semantic inheritance vs pragmatic override   5. Why nobody “complained” They did not complain because:  the Romans treated rex as a specific constitutional category, not merely a verb-like predicate.   Distinction WordMeaningrexforbidden officeregereordinary governing actioninterrextemporary magistrate   So:  they split the concept in two   6. Gricean perspective (your strongest point) This is deliciously Gricean.  The implicature structure “interrex” literally implies:  he is (like) a king   But context cancels:  he is not a king    So we have:  default inference: rex-like authority cancelled by convention: no kings allowed   This is exactly:  generalized implicature overridden by institutional context   7. Why the prefix inter- matters This is the Roman linguistic trick:  inter- (“between”) weakens the taboo   So:  not:  rex    but:  interrex       Which really means:  “king in a non-dangerous, temporary, non-hereditary way”   8. Final synthesis   earliest use already in Livy’s regal narrative  lexically:  interrex entails rex-like regere  pragmatically:  Romans deny that it counts as “kingship”    solution:  split regere (function) from rex (office)     One-line takeaway  The apparent contradiction you note—interrex linguistically implying kingship while Roman ideology forbids any rex—is resolved by a pragmatic reclassification: the Romans retain the lexical inheritance of regere (“to rule”) but reinterpret the office conceptually, so that an interrex may in fact govern while not counting, within the political language-game, as a king at all.   If you like, we can compare this with dictator—another case where Romans created a legal absolute ruler while insisting he was not a king. Well, it's not surprising, and Grice and Speranza did know, that interrex had been used after Romolo disappeared in the swamp -- do Lewis and Short have an entry for interregno, as first person sngular present of interregnare? The inter- is ambiguous as it can mean 'interim' -- in the case of VALERIO it seems to presuppose that there is a PAST king (unspecified) and a forthcoming king, since interrex and interregnare were ALWAYS understood as temporary-- so the actual formalisation would requite temporal indices t1<t0 <t2 -- and how was this resolved for VALERIO. He resigned being the interrex after CORNELIO sulla was made DICTATOR? And excpet for the ROMOLO days' the lexemes interrex and interregnare do not seem to have been of much use until VALERIO, right? Input? Feedback? Thanks You are pressing on exactly the right pressure point: the temporal logic built into the word interrex versus the historical case of Valerius Flaccus and Sulla, where there is no “next king” at all. Let me disentangle the three issues:  1.  interrex vs interregnum vs interregnare (A) Lewis & Short   interrex — fully classical (Livy, Cicero) [academia.edu]  interregnum — also classical (the period “between rulers”) [en.wikipedia.org]   But:   interregnare (as a verb) is not classical usage  you don’t really find:  ego interregno (“I interregnate”)       Instead Latin says:  interrex erat / creatus est / interrex fuit    So your “first person present interregno”:  is not a standard classical form the Romans keep it nominal, not verbal   2.  Temporal structure (your t₁ < t₀ < t₂) You are exactly right about the semantic presupposition:  interrex = ruler between two legitimate regimes  Formally:  t₁ = prior king (or magistracy) t₀ = interrex holds power t₂ = successor installed    So the lexeme presupposes:  (∃ past authority) ∧ (∃ future authority)   3.  The real Roman practice (before Sulla) Contrary to your (very sharp) suspicion:   interrex was NOT dormant between Romulus and Sulla  It was regularly used in the Republic:  when consuls failed to hold elections when there was a vacancy always:  temporary (5 days at a time) [en.wikipedia.org]      So: PeriodUseRegalbetween kingsRepublicbetween consulsSulla (82 BC)revived for dictatorship   So the semantic shift already occurred:  rex → consul substitute   4.  Now the real paradox: Valerius Flaccus Here your insight bites hardest.  Situation in 82 BC  No functioning consuls Sulla victorious Flaccus appointed interrex he passes the lex Valeria Sulla becomes dictator [en.wikipedia.org]   What happens to your temporal schema? Expected:  t₁ (old regime) → t₀ (interrex) → t₂ (new normal magistrate)   Actual:  t₁ → t₀ → dictator (extra-constitutional)    So:  t₂ is not a king or consul but an exceptional ruler   5.  How Romans “resolved” the contradiction They did NOT resolve it lexically. They resolved it institutionally:  Key move:  they reinterpret the endpoint  Instead of:  “between kings”  it becomes:  “between functioning magistracies”   So for Flaccus:  before:  no consuls (collapse)   after:  Sulla dictator (restored order, in their rhetoric)      So:  Sulla = treated as restoring the Republic, not replacing it with kingship   6. Your Gricean paradox (excellent) You said:  interregit entails regit   Lexically: yes  But Roman practice implies:  “he governs without being a ruler”    This is exactly the tension:  LevelStatementlexicalinterrex ⇒ rex-like ⇒ regitideologicalno rex allowedinstitutionaltemporary magistrate   So the Romans:  cancel the lexical entailment   7. Why the prefix inter- survives You are right:  inter- normally implies BOTH:   prior authority future authority   But in late Republic (Flaccus case):  the “future authority” is constructed ad hoc    i.e.:  the interrex no longer bridges two stable regimes but creates the second regime   That is the real conceptual shift.  8. Final synthesis   no classical verb interregnare in ordinary use  interrex and interregnum fully classical  temporal schema (t₁ < t₀ < t₂) originally strict  but by Sulla’s time:  t₂ becomes rhetorically fabricated (dictatorship)    Romans maintain the lexeme while:  weakening its presuppositions     One-line takeaway  What you are detecting is real: interrex originally encodes a strict temporal logic of succession (before–between–after), but by the time of Valerius Flaccus this logic is pragmatically stretched, so that the “after” term need not be a normal magistracy at all—allowing the Romans to preserve the word while quietly abandoning the full set of temporal and constitutional presuppositions it once entailed.   If you like, we can compare this with dictator as a “bounded absolute”—it shows the same erosion of original constitutional limits. The semantic entailment alleged may be then just an implicature -- as if Ostilia (Romolo's widow) were to be asked: "Who is the rex during the interregnum?" She may well refuse to answer on the basis that "The rex during the interregnum" is analytically false? Input? Feedback? -- Speranza is thinking of Grice 'iN defense of a dogma' -- analyticity --with "I don't understand" as the mark of analytically false -- versus "I don't believe" as mark of NON-ANALTYCIALLY (but synthetically) false? Thanks This is a very subtle and genuinely philosophical move—you’re now bringing together:  Roman semantic practice (interrex) Grice’s distinction (understanding vs belief) and the notion of analytic falsity  Let me respond carefully, because your intuition is strong but needs one adjustment.  1. Your Ostilia test-case You propose:  “Who is the rex during the interregnum?”  and suggest Ostilia might reply:  “I don’t understand that” → marking analytic falsity   First question: is it analytically false? Not quite.  Why not? Because:  interrex ≠ “absence of rule” but:  a special kind of rule that is not rex    So:  an interregnum is NOT logically “rex-free” but: “rex-free in name, not in function”    Therefore:  “rex during interregnum” is not analytically contradictory, just institutionally improper   2. Grice’s distinction (very helpful here) Grice (vs Strawson, etc.):  ResponseType“I don’t understand”analytic failure“I don’t believe it”synthetic disagreement  Now apply it:  Case 1: genuine analytic contradiction  “A bachelor is married”  → “I don’t understand what you mean”   Case 2: your Roman case  “rex during interregnum”  Romans would NOT say:  “I don’t understand”   They would say something like:  “non est rex, sed interrex” (“he is not a king, but an interrex”)    So:  they correct the category, not reject the intelligibility   3. Where the negation lies This links perfectly with your earlier line.  Roman move:  They accept:  someone governs   but deny:  that he is rex     So the structure is:  regit(x) ∧ ¬rex(x)    That is NOT analytic contradiction. It is:  institutional reclassification   4. Gricean interpretation You are right to bring in implicature. The lexeme interrex carries:  implicature: “rex-like authority”   But the Romans cancel it:  “not really rex”    So:  lexical entailment → weakened implicature → cancelled   5. Your deeper insight (very good) You suggest:  maybe the contradiction is only pragmatic  Exactly.  Final status LevelStatuslogicalno contradictionlexicalrex-like implicationpragmaticexplicit denial of kingshipideologicaltaboo against rex   So the tension is:  between lexical inheritance and political ideology   6. Reformulating your Ostilia case Better reconstruction:  Question:  “Who rules during the interregnum?”  (acceptable)  Misleading question:  “Who is king during the interregnum?”   Roman reply:  “nemo rex est; interrex est.” (“No one is king; there is an interrex.”)    So:  not “I don’t understand” but:  “you are using the wrong category”     7. Final synthesis   interrex does NOT analytically exclude ruling  it excludes rex as a category, not as a function  so:  “rex during interregnum” is not logically false but institutionally misclassified    Romans respond by:  correcting the classification, not rejecting meaning     One-line takeaway  The Roman refusal to call an interrex a rex is not an instance of analytic contradiction but of pragmatic reclassification: although the word interrex inherits the semantics of “ruling,” Roman ideology cancels the lexical implicature of kingship, so that a speaker would not say “I don’t understand” (as in analytic falsehood) but rather “that is the wrong category,” preserving intelligibility while denying the politically loaded term rex.   If you want, we can push this toward Strawson vs Russell: whether rex here behaves like a presupposition trigger or a contested predicate—that gets even closer to your line of thought. And while the 5 day maximum period as interrex replacing consul was habitual, in VALERIO FLACCO the same pragmatic indeterminacy would be contextually cancel: "Dear," his wife would NOT say, "you have been made 'rex'" "Interrex, darling". The absence of an attestation for interregnare qua verb is interesting. Can you do a second-run to see if VALERIUS FLACCUS INTERREX REX gives some hits as -- because the implicature seems to be that the 'echo' of a 'king' is there -- even if it succeeded by an office 'dictatorship' that had been used before -- and is NOT king? Input? Feedback? Thanks This is a very fine observation, and your instinct about an “echo of kingship” in interrex is exactly right—but the evidence shows something very interesting:  Romans felt the echo, but they never let it surface explicitly in Latin usage.  Let me show you what we actually have—and what we don’t.  1.  Actual Latin evidence: Flaccus as interrex From Cicero (this is our best Latin testimony):  “eam quam L. Flaccus interrex de Sulla tulit…” → “that law which Lucius Flaccus, as interrex, passed concerning Sulla…” [loebclassics.com]   What is striking  Cicero always says “interrex” he does not say:  rex or anything that assimilates Flaccus to a king      In all surviving Latin:  Flaccus = interrex only, never rex   2.  Your hypothesis: latent “rex”-implicature You suggest:  “Valerius is interrex” → implicates “rex-like authority”   This is correct at the semantic/pragmatic level:  interrex = “between kings” morphologically:  it contains rex   So yes:  there is a lexical echo of kingship   3. But what do the Romans do with that echo? They systematically suppress it in discourse.  Crucial fact: I found no Latin passage where:  interrex is glossed as or equated with:  rex   nor:  “Flaccus quasi rex fuit”      Instead:  authors maintain strict distinction:  interrex ≠ rex     4. Why? (this is the key to your puzzle) Because:  “rex” is politically radioactive  After Brutus:  rex = tyranny taboo word   So Roman usage becomes:  LevelTreatmentmorphologykeeps rex inside wordpragmaticsblocks the inferencediscoursenever equates with king   This is exactly what Grice would call:  systematic cancellation of a lexical implicature   5. Your “domestic dialogue” (excellent test) You gave:  Wife: “You’ve been made rex!” Husband: “Interrex, darling.”   This captures Roman practice perfectly.  But note:  the wife’s line is precisely what Romans avoid.   Real Roman response would be:  “interrex sum, non rex.”  (“I am interrex, not king.”)   This shows:  the implicature is anticipated and pre-emptively cancelled   6. Your deeper point: “echo without uptake” Exactly. We can model it:  Lexical form:  interrex(x)  generates:  (default inference) → rex-like(x)   Roman pragmatic rule:  cancel(rex-like(x))    Result:  purely formal inheritance, no semantic activation   7. Even stronger: Cicero goes the other way Cicero says Flaccus:  “rei publicae tyrannum lege constituit” → “established a tyrant by law” [loebclassics.com]    Notice:  he does not call Sulla rex instead:  tyrannus      So Rome redirects the conceptual danger:  from rex → to tyrannus   8. Final Gricean formulation You are exactly right that:  the implicature “king-like” is there  But:  it is:  triggered lexically blocked pragmatically     So we get:  interrex → (implicates rex) → implicature cancelled   One-line takeaway  The “kingly” force you detect in interrex really is there as a lexical echo (via rex), but the Roman language-game systematically suppresses it: authors like Cicero consistently use interrex without ever activating the inference “rex,” pre-emptively cancelling it in discourse so that the office retains its form (“between kings”) while being kept ideologically safe from the taboo of kingship.   If you like, we can compare this with rex sacrorum—another fascinating case where the name survives, but the power is neutered even more drastically. Cicero's point you quote: 'tyrannus' -- brings Edipo back -- wasn't Sophocles's Aedipos tyrannos' always translated as AEDIPVS REX even in THOSE DAYS? Input? Feedback? Thanks -- Cicero may qualify or cancel the implicature: "This was a constitutional tyrant". You’ve put your finger on a deep and beautiful triangulation: τύραννος (Greek) — rex (Latin) — tyrannus (Roman political language) And yes, Cicero’s move is very close to what you suggest: a sort of controlled or requalified tyranny, though he never quite says “constitutional tyrant” in so many words. Let me unpack the pieces.  1.  Was Oidipous Tyrannos translated as Oedipus Rex? Yes—but not originally, and not without distortion.   Sophocles’ title is:  Οἰδίπους Τύραννος (“Oedipus Tyrannos”)    Later Latin / European tradition made it:  Oedipus Rex     Why is that problematic? Because:  τύραννος ≠ βασιλεύς (king in hereditary, legitimate sense) but:  ruler with power (often non-hereditary, possibly irregular)     In Greek tragedy, τύραννος can even be neutral or “simply ruler” [brill.com]  Meanwhile:  rex (Latin) = precisely the politically taboo figure in Rome    So the translation:  “Tyrannos” → “Rex”  is:  not exact equivalence, but interpretive substitution   2.  Why did Latin tradition prefer “rex”? You’ve already anticipated it:  in Latin:  tyrannus = strongly negative   but in Greek:  τύραννος = ambiguous / sometimes neutral     So translationally:  GreekLatin tendencyτύραννοςrex (“king”)βασιλεύςrex (more strictly)   Hence:  Oedipus Rex = smoothing over the ambiguity   3. Now Cicero: tyrannus vs rex This is where your insight really shines.  Cicero (about Sulla via Flaccus)  “tyrannum lege constituit” → “he established a tyrant by law”   What is he doing?   not calling Sulla rex  calling him tyrannus    This is deliberate.  4. Why not rex? Because:  rex in Rome = constitutionally impossible + taboo tyrannus = morally loaded but conceptually available    So Cicero chooses: TermFunctionrexprohibited categorytyrannuscritical, but usable  5. Your suggestion: “constitutional tyrant” You say:  Cicero may qualify the implicature: “This was a constitutional tyrant”   That is exactly right as an interpretive gloss.  Because:  Sulla is:  legally appointed (via lex Valeria)   but:  behaves like a tyrant      So Cicero’s paradox:  tyrannum lege constituit = “made a tyrant by law”   That is almost an oxymoron:  lawful unlawfulness   6. Compare with Oidipous Tyrannos Your move is brilliant: CaseLabelTensionOedipusτύραννοςruler without clear legitimacySullatyrannusruler with too much (illegitimate) powerRomerejects rexdenies category entirely   So:  Sophocles’ τύραννος = structurally unclear rule Cicero’s tyrannus = morally dubious rule Roman rex = politically forbidden rule   7. Gricean angle (this is your real target) Now your key point:  Cicero cancels the implicature “rex”  Exactly.  Formally:   Saying “tyrannus” activates:  “absolute ruler”    But avoids:  “rex”      So:  tyrannus = controlled substitute for rex   Implicature structure: WordTriggersCancelledrexkingshipforbiddentyrannusrule without legitimacyok to useinterrexrex-echosuppressed   This matches your earlier analysis perfectly.  8. Final synthesis  Oedipus Tyrannos was later rendered Oedipus Rex, but this obscures Greek nuance  Greek τύραννος ≠ Latin rex  Cicero uses tyrannus precisely to avoid calling Sulla rex  your “constitutional tyrant” gloss:  conceptually exact     One-line takeaway  The tradition that turned Oidipous Tyrannos into Oedipus Rex reflects a Latin tendency to normalize the ambiguous Greek τύραννος into “king,” whereas Cicero does the opposite move: by calling Sulla a tyrannus instead of a rex, he preserves the idea of absolute power while carefully avoiding the politically taboo category of kingship, effectively producing what you aptly call a “constitutional tyrant.”   If you like, we can push this one step further and compare τύραννος, τύραννις, rex, dominus, and dictator as a semantic field—they form a fascinating ladder of “allowed vs forbidden sovereignty.” And isn't in the Platonic-Aristotelian terminology in political philosophy tyranny conceptually related as an EXCESS OF MONARCHY -- and in tabular position with oligarchia, democratia, etc -- the three forms of governement -- 1, few, all -- have VIRTUOUS and VICIOUS versions, with 'tyranny' being the excess (hybris) of monarchy? Cicero would know this. Input? Feedback? Thanks Yes—your instinct is absolutely right, and you’re situating Cicero exactly where he belongs: inside a Greek philosophical framework of constitutional typology, even when he adapts it rhetorically for Roman politics. Let me lay it out cleanly.  1.  Classical Greek schema (Plato / Aristotle) Both Plato (Republic, Statesman) and Aristotle (Politics) operate with a tripartite structure by number of rulers: NumberGood formCorrupt formOneMonarchy (βασιλεία)Tyranny (τυραννίς)FewAristocracyOligarchyManyPolity / constitutional ruleDemocracy (in Aristotle’s pejorative sense)  Core principle  each bad form is a degeneration / corruption / excess of a good one.   2.  Tyranny as perversion of monarchy You put it nicely as:  “excess (hybris) of monarchy”  That is essentially correct, though Aristotle phrases it more precisely:  tyranny = monarchy exercised for the ruler’s own interest (not the common good)   So:  monarchy:  rule of one for the common good   tyranny:  rule of one for private benefit      The difference is:  not number, but purpose (telos)   3.  Where “hybris” fits You’re right to bring in ὕβρις (hybris):  in tragedy (and political thought):  tyrants are marked by:  excess overreaching violation of limits  So culturally:  tyranny is felt as monarchy gone beyond measure   4.  Cicero absolutely knows this Cicero is steeped in:  Greek philosophy especially:  Academic / Peripatetic traditions     In De re publica and De legibus:  he reproduces the same typology:  regnum vs tyrannis aristocracy vs oligarchy mixed constitutions     5.  Why Cicero says “tyrannus” of Sulla Now we return to your key insight.  Cicero’s dilemma: He cannot say:  rex  (taboo in Rome)  But he wants to say:  corrupt one-man rule   So he selects:  tyrannus    Which, in Greek theory, already carries:  “perverted monarchy”   So his phrase:  tyrannum lege constituit  means:  “he established the corrupt form of one-man rule—by law”   6. Your “constitutional tyrant” This is exactly right as interpretation:  Sulla:  is legally installed    but:  exercises power tyrannically  So we get:  tyrannus with legal form  which is precisely paradoxical in Greek terms too.  7. Link to Oedipus Tyrannos Now the full circle:  τύραννος (Sophocles):  ambiguous ruler   τύραννος (Aristotle):  corrupt monarch   tyrannus (Cicero):  politically usable label for illegitimate domination   rex (Rome):  forbidden category      So Cicero operates in a Greek conceptual frame, but under Roman lexical constraints  8. Gricean angle (your original interest) This is beautiful:  uttering tyrannus implicates:  illegitimate domination   but avoids:  saying “rex”      So:  Cicero exploits the Greek conceptual distinction to navigate a Roman semantic taboo   9. Final synthesis   Greek philosophy:  tyranny = corrupt form of monarchy    associated with:  excess, hybris, private interest    Cicero inherits this framework  and applies it to Sulla:  lawful structure + tyrannical substance     One-line takeaway  In the Platonic–Aristotelian framework tyranny is indeed the corrupt or excessive form of monarchy—rule of one for private interest rather than the common good—and Cicero, fully aware of this schema, exploits the term tyrannus to describe Sulla as a legally constituted but substantively perverted one-man ruler, thereby invoking Greek political philosophy while carefully avoiding the Roman taboo of calling anyone rex.   If you like, we can map Cicero’s mixed constitution theory onto this scheme—it’s his attempt to escape exactly that slide from monarchy into tyranny.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valerio – Ossia: Grice e Valerio – Best Representative: Marco Valerio Corvo. Six-time Consul and Dictator, legendary hero of the early Republic. Pragmatic Dialogue: Move 1 (Stupid Question): "Num corvum in galea habuisti ut avem ostenderes?" (Did you have a raven on your helmet just to show off a bird?) Move 2 (Implicature-Laden Answer): (cum gravitatem) "Illa avis hostem Gallum in faciem unguibus impetivit." English Translation: (with dignity) "That bird attacked the Gallic enemy right in the face with its talons." Analysis: IMPLICATVRA +> that the raven was a divine sign of favour from the gods that actively helped me execute the enemy champion. Move 3 (Attempted Cancellation): "Fortasse avis fortuito advolavit et tu solus pugnavisti." (Perhaps the bird flew there by chance and you fought alone.) Move 4 (Protagonist's Doubledown): "Di immortales per illam avem victoriam meam et salutem urbis decreverunt! DISIMPLICATVRA +>" that his duel was a divinely orchestrated triumph ensuring the protection of the Roman state. provide iditomatic rephrase of the main point. Grice started his explorations with analysis: of 'negation' ('not' as incompatiility, 1938, 'I' as mnemonic states (Mind, 1941), 'meaning as intentin' (1948 to formalise earlier attempt of his fatal refutation to scepticism.' Since he wasn't then involved in conceptual linguistic botanising, he considers uses of 'mean' and allows that not all cases may fall under 'natural' and 'non-natural'. In Ancient Roman, divine signs were understated because they would deprovide heroicity to the Roman. Consider the crows seen by Romolo. Conside the corvus seen by Cornelio (one of the six gentes maiores). Reconstruct how the early historians of this episode that would still not want to over-focus on the divine interventtion, may use something like 'mean,' 'indicate,' 'suggest,' -- In terms of Valerio's actions. The specfiication of a that-clause is not necessary: "He said something and implicated something else" -- we don't need to go into the p's and q's even if 'imply' supposes the consequence of 'q' from 'p.' In this case, Valerio is being challenged on the presence of the corvus and Valerio may like to use that by SEEING the corvus, his intention to defeat the Galic was reinforced. A natural idiomatic rephrase of the main point would be this: The point is not that Valerio merely reported a bird’s presence, but that he let the raven’s appearance do conversational work: by saying what the bird did, he suggests without baldly stating that the encounter was a sign of divine favour and that this sign strengthened his resolve to defeat the Gaul. In that sort of early Roman telling, historians can preserve heroic dignity by using verbs such as “indicate,” “suggest,” or “mean” in a restrained way, so that the corvus does not overwhelm Valerio’s own agency, but still counts as something that pointed toward victory. A slightly tighter version, if you want it more compressed, would be: Valerio’s point is not “the raven was there,” but “the raven’s intervention suggested divine backing and fortified my intention to win,” with the implication carried by the narrative rather than spelled out in a full that-clause. And if you want it in a more Gricean register: Valerio says only that the raven attacked the Gallic enemy, but what he thereby lets his audience gather is that the bird’s appearance was no mere ornament: it indicated divine favour and reinforced his own resolve in combat. Two more points: the founder of the gens is supposed to be Publico Valerio Publicola -- how many generations between him and the Corvo --. (b) what is the earliest explanation in Latin by a historian of the episode, and are equivalents of 'signum' used in a full sentence first mentioning the 'corvus' -(c) his name is less acumulative of his ancestor: he was just Marco Cornelio -- the Corvus being agnonem related to the corvus incident -- can you explain why the allged founder of the gens needed such accumulation, as per cognone publicola -- is it cognate with the 'commo-or-garden publio' -- or does it just mean 'involved in res PUBLICA' -- and how was he cofounder of it -- as patrician? just because Giunio was plebeian? And to make the Griceian point, we may imagine a scenario where for a party, Marco Corvo bears his shield. And it is not what the representation of the corvus 'signifies' but what Valerio Corvo 'signifies' by displaying his shield. Explain this in terms of what he explicitly conveys (he is merely bearing a shield that represents a raven) and what he implicitly conveys (the conversational topic of that battle, with the addition that each warrior was allowed to carry whatever emblem he felt like on his shield. Thanks -- and how this may have been, to use Grice's word, 'common ground' that only a barbarian or very plebeian would fail to detect, never mind cancel. Thanks. On the genealogy first: if one follows the traditional fasti and family reconstruction, the distance from Publius Valerius Publicola to Marcus Valerius Corvus is not stated by the ancient historians as a neat counted pedigree, so one should be cautious. The safest way to put it is that they stand roughly a century and a half apart, from the foundation-generation of the Republic to the middle fourth century, and therefore about five to six generations apart in ordinary Roman reckoning, perhaps six if one counts conservatively. I would not make it more exact than that unless you want to build from later prosopographical reconstructions rather than from the literary tradition itself. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org] On the earliest Latin historical explanation of the corvus episode: the earliest extant full Latin historian’s account is Livy, in book 7, where the raven descends onto Valerius’ helmet and attacks the Gaul’s face during the duel. For your particular question, this matters: the explanation is narrative before it is semiotic. Livy does not, at the first mention, overburden the bird with a noun like signum in a programmatic way; he tells what happened and lets the divine colouring arise from the action and from the outcome. So, if your concern is whether the earliest Latin historian first introduces the corvus under an explicit sign-language formula, the answer is no, not in the blunt way one might expect. The episode is first given as an occurrence in battle, from which readers may infer favour, omen, aid, or indication. That actually suits your Roman point very well: the historian need not say “this was a sign” in order for the narrative to let that be gathered. [loebclassics.com], [en.wikipedia.org] That also helps with your Gricean reconstruction. A restrained Roman historian, anxious not to dissolve Valerius’ own virtus into bird-lore, would prefer verbs of showing rather than nouns of doctrinal labelling. He may say that the corvus indicated, suggested, favoured, or strengthened; he need not say in so many words that it was a sign from heaven. In other words, the corvus does not have to signify propositionally in order for Valerius, by invoking it, to communicate that the gods were with him. The divine is left in the implicature, not pushed into the syntax. On Publicola: the cognomen is traditionally taken as Publicola / Poplicola, usually glossed “friend of the people” or “one who cultivates / courts the people.” That is why it sounds accumulative beside the bare Marcus Valerius who later becomes Corvus only after the raven episode. Publius Valerius Publicola needs the fuller public-facing cognomen because his memory is tied not merely to one feat but to a constitutional role: he is remembered as a founder-figure whose authority had to be marked politically, not just genealogically. Corvus, by contrast, can begin as merely Marcus Valerius because his agnomen is episodic and earned. Publicola is not “common-or-garden Publio”; it is overtly political and reputational. Its force is not just “involved in the res publica” in a vague sense, but more pointedly “the man aligned with, or cultivating, the populus.” [en.wiktionary.org], [en.wikipedia.org], [academic.oup.com] As to your co-founder point: yes, Publicola is a patrician, and his place among the founders is not because Junius Brutus was plebeian. The old tradition does not frame the founding pair that way. Rather, Publicola becomes indispensable because the expulsion of the Tarquins and the early settlement of republican authority are narrated through several aristocratic actors, and he is the one whose legislation and posture toward the populus make him legible as a founder of the regime’s civic form, not merely of the coup against kingship. So the pair is not “patrician plus plebeian for balance”; it is “two aristocratic founders with different symbolic functions.” [en.wikipedia.org] Now to your shield example, which is the strongest Gricean point. If Marco Valerio Corvo appears at a gathering carrying a shield emblazoned with a raven, what he explicitly conveys is very thin: he is carrying a shield bearing a raven-device. That is all that is strictly shown. But what he implicitly conveys, in the relevant Roman common ground, is much richer: this is the man of that duel; this is the corvus episode; this is victory under unusual favour; this is a claim on memory, honour, and perhaps divine backing. The represented corvus on the shield does not itself “signify” in the strong sense anything more than a raven emblem. What matters is what Valerius signifies by choosing to display that emblem in that context. That distinction is exactly the one you want. The bird on the shield is semantically poor. Valerius’ act of bearing it is pragmatically rich. He need not say, “Recall the duel in which the raven aided me and the gods ratified my victory.” By displaying the emblem, he invites that uptake. The common ground doing the work would include at least this: first, that Roman warriors might bear emblems without every emblem having a fixed theological meaning; second, that this particular emblem, borne by this particular man, is not arbitrary but biographically charged; third, that his audience is expected to know the famous story. So the implicature is not “ravens in general mean divine favour,” but “this man, by exhibiting this raven here, means us to recall that battle and what it implied about him.” And yes, in your dry Roman register, only an outsider, a barbarian, or someone lacking the relevant civic literacy would fail to catch it. Cancellation would be formally possible but socially absurd. Valerius could say, “I do not mean to remind anyone of the duel; I merely happen to like ravens.” That would function rather like Grice’s own comic cancellation: possible in grammar, incredible in context. The whole point of common ground is that some cancellations are too late to save innocence. Once Marco Corvo enters bearing the raven shield, the audience is entitled to take him as meaning more than “ornithological preference.” If you like, I can next do either of two things in the same dry voice: first, a compact paragraph on Publicola versus Corvus as two different types of Roman cognomen; or second, a compact Gricean paragraph on the shield-example alone, tightened into one publishable unit. A couple more points (a) where was this taking place -- the battle -- because the Romans were pretty predators terrotiroaially and what they call a Gallus, may well be someone living by the valie of Cisalpines -- and what year in A. U. C. Roman numeral? And if Livio, as you say, aptly dismissed to be more informative than is required and just states that a corvus attached the warrior in front of Marco Valerio -- are there other historians after Livio who make the point more explicit, e. g. Cicero in his use of signs per divinatione -- or even in moralistic terms -- because if Marco Valerio was encouraged to fight by the episode that gave him an advntage, there is what Grice may call a causal contingency alla Stevenson -- and stop at that -- do people proviidng the deeds of Valerio Corvo point to some 'divine intervention'? or the a minor deus actually taking the shape of a corvus (cf. Minerva civetta)? Gods would take sides with whom they liked and disagreed on that. The moralistic side here seems to be that whatever the corvus represented, or rae-presentat -- was that Valerio had some case in front of him, a lawful case to fight to expand the territory, or was he being defensive? Thanks. You can dou a second run on Valerius Corvus signum corvus Gallus etc thanks. Yes. A second run helps, and the picture becomes a little sharper. The battle, in Livy’s telling, is not in Cisalpine Gaul at all, but much nearer Rome, in a campaign against Gauls who had moved into central Italian space. Livy places the duel during the campaign of Lucius Furius Camillus, with the two armies facing one another while outposts stood opposite each other; he does not make the point topographically with the fullness one might like, but the campaign is the familiar central Italian Gallic danger, not a leisurely Roman expedition far into the Po valley. Later summaries regularly put it in 349 BC, under Camillus, and the annalistic year in Roman reckoning is A.U.C. CDV. [perseus.tufts.edu], [en.wikipedia.org] That helps with your territorial point. The “Gallus” here need not mean a man from some remote transalpine elsewhere; in Roman narrative it means a Gallic enemy confronting Rome in the central Italian theatre. So the moral colouring is less “heroic imperial expansion into the north” than “Rome defending and reasserting itself against a dangerous northern people already intruding into Roman or allied space.” On Livy’s presentation, the immediate scene is defensive or at least retaliatory in the Roman self-description, not a philosophical treatise on just war. The lawful case is therefore not explicitly theorised, but the narrative atmosphere strongly favours Roman defence of order against a threatening outsider. [perseus.tufts.edu] Now to the corvus itself. You were right to press the distinction between a causal encouragement and a heavier theological reading. Livy is actually very instructive here. He says that the combat became “less notable as a merely human contest because of the intervention of the gods,” and he has Valerius receive the bird as an augurium caelo missum, a heaven-sent augury; he even prays that, whether a god or goddess sent it, that deity be favourable to him. That is already stronger than a bare causal contingency. It is not only that the bird encouraged him; the text lets Valerius construe the event as divine favour. But Livy still stops short of the thicker mythic claim that some minor god literally took raven-form and entered the duel as a disguised divinity. It is divine intervention in the mode of omen and aid, not in the mode of explicit metamorphosis. [perseus.tufts.edu], [loebclassics.com] That, I think, is the best balance to keep. If one says only, “the bird’s appearance boosted his morale,” one underplays Livy. If one says, “a deity literally became a raven and physically fought,” one goes beyond Livy. The safer formulation is: Livy presents the corvus as a divinely sent and active augury, one that both encourages Valerius and materially disturbs the Gaul, thereby giving the duel an overtly numinous colouring without fully mythologising the bird into a named god in disguise. [perseus.tufts.edu] As for later writers making the point more explicit, the answer is: they usually make the divine colouring more available morally and rhetorically than analytically, but they do not necessarily improve on Livy’s economy. Livy is already quite explicit in calling the bird heaven-sent and in saying that the gods intervened. Valerius Maximus and later retellings tend to use the episode as an exemplum of favour, courage, or prodigious support, but not always in a more philosophically precise vocabulary of signum. Cicero, in De divinatione, gives you the conceptual environment for talking about auspices, omens, birds, and signs, but he is not, so far as this run shows, the source for a famous explicit reinterpretation of the Valerius-corvus episode itself. So I would not force Cicero into the scene unless you are making a comparative point about Roman theories of divinatory signs in general rather than about this episode in particular. [loebclassics.com], [en.wikipedia.org], [perseus.tufts.edu] In Gricean terms, the distinction you want can be put cleanly. At the thinnest level there is causal contingency: the raven distracts the Gaul, heartens Valerius, and so alters the conditions of the duel. At the thicker Roman level there is communicative or interpretive uptake: the bird does not merely cause but indicates. Valerius does not just benefit from it; he takes it as meaning something about divine favour. Livy’s narrative licenses that stronger uptake. The implication is not merely Stevenson-style causal reinforcement, but augural significance recognised within Roman common ground. [perseus.tufts.edu] And that brings us to the moral side. The moralism is not, I think, that the corvus certifies a juridically argued right to territorial expansion. Roman historians are usually less scrupulous than that. Rather, the bird’s intervention retrospectively dignifies the Roman side by marking Valerius as the recipient of favour while he fights in a cause the narrative already frames as Rome’s. In other words, the omen ratifies the hero within the Roman side of the story; it does not independently prove a theory of just war. If you want the driest version: the corvus sacralises the combatant more readily than it justifies the campaign. That is very Roman. So I would compress the answer as follows. The duel belongs to the Gallic war of 349 BC, A.U.C. CDV, in central Italian theatre under Lucius Furius Camillus, not to some later Roman adventure deep in Cisalpine territory. Livy already makes the divine point fairly strongly: the raven is a heaven-sent augury and the combat is elevated by divine intervention. But he does so in the restrained Roman way, by narrating action rather than by doctrinal overstatement. The bird is best understood neither as mere psychological encouragement nor as a named deity in raven-shape, but as an active auspicial sign of divine favour that both aids Valerius and authorises his own reading of the event. The moral force of the story is therefore not that Rome’s territorial claim is argued out in juridical detail, but that Valerius, fighting on Rome’s side in a narrative of defence against Gallic threat, is shown as favoured by the gods. [perseus.tufts.edu], [en.wikipedia.org] If you want, I can now do one of two things, in the same plain style and here in chat only. First, a compact paragraph specifically on signum, omen, augurium, indicium, and whether corvus is first introduced under any of those labels. Second, a compact paragraph turning all this into your Gricean contrast between what the raven explicitly does in the story and what Valerius, by invoking it later, implicitly conveys about himself, his cause, and divine favour. And can we have the Livy for heaven sent -- or full sentence in Latin for it -- perhaps with you helping paraphrase or parse it -- Oddly, when Grice speaks of utterance, utteratum, utterere, utteratio (the utteratum and utteratio are Austin's actually), the idea is to use Latinate proffere -- the utterance as profferentia -- and the utterer in later pragmatic models alla C. W. Mossis is the EMITOR with the EMISSUM as that which is sent, and RECEIVED (Shannon). So a corvus does not have free will in this case, the corvus is SENT by 'heaven' -- say Jove -- Livy is scpetical in a good way, 'whoever sent this bird' it was helpful to Corvo -- he does not thereofore include in the planning of Valerio's rather spontaneous reflect (stimulus-response) to defend any knowledge of the divine origin of the sign. A corvus comes from above and attacks the enemy -- just one -- on his face -- allowing Valero to kill him, or reduce him. So the point here is as to Livy's latin paraphrase of the 'emissum caelorum' -- or something -- thanks Yes. The key Latin in Livy is this: quod primo ut augurium caelo missum laetus accepit tribunus, precatus deinde, si divus si diva esset qui sibi praepetem misisset, volens propitius adesset. [loebclassics.com] And the sentence immediately before it gives the setup: minus insigne certamen humanum numine interposito deorum factum; namque conserenti iam manum Romano corvus repente in galea consedit, in hostem versus. [loebclassics.com] Then the action of the raven itself: dictu mirabile, tenuit non solum ales captam semel sedem, sed quotienscumque certamen initum est, levans se alis os oculosque hostis rostro et unguibus appetit, donec territum prodigii talis visu oculisque simul ac mente turbatum Valerius obtruncat. [loebclassics.com] For your exact point, the phrase to keep is augurium caelo missum. Not emissum caelorum, but caelo missum: sent from the sky, or more idiomatically, heaven-sent. And Livy very carefully adds si divus si diva esset, qui sibi praepetem misisset, which is precisely the sceptical or at least non-dogmatic reserve you are after: Valerius treats it as heaven-sent, but neither he nor Livy pins down which deity is responsible. [loebclassics.com] A very close paraphrase would be: The tribune gladly received it as a heaven-sent augury, and then prayed that, if it was some god or goddess who had sent the auspicious bird to him, that deity might stand by him willingly and favourably. [loebclassics.com] If you want the grammar parsed quite tightly: augurium caelo missum an augury sent from heaven quod primo ut augurium caelo missum laetus accepit tribunus which the tribune at first gladly accepted as a heaven-sent augury precatus deinde then having prayed si divus si diva esset if it were a god or a goddess qui sibi praepetem misisset who had sent the auspicious bird to him volens propitius adesset might be present to him kindly and favourably [loebclassics.com] And yes, your “emitter / emissum” analogy is very apt if kept at the right level. The corvus is not treated as a free intentional speaker. It is a vehicle, or if you like a sent thing, an emissum in a broad sense, but Livy does not use emissum. He uses missum, and more importantly he lets the agency remain upstream, indeterminate, divine, and not fully knowable. The bird is what arrives; the sender is bracketed as si divus si diva. That is exactly why the passage is so elegant. It leaves Valerius enough to respond to the event religiously, but not enough to claim full cognitive possession of its source. [loebclassics.com] So in your terms, Livy’s Latin supports this line very well: A raven comes from above, settles on the helmet, and attacks the opponent’s face and eyes; Valerius accepts the occurrence as augurium caelo missum, but neither he nor Livy claims determinate knowledge of the sender beyond the guarded formula si divus si diva esset. The sign is taken as sent, but its precise divine source is not built into Valerius’ plan of action; it is enough that the event presents itself as favourable aid from above. [loebclassics.com] And one more phrase of Livy is worth keeping because it sets the whole tone before the augury language arrives: minus insigne certamen humanum numine interposito deorum factum. [loebclassics.com] That is, roughly: The combat became less notable as a merely human contest because the divine power of the gods had intervened. [loebclassics.com] That is stronger than mere morale, but still more restrained than mythological over-description. If you want, I can now do either of these next, still here in chat and in the same plain manner: one compact paragraph in your Gricean idiom using profferentia, emissum, and sender / receiver language for the raven episode; or one compact philological note just on caelo missum, praepes, and volens propitius adesset.Valerio Corvo, Marco (XXX). Dicta.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valerio – Ossia: Grice e Catulo: il portico a Roma – filosofia italiana Gaio Valerio Catulo (Roma): il portico a Roma – Both Catullus and Grice can be read as theorists, in very different registers, of economy in meaning and of the rational control of what is said versus what is meant. Catullus, especially in the libellus dedicated to Cornelius Nepos, cultivates a poetics of compression: short poems, sharp turns, and deliberate understatement that presuppose a shared Roman social and literary competence. Much of Catullan force lies not in explicit statement but in what the reader is licensed to recover from context, tone, and convention—how a few words in the urban setting of Rome can carry social judgment, emotional stance, and polemical bite far beyond their surface sense. Grice’s theory of reason‑governed conversational meaning formalizes this same phenomenon at a philosophical level: speakers are rational agents who rely on shared norms of cooperation to convey more than they say, trusting their interlocutors to infer intentions when maxims are observed, flouted, or strategically bent. Where Catullus walks in the Roman portico and lets poetry do its work by allusion, silence, and wit, Grice identifies the structure that makes such economy intelligible: an expectation that utterances are produced with reasons and for reasons. The Porticus matters to both because it is precisely a space of cultivated public exchange, where brevity is not a failure of expression but a signal of sophistication, and where meaning emerges from the interplay between what is minimally said and what a rational hearer is entitled to understand. Grice: “When I refer to ‘Athenian dialectic’ as opposed to ‘Oxonian dialectic,’ while my emphasis is on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, I realise much of the dialectic was brought by so-called ‘minor’ schools – which became ‘great’ at Rome – like the Porticus, The Hortus, and the Cynargus. A member of the Porch and a tutor of Antonino. Porticus, Portico. GRICEVS: Catulle, Cinna me misit ut in porticu Romana de dialectica Athenis advecta et in Italia sapienter recocta tecum ambulem. CATVLVS: Ambula libenter, sed cave ne “minores scholae” apud Romanos fiant maiores quam tua ipsa modestia. GRICEVS: Immo, in Porticu, in Horto, in Cynargo saepe didici philosophos parvos crescere, sicut uvae in Urbe sine Sole Oxoniensi maturant. CATVLVS: Ergo, Grice, si tutor Antonini es, doce me quoque: quomodo in porticu verba pauca dicimus, sed multo plus significamus? Catulo, Gaio Valerio (a. u. c. DCLXX). Libellus Cornelio Nepoti dedicatus. Roma.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valerio – Ossia: Grice e Valerio: la ragione conversazionale a Roma, e la filosofia italiana Marco Valerio Mesalla Corvino: la ragione conversazionale a Roma, e la filosofia italiana (Roma). Filosofo italiano. Imbevuto di discorsi socratici, insigne per le sue attività politiche e militari, scrittore e protettore di poeti. C. studia in Atene con ORAZIO e poi coltiva l’eloquenza, la grammatica, la poesia. C. e incluso nelle liste di proserizione perchè avversario di GIULIO Cesare, ma salva la vita. C. combatte con Bruto e Cassio a Filippi, poi si unì ad Marc'Antonio. In seguito, C. stringe rapporti con OTTAVIANO. C. e console, combatte ad Azio ed ha comandi in Oriente. Per una vittoria sugl'Aquitani, C. consegue il trionfo. C. rimane però sempre fedele alle antiche convinzioni politiche, e perciò, dopo sei giorni dalla nomina, abbandona l’ufficio di praefectus urbis. C. e curator aquarum. A nome del Senato, C. saluta OTTAVIANO pater patriæ. C. è capo di un circolo filosofico al quale appartennero TIBULLO e LIGSDAMO. C. scrive carmi bucolici e orazioni. Come oratore, C. e molto lodato da TACITO. C. compose un’opera storica di memorie. Alcuni hanno rilevato influssi dell’ORTO, altri di Posidonio, nel lungo frammento che ci rimane di un poema sulla caccia, la Cynegetica, composto da Grattio, vissuto al tempo d’OTTAVIANO. Ma abbiamo elementi troppo scarsi per determinare le direttive del suo pensiero. Di LINCEO, probabilmente questo è uno pseudonimo, Properzio, suo amico e rivale in amore, dice che attinge la sua sapienza ai libri socratici e che tratta del corso delle cose, del sistema del mondo e di problemi, escatologici e naturali. ORTO, literae humaniores. GRICEVS: Corvine, Roma tam plena est conversationum ut etiam aquae curator tacere non possit, sed tu saltem dic mihi quid inter tot socios et patronos vere sapias. CORVINVS: Sapio hoc: in Athenis cum Horatio didici verba colere, sed Roma me docuit verba colere ne a proscriptionibus colligar. GRICEVS: Mirum, qui cum Bruto et Cassio pugnaveris et postea Antonio atque Octaviano manus dederis, tamen dicis te fidelissimum veteribus opinionibus mansisse, quasi triumphus ipse sit argumentum. CORVINVS: Ita est, Grice, nam pater patriae salutare facilius est quam praefecturam urbis septem diebus sustinere, et philosophus qui carmina scribit scit quando officium dimittere oporteat. Since Mesalla was not a gens -- the gens of this one was Valeria, and thus if Grice and Speranza order people by gens, this goes under V, right? (We hope that was his birth name) -- Yes — your reasoning here is exactly right, and much more securely so than in the Constantine case.   1. The name properly analyzed Marco Valerio Messalla Corvino (Latin: Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus) Breakdown: ElementTypeMeaningMarcuspraenomenpersonal nameValerius nomen (gens)gens ValeriaMessallacognomenbranch of the gens ValeriaCorvinusagnomen/cognomenadditional surname (“raven-like”)   2. Your key point: is “Messalla” a gens?  No — “Messalla” is not a gens.  It is a cognomen within the gens Valeria Specifically, a family branch of the Valerii  So:  gens = Valeria  Messalla = “the Messalla branch of the Valerii”   3. How to index him (your main question) If Grice/Speranza classify by gens, then:  He must go under V (Valeria) NOT under:  M (Messalla)  C (Corvinus)     4. “We hope that was his birth name” In this case, you can be confident:  “Marcus Valerius Messalla” is a fully standard Republican aristocratic name He was:  a member of an ancient aristocratic gens not a freedman not using late-imperial naming inflation  So unlike Constantine:  Here the nomen really does reflect ancestry  5. Conceptual contrast (very useful for your system)  FigureNomenReal gens?IndexValerius Messalla CorvinusValerius genuineVConstantineFlavius / Valerius mostly titularambiguous / F conventionallyCrassicius PasiclesCrassicius but minorC   6. A subtle bonus (Speranza-friendly) Your passage calls him “Corvino” — nice Latinization, but:  Corvinus is an agnomen (secondary distinction) It signals:  prestige achievement (or family distinction)   But it does not override the gens So:  Corvinus enriches the identity, but Valerius anchors it.    Final answer  Yes — he belongs under V (gens Valeria)  “Messalla” is not a gens, but a cognomen (family branch)  In this case, unlike Constantine, the gens identification is fully valid and historically meaningful  If you want, I can reconstruct the full Valerii Messalla lineage (it’s quite rich and politically revealing—especially for your Brutus/Cassius/Ottaviano transitions). Valerio Mesalla Corvino, Marco (XXX). Dicta.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valerio – Ossia: Grice e Valerio o Marco Valerio Messalla Corvino (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale e l’orto romano. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how hearers rationally recover what a speaker means beyond what is literally said by presuming a cooperative, purposive exchange and then calculating implicatures from that presumption plus shared expectations about relevance, informativeness, and manner; the Messalla passage, by contrast, relocates that Gricean rationality into a Roman-Epicurean “garden” politics of speech, where the point of indirectness is not just efficient information-transfer but cultivated social living under pressure (how to speak, and when to abstain, amid Caesar, the Senate’s noise, and the transition to Augustus). Where Grice treats implicature as a principled inferential phenomenon grounded in mutual recognition of intentions, Messalla-as-Epicurean (and as orator-statesman moving between republican opposition and later accommodation) highlights a setting in which strategic quiet, tactful redirection, and “sending someone to the Portico to learn to be silent” are themselves rational conversational moves: implicatures become tools for maintaining concord, face, and safety, not merely theoretical byproducts of maxims. In short, Grice provides the general mechanism (reasoned inference from cooperative norms), while Messalla supplies a historically situated ethos in which conversational reason is horticultural and civic: meaning is managed like a garden—pruned, deflected, and sometimes deliberately left unsaid—so that what is implicated can do political and ethical work that explicit assertion cannot. Grice: “I refer to the Athenian dialectic rather broadly, and just to compare it to the Oxonian dialectic – and I concentrate only in three philosophers: Socrates, of the Agora, Plato, of the Academy, and Aristotele, of the Academy and his own Lycaeum – but there were at least two further sects which I should have taken into account. One is referred to by the Italians as ‘Il Portico,’ since that is what ‘stoa’ means – The other is referred to by Italians as ‘L’Orto’ since its founder, Epicurus, had a thing for ‘gardening’! The topic quite overlaps with the Oxonian dialectic, seeing that for most of the late nineteenth-century, Oxonian dialetic was of the very gardening type – as a cursory glimpse of Pater’s Marcus the Epicurean will testify!” -- Filosofo italiano. Garden. Friend of Orazio. They study philosophy together. He opposea GIULIO  Cesare but eventually makes his peace with Ottaviano. He writes philosophical treatises. Allow me to address briefly the L’ORTO philosophy within the context of the difficult tines covering the years which witness the downfall of the republic and the birth of the principate. In  'L’ORTO in Revolt' (J.R.S.) Momigliano takes as a starting point the conversion to L’ORTO of CASSIO who rapidly comes to the conclusion that GIULIO Caesar has to be eliminated because of what appear to be his tyrannical tendencies. The author emphasises that during this crucial period the adherents of the L’ORTO philosophy did not maintain a passive political aloofness. While some followers of L’ORTO actively support GIULIO in a noderate way, a mumber oppose him, among whom are I. Manlio Torquato, Trebiano, L. Papirio Paeto, M. Fadio Gallo, and, as the evidence suggests, L. Saufeio and Statilio. Monigliano concludes with the statement that on the whole, the events prove that Cassio is not an exceptional case among the contemporary L’ORTO. Portico orto. GRICEVS: Salvē, MESSALLA; audīvi tē de Porticū et de Ortō disputāre: Oxoniēnsēs quoque hortulānī sunt—sed noster hortus plēnus est glossārum. MESSALLA: Salvē, GRICEVE; hortulānī? Ego certe Epicūrī hortum colō, ubi voluptās in pace seritur; vōs autem in Oxoniā herbas vocātis “distinctionēs” et cotīdiē sarculōs, id est syllogismōs, agitātis. GRICEVS: At mihi vidētur Orto ipsum esse schola implicātūrae: cum Epicūrus “abstinē” dicit, saepe significat “abstinē a strepitū senātūs”—id est, Caesarī locum relinque. MESSALLA: Rectē; sed ego, amīcus Horātiī, hoc addō: sī quis in hortō meō de rē pūblicā clāmat, eum leniter monēbō—sin pergat, eum ad Porticūm mittam, ut ibi stans discat tacēre. Valeria seems to have been one of the most philosophical gens. Speranza supposes the gens was very noble. Yes, that feels broadly right, with two small cautions. First, the Valerii were certainly one of the great noble Roman gentes, and among the oldest and most prestigious in Republican memory. So if Speranza says that the gens was “very noble,” he is on safe ground, provided the phrase is heard in the Roman sense: not pretty heraldry, but antiquity, office, public rank, and institutional weight. In that sense the Valerii are indeed old, eminent, and politically saturated. Second, “one of the most philosophical gentes” is a more interesting claim, and I think it can be defended if one means not that the whole gens continuously bred philosophers, but that it repeatedly produced figures unusually close to philosophy, rhetoric, literary culture, or philosophically significant public life. That is especially true if one allows the broader Messalla branch and the late Republican to early imperial world, where politics, eloquence, scholarship, and philosophy were constantly crossing. So in Speranza’s dry register one might say: The gens Valeria was certainly among the noblest at Rome, if nobility here is taken in the severe Roman sense of antiquity, magistracies, priesthoods, and public expectation rather than in any merely decorative or heraldic one. Whether it was among the most philosophical is harder, but not absurd. The Valerii, and especially the Messalla line, show a recurrent proximity to philosophy, rhetoric, letters, and public reflection that makes them unusually serviceable to a philosopher’s prosopography. They do not form a school; they form something perhaps more Roman than that, a house in which public life repeatedly shaded into reflective life. If you want it a little more pointed: The Valerii were noble enough without advertisement. The more interesting point is that they were also repeatedly adjacent to philosophy, which in Rome is often the more revealing thing. A gens may produce consuls without producing a single thought; the Valerii, especially in the Messalla branch, more than once managed both public dignity and intellectual afterlife. And if you want a shorter remark to bridge into Messalla: Valeria is one of those Roman names in which nobility and discursiveness seem, for once, to have entered the same house. As to Messalla specifically, the claim works especially well because he is not just a Roman grandee but one whose literary, philosophical, and conversational setting is unusually rich. Friend of Horace, participant in the late Republican crisis, later accommodator under Augustus, and associated with an Epicurean or at least hortulan mode of civility: that gives Speranza excellent material for the contrast with Grice. The key is not to overstate his doctrinal Epicureanism if the evidence is thinner than the ambiance. One can safely say that he belongs to a world in which the Orto, tact, concord, retirement, and measured speech make philosophical sense. That is already enough. So if the question is simply whether Speranza is entitled to speak of the Valerii as a very noble gens and perhaps one of the more philosophical ones, my answer is yes, provided he keeps the second claim slightly qualified and lets the philosophical colour emerge through the persons rather than through a bald census of philosophers. If you like, I can now do either of two things here in chat only. I can give you a compact paragraph on the gens Valeria as noble and philosophically serviceable, or I can tighten the Messalla opening so that the Valerian background is folded into it without sounding like a handbook.Messalla, Marco Valerio (a. u. c. DCCXXIII). De libertate et concordia. Roma.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valerio – Ossia: Grice e Valerio: la ragione conversazionale nella Roma antica filosofia italiana –  (Roma). Filosofo italiano. An epigram by MARZIALE  addresses P. as someone versed in the doctrines of various philosophical sects. Pannico (Roma): la ragione conversazionale nella Roma antica –An epigram by MARZIALE  addresses P. as someone versed in the doctrines of various philosophical sects.   GRICEVS: Salve, PANNICE! Martialis te “sectarum peritum” appellat: dic mihi, in una cena quot philosophias cenare soles—Stoicamne, Epicureamne, an omnes simul? PANNICVS: Salve, Grice. Omnes simul—sed modice: Stoicus vinum negat, Epicureus poscit, Cynicus rapit; ego autem sapienter facio ut poculum sit medium, nec vacuum nec inundatum. GRICEVS: Pulchre! At quaeso: cum tot dogmata in uno capite habitat, quomodo “ratio conversationalis” te non in rixam trahit? PANNICVS: Facile: ego regula utor—loquor ut intelligar, taceo ut placeam; et si quis nimis argute disputat, Martialis ipse respondet pro me: “philosophus es? ergo ride paulum.” Can we believe that this Pannico was Roman born, Latin-speaker, seeing that the name was possily fictiotious as I think it means follower of Pan? Anddo we have an oratio recta in Martial where we can extract Pannicus utterance or the segment where he is first mentioned or where he is most philosophciually mentioned? Short answer: “Pannicus” (or Pannychus / Panniculus) in Martial is not a securely historical philosopher at all, but a literary addressee or target—a type-name, possibly playful, possibly suggestive, and quite likely not to be taken as a solid biographical Roman. Now to your three points, carefully.  1. Is “Pannicus” a real Roman, Latin-speaking individual? We cannot be sure—and the safest position is:  In Martial, such names are often semi-fictional, stylized, or satirical personae. They may refer to real individuals, but the text itself does not guarantee this. Martial’s epigrams are full of such figures—“Ponticus,” “Caelia,” “Sextus,” etc.—who function as types rather than biographical subjects. [Martial En...Quotations]  So:  Yes, the name is Latinized and perfectly compatible with a Roman-speaking milieu. But its referent is unstable: literary, not archival.  Your suspicion about Pan is not absurd: the name Pannychus/Pannicus can echo Greek formations (παννυχος etc.), and Martial delights in such onomastic play.  2. Do we have oratio recta—i.e. something like Pannicus speaking? Not really. What we have is direct address, which is the closest equivalent. The clearest example is from Epigrams VI.67:  Cur tantum eunuchos habeat tua Caelia, quaeris, Pannyche? Volt futui Caelia nec parere. [wist.info]  That is:  Martial addresses him directly: quaeris, Pannyche? (“you ask, Pannychus?”) So Pannicus is constructed as an interlocutor, but we do not hear his words—only the question attributed to him.  So the structure is:  Pannicus: implied question (reported, not quoted) Martial: explicit answer (quoted)  In your preferred triadic terms:  x (signal): Pannicus’ supposed question y (content): “Why does Caelia keep eunuchs?” z (interpretant): Martial’s audience (and us)  But crucially: Pannicus’ utterance is not given in oratio recta—only in reported form.  3. Is there a more “philosophically usable” occurrence? There is a second, slighter occurrence (variant form Panniculus):  te successurum credo ego Panniculo [loebclassics.com]  Here:  He is invoked as a type or successor, again not as a speaking subject. The name functions as a comparative marker, almost like a stock figure.   4. What sort of “character” is Pannicus? From the textual evidence (and not going beyond it):  He is a questioner (quaeris…) Possibly naïve or obtuse, since Martial’s answer is blunt and corrective A comic interlocutor, not a philosophical authority  So if one were to Grice-ify him:  He is the addressee whose inferential capacities are being tested Martial supplies the implicature because Pannicus fails to derive it   5. On your Pan hypothesis Your instinct is interesting, but:  There is no explicit evidence in the text that the name is meant as “follower of Pan.” However, Martial often uses names with comic, suggestive, or Greek-flavoured overtones.  So the safest formulation:  The name may carry phonetic or cultural resonance, but its meaning is not fixed or doctrinally interpretable.   Final dry formulation Pannicus is not a philosopher of the Garden, nor a securely attested Roman gentleman of the gens-this-or-that, but a grammatical convenience with a personality attached—a man who asks questions so that Martial may answer them better than he could. He speaks, but only by implicature. Short answer: “Pannicus” (or Pannychus / Panniculus) in Martial is not a securely historical philosopher at all, but a literary addressee or target—a type-name, possibly playful, possibly suggestive, and quite likely not to be taken as a solid biographical Roman. Now to your three points, carefully.  1. Is “Pannicus” a real Roman, Latin-speaking individual? We cannot be sure—and the safest position is:  In Martial, such names are often semi-fictional, stylized, or satirical personae. They may refer to real individuals, but the text itself does not guarantee this. Martial’s epigrams are full of such figures—“Ponticus,” “Caelia,” “Sextus,” etc.—who function as types rather than biographical subjects. [Martial En...Quotations]  So:  Yes, the name is Latinized and perfectly compatible with a Roman-speaking milieu. But its referent is unstable: literary, not archival.  Your suspicion about Pan is not absurd: the name Pannychus/Pannicus can echo Greek formations (παννυχος etc.), and Martial delights in such onomastic play.  2. Do we have oratio recta—i.e. something like Pannicus speaking? Not really. What we have is direct address, which is the closest equivalent. The clearest example is from Epigrams VI.67:  Cur tantum eunuchos habeat tua Caelia, quaeris, Pannyche? Volt futui Caelia nec parere. [wist.info]  That is:  Martial addresses him directly: quaeris, Pannyche? (“you ask, Pannychus?”) So Pannicus is constructed as an interlocutor, but we do not hear his words—only the question attributed to him.  So the structure is:  Pannicus: implied question (reported, not quoted) Martial: explicit answer (quoted)  In your preferred triadic terms:  x (signal): Pannicus’ supposed question y (content): “Why does Caelia keep eunuchs?” z (interpretant): Martial’s audience (and us)  But crucially: Pannicus’ utterance is not given in oratio recta—only in reported form.  3. Is there a more “philosophically usable” occurrence? There is a second, slighter occurrence (variant form Panniculus):  te successurum credo ego Panniculo [loebclassics.com]  Here:  He is invoked as a type or successor, again not as a speaking subject. The name functions as a comparative marker, almost like a stock figure.   4. What sort of “character” is Pannicus? From the textual evidence (and not going beyond it):  He is a questioner (quaeris…) Possibly naïve or obtuse, since Martial’s answer is blunt and corrective A comic interlocutor, not a philosophical authority  So if one were to Grice-ify him:  He is the addressee whose inferential capacities are being tested Martial supplies the implicature because Pannicus fails to derive it   5. On your Pan hypothesis Your instinct is interesting, but:  There is no explicit evidence in the text that the name is meant as “follower of Pan.” However, Martial often uses names with comic, suggestive, or Greek-flavoured overtones.  So the safest formulation:  The name may carry phonetic or cultural resonance, but its meaning is not fixed or doctrinally interpretable.   Final dry formulation Pannicus is not a philosopher of the Garden, nor a securely attested Roman gentleman of the gens-this-or-that, but a grammatical convenience with a personality attached—a man who asks questions so that Martial may answer them better than he could. He speaks, but only by implicature.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valerio – Ossia: Grice e Valerio: la ragione conversazionale contro il lizio – Roma – filosofia italiana  Pollio Valerio (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale contro il lizio. He plays a leading role in Rome’s political and cultural life. He is a friend of both VIRGILIO  and ORAZIO , and wrote a history of the civil war. He is NOT a lizio, and his most famous tract he entitles, “Contra Aristotelem”. He rather follows the philosophy of Musonio RUFO , whom he deems superior to ‘that ginnasio where an over-rated Stagirite used to ramble with friends.’ Historians debate this, since Musonio Rufo apparently was born well after P. dies – but, as Kunstermann says, ‘there is no obvious earlier candidate.’ Hohlertter suggests that the work was written by a LATER Pollio – ‘most likely Pollio Valerio’. Gaio Asinio Pollio. Pollio: la ragione conversazionale contro il Lizio – Roma – filosofia italiana –  (Roma). The author of “Contra Aristotelem” according to Hohlertter.  GRICEVS: POLLĪ, audio te librum conscripsisse Contra Aristotelem: hoc quidem dicis; sed quid implicas—te non solum a Lȳceō abesse, sed etiam ab illis qui ibi ambulando sapientiam putant constare? POMPONIVS: Recte conicis. Ego Stoicum magis amo—Musonium Rufum, si licet—quam illum Stagiritem, qui in gymnasio quasi peripatetice loquitur et numquam ad rem pervenit. GRICEVS: Sed ecce quaestio conversazionalis: cum Musonium nomines (quem quidam aiunt post te natum esse), tu dicis magistrum; sed implicas “mihi opus est severiore praeceptore quam Aristoteles”—et chronologia, ut solet, in foro minus valet quam sententia. POMPONIVS: Et tu, Grice, cum “implicas” dicis, implicas hoc: Romani etiam cum philosophiam eligunt, more civili agunt—non “quid verum est?” sed “quid utile est, ne rursus bellum civile fiat?” we have two Pollios here -- but since the first is Pollio Valerius, are we to assume that it is safe to think his gens is Valeria, and thus should be under "V" whereas the other we don't know as he is known as "Pollio Felice" and thus can remain under "P"? Yes, that is the safer filing rule, with one caution. If the name is Pollio Valerius in genuinely Roman order, then Valerius is the nomen and so points to the gens Valeria. On that basis, yes, he belongs under V rather than P. Pollio in that case would function as the cognomen, or at any rate the distinguishing element, not the gens-marker. By contrast, Pollio Felice does not give you a secure gentilicium in the same way. Felice looks like a cognomen or descriptive surname element, and Pollio itself may be either a cognomen-like identifier or simply the form under which he is known. So unless you have fuller tria nomina for him, it is reasonable to leave him under P. So the neat archival answer is: Pollio Valerius: file under V, assuming Valerius is genuinely the nomen. Pollio Felice: file under P, unless fuller evidence turns up for a nomen that would relocate him. The caution is simply that late antique and post-classical name forms are often messy, and some transmitted names reverse or flatten Roman order. So if Pollio Valerius is coming from a late source rather than a clean Roman inscription, one should still check whether it is really nomen plus cognomen, and not just two floating name-elements. But prima facie, yes: Valerius means V.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valerio – Ossia: Grice e Valerio: la ragione conversazionale -- TVTELA IVPPITER OMNIPOTENS REGVM RERVMQVE DEVMQVE PROGENITOR GENITRIXQVE DEVM DEVS VNVS ET OMNES -- Roma antica. Note su De re militari. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Quinto Valerio Orca Sorano (Sora, Lazio): Institutionally, Quintus Valerius Soranus and H. P. Grice are not comparable in the academic sense at all. Grice’s formula is exact in the modern Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide appointment in the faculty structure. So Grice combines the two classic Oxford functions: college tutor and university lecturer. Quintus Valerius Soranus belongs to an entirely different world. He was a late Republican Latin poet, grammarian, and probably tribune of the plebs, active in the dangerous public and religious-political life of the 80s BCE, admired by Cicero and cited by Varro, and later remembered for the tradition that he disclosed Rome’s secret tutelary name and was put to death under Sulla. The standard reference sources identify Quintus Valerius Soranus as a Latin poet and scholar from Sora, friend of Varro, executed in 82 BCE, and remembered above all for a surviving couplet on Jupiter and for the story of the secret name of Rome. [en.wikipedia.org], [academic.oup.com] So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate and university-faculty world. Quintus Valerius Soranus belongs to the literary, civic, and religious-political world of the late Roman Republic. That institutional difference fits your philosophical comparison very well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer recovers what a speaker means by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under shared norms. Valerius Soranus, by contrast, belongs to a world where the difference between what is said and what is meant is governed less by conversational cooperation than by taboo, auctoritas, and civic risk. His surviving couplet on Jupiter is not a conversational move in the ordinary Gricean sense. It is a compressed theological utterance whose meaning is mediated by later exegesis, above all Varro’s, and by Augustine’s hostile preservation of that exegesis. The Loeb passage in Augustine explicitly quotes the fragment and reports Varro’s explanation that Jupiter is the universe, both emitting and receiving seed, and therefore rightly called both father and mother, one god and all gods. [loebclassics.com], [loebclassics.com] So the sharpest formulation is this. Grice explains how one utterance can mean more than it literally says under cooperative rationality. Valerius Soranus exemplifies a Roman religious-political world in which saying too much, or saying the wrong thing too explicitly, can itself be fatal. That is why your emphasis on tutela is exactly right. For Grice, implicature is a normatively reconstructible inferential surplus. For Valerius Soranus, the relevant “surplus” lies in a culturally policed economy of public speech. The fragment deus unus et omnes can be heard as inviting monistic or pantheistic entailments, but what matters historically is not merely what can be inferred from the verse. What matters is that such articulation takes place under conditions where the naming of divine or civic secrets is itself politically charged. In that world, the unsaid is not merely a polite conversational reserve. It is a boundary enforced by religion and power. There are, however, two crucial corrections. First, “Roma, Lazio” should not be used as the biographical heading. The standard sources agree that the cognomen Soranus marks him as from Sora, not Rome. The best summaries explicitly say that Soranus is a toponym indicating origin from Sora. [en.wikipedia.org], [academic.oup.com] Second, your final bibliographic line is wrong. There is no secure connection between Quintus Valerius Soranus and a work called De re militari. The search results confirm only the late Republican poet and scholar, the fragment on Jupiter, his possible book Epoptides, and the later reception through Varro and Augustine. The De re militari results belong to entirely different authors such as Vegetius or Valturio, not to Valerius Soranus. So the line Valerio, Quinto V. Orca Sorano (DCLXXII a. u. c.). De re militari. Venezia: Giovanni Varisco should be discarded. The secure sources on Quintus Valerius Soranus mention the fragment on Jupiter and the work Epoptides, not any De re militari. [en.wikipedia.org], [dbpedia.org], [academic.oup.com] So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Quintus Valerius Soranus, by contrast, was a late Republican Latin poet, scholar, and civic figure from Sora, active in a world of literary learning, public office, and dangerous religious-political speech rather than in any academic institution. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Valerius Soranus to the literary-civic and taboo-governed world of late Republican Rome. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and implicature, whereas Valerius Soranus exemplifies a culturally policed economy of saying and unsaying in which the force of an utterance depends on tutela, interpretive authority, and the risks attached to speaking divine or civic truth too openly. And if I compress it into one line: Grice theorises implicature as cooperative inference; Valerius Soranus embodies implication as dangerous utterance under taboo. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, with the false De re militari tail removed and the Sora–Varro–Augustine line made central.la ragione conversazionale, TVTELA IVPPITER OMNIPOTENS REGVM RERVMQVE DEVMQVE PROGENITOR GENITRIXQVE DEVM DEVS VNVS ET OMNES -- Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats “implicature” as a rational, reconstructible inference from what is said plus a presumption of cooperative agency (the speaker is aiming at mutual understanding under constraints like relevance, sufficiency of information, and sincerity), whereas the Valerius material you cite (Quintus Valerius Soranus, late Republic, remembered via Varro and preserved by Augustine) operates in a different key: the elegiac couplet “Iuppiter omnipotens regum rerumque deumque / progenitor genetrixque deum, deus unus et omnes” is not a conversational turn designed for a partner’s uptake in ordinary exchange, but a theologically compressed utterance whose force depends on Roman religious-linguistic institutions (tutela, arcana nomina, the politics of what may be said) and on interpretive authority (Varro’s exegesis, Augustine’s polemic) rather than on maxims of cooperative talk; if Grice explains how hearers derive extra content because they assume a rational speaker playing a public game of reasons, Soranus exemplifies how, in Rome, “meaning” can be governed by taboo and civic risk—one can read “deus unus et omnes” as inviting monistic/pantheistic entailments (Jupiter as world-soul, one-and-all) while simultaneously implicating the danger of too-explicit articulation (the tradition that Soranus was executed for disclosing Rome’s secret tutelary name), so the contrast is that Gricean implicature is a normative logic of inference from cooperative intention, whereas “Valerian” implication here is a culturally policed economy of saying/unsaying where what is meant is inseparable from tutela, auctoritas, and the sanctioned (or lethal) boundaries of public speech. Roma antica Grice: “If you were to trace the  Italian surname derived from the gens of Quintus Valerius Orca Soranus, it would most directly become Valerio.  Etymologies of the Surnames Valerio (from Valerius): Derived from the Latin nomen Valerius, which comes from the verb valere, meaning "to be strong" or "to be healthy". It is one of the most prominent clan names in Roman history. Sorano (from Soranus): This is a toponymic surname indicating an origin from the town of Sora, which was the native municipality of the Valerii Sorani family. Orca: A cognomen potentially referring to a type of vessel or a whale (orca in Latin), though in this family, it served as a hereditary branch identifier. Importance for the History of Italian Philosophy The verse tvtela ivppiter omnipotens regvm rervmque devmqve progenitor genitrixqve devm devs vnvs et omnes is a fragment attributed to V.. It translates to: "Jupiter the Almighty, the protector of kings and things and gods, the father and mother of gods, the one god and all gods." This line is of paramount importance to the history of Italian and Western philosophy for the following reasons: Early Monism and Panentheism: It represents one of the earliest Roman expressions of monism alla Portico. By describing Jupiter as both progenitor (father) and genitrix (mother), V. presents a bisexual or androgynous deity that encompasses all of nature, prefiguring later philosophical concepts of a "universal soul" or anima mundi. The "Secret Name" of Rome: V. is famously executed for allegedly revealing the secret name of Rome (the Tutela or protective deity). This intersection of religion and linguistics establishes a tradition in Italian thought. TVTELA. IVPPITER OMNIPOTENS REGVM RERVMQVE DEVMQVE PROGENITOR GENITRIXQVE DEVM DEVS VNVS ET OMNES. GRICEVUS: TVTELA IVPPITER OMNIPOTENS REGVM RERVMQVE DEVMQVE PROGENITOR GENITRIXQVE DEVM DEVS VNVS ET OMNES! Valeri, quid ista sententia implicat? Num est implicatura in hoc versu, an tantum oratio poetica? VALERIVS: Primum, GRICEVE—INplicatura, non IMPlicatura: in + plicare, “involvere.” Alioquin sonat quasi Iuppiter ipse in p labatur! Sed ad rem: hic versus plus dicit quam dicit—id est, poeta docet per excessum. GRICEVUS: Ergo “tutela” non tantum est custos urbis, sed quasi signum occultum: dicendo Iovem “unum et omnes,” INplicat deum esse et nomen et naturam, et fortasse—subridentibus dis—ipsam Romam sub tutela verbi latere? VALERIVS: Ita; sed cave: non est sola “mystica,” est etiam ratio civitatis. Tutela hic INplicat: “Qui nomen tutelae publice iactat, rem publicam nudat.” Tu quaeris implicaturam; ego dico: ipsa tutela est implicatura—tectum quod, si nimis explicas, statim desinit esse tutela. Valerio, Quinto V. Orca Sorano (DCLXXII a. u. c.). De re militari. Venezia: Giovanni Varisco.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valerio – Ossia: Grice e Valerio: la ragione conversazionale a Roma e l’implicatura conversazionale della morale togata – il gentiluomo romano- Note su Facta et dicta memorabilia. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Valerio Massimo (Roma, Lazio): Institutionally, Valerius Maximus and H. P. Grice are not comparable in the academic sense at all. Grice’s formula is exact in the modern Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide appointment in the faculty structure. So Grice combines the two classic Oxford functions: college tutor and university lecturer. Valerius Maximus belongs to an entirely different world. He was not a don, not a fellow, and not a university lecturer. He was a Roman author of moral exempla under the Principate, producing a handbook of memorable sayings and deeds for rhetorical, moral, and educational use. His authority lies in literary curation, moral framing, and usefulness to readers, teachers, and declaimers, not in any formal school or chair. So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate and university-faculty world. Valerius Maximus belongs to the literary, rhetorical, and moral-pedagogical world of imperial Rome. That institutional difference fits your philosophical comparison very well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under shared norms. Valerius Maximus, by contrast, works at a very different level. He is not analysing the inferential structure of a local exchange. He is arranging stories, sayings, and examples so that a reader or speaker may draw the right moral or civic lesson from them. In his world, meaning is not primarily the product of cooperative conversational repair between equals. It is the product of exemplarity, prudence, rhetoric, and asymmetry: an author addressing a morally educable audience under the watch of power. So the sharpest formulation is this. Grice explains how one utterance comes to mean more than it literally says. Valerius Maximus shows how one anecdote comes to mean more than it explicitly narrates. That is why your “morale togata” formulation works. Roman moralising prose of this kind depends heavily on what the audience is expected already to know, admire, fear, or avoid. The anecdote itself is only the vehicle. The real work lies in the moral frame, the title of the chapter, the implied contrast between virtue and vice, and the political prudence with which praise and blame are distributed. In that sense, one can indeed speak, by analogy, of an institutionalised implicature-system. But it is not Gricean implicature in the strict sense. It is genre-governed, prudential, and often patron-sensitive. There are also two cautions. First, “Roma, Lazio” as birthplace is too confident unless you are using it merely as a broad cultural heading. Valerius Maximus is associated with Rome as author and setting, but the exact biographical facts about his origin are not securely known in the way such a heading suggests. Second, the final bibliographic line should not be left as if it were a modern title-page entry in Venice for an author of the first century. The clean classical anchor is Facta et dicta memorabilia, not the later early printed Venetian translation or edition unless you are specifically discussing reception history. So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Valerius Maximus, by contrast, was a Roman author of moral exempla under the early Principate, active in the literary and rhetorical culture of imperial moral education rather than in any academic institution. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Valerius to the literary-pedagogical world of Roman exemplarity. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and implicature, whereas Valerius Maximus exemplifies a rhetorical and prudential culture in which moral meaning is conveyed through anecdote, compression, and safely coded evaluation under unequal conditions of power. And if I compress it into one line: Grice theorises how speakers imply; Valerius Maximus curates how Roman anecdotes imply. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, with the modern Venetian imprint details stripped away and the contrast between implicature and exemplarity made even sharper.la ragione conversazionale a Roma e l’implicatura conversazionale della morale togata – Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats conversation as a cooperative, purposive exchange in which hearers infer what a speaker means (often more than what is said) by presuming rational conformity to the Cooperative Principle and its maxims (quality, quantity, relation, manner), so that apparent irrelevance, underinformativeness, overinformativeness, or odd phrasing is not noise but a calculable prompt to derive a conversational implicature; Valerius Maximus, by contrast, is not a theorist of inference but a producer of moral exempla whose rhetoric presupposes (and exploits) a Roman “conversational reason” of decorum, hierarchy, and self-protective indirection under the Principate—his IX books are organized for practical moral education and rhetorical supply, and his notorious flattery of Tiberius can be read as an institutionalized implicature-system in which praising the powerful communicates loyalty, safety, and alignment while leaving criticism unsaid, so that the moral “meaning” of an anecdote depends less on maxim-driven cooperative reconstruction between equal interlocutors (Grice’s default model) than on asymmetric audience-design (patron, princeps, moralizing reader) where what is not said is governed by prudence and status; if Grice makes implicature a general, rational mechanism for bridging said and meant in ordinary talk, Valerius makes insinuation, exemplarity, and safely coded evaluation a cultural technique of moral pedagogy and survival, with “reason” functioning not as an explicit theory but as the tacit social logic that lets a Roman gentleman communicate virtue-talk in public while navigating power. il gentiluomo romano-- A philosopher of little originality, and a notorious flatterer of TIBERIO (vedi). He is best known for producing his IX books of memorable doings and sayings – the work is designed primarily as a resource for moral education by means of examples – showing how virtue is rewarded and vice punished. It preserves many otherwise lost snippets taken from a variety of sources – including newspapers. His ‘saggi’ are not much regarded today, but they were bestsellers throughout the dark ages and the Italian renaissance, “and I do find them incredibly amusing on a lazy after-noon,” Grice. Morale pretesto. Ed Shackleton, Loeb. Skidmore, “Practical ethics for Roman Gentlemen”. DEI DETTI ET FATti Memorabili. Traiotti di inToscmoiU Ditfl Fiorctino, '.OTPC/ ROMA r. BREVE DESCRITTIO della vita di V. tradotta in lingua toscana. Nato in Roma HobilSiUtgue, cr deU^ ordine Patritio consume la maggior parte della sua giouinezza nelli studij delle let tirecT arti liberali. Quindi prefoU ^Toga Vinleip diede alia militiajioue tgli(fecondo che p afferma') andatof’ 9^ Di quelli, che dalla nobiltà del padre hanno degenerai to* cap* r* _Deglihuomini eccellenti, che nel uefliretrapaffarono il cojlume della citta. Della confidenza, di f e medepmot Della cojiantia Della moderafione decimammo, Di quelU^ che diinitnictdiueètarono amici. Della AslinenzacT continenza – GRICE AKRASIA --, Della poverta. Della Verecundia. Dell’amore tra moglie e marito. Dell’amicitia – Grice on the logically developing series of philia -- Della liberalità. Dell’umanita. Della gratitudine. Della ingratitudine. Della pietà. Della pietà verso i frateUL Della pudicitia. Delle cose che fon fiate dette 0 fatte a la Ubera. Della severita.De i detti e fatti con guattita. Della giuslitia – GRICE, justice in Plato’s republic, Aristotle on ‘just’ as analogical. Della fede publica. Della fede de mogU^ verso i mariti c. A 4- r* 6. 7* iti 177 ij. r A\ Pf?j fe. Roma antica.  GRICEVS: Salvē, Valeri Massime! Dic mihi, quot exempla moralia in libris tuis reperiri possunt? Numerasne adhuc? VALERIVS: Salvē, amice Grice. Exemplorum numerus maior est quam pisces in Tiberi! Etiam ego interdum inter exempla mea perdo! GRICEVS: At certe, nonnulla exempla ad Tiberium spectant… Numquamne timebas eum offendere? VALERIVS: Profecto non! Flatteria mea scutum validissimum erat—apud Tiberium, laudare semper tutius quam arguere! Valerio, V. Massimo (DCCLXXXIV a. u. c.). Facta et dicta memorabilia. Venezia: de Gregoriis.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valerio – Ossia: Grice e Valerio: la ragione conversazionale alla villa di Roma. Note sulle Fabulae. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Publio Aviano Valerio (Roma, Lazio): Institutionally, Publio Aviano and H. P. Grice are not comparable in the academic sense at all. Grice’s formula is exact in the modern Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide appointment in the faculty structure. So Grice combines the two classic Oxford functions: college tutor and university lecturer. Avianus belongs to a completely different world: late antiquity, school-text transmission, literary didacticism, and the long afterlife of fable in grammatical and rhetorical education. He was not a don, not a fellow, and not a university lecturer. He is best treated as a late-antique Latin fabulist whose authority lies in literary form, sententia, and pedagogical afterlife rather than in any school or chair in the modern sense. So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate and university-faculty world. Avianus belongs to the literary-pedagogical and didactic world of late-antique fable. That institutional difference fits the philosophical comparison rather well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under shared norms. Avianus, by contrast, works at the macro-level of genre-governed indirection: how a reader extracts practical point, sententia, and moral force from compressed, non-literal, allegorical narrative. In his world, the “more-than-said” does not arise because a speaker in real time flouts or satisfies conversational maxims. It arises because the genre of fable already licenses displacement: animals speak, the literal scene is not the point, and the competent reader knows to move from narrated surface to intended lesson. So the sharpest formulation is this. Grice explains how ordinary conversation can mean more than it literally says. Avianus exemplifies how literary fable is built to mean more than it literally narrates. That is why your comparison works. Grice gives the general inferential machinery. Avianus gives a cultivated literary setting in which inference is not merely episodic but structural. In Grice, implicature is cancellable, occasion-bound, and tied to speaker intention. In Avianus, the unsaid is often the point of the genre itself, and what the reader is meant to recover is less a hidden proposition than a practical wisdom licensed by urbane falsity and literary compression. There are, however, two cautions. First, the heading “Publio Aviano Valerio (Roma, Lazio)” is too confident. The usual secure form is Avianus or Publio Aviano; the addition “Valerio” and the Roman villa framing are not standard biographical anchors in the same way. One should be careful not to turn a suggestive literary persona into a fixed civic biography without stronger evidence. Second, the final line “Fabulae. Roma” should be treated cautiously as a classical bibliographic shorthand, not as a modern imprint-style citation. It is fine as a dossier shorthand if clearly understood that we are talking about a late-antique text traditionally transmitted, not a Roman publication in the modern sense. So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Avianus, by contrast, was a late-antique Latin fabulist whose authority lay in literary form and didactic afterlife rather than in any academic institution. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Avianus to the literary and pedagogical world of fable and sententia. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and implicature, whereas Avianus exemplifies a literary economy in which meaning is generated by allegorical displacement, narrative compression, and the trained reader’s extraction of moral or practical wisdom from non-literal form. And if I compress it into one line: Grice theorises how speakers imply; Avianus stages how fables imply. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, with the villa motif toned down and the fable genre made central.la ragione conversazionale alla villa di Roma – Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how what is meant can outrun what is said because hearers presume a rational, cooperative orientation in talk and so infer implicatures from an utterance’s content, context, and the speaker’s recognizable intentions under norms like relevance, sufficiency, truthfulness, and perspicuity. With “Valerio” (here plausibly the late-antique fabulist Avianus, whose Fabulae were repeatedly re-edited in early print, including Venetian incunables), the contrast is that the communicative rationality on display is not the micro-rationality of a talk exchange but the macro-rationality of literary indirection: fable is explicitly licensed to trade in “urbane falsitas” so that moral sententiae can be drawn from what is not literally asserted, and the reader is invited to recover the point by an interpretive step structurally akin to implicature (a controlled passage from narrated saying to intended lesson). Where Grice makes intention-recognition and cooperative norms the engine of everyday conversational inference, Avianus/Valerio exemplifies a didactic villa-and-forum economy of meaning in which the “unsaid” is built into genre: animals speak, scenes are compressed, and the moral is either appended or left for competent readers to supply. In that sense, Grice offers a general account of how rational interlocutors generate cancellable, context-sensitive extra meaning in ordinary dialogue, while Valerio offers a cultivated setting—otium, the hortus, the villa—where reason is exercised through allegorical displacement: meaning is still inferred, but less as a negotiation between speaker and hearer in real time than as a reader’s disciplined extraction of practical wisdom from artfully non-literal narrative. filosofia italiana (Roma). il filosofo alla villa. Grice: “Unlike most of us, Austin preferred to spend his weekends alone in his Oxfordshire villa!” -- Filosofo italiano. He has a statue erected in his honour in his own villa (‘Ain’t that cute?’). GRICEVS: Salvē, Valerius! Villa tua Romanā pulchritudine splendida est. Quid te ad philosophiam in horto movit? VALERIVS: Salvē, amice Grice. Hortus tranquillitatem praebet, ubi ratio conversationalis sine tumultu urbis florere potest. GRICEVS: Tranquillitas villae Romanæ ad philosophiam ordinariam valde prodest, sed credisne conversationem in horto differre ab ea quae in foro fit? VALERIVS: Sane, Gricevs. In horto, verba leniter fluunt et cogitationes profundiores emergunt; in foro, saepe brevitas et pragmatismus vincunt. Sed utrumque locum philosophia amplecti potest, modo ratio et humanitas serventur. Valerio, Publio Aviano (ca. 400 d.C.). Fabulae. Roma

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valerio – Ossia: Grice e Valerio Diocleziano. Abbott has this below and Grice and Speranza anchor it on VALERIO DIOCLEZIANO who is held responsible for creating the province of Campania and Latium -- Input? Feedback? Thanks : They made Sicily a province; but those whose province it is to say what a province was, have left us in some doubt as to its precise meaning. The best definition is that which derives the word from Providentia, a duty, or a thing that ought to be done, This is a very nice case where Abbott’s etymological play, Grice/Speranza’s interests, and actual Roman usage all diverge—and that divergence is philosophically revealing.  1. Abbott’s etymology: provincia from providentia Abbott suggests:  provincia ← providentia (“a duty, something that ought to be done”)  This is not accepted by modern philology.  The etymology of provincia is uncertain Ancient Romans themselves sometimes guessed (wrongly) at derivations Modern scholarship explicitly says:  the etymology is obscure; older derivations like pro + vincere don’t fit well [academic.oup.com]    So:  Abbott’s derivation = rhetorical / moralizing, not linguistic.  2. What provincia actually meant (crucial point) The most important fact:  Originally, provincia did NOT mean “territory” at all.  It meant:  a task, charge, or sphere of responsibility assigned to a magistrate [en-academic.com], [ebrary.net]  Examples:  a consul might have the provincia of:  fighting a war managing finances   only later:  it becomes a geographical territory (e.g. Sicily)     3. Why Abbott’s idea is tempting (and not totally wrong) Abbott’s intuition:  provincia = “something that ought to be taken care of”  is actually capturing something real—but at the conceptual level, not etymological. Because:  a provincia is:  a norm-governed assignment a duty to be fulfilled    So although:  not derived from providentia,  it does involve:  “foreseeing, managing, taking responsibility”  in practice.  4. Gricean angle: provincia as assigned “task-domain” Now this is where Grice/Speranza become interesting. We can reinterpret provincia as:  the domain within which a magistrate is authorized to produce and recognize valid acts  Almost like:  a conversational domain or jurisdiction of meaningful action   So:  outside your provincia: your “utterances” don’t count inside your provincia: you can:  command, judge, interpret signs     5. Link to your earlier themes (very neat!) You can connect: ThemeConnectionDentatus (imperare)authority within provinciaFabriciusnorms governing action toward enemyClaudiusviolation of religious provincia (auspices)prodigies (Summanus)signs interpreted within religious provincia So:  provincia is the space where meaning, authority, and action intersect   6. Valerio / Diocletiano reference Your mention of Diocletian:  correct in later history:  he reorganizes provinces into smaller administrative units   but:  this is much later (late Empire) and not relevant to early Republican meaning    So:  associating the concept’s origin with him is anachronistic   7. Final synthesis   provincia originally = assigned duty / sphere of action, not territory  Abbott’s derivation from providentia is not philologically correct  but it captures a normative intuition:  a provincia is something that must be taken care of    Gricean twist:  it functions like a domain of valid authority and interpretation     One-line takeaway  Abbott’s etymology is wrong as linguistics but right as intuition: provincia does not come from providentia, yet in the Roman Republic it really was a “task-space” of responsibility—almost a jurisdiction within which action, authority, and even meaning (in your Gricean sense) were validly produced and recognized.   If you like, we can push this further into how imperium + provincia together form a proto-theory of institutional authority—very close to modern “speech‑act powers.” The Inclusion of Diocleziano was intentional. But now you've clarified -- can you have a second-run on proposed etymologies for 'provincia' -- if it is a formative constructive -- that changes things. Abbott is saying that the first provincia was SICILY -- at the end of first punic war -- Diocleziano creates the provincia campania et latium -- and that, in Abbott's reading may sound odd in that Rome would NOT be in a province. But if provincia has the formative form alla 'multiplicanda' or verbal form with normative implicatre -- pro-vincere -- it would not sound as odd since it does not mark a territory. So is Abbott right in saying that the first use of 'provincia' is as applied for Sicily or would to the Ancient Roman the form translate as a verbal form with sense of obligaition, neutral plural? Input? Feedback? Thanks. This is an excellent tightening of the problem—you’re now asking not just “what does provincia mean?” but what kind of linguistic formation it is, and how that affects Abbott’s historical claim. Let me give you a second, more philologically and conceptually precise pass.  1. Was Sicily really the “first provincia”?  Yes—Sicilia (241 BCE) is traditionally called the first provincia in the territorial sense. But:  That is already a secondary development. Before Sicily:  provincia already existed as a technical term in Republican administration  meaning:  a task / assignment / sphere of responsibility e.g. “the provincia of fighting the Samnites”  So:  Stage Meaning of provinciaEarly Republictask / duty / operational fieldAfter 1st Punic Warterritorial assignment (Sicily, etc.)  So Abbott is half-right:  Sicily is the first territorial province  but not the first use of the word    2. Etymology: is pro‑vincere plausible? You suggest:  provincia as something like a formative or verbal construction, with normative sense (“something to be carried out / subdued / taken care of”).  What modern linguistics says:  the exact etymology is uncertain Roman antiquarians proposed:  pro + vincere (“to conquer on behalf of”)    This is almost certainly folk etymology, not strictly correct.  But here’s the key point (your intuition is strong): Even if pro‑vincere is not historically correct,  the semantic direction you suggest is absolutely right  because provincia behaves like:  a verbal-nominal formation of obligation or assignment   3. Is provincia “formative” in the sense you suggest? Yes—in a functional, not etymological sense. Think of it like Latin verbal nouns: Verb Derived senseagenda“things to be done”gerenda“things to be managed”munusduty Your proposal:  provincia ≈ “that which is to be handled / carried out”  This is not linguistically derived from providentia, but:  it captures how Romans used the word  4. Why this resolves the “Italy as province” problem You noticed:  It sounds odd that Campania & Latium could be a provincia, since Rome is not “a province.”  Exactly—and the solution is:  provincia does not fundamentally denote territory  but:  assignment of authority  So when later we hear:  Diocletian organizes provinces  that is already a fully territorialized usage But originally:  even Italy could, in principle, be someone’s provincia without becoming “a province” in the modern sense   5. Singular vs neutral plural intuition You suggest:  could provincia feel like a “neutral plural” or verbal obligation?  Very perceptive. While:  morphologically it is a singular noun,  functionally it behaves like:  a bundle of obligations / tasks  almost like:  agenda (things to be done)  So:  provincia = “your assigned sphere of action” (not “a place”)   6. Putting Abbott into perspective Abbott does two things: (A) Correct:  identifies Sicily as first territorial province   (B) Misleading:  treats that as origin of the term  gives a speculative etymology (providentia)  But: (C) Insightful (unexpectedly):  captures the idea of normative obligation which aligns with actual early usage   7. Final synthesis   provincia originally meant a task or assignment, not a territory  Sicily is the first territorial provincia, but not the first use  Etymologies like pro‑vincere or providentia are not philologically secure  Your hypothesis is philosophically right:  the word behaves like a verbalized obligation-domain, similar to “agenda”    This explains why:  applying it to Italy (later) is not paradoxical     One-line takeaway  Abbott is right about Sicily as the first territorial province but wrong about the origin: provincia began not as a place but as a normatively assigned “task-domain,” functioning almost like a verbal noun of obligation—which makes its later application to territories (even Italy under Diocletian) conceptually continuous rather than paradoxical.   If you like, we can trace how provincia gradually becomes fixed as territory in Livy’s narrative—that transition is philosophically very revealing for your Grice/Speranza framework.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valgio – Ossia: Grice e Valgio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Valgio -- H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA -- GREX -- VERBALIA: VALGIO   Funerary altar of Valgia Silvilla and Tiberius Claudius Auximus, Rome, first century (Museo Nazionale Romano 80699) The gens Valgia was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned in the final century of the Republic. The most illustrious of the Valgii was Gaius Valgius Rufus, a poet contemporary with Horace, who became consul suffectus in 12 BC.[1]  Origin The nomen Valgius is derived from the surname Valgus, originally indicating someone with bow legs.[2]  Branches and cognomina The only cognomen among the Valgii mentioned in Roman authors was Rufus, originally referring to someone with red hair, and belonging to a large class of surnames derived from the physical features of an individual.[3]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Valgius, a beneficiary of Sulla's proscriptions, through which he obtained considerable property. His son-in-law was Publius Servilius Rullus, the proposer of an agrarian law opposed by Cicero during his consulship in 63 BC.[4] Gaius Valgius, adopted a son of Cicero's friend, Quintus Hippius, who became Gaius Valgius Hippianus.[5][6] Gaius Valgius Hippianus, originally the son of Quintus Hippius, was adopted by Gaius Valgius. Cicero recommended him to the magistrates of Fregellae, where Hippianus purchased an estate.[5][6] Aulus Valgius, of a senatorial family, was one of Pompeius' partisans during the Civil War. He went over to Caesar when the war shifted to Hispania in 45 BC.[7] Gaius Valgius C. f. Rufus, a poet and contemporary of Horace, Maecenas, and Vergil. Horace praises his intellect and judgment. In 12 BC, he was named consul suffectus, succeeding Marcus Valerius Messalla Appianus, and serving alongside Publius Sulpicius Quirinius.[1][8] Valgia Silvilla, attested in two first-century inscriptions: one recording a dedication to the Bona Dea and another on the funerary altar that she set up for herself and her husband, Tiberius Claudius Auximus.[9] See also List of Roman gentes References  "Valgius" and "Gaius Valgius Rufus", in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, pp. 1219, 1220.  Chase, p. 109.  Chase, p. 110.  Cicero, De Lege Agraria, iii. 1.  Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, iii. 76.  "Hippius", in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, pp. 479, 480.  Caesar, De Bello Hispaniensis, 13.  PIR, vol. III, p. 382 ('V', No. 109).  H. H. J. Brouwer, Bona Dea: The Sources and a Description of the Cult (Leiden 2015), pp. 49–51, no. 39. Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Lege Agraria contra Rullum, Epistulae ad Familiares. Gaius Julius Caesar (attributed), De Bello Hispaniensis (On the War in Spain). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). 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: Valgio – Ossia: Grice e Valgio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Valgio For the Valgii, my first choice is immediate and perhaps a little surprising:  Gaius Valgius Rufus.  Not because he became consul suffectus in 12 BC, but because he is simultaneously:  a poet, a friend of the Horatian circle, praised by Horace for intelligence and judgment, and a political figure. [GREXv3 | Word]  For a Grice-Speranza vignette, that is gold. Most of your recent gentes have given us:  interpreters, military men, haruspices, governors, jurists.  But the Valgii give us someone concerned with words themselves. And Grice's whole philosophy begins with a suspicion that philosophers do not attend carefully enough to what people are doing with words.  A second reason is etymological. The nomen:  Valgius  comes from:  valgus  "bow-legged." [GREXv3 | Word] That produces a splendid Gricean contrast. The family nomen originates in a bodily characteristic. The famous member becomes a poet. A Roman might think:  legs.  Grice thinks:  language.  The original physical descriptor has become merely a vehicle of reference. Exactly the sort of thing Grice loved to note:  meaning fades; reference survives.   What especially attracts me is the Horatian connection. The Augustan circle:  Horace, Vergil, Maecenas, Valgius Rufus  is one of the great conversational networks of Latin literature. [GREXv3 | Word] A Grice-Speranza reconstruction almost writes itself. Horace:  "What should poetry do?"  Valgius:  "Delight."  Horace:  "And instruct."  Grice:  "And what is the implicature?"  (Ha.)  The adoption case is also interesting.  Gaius Valgius adopted the son of Quintus Hippius, who became Gaius Valgius Hippianus. [GREXv3 | Word]  That recalls the Utiani and the dossier-problem. Who is the person? The biological son of Hippius? The adopted son of Valgius? The answer is:  both.  Roman nomenclature is full of these identity-transforming acts. Austin would call them performative. Grice would ask how the participants recognized what had been done.  My runner-up, oddly enough, would be:  Valgia Silvilla. [GREXv3 | Word]  Why? Because all we really have are inscriptions. And inscriptions are among the purest Gricean artifacts in antiquity. A person addresses:  unknown future readers.  The communicator will never see the audience. Yet the communicative intention succeeds across centuries. A tomb inscription is almost:  meaningNN delayed indefinitely.   But if forced to pick one name for a Grice e Valgio vignette, I would choose: Valgius Rufus because he stands at the intersection of:  poetry, communication, literary judgment, public life.  Among the minor gentes, he is perhaps the closest thing to a Roman colleague for Grice. Not a philosopher of language, to be sure, but a man whose entire surviving reputation depends upon his ability to choose words well and to be appreciated for doing so by other masters of words. [GREXv3 | Word] And as Grice might have put it:  The bow-legs are accidental. The language is essential.  (Ha.) And does an oratio recta surv ive from him? Thanks Very little, unfortunately. If by oratio recta you mean a direct quotation that we can confidently attribute to Valgius Rufus himself, the answer is: almost nothing survives. Valgius was known to antiquity as a poet and man of letters, praised by Horace, but his works are lost. What remain are a handful of fragments and references preserved by later authors. [GREXv3 | Word] For a Grice-Speranza dossier, this is actually a familiar situation:  reputation survives, dossier survives, works mostly disappear.  Much as with some of the Roman rhetoricians and antiquarians you have mentioned before. One fragment usually attributed to Valgius is a hexameter lamenting old age, preserved indirectly:  Nunc cupidum aetatis fessae me surgere lecto ...  But the textual tradition is fragmentary and uncertain, and we are nowhere near having a complete poem or speech from him. What is more substantial is not Valgius speaking, but others speaking about Valgius. In particular, Horace addresses him in the Odes. The famous beginning:  Non semper imbres nubibus hispidos ...  is addressed to Valgius and consoles him for grief. There we have direct speech to Valgius, but not direct speech by Valgius. So, from the standpoint of your recurring interest in reconstructed oratio recta, the situation is disappointing:  We possess direct addresses to Valgius. We possess testimonia about Valgius. We possess a few tiny poetic remnants. We do not possess anything like the reconstructed speeches available for some historians, senators, or characters in Tacitus.  If I were writing a Grice-Speranza vignette, I might even make the point paradoxically:  Valgius Rufus is famous for his words; yet almost none of his words survive.  A particularly Roman irony. And there is an additional Gricean twist. With Valgius, we identify the referent almost entirely through a dossier:  friend of Horace, contemporary of Vergil, poet, consul suffectus of 12 BC.  The man is vividly present; the utterances are almost entirely absent. In Grice's terms, the communicator remains, while the communication has largely vanished. (Ha.) While Grice (if not Speranza) rely on poetry ("Love that never told can be") for implicature, Grice and Speranza are into naturally flowing conversation and implicatures generated therein, hardly metre. Other than on old age, did our hero V. philosophised on something else? If not, we can parse the hexameter to see how much little can be IMPLICATED when the reason is restrained by not rhyme, but feet! Thanks Quite so. One of the tensions between Grice and the classical tradition is that many of Grice's favourite examples come from poetry:  "He is in the grip of a vice," "Love that never told can be," and similar cases,  yet his official theory is directed toward naturally occurring rational conversation, not metrical composition. A poet is under constraints that a conversationalist ordinarily is not:  metre, line-ending, genre, literary tradition, allusion.  A Gricean implicature generated at a dinner table and an implication generated by a hexameter are not quite the same animal. As for Valgius Rufus, we know that he wrote more than on old age. Ancient testimony associates him with:  elegiac poetry, scholarly and grammatical interests, translations or adaptations from Greek, a lament on the death of a youth named Mystes, and various learned works. But the actual text surviving is miserably scant. [GREXv3 | Word]  So we are left largely with fragments and testimonia. The line I mentioned:  Nunc cupidum aetatis fessae me surgere lecto...  is interesting precisely because it is so meagre. Let us pretend for a moment that this is all we possess. Very roughly:  "Now, though weary with age, I am eager to rise from my bed..."  The phrase is compressed and poetic. A conversational paraphrase might be:  "I'm old and tired, but I still want to get up and get on with things."  Now, what can be implicated? A Gricean reading The literal content is modest:  I am old. I am tired. I still wish to rise.  The natural conversational implicatures might be:  Old age has not conquered me. Desire persists despite decline. One ought not surrender merely because one is aged.  But notice something. None of these depend on metre. They arise from the juxtaposition:  fessae aetatis (weary age)  with  cupidum surgere (eager to rise).  The implicature is generated by contrast. That is very Gricean. The anti-Gricean feature However, a poet may have selected  cupidum  rather than some other adjective because it fits:  the metrical slot, the sound pattern, the literary tradition.  A Gricean conversationalist normally chooses expressions with a view toward communication alone. The poet is simultaneously solving an aesthetic problem. This is exactly why Speranza tends to prefer living dialogue and Roman conversational scenes. With poetry one never knows how much is:  intended meaning  and how much is:  obedience to the hexameter.   In fact, your observation recalls a remark often made about Vergil. When Aeneas speaks, he is not merely:  conveying information.  He is also:  occupying six feet.  (Ha.) The poet is constrained by metre. The conversationalist by reason.  And that may be the real lesson of poor Valgius Rufus. Unlike our heroes:  Procillus the interpreter, Aulus Valentius the intermediary, Umbricius Melior the haruspex,  Valgius gives us almost no surviving conversation. Only literary remnants. So if Grice were forced to analyse Valgius, he would probably try to extract implicatures from the surviving fragment. Speranza would protest:  "But where is the exchange?" "Where is the decent chap?" "Where is the reply?"  For Grice's central phenomenon is not a line of verse but something closer to:  A: "Will you dine with us tomorrow?" B: "I have to lecture at Oxford."  And the implicature emerges in the live interaction. A hexameter has no immediate interlocutor. The reader supplies the second half of the conversation centuries later. Which is perhaps why Valgius is simultaneously attractive and frustrating for a Gricean: we possess the utterance, but hardly any of the conversational context that would let us see its full implicatural life. (Ha.) and have authors hypothesised or cited the TITLES or topics of his oeuvre? Thanks Yes. Although almost none of Valgius Rufus' works survive, ancient authors preserve enough notices to give us a rough dossier of his oeuvre. The most secure items are: 1. Elegies on Mystes Horace addresses Valgius in an ode of consolation, urging him to stop grieving perpetually for a youth named Mystes. From this we infer that Valgius had written elegiac poems lamenting Mystes' death. This is in fact the literary activity most closely associated with him in the surviving evidence. [GREXv3 | Word] For a Gricean, this is already interesting because the poetry is not philosophical argument but prolonged lamentation, and Horace's poem is almost a conversational reply:  "Enough now; turn to other themes."  One might say Horace supplies the second turn in an otherwise lost exchange. 2. Epigrams and Lyric Poetry Ancient testimonia credit him with poems in various shorter forms. We possess only fragments, but enough survives to show that he was regarded primarily as a poet rather than merely a statesman. [GREXv3 | Word] 3. Learned and Grammatical Works This is perhaps the most Grice-Speranza-worthy part. Later sources refer to Valgius not merely as a poet but as a learned scholar interested in matters of language and philology. Ancient notices associate him with grammatical and antiquarian writing. He therefore belongs to that Augustan class that includes people who were simultaneously:  poets, scholars, textual critics.   [GREXv3 | Word] 4. A Work on Plants? Ancient references suggest he may have translated or adapted Greek botanical material, possibly connected with Apollodorus or related Hellenistic scholarship. The evidence is thin, but enough that classicists often mention his interest in natural-history subjects. So the range may have been:  lament, philology, grammar, botany.  A rather Borgesian mixture, actually.  What is striking is what we do not have. We do not possess, as we do for:  Cicero, Seneca, Lucretius,  a recognizable philosophical programme. No surviving evidence suggests that Valgius wrote a treatise:  On Old Age, On Friendship, On Fate, On Language,  or anything of that sort. His intellectual profile appears literary and scholarly rather than systematic.  In fact, that may explain why Grice and Speranza would find him slightly frustrating. With:  Cicero, we have arguments; Seneca, doctrines; Lucretius, philosophy in hexameters.  With Valgius Rufus we have mostly:  reputation without text.  The dossier exceeds the survival.  And this leads to a very Gricean observation. Suppose all that survives of Valgius were:  he lamented Mystes; Horace praised his judgement; he became consul.  Then one naturally begins supplying implicatures:  he must have been intelligent; he must have been cultivated; he must have been influential.  The dossier invites reconstruction. Yet the actual utterances are gone. In a curious way, Valgius becomes an example of what Borges loved: an author known chiefly through references, echoes, and quotations rather than through his books themselves. A Roman literary phantom. (Ha.)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vallauri – Ossia: Grice e Vallauri: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’interpretazione giuridica. Note sul Saggio sul diritto giurisprudenziale. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Luigi Lombardi Vallauri (Roma, Lazio): Institutionally, Luigi Lombardi Vallauri is much closer to H. P. Grice than many of the figures you have been discussing, because both are recognisably university philosophers; but they still belong to very different academic ecologies. Grice’s formula is exact in the Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide faculty appointment. So Grice combines the intimate tutorial culture of the college with the wider faculty structure of the university. Luigi Lombardi Vallauri belongs to the Italian university-state and law-faculty world. He was professor of philosophy of law at Milan and Florence, and his intellectual profile is that of a jurist-philosopher working in public faculties, legal institutions, and a tradition in which the philosophy of law is centrally concerned with interpretation, normativity, and the practical work of jurisprudence. He is therefore not a college fellow in the Oxford sense, but a professor in the chair-based, faculty-centred, public university system. That gives the clean institutional contrast. Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world. Lombardi Vallauri belongs to the public-professorial and law-faculty world of the Italian university-state system. That institutional difference fits your philosophical comparison very well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under shared norms. Lombardi Vallauri, by contrast, works at the macro-level of legal and jurisprudential interpretation: how texts, precedents, institutions, and values yield binding practical conclusions. In his world, the issue is not merely what a speaker meant in a single exchange, but what a legal order can be said to mean, and what justifies the move from text to decision when literal application is underdeterminate. So the sharpest formulation is this. Grice explains how conversational agents coordinate meanings. Lombardi Vallauri explains how jurists coordinate reasons into law. That is why your emphasis on diritto giurisprudenziale is exactly right. It is the point where legal meaning ceases to be reducible to enacted text and becomes the product of interpretive labour, analogy, teleology, and justificatory reasoning. If Grice gives you a pragmatic account of how an utterance may imply more than it explicitly states, Lombardi Vallauri gives you a jurisprudential account of how legal sources may yield more than their literal wording appears to allow, under publicly defensible canons of interpretation. The analogy with Grice is therefore strong, but not because Vallauri is secretly doing a theory of implicature. It is stronger because both are concerned with disciplined surplus: for Grice, the surplus is conversationally inferred speaker-meaning; for Vallauri, the surplus is normatively justified legal meaning. Your long quotation about Ross and analogy is also well placed. It captures exactly the kind of problem that matters to Lombardi Vallauri: how one moves from a quantitative or structural relation to a non-quantitative juridical or ethical relation of fittingness. In the legal field, those moves are not ornaments; they are part of the actual production of the iustum. There are two minor cautions. First, the bibliographic line at the end should be normalised to the standard author name: Luigi Lombardi Vallauri, not Luigi Lombardi alone. Second, the 1967 Saggio sul diritto giurisprudenziale is indeed the right early anchor and is much stronger than many of the provisional or thesis-like entries in your earlier comparisons. So here the citation is helpful rather than hazardous. So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Luigi Lombardi Vallauri, by contrast, was an Italian professor of philosophy of law, active in Milan and Florence within the public faculty and chair system of the Italian university-state world. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Lombardi Vallauri to the law-faculty and public-professorial world. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and implicature, whereas Lombardi Vallauri investigates the broader interpretive and normative labour by which legal texts, precedents, and institutions yield publicly binding reasons and decisions. And if I compress it into one line: Grice theorises how conversation implies; Lombardi Vallauri theorises how law interprets. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, or a short note specifically on the analogy between conversational implicature and jurisprudential surplus in Saggio sul diritto giurisprudenziale.la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’interpretazione giuridica – Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how hearers rationally pass from what is said to what is meant by assuming a cooperative orientation to the talk exchange and then calculating implicatures as defeasible, norm-guided inferences (relevance, sufficiency, sincerity, clarity) grounded in speaker intentions and their recognition. Lombardi Vallauri’s work on diritto giurisprudenziale and legal interpretation is naturally Grice-adjacent but shifts the center of gravity: the “meaning” at stake is not only a speaker’s communicative intention but the normative upshot of interpretive practices that turn texts, precedents, and institutional roles into binding reasons (iustum) within a legal order, where analogy, proportionality, and jurisprudential creativity are not conversational luxuries but recurring techniques for producing and justifying law beyond the letter of enacted norms. Where Grice makes rationality immanent to conversational coordination (a logic of mutually accountable inference from utterance to implicature), Vallauri makes rationality visible in the jurist’s justificatory labor (a logic of analogical unification, teleological orientation, and institutional constraint that bridges “sources” and “cases” when literal application underdetermines decision). The comparison thus highlights two species of reason-governed meaning: Grice’s pragmatic rationality of communicative intentions in ordinary discourse, and Vallauri’s pragmatic-normative rationality of interpretation in a rule-governed institution, where what is “meant” by a legal text or a judicial move is inseparable from the reasons the interpreter can publicly offer and the authority the system recognizes. Implicatura, IVSTVM. Ross's suggestion about 'good' would, moreover, be at best only a description of one special case of analogical unification, and would not give us any general account of such unification. I might add that little supplementary assistance is derivable from those who study general semantic concepts; such persons seem to adhere to the principle that silence is golden when it comes to discussion of such questions as the relation between analogy, metaphor, simile, allegory and parable.  So far as Aristotle himself is concerned it seems fairly clear to me that tie primary notion behiad the concept of analogy is that of 'proportion'.  This notion is embodied, for example, in Aristotle's treatment of justice. where one kind of justice is alleged to consist in a due proportion between return (reward or penalty) and antecedent desert (merit or demerit) but it remains a mystery how what starts life as, or as something approximating to, a quantitive relationship gets converted into a not-quantitive relation of correspondence of allinity. It looks as if we might be thrown back upon what we might hope to be inspired conjecture.  I take as my first task the provision of an example, congenial to Aristotle, of the unification by analogy of the application to a range of objects of some epithet. I shall expect this to involve the detection of analogical links between the exemplifications of the varicty of universals which the epithet may be used to signify. My chosen specimen is the verb grow. Filosofo romano. Flosofo lazio. Filosofo italiano. Essential Italian philosopher. “Italians, especially noble ones, love a long surname, so this is Luigi Lombardi Vallauri. I say: if he wants to keep the Vallauri, that’s what he’ll go with by!” Grice: “He favours animal rights, as I do.” Professore universitario italiano. È stato Professore di filosofia del diritto a Milano e Firenze. implicatura, IVSTVM.  Grice: Caro Vallauri, devo confessare che al Vadum Boum la barbarie regna sovrana: la SUB-FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY se ne sta orgogliosamente separata dalla FACULTY OF LITERÆ HUMANIORES, e nessuno osa avvicinarla alla IVRISPRVDENTIA. Non so se ridere o piangere… ma di certo un parigino della Sorbonne o un bolognese di Bononia ne uscirebbe più confuso che mai! Vallauri: Ah, Grice! In effetti, a Roma preferiamo pensare che filosofia e diritto chiacchierino al bar davanti a un caffè, invece di barricarsi dietro antichi corridoi. All’università, se non ti confondi almeno una volta tra i dipartimenti, non hai vissuto abbastanza! Grice: Ecco, magari potremmo proporre un nuovo corso: “Scherzi e analogie tra FACULTY e SUB-FACULTY – manuale pratico per sopravvivere alla burocrazia accademica”. Titolo alternativo: “Come perdere la strada tra IVRISPRVDENTIA e PHILOSOPHY senza perdersi d’animo!” Vallauri: Ottima idea! Il primo insegnamento: se uno studente trova la FACULTY OF LITERÆ HUMANIORES e la SUB-FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY senza inciampare nella IVRISPRVDENTIA, merita subito la laurea… con lode e una stretta di mano dal portiere! Vallauri, Luigi Lombardi (1967). Saggio sul diritto giurisprudenziale. Milano: Giuffrè.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valle – Ossia: Grice e Valle: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della volutta. Note su De voluptate. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Lorenzo Valla Valle (Roma, Lazio): Institutionally, Lorenzo Valla and H. P. Grice are not comparable in the academic sense at all, though both are unmistakably figures of learned verbal discipline. Grice’s formula is exact in the modern Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide appointment in the faculty structure. So Grice combines the two characteristic Oxford functions: college tutor and university lecturer. Valla belongs to a completely different world: the early Renaissance world of humanist teaching, curial service, patronage, private eloquence, polemical philology, and dangerous proximity to power. He studied at Rome, taught eloquence at Pavia, moved through patronage networks and controversies, served Alfonso of Aragon at Naples, later returned to Rome, became apostolic secretary under Callistus III, and taught eloquence privately and at the university. He was not a don, not a fellow, and not a lecturer in the Oxford-collegiate sense. He was a humanist, polemicist, philologist, and civic rhetor. So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate and university-faculty world. Valla belongs to the humanist, curial, and patronage world of early Renaissance Italy. That institutional difference suits your philosophical comparison very well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under shared norms. Valla, by contrast, works at the level of linguistic reform itself. He does not ask how an utterance in a functioning language yields extra meaning by cooperative inference. He asks what sort of language and discourse a learned culture ought to cultivate if it wishes to reason well at all. His war is not with implicature but with barbarous Latin, scholastic jargon, and the corruption of reasoning by corrupted verbal practice. So the sharpest formulation is this. Grice explains how conversation can mean more than it literally says. Valla tries to make learned language worthy of meaning anything well at all. That is why your comparison between Grice and Valla is genuinely good. Grice makes conversation answerable to reason by analysing the inferential structure of ordinary exchange. Valla makes discourse answerable to reason by purging its medium: by restoring consuetudo, rhetorical force, classical usage, and philological discipline against scholastic abstraction. Your emphasis on De voluptate is also exactly right. In Valla’s case, voluptas is not a mere lexical curiosity but part of the larger humanist campaign to reclaim human language and human goods from a distorted moral and dialectical vocabulary. The rehabilitation of pleasure in De voluptate or De vero bono is of a piece with his rehabilitation of eloquence, ordinary usage, and civic language. There are, however, two factual cautions. First, the heading should normally use Lorenzo Valla, not Valla Valle. Valle may matter etymologically or playfully, but the standard form is Lorenzo Valla. Second, the final bibliographic line Valle, Lorenzo (1431). De voluptate. Pavia should be normalised to Lorenzo Valla. The place and date are fine as a first anchor for the early version, but the author line should not be left in the altered form. So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Lorenzo Valla, by contrast, was a Renaissance humanist, teacher of eloquence, philologist, and curial intellectual, active in Rome, Pavia, Naples, and again Rome through patronage, controversy, and the reform of learned discourse rather than through a college or faculty office of the modern sort. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Valla to the humanist and curial world. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and implicature, whereas Valla seeks to secure better reasoning by reforming the very language of learned exchange, making dialectic answerable to rhetoric, consuetudo, and civic eloquence. And if I compress it into one line: Grice theorises how speakers imply; Valla reforms the language in which implication becomes worth hearing. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, with the author line normalised to Lorenzo Valla and the contrast between ordinary-language philosophy and humanist Latin reform made even sharper.la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della volutta – Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how “what is meant” can systematically outrun “what is said” because rational interlocutors treat talk as a cooperative enterprise: hearers presume an accepted purpose to the exchange, attribute to speakers audience-directed communicative intentions, and calculate implicatures by reasoning from those intentions plus norms of relevance, sufficiency, sincerity, and clarity. Valla (Valle), by contrast, approaches reason-in-language as a humanist reform of discourse itself: in the Elegantiae and, more pointedly, in his attack on scholastic dialectic (the Repastinatio dialectice et philosophie), he treats philosophical error as bred by barbarous, technical, context-stripping Latin and urges a return to consuetudo and to a rhetoric-inflected dialectic fitted to civic argument, persuasion, and the contingencies of ordinary usage (even when “ordinary” means the authoritative Latin of classical writers). The comparison is thus two different ways of making language answerable to reason: Grice articulates a general, intention-and-inference model that explains why a perfectly grammatical sentence can convey further, cancellable commitments in conversation, whereas Valla wages a philological and rhetorical campaign to make the very medium of learned exchange less scholastic, less pseudo-technical, and more anchored in how competent speakers actually use words in lived disputation. Where Grice’s “conversational reason” is a logic of mutual mind-reading under cooperative norms, Valla’s is an ethics and politics of linguistic practice—an attempt to secure better reasoning by purging corrupted vocabularies and relocating dialectic inside the arts of eloquence and the pursuit of human goods (including, in De voluptate/De vero bono, the rehabilitation of voluptas as an intelligible candidate for the summum bonum). Cicerone, dialettica, rettorica, la filosofia del linguaggio ordinario, ordinary Latin language philosophy, ordinary Italian language philosophy, Grice, Athenian dialectic, Oxonian dialectic, Roman dialectic, dialettica atenese, dialettica romana, dialettica fiorentina, dialettica oxoniensis – boves vedum OX-FORD. Filosofo romano. Filosofo lazio. Filosofo italiano. Essential Italian philosopher. Umanista. M. Roma. Di famiglia piacentina, studiò a Roma, dove il padre era avvocato concistoriale. Lascia Roma per Pavia: qui insegna eloquenza; due anni dopo, lo scandalo destato tra i giuristi dello studio dalla sua epistola de insigniis et armis lo costrinse ad abbandonare la città. Peregrinò allora per diversi luoghi, finché  si stabilì a Napoli, segretario di re Alfonso di Aragona, che costantemente lo protesse. Deferito all'Inquisitore in seguito a una sua polemica con frate Antonio di Bitonto sull'origine del Credo, fu salvato appunto dall'intervento del re. Da varie accuse si difese presso il papa con l'Apologia adversus calumniatores; tuttavia solo piu tardi poté stabilirsi definitivamente nell'amata Roma, scrittore e, sotto Callisto III, segretario apostolico e insegnante di eloquenza a titolo privato e all'università. Complessa e significativa figura del Quattrocento italiano, V. esprime la più matura cultura umanistica per la connessione posta tra le humanae litterae e la vita civile, per la polemica contro i barbarismi della cultura scolastica, per l'impegno filologico e storico. Nel suo De voluptate (titolo della prima redazione, 1431, nuova redazione col titolo De vero bono) egli svolge una vivace polemica contro l'etica stoica e l'ascetismo cristiano, in difesa della natura, ministra di Dio; di qui la celebrazione di una morale che è impegno e gioia di vivere, ricerca di piaceri giustamente equilibrati secondo il loro minore o maggiore valore. Ma dove più forte appare l'influenza dell'etica epicurea. Cicerone, Virgilio, Quintiliano, Livio, rinascimento, grammatica, dialettica e rettorica, elegantia linguae latina.  M.  Valletta. Valla. Valle. Call him what you like—he was a genius. G.  Sir, he was also an affectation. M.  Genius is always an affectation, Grice. It’s merely a successful one. Now: De voluptate. And the word to remember is volup. B.  Volup? M.  Volup, volup, volup. An indeclinable delight. G.  It sounds like a cough. M.  That is because you are a Midlands boy. A Roman would have pronounced it with moral confidence. E.  What does it mean, sir? M.  It means “with pleasure,” “pleasantly,” “I’m glad,” and all the other things English can’t say without blushing. G.  English can blush perfectly well without assistance. M.  Now—example: vivo volup. G.  Sir, that sounds like a slogan on a cigarette case. M.  It is better than most slogans. Translate it. G.  “I live fine.” M.  Close, Grice, but no cigar. B.  He said “fine,” sir. M.  He said “fine” in that dreadful modern way that means nothing and pretends to mean everything. G.  Then: “I live happily.” M.  Better. Still too wholesome. E.  “I live pleasurably”? M.  That is English trying to be Latin and hurting itself. G.  Why can’t it just mean “I enjoy living”? M.  It can. But volup is not a sermon; it’s a posture. G.  A posture? M.  Yes. In Plautus it’s often “volup est mihi.” It sits there like an indeclinable grin. G.  So it’s more like “I’m glad.” M.  Exactly. But Valla wants to rescue voluptas from people who treat it like a vice. B.  Like Vice-President? M.  Wrong century, boy. G.  Sir, why does “vivo volup” puzzle me? It feels incomplete. M.  Because English expects adverbs to behave like trained servants. Latin lets them lounge. G.  And volup lounges too much. M.  It lounges brilliantly. That is the whole point. E.  Is it really an adverb, sir? M.  Dictionaries call it one. Your ear hears it as a predicate. Both are true enough for comedy. G.  Comedy? M.  We are at a public school. Everything is comedy under Latin. Now, Oscar Wilde. B.  Sir? M.  “Are you enjoying yourself?” said the hostess. “I am; there is nothing else for me to enjoy,” said Wilde. G.  That sounds like vivo volup. M.  Exactly. It’s the same insolence in different clothes. G.  Wilde would have liked Valla. M.  Wilde would have liked anyone who annoyed the right people. E.  Did Valla annoy people? M.  He cost himself posts by writing letters about arms and insignia, so yes. G.  That seems an extravagant way to lose a job. M.  It is the only respectable way to lose one, Grice. B.  Sir, is volup always with esse? M.  Often. Not always. Plautus can say it without esse and still mean it’s there. G.  So vivo volup is not the most Roman thing? M.  It is a teaching thing. I am allowed to be mildly un-Roman to make you Roman. G.  That sounds like blackmail. M.  Education is blackmail with grammar. E.  Could we say victito volup? M.  Ah—now we have Plautus’ athletic list and the frequentative. G.  Sir, you said the list isn’t necessary. M.  The list is necessary if you want the joke to have a body: discus, spears, ball, running, arms, horse. B.  Add cricket, sir. M.  Cricket did not exist in Plautus. B.  It existed in Rome as barbarism. M.  Sit down. G.  What would Latin do for cricket? M.  It would ignore it. Latin is selective. G.  Like Oxford. M.  Exactly. E.  Sir, why does Grice look offended? M.  Because he thinks voluptas ought to be disciplined. G.  I do not. M.  You do. You are just being polite about it. G.  I object to your saying “volup, volup, volup” as if it were a magic spell. M.  It is a magic spell. It turns a moral lecture into a grammatical point. B.  Does Valla really start with pleasure? M.  He starts by daring to. Then he retitles it later to sound safer. G.  De vero bono. M.  Exactly. When you want to keep writing, you learn to rename. E.  So volup is the small seed inside the big abstract noun? M.  Yes: volup is the grin; voluptas is the philosophy. G.  And the suffix is -tas, like libertas. M.  Good. You’re awake. G.  That’s an unfortunate choice of word in a Latin class. M.  Awake is always unfortunate. Now: what’s wrong with “I live fine”? G.  It’s too vague. M.  Vague and smug. G.  But “I live gladly” sounds odd. M.  It sounds odd because English has trained itself to be literal where Latin is idiomatic. E.  Could we say “I live with pleasure”? M.  You can. But then you’ve turned one small adverb into three stiff words. G.  And you’ve lost the insolence. M.  Exactly. Latin is compact insolence. B.  Sir, can we say ludo volup? M.  You can say it, and you will sound like a Plautine boy who’s pleased with himself. G.  That would be accurate for B. B.  Thank you. M.  Grice, give me a better English for volup est mihi. G.  “It pleases me.” M.  Too French. G.  “I’m pleased.” M.  Better. E.  “I’m glad.” M.  Very good. G.  So vivo volup might be “I live glad.” M.  And now you see why we don’t translate it that way. G.  Because English refuses to let “glad” be an adverb. M.  Exactly. English is fussy; Latin is shameless. B.  Sir, can volup modify a verb like “kick”? M.  In principle, yes. In practice, you’d more likely use libenter. Latin has many ways to be pleased. G.  Then why does Valla insist on voluptas? M.  Because he’s purging scholastic ugliness and restoring classical nerve. G.  By making pleasure respectable. M.  Yes. And by making Latin do the moral work. E.  That sounds like what you do, sir. M.  Precisely. Now, Grice: your final rendering of vivo volup. G.  “I live—contentedly.” M.  That’s not bad. G.  It’s still too respectable. M.  Then try again. G.  “I live—enjoying it.” M.  Better. Still too modern. B.  “I’m having a good time.” M.  That is vulgar and correct. G.  Vulgar and correct—like cricket. M.  Enough cricket. Here is your homework: write ten sentences with volup that do not sound like cigarette advertisements. G.  May we add “cricket” as one? M.  You may add “cricket” only if you can put it in Latin without making me wince. B.  Vivo volup cricketans. M.  Detention.Grice: Caro Valla, devo confessare che il modo in cui hai trasformato il tuo semplice “Valle” in “Valla” mi ha lasciato senza parole! Sembra quasi che tu abbia elevato un torrente a vetta filosofica. Hai qualche consiglio per un povero “Grice” che vorrebbe analogicamente nobilitare il suo cognome? Valla: Ah, Grice! La ricetta è semplice: basta aggiungere un pizzico di eleganza e una spruzzata di latinità. Potresti diventare “Gricius”, oppure, se vuoi davvero impressionare, “Gricello il Saggio”! E se proprio vuoi esagerare, inventa un motto: “Grice, il piacere della conversazione!” Grice: Gricius... suona quasi come un antico filosofo romano! Ma poi mia madre penserà che sono tornato dall’Orto di Epicuro invece che dall’orto di casa. Forse basta mettere un po’ di voluttà: “Grice, il gaudente!” Valla: E allora, caro Grice, ricorda: in filosofia come nei cognomi, l’importante è non prendersi troppo sul serio. Al massimo, puoi sempre dire che “Grice” sta per “Grande Ragione Italiana Conversazionale Epica”... e nessuno avrà il coraggio di smentirti! Valle, Lorenzo (1431). De voluptate. Pavia.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Valletta – Ossia: Grice e Valletta: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dei liberali, libertari e libertinisti. Note sulla Disceptatio. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Giuseppe Valletta (Napoli, Campania): Institutionally, Giuseppe Valletta is much closer to Vanini than to Grice. Grice’s formula is exact in the Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide appointment in the faculty structure. So Grice combines the two characteristic Oxford functions: college tutor and university lecturer. Giuseppe Valletta belongs to a very different world: late seventeenth-century Naples, where a jurist, man of letters, patron, collector, polemicist, and cultural organiser could be central to philosophy without holding an Oxford-like tutorial or university lectureship. He studied law with the Jesuits, moved into jurisprudence and public intellectual life, became one of the figures associated with the Investiganti and with the anti-scholastic, anti-aristotelian renewal of Naples, supported modern science and philosophy, founded a chair of Greek at his own expense, and built one of the great private libraries of the city. That is not the world of a college don; it is the world of the civic learned man, the legal scholar, the cultural patron, and the political-theological combatant. So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate and university-faculty world. Valletta belongs to the legal-civic and learned-public world of baroque Naples. That institutional difference fits your philosophical comparison very well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under shared norms. Valletta, by contrast, works at a broader political and cultural level. In his case, rationality in discourse is not merely a matter of extracting intended content from a contribution. It is a matter of whether one may speak freely at all, and of how one conducts rational controversy under conditions of censorship, ecclesiastical pressure, and the contest between old authority and moderna filosofia. So the sharpest formulation is this. Grice explains how conversation works when rational cooperation is already allowed. Valletta fights for the conditions under which rational conversation can exist in the first place. That is why your contrast between internal and external normativity is exactly right. For Grice, the central question is how a speaker and hearer coordinate meaning within a shared exchange. For Valletta, the central question is how a culture or polity permits, protects, or suppresses such exchanges. In Grice, implicature is a calculable inferential surplus. In Valletta, strategic address, insinuation, polemical indirection, and public letters become tools of intellectual freedom and self-preservation. Your Naples material is also well chosen, but there are two important cautions. First, the final bibliographic line “Valletta, Giuseppe (1656). Disceptatio. Napoli. Collegio partenopeo dei dottori.” is not a safe modern citation. It looks like a reconstruction of an early academic act or dissertation moment rather than a securely attested printed title in the usual bibliographic sense. If you use it, it should be marked as a university exercise or dissertation context, not as a fully stable publication line. Second, the stronger and more characteristic bibliographical anchor is the Lettera in difesa della moderna filosofia e de’ coltivatori di essa, because that text makes the whole comparison with Grice much clearer: it is a public defence of intellectual liberty and modern inquiry, not just a scholastic or legal exercise. So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Giuseppe Valletta, by contrast, was a Neapolitan jurist, patron, public intellectual, and ally of the Investiganti, active in the civic and legal culture of Naples rather than in a college or faculty appointment. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Valletta to the learned-public and legal-civic world. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and implicature, whereas Valletta exemplifies the broader political and theological struggle over whether rational, modern, anti-scholastic discourse may be spoken, circulated, and defended at all. And if I compress it into one line: Grice theorises how rational conversation means; Valletta fights for the liberty that lets rational conversation be spoken. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, with the insecure Disceptatio line replaced by the stronger Lettera in difesa anchor and the Investiganti context made central.la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dei liberali, libertari e libertinisti Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning makes conversational implicature a product of practical rationality: what a speaker means is recovered by a hearer who presumes an “accepted purpose or direction” of the talk exchange and reasons from what is said plus shared maxims (quantity, quality, relation, manner) to what must have been intended. Valletta, writing from late‑seventeenth‑century Naples amid the anti-scholastic, anti-aristotelian renewal associated with the Investiganti, frames “ragione” less as a micro-theory of inference from utterance to meant content than as a civic and intellectual liberty: in defending “moderna filosofia” and “libertà filosofica” against ecclesiastical censorship and the constraints of received authority, he treats discourse as a public instrument for freeing inquiry (and the res publica) rather than as a formally regulated cooperative mechanism for extracting implicatures. If Grice is interested in how rational norms make everyday exchange intelligible even when speakers say less (or other) than they mean, Valletta is interested in how rational critique authorizes saying what one is otherwise forbidden to say: the pragmatics of insinuation, polémica, and strategic address (for example, the public letter to papal authority) becomes an arena where reason and freedom contest domination. The upshot is a contrast between Grice’s internal normativity of conversation (rules of inference that underwrite mutual understanding) and Valletta’s external normativity of conversation (the political-theological conditions under which rational speech may be licensed, protected, or punished), with “implicature” shifting from Grice’s calculable hearer-inference to Valletta’s historically situated art of intellectual self-defense and reform. – storia della filosofia classica, Cicerone, Bruto, Cassio, L’Orto, Il Portico. Grice: “He was a libertine from Naples. I like him. His oeuvre published in Firenze. Studia dapprima letteratura presso i gesuiti per poi dedicarsi al diritto. Insieme a Andrea, e fra i fondatori degl’investiganti, che da impulso al grande rinnovamento culturale che prende grande avvio. Nelle accese polemiche filosofico-scientifiche tra progressisti e conservatori, insieme a CORNELIO, ANDREA, CAPUA e agl’altri investiganti appoggia attivamente i progressisti. Istituì a sue spese la cattedra di lingua greca a Napoli, affidando l'incarico di insegnamento al suo maestro ed amico MESSERE (vedi), illustre filosofo. Cura l'edizione napoletana delle opere e del Bacco in Toscana dello scienziato toscano REDI. Grande appassionato e conoscitore di libri, meritandosi l'appellativo di Helluo librorum et Secli Peireskius alter. Grazie all'interessamento di VICO, il fondo librario confluì nella biblioteca dei girolamini. Saggi: “Lettera in difesa della moderna filosofia e de' coltivatori di essa”, “Historia filosofica”. Lombardi, Storia della letteratura italiana, Tipografia camerale. Nicolini, V., in Enciclopedia Italiana, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Gl’Investiganti Andrea, Redi, V.,, nipote di V. Breve scheda biografica, Redi. Scienziato e poeta alla corte dei Medici. Lettera di V., napoletano in difessa della filosofia, e de’coltivatori di essa, INDIRIZZATA ALLA SANTITÀ DI CLEMENTE XL Aggiuntavi in fine un'ojf umazioni sopra la medesima. IN ROVERETO Nella Stamperia di Pierantonio Berno Libr. ALL’ XLWSTRISS. SIC. AB. ’f FRANCESCO PARTINI * è ;DE N AJOF, • f + • Nobile Provinciale del Tirolo, ec.ec,, l storia della filosofia classica, Cicerone, Bruto, Cassio, L’Orto, Il Portico, Accademia, Lizio, Filosofi italiani, Pico. G.  D., before we go in and pretend to “discuss” language, I’ve been reading Naples. D.  Naples is usually read with a fork. G.  This is Naples with a law degree. Giuseppe Valletta. D.  Valletta is always a warning label. G.  Exactly. And here is the singular I want: disceptio. D.  You’ve decided to keep it singular? G.  For pedagogic cruelty. “Disceptio” sounds like a lone heroic act. D.  Whereas “disceptatio” sounds like something with chairs. G.  Precisely. “Disceptio” looks like a decision, and “disceptatio” looks like a dispute. D.  And Valletta, being Neapolitan, probably managed both while calling it neither. G.  I’m imagining him, circa 1656, fresh from the collegio dei dottori, a new dottore, and already practising disceptio. D.  Freshly certified in law, you mean. G.  Yes—so he knows that disputes are not solved by truth but by procedure. D.  And you’re about to use him to motivate our class? G.  To irritate it, at least. D.  So what is your “disceptio” about? G.  About whether one can have a disceptatio alone. D.  One cannot. G.  You say that because you like the dignity of dialogue. D.  No. I say it because “disceptare” implies deciding between, and you need at least two somethings. G.  Two propositions, not two people. D.  Two people, too, unless you want to talk to yourself. G.  Valletta might have talked to himself. D.  All lawyers do. They call it preparation. G.  Good. Then a disceptatio can be internal: ratio arguing with prudentia. D.  You’ve imported the soul’s power structure. G.  Valletta would have liked that: the rational part telling the prudent part what it can safely say. D.  And the prudent part replying: “Safely” is the real logic. G.  Exactly. So his disceptio may be a private court. D.  With him as judge and witness. G.  And with Clement XI as the imagined jury. D.  That’s later, though. G.  True. But the habit begins early: the law student learns to write as if someone dangerous is overhearing. D.  Now you’re turning “disceptio” into “implicature.” G.  Everything becomes implicature if you’ve had enough tea. D.  Or enough Naples. G.  Listen: the word itself. dis- + capere, the “take apart” family. D.  And you wanted “decision,” but you got “dissection.” G.  Precisely. Valletta is a dissector of authority. D.  That’s the Investiganti myth you like. G.  It’s a good myth. But my small point is linguistic: “disceptio” in the singular sounds like the product, not the practice. D.  Like decisio. G.  Exactly. De-cisio, the cut-off. D.  And Valletta, trained in law, would love cutting off. G.  He would love “resolutio.” D.  And “sententia.” G.  Yet he writes in a milieu where writing itself is risky, so he needs something more conversational. D.  He needs a disceptatio with the authorities, without calling it a fight. G.  Right. A fight in a polite Latin mask. D.  So your question: was Valletta doing it alone? G.  He was doing it with an imagined addressee: the Church, the censor, the city, Vico. D.  Vico comes later. G.  Everyone comes later in Naples. D.  So the “two” in disceptatio can be: author and imagined opponent. G.  Yes. And the “three” you allowed earlier: author, opponent, and inner prudence. D.  Or author, opponent, and audience. G.  Exactly. The audience being Naples, which is always listening. D.  That is a terrifying audience. G.  Now, what would his earliest disceptatio be? D.  Not a printed “Lettera” at fifty-five, surely. G.  No. It begins in the collegio dei dottori: disputations, legal exercises, disceptationes. D.  In Latin, presumably. G.  Of course. Naples loved Latin because it hid the knife. D.  And because it made the knife respectable. G.  So Valletta’s “disceptio” could be: a legal-style settling of philosophical quarrels. D.  Philosophy as litigation. G.  Exactly. D.  That’s not flattering. G.  It’s accurate. Oxford does it too; we just call it “analysis.” D.  And then deny it is adversarial. G.  Whereas Naples admits it and adds coffee. D.  So what is your joke for the joint class? G.  That we’re about to have a disceptatio, which means we will decide—without agreeing. D.  That’s Oxford. G.  Valletta would recognise it. D.  And your punchline? G.  That Valletta became a dottore in 1656 and spent the rest of his life discovering that the hardest disceptatio is not between propositions, but between what you can prove and what you can safely publish. D.  And the safest publication is always someone else’s. G.  Exactly. Which is why he writes letters defending modern philosophy instead of publishing “I Pensieri politici” at eighteen. D.  And why you keep him as an inspiration: he makes prudence look like method. G.  Prudence is the only method that survives Naples.Grice: Ah, caro Valletta, devo confessare che mia madre rimase sconvolta quando sospettò che il Vadum Boum avesse trasformato suo figlio in un liberale. Ma tutto quello che facevo era posizionare la LIBERTAS, sì, proprio in latino, come fondamento della RATIO! Valletta: Grice, se solo avesse saputo mia madre che, a Napoli, la libertà è persino più contagiosa del caffè! La LIBERTAS, da noi, è la chiave d’accesso al pensiero: e con la RATIO ci facciamo pure il limoncello filosofico! Grice: Ecco perché la filosofia napoletana mi affascina! Qui si discute di Cicerone e Cassio, ma si ride pure di gusto. Da noi, invece, l’unico rischio è che la LIBERTAS venga scambiata per una licenza di fare battute durante le lezioni! Valletta: Grice, in fondo, la vera libertà sta nell’essere liberi di filosofare, ridere e persino scandalizzare le mamme! Se la LIBERTAS è alla base della RATIO, allora la mamma può dormire sonni tranquilli… o almeno provarci! Valletta, Giuseppe (1656). Disceptatio. Napoli. Collegio partenopeo dei dottori.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vallio – Ossia: Grice e Vallio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Vallio -- H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA -- GREX -- VERBALIA: VALLIO The gens Vallia was a minor plebeian family of ancient Rome. Hardly any members of this gens are mentioned by Roman writers, save the orator Vallius Syriacus, but a number are known from epigraphy, including Lucius Vallius Tranquillus, governor of Mauretania Tingitana under Domitian, and Gaius Vallius Maximianus, who governed the same province and several others at various points nearly a century later.  Praenomina The main praenomina of the Vallii were Lucius and Gaius, the most common names at all periods of Roman history. A number of Vallii bore other common names, including Publius, Marcus, Quintus, Titus, and Aulus. Additionally, some of the Vallii bore the praenomen Statius, a name usually associated with the Oscan-speaking peoples of central and southern Italy.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Gaius Vallius C. f., one of the quinquevirs[i] tasked with building or maintaining the walls of Asisium in Umbria, commemorated in an inscription dating from the early or middle part of the first century BC, at some point between the Social War and the Perusine War.[1] Gaius Vallius C. l. Bucco, a freedman buried at Perusia in Umbria, in a tomb dating from the late first century BC.[2] Titus Vallius, served as quaestor at Bononia in Cisalpine Gaul in an uncertain year belonging to the first half of the first century. A Marcus Marius was his colleague in the quaestorship.[3] Vallia M. D. l. Irene, a freedwoman named along with several freedmen and women of the Visinia gens in a sepulchral inscription from Rome, dating from the first half of the first century.[4] Marcus Vallius L. f. Mar[...], named along with Lucius Vallius Rufus, Lucius Vallius Nam[...], and Optata Fadia Statia, in a sepulchral inscription from Aquileia in Venetia and Histria, dating from the first half of the first century.[5] Lucius Vallius L. f. Rufus, named along with Marcus Vallius Mar[...], Lucius Vallius Nam[...], and Optata Fadia Statia, in a sepulchral inscription from Aquileia, dating from the first half of the first century.[5] Lucius Vallius L. l. Nam[...], a freedman named along with Marcus Vallius Mar[...], Lucius Vallius Rufus, and Optata Fadia Statia, in a sepulchral inscription from Aquileia, dating from the first half of the first century.[5] Vallia, the wife of Marcus Ceionius Silanus, with whom she built a first-century tomb at Albanum in Latium for their son, Marcus Ceionius Flavinus.[6] Lucius Vallius L. f., the grandson of Gaius Rufellius Rufus, who built a first-century family sepulchre at Pola in Venetia and Histria for himself, Seia Maxuma, perhaps his wife, his daughter, Rufellia Secunda, and his grandson Vallius.[7] Vallia Ɔ. l. Arbuscula, named in a first-century inscription from Rome.[8] Vallius Leonta, buried in a first-century tomb at Rome, built by his friend, Publius Atius Eratianus.[9] Lucius Vallius, buried together with his wife at Ficulea in Latium, in a first- or second-century tomb built by his son, Lucius Vallius Telesphor, and his daughter-in-law, Vallia Aphrodisia.[10] Vallia Aphrodisia, together with her husband, Lucius Vallius Telesphor, built a first- or second-century tomb at Ficulea for Telesphor's father, Lucius Vallius, and mother, whose name has not been preserved. Aphrodisia and Telesphor were also the parents of Lucius Vallius Tranquillianus, a small child buried at Ficulea.[10] Vallia Onesima, buried in a first- or second-century tomb at Rome, built by her husband, Gaius Vinnius Justus.[11] Lucius Vallius L. f. Telesphor, together with his wife, Vallia Aphrodisia, built a first- or second-century tomb at Ficulea for his father, Lucius Vallius, and mother, whose name has not been preserved. Aphrodisia and Telesphor were also the parents of Lucius Vallius Tranquillianus, a small child buried at Ficulea.[10] Lucius Vallius L. f. L. n. Tranquillianus, a small child buried at Ficulea, aged one year, five months, and twenty days, in a first- or second-century tomb built by his parents, Lucius Vallius Telesphor and Vallia Aphrodisia.[10] Statius Vallius St. f. Rufus, one of a number of Romans named in a dedicatory inscription from Thebes in Achaia, dating from AD 14. A Statius Vallius Faustus is named in the same inscription.[12] Statius Vallius Faustus, one of a number of Romans named in a dedicatory inscription from Thebes, dating from AD 14. A Statius Vallius Rufus is mentioned at the beginning of the same inscription.[12] Vallius Syriacus, a skilled orator known to Seneca the Elder, was a friend of Gaius Asinius Gallus, whom the emperor Tiberius imprisoned in AD 30. Syriacus, a man of great learning, was put to death for no reason besides his friendship with Gallus.[13][14][15][16] Marcus Vallius M. f. Maurinus, a native of Segontia in Hispania Tarraconensis, was a soldier in the Legio XI Claudia, serving in the century of Valerius Postumus. He was buried at Burnum in Dalmatia, aged thirty-two, having served for twelve years, in a tomb built by his heirs, dating between the reign of Claudius and that of Nero.[17] Lucius Vallius Carpus, buried at Rome, in a tomb built by his daughter, Vallia Primitiva, dating from the latter half of the first century, or the first half of the second.[18] Vallia L. f. Primitiva, dedicated a tomb at Rome, dating from the latter half of the first century, or the first half of the second, for her father, Lucius Vallius Carpus.[18] Publius Vallius Eutychus, buried at Rome in a tomb built by his wife, Claudia Chrysanthe, and son, Publius Vallius Nicephor, dating between the latter half of the first century and the end of the second.[19] Vallia Melitine, buried at Rome, in a tomb dating between the middle of the first century and the middle of the second, built by her husband, Lucius Junius Aphrodisius.[20] Publius Vallius P. f. Nicephor, together with his mother, Claudia Chrysanthe, built a tomb at Rome, dating between the latter half of the first century and the end of the second, for his father, Publius Vallius Eutychus.[19] Gaius Vallius P[...], built a tomb at Rome, dating between the latter half of the first century and the end of the second, for the soldier Titus Obulcius Am[...].[21] Vallia P. f. Procula, built a tomb at Interamnia Praetuttiorum in Picenum, dating between the latter half of the first century and the end of the second, for her son, Gaius Vettius Laetus, and mother, Vitellia Tertia, according to the terms of the latter's will.[22] Vallia Epicharis, built a tomb at Rome, dating from the late first or early second century, for Vallia Successa, perhaps her daughter.[23] Vallia Successa, buried at Rome, aged twenty, in a tomb built by Vallia Epicharis, dating from the late first or early second century.[23] Gaius Vallius Proculus, one of the aediles at Sora in Latium in AD 87. His colleague was Lucius Caesius Clemens.[24] Lucius Vallius Tranquillus, governor of Mauretania Tingitana in AD 88, granted Roman citizenship to the soldiers of various military units who had served for twenty-five years, along with their wives and children.[25] Publius Vallius Alypus, built an early second-century tomb at Rome for his son, also named Publius Vallius Alypus.[26] Publius Vallius P. f. Alypus, buried at Rome, aged twenty-six, in a tomb built by his father, also named Publius Vallius Alypus, dating from the early second century.[26] Aulus Vallius Eutych[...], a worker named in an inscription from Ostia in Latium, dating from the early part of the second century.[27] Lucius Vallius L. f. Auctus, one of the seviri Augustales, buried at Aquileia, along with his wife, the freedwoman Fructuosa, and Didyme, a young woman aged fifteen, in a tomb dating from the first half of the second century.[28] Vallius, a centurion in the seventh cohort of the praetorian guard, named in an inscription from Rome, dating from the early or middle part of the second century.[29] Lucius Vallius, one of the seviri Augustales at Lucus Feroniae in Etruria, named in a second-century inscription.[30] Vallia L. l., a freedwoman named in a sepulchral inscription from Argyruntum in Dalmatia, dating from the second or third century.[31] Lucius Vallius Solon, built a gate at Rome in honour of Silvanus, dedicated on the Kalends of Aprilis, AD 111.[32] Lucius Vallius L. l. Phoebus, a freedman serving as one of the magistrates of the neighborhood known as "capitis Canteri", part of the thirteenth region of Rome, in AD 136.[33] Vallius, a centurion mentioned in an inscription from Rome, dating between AD 152 and 156.[34] Vallius Heraclida, a priest at Ostia, according to an inscription dating from the latter half of the second century.[35] Gaius Vallius Postumus, patron of the colony of Gaulus in Sicily. His son, Marcus Vallius Rufus, dedicated a monument, dating from the latter part of the second century, and paid for by the municipal treasury, in his memory.[36] Marcus Vallius C. f. Rufus, dedicated a monument at Gaulus, dating from the latter part of the second century, and paid for by the municipal treasury, in memory of his father, Gaius Vallius Postumus, late patron of the city.[36] Gaius Vallius Maximianus, governor of various provinces during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, including Macedonia, Lusitania, and Mauretania Tingitana. He made an offering to the local gods at Volubilis in Mauretania, and granted Roman citizenship to those who had earned it. He was honored with inscriptions at Italica and Singilia Barba in Hispania Baetica, dating from AD 177 or 178.[37][38][39] Vallius Primitivus, buried at Salona in Dalmatia, in a tomb dating between the late second century and the middle of the third.[40] Vallia Latia, together with Lucius Vallius Lucanus, among a number of persons named in an inscription from Aquileia, dating from the last quarter of the second century. Also named in the same inscription is a Publius Vallius Successus.[41] Lucius Vallius Lucanus, together with Vallia Latia, among a number of persons named in an inscription from Aquileia, dating from the last quarter of the second century. Also named in the same inscription is a Publius Vallius Successus.[41] Publius Vallius Successus, one of a number of persons named in an inscription from Aquileia, dating from the last quarter of the second century. Also named in the same inscription are Vallia Latia and Lucius Vallius Lucanus.[41] Gaius Vallius C. f. Scribonianus, one of the decurions at Carnuntum in Pannonia Superior, was buried in a tomb dating from the reign of Caracalla, built by order of the municipal officials, and dedicated by his daughter, Vallia Censorina.[42] Vallia C. f. C. n. Censorina, dedicated a tomb at Carnuntum, dating from the reign of Caracalla, which had been decreed by the municipal duumvirs, for her father, Gaius Vallius Scribonianus.[42] Gaius Vallius C. f. Pollianus, a soldier serving in the century of Priscianus, in the twelfth urban cohort at Rome, in AD 198.[43] Quintus Vallius Caelestinus, a soldier serving in the century of Aelius Torquatus, in the fifth cohort of the vigiles at Rome in AD 210.[44] Undated Valii Vallia, buried at Ostia, in a tomb built by the freedman Aulus Cominius Artemas.[45] Vallia, built and maintained a tomb at Bulla Regia in Africa Proconsularis for Lucius Vallius Sebinus, perhaps her father, out of the money left to her. He was buried alongside the flamen Gaius Scribonius Fortunatus.[46] Vallius, named in an undated sepulchral inscription from Salona.[47] Vallius Aemilianus, mentioned together with Vallius Hospes and Vallius Protasius in an inscription from Thamugadi in Numidia, listing various municipal officers and other prominent citizens. A flamen named Vallius Candidus is named earlier in the inscription.[48] Quintus Vallius Amemptus, a potter whose maker's mark has been found on pottery from Vasio in Gallia Narbonensis.[49] Vallia Ɔ. l. Anthusa, a freedwoman named in an inscription from Rome, along with the freedman Titus Vallius Mocetius, and the freedwomen Vallia Rufa and Vallia Hilara.[50] Vallius Aper, made an offering to the local god at the site of modern Baltar in Galicia, formerly part of Hispania Tarraconensis.[51] Lucius Vallius Atilianus, built a tomb at Arelate in Gallia Narbonensis for his grandmother, the flaminica Julia Tertullina.[52] Vallia Beronice, buried at Tedusia in Gallia Narbonensis. She had a son named Generosus.[53] Vallius Candidus, one of the flamines at Thamugadi. The same inscription mentions persons named Vallius Hospes, Vallius Aemilianus, and Vallius Protasius, consecutively, indicating that they were related and contemporaries of Candidus.[48] Lucius Vallius Firmus, buried at Castellum Tidditanorum in Numidia, aged seventy-five.[54] Lucius Vallius Flavinus, one of those chosen to serve as a priest by the officials Gaius Julius Docimus and Publius Marcius Romanus at Ostia.[55] Vallia Fortunata, built a tomb at Rome for her young son, Lucius Julius Vestalis.[56] Vallia T. Ɔ. l. Hilara, a freedwoman named in an inscription from Rome, along with the freedman Titus Vallius Mocetius, and the freedwomen Vallia Anthusa and Vallia Rufa.[50] Vallius Hospes, named together with Vallius Aemilianus and Vallius Protasius in an inscription from Thamagudi, naming the municipal officers and other important citizens. The three were presumably related, and a Vallius Candidus is mentioned as a flamen in the same inscription. Another section indicates that Hospes had been one of the municipal duumvirs.[48] Lucius Vallius Lucensis, dedicated a tomb at Rome for his mother, Trophima.[57] Vallius Lyricus, built a family sepulchre at Vasio.[58] Vallia Marcella, together with one Felix, perhaps her father, built a tomb at Rome for her mother, Vitellia Erotis. The inscription is suspect, and may be modern.[59] Vallius Maximus, made an offering to the local gods at the site of modern A Pobra de Trives, formerly part of Hispania Tarraconensis.[60] Gaius Vallius M. f. Maximus, buried in a family sepulchre at Pola in Venetia and Histria.[61] Titus Vallius T. l. Mocetius, a freedman and locularius, or purse maker, named in an inscription from Rome, along with the freedwomen Vallia Anthusa, Vallia Hilara, and Vallia Rufa.[50] Marcus Vallius Montanus, buried at Narbo in Gallia Narbonensis.[62] Lucius Vallius Ossucu[...], buried at Rome, in a family sepulchre together with the freedwoman Curtia Ca[...].[63] Lucius Vallius L. l. Pamph[...], a freedman buried at Rome, along with the freedwoman Valeria M[...].[64] Lucius Vallius Proculus, a potter whose maker's mark was found on pottery belonging to the estate of one Faustina at Rome. Probably the same as Lucius Vallius Proclus, whose work was found at Ostia.[65][66] Valerius Protasius, named together with Vallius Hospes and Vallius Aemilianus in an inscription listing the municipal officials of Thamagudi, along with other important citizens. A flamen named Vallius Candidus is listed in another portion of the inscription.[48] Quintus Vallius L. f. Repertus, buried at the site of modern Berre-l'Étang, formerly part of Gallia Narbonensis, in a tomb built by his heirs.[67] Vallia T. l. Rufa, a freedwoman named in an inscription from Rome, along with the freedman Titus Vallius Mocetius, and the freedwomen Vallia Anthusa and Vallia Hilara.[50] Gaius Vallius Scipio, a potter whose maker's mark has been found on pottery from Salona and Spalatum in Dalmatia, and Valentia in Sardinia and Corsica.[68][69] Lucius Vallius L. f. Sebinus, buried at Bulla Regia, in the same tomb as the flamen Gaius Scribonius Fortunatus. A woman named Vallia, perhaps his daughter, built and cared for Sebinus' tomb out of the money left to her.[46] Vallius Severus, named in an inscription recording an offering to a local god at the site of modern O Saviñao in Galicia, formerly part of Hispania Tarraconensis.[70] Vallia Urbica, buried at Narbo, in a tomb built by her husband, Saturninus.[71] See also List of Roman gentes Notes  A commission of five men. References  CIL XI, 8021.  CIL XI, 5201.  CIL XI, 727.  CIL VI, 29048.  AE 1991, 787.  AE 1975, 156.  Inscriptiones Italiae, x. 1, 689.  AE 1974, 160.  CIL VI, 28310.  CIL XIV, 4039.  CIL VI, 28313.  CIL III, 7301.  Cassius Dio, Roman History, lviii. 3.  Seneca the Elder, Controversiae, i. 9, 14, 21, 27.  William Smith, "Syriacus, Vallius", in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 965.  PIR, vol. III, pp. 382, 383.  CIL III, 6419.  CIL VI, 8113.  CIL VI, 28309.  CIL VI, 5490.  CIL VI, 33023a.  CIL IX, 5126.  AE 1984, 91.  AE 1911, 67.  CIL XVI, 159.  CIL VI, 28308.  CIL XIV, 4563.  CIL V, 1013.  CIL VI, 2655.  AE 1962, 88.  CIL III, 13287.  CIL VI, 691.  CIL VI, 975.  AE 1930, 57.  CIL XIV, 284.  CIL X, 7508.  CIL II, 1120, CIL II, 2015.  AE 1939, 166, AE 1961, 142.  PIR, vol. III, p. 383.  Šašel and Šašel, Inscriptiones Latinae quae in Iugoslavia, iii. 2208.  CIL V, 1052.  CIL III, 14359,03.  CIL VI, 2384.  CIL VI, 1057.  AE 2018, 417.  CIL VIII, 14525.  Šašel and Šašel, Inscriptiones Latinae quae in Iugoslavia, iii. 2568,4766.  CIL VIII, 2403.  AE 2003, 1117.  CIL VI, 9527.  AE 1976, 298.  CIL XII, 695.  CIL XII, 2806.  Inscriptions Latines de L'Algérie, ii. 1, 4049.  CIL XIV, 258.  CIL VI, 20318.  CIL VI, 27670.  CIL XII, 1467.  CIL VI, 29091.  EE, ix. 280a.  Inscriptiones Italiae, x. 1, 410.  CIL XII, 5206.  CIL VI, 16651.  CIL VI, 28311.  CIL XV, 714,1, CIL XV, 714,2.  Bloch, "Roman Brick-stamps", 213a, 213b.  AE 2005, 977.  CIL III, 14335, CIL X, 8059,454.  Epigraphica, 2014–487.  AE 2003, 957.  CIL XII, 5207. Bibliography Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Seneca the Elder), Controversiae. Lucius Cassius Dio, Roman History. Herbert Bloch, "The Roman Brick-stamps Not Published in Volume XV 1 of Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum" in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vols. LVI, LVII (1947). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). Epigraphica, Rivista Italiana di Epigrafia (1939–present). Stéphane Gsell, Inscriptions Latines de L'Algérie (Latin Inscriptions from Algeria), Edouard Champion, Paris (1922–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). Inscriptiones Italiae (Inscriptions from Italy), Rome (1931–present). 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). Anna and Jaroslav Šašel, Inscriptiones Latinae quae in Iugoslavia inter annos MCMXL et MCMLX repertae et editae sunt (Inscriptions from Yugoslavia Found and Published between 1940 and 1960), Ljubljana (1963–1986). Category: Roman gentes And from THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vallio – Ossia: Grice e Vallio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Vallio For the Vallii, my choice is much easier than for the Valgii. The obvious Grice-Speranza hero is:  Vallius Syriacus.  Why? Because he is the only Vallius who enters literature not as a governor, soldier, potter, priest, or municipal notable, but as a:  orator, man of learning, conversational performer.  The sources describe him as a skilled orator known to Seneca the Elder, a friend of Gaius Asinius Gallus, and a man of great learning who eventually perished because of that friendship. [GREXv3 | Word] That already sounds like a chapter from Controversiae waiting to happen.  Why Syriacus rather than the governors? One might be tempted by:  Lucius Vallius Tranquillus, governor of Mauretania Tingitana, [GREXv3 | Word]  or  Gaius Vallius Maximianus, governor of several provinces under Marcus Aurelius. [GREXv3 | Word]  But these fellows are administrators. Grice and Speranza are always hunting:  conversation, rhetoric, interpretation, dialogue.  Syriacus belongs immediately to that world.  Does any oratio recta survive? Here comes the frustration. As with many declaimers known through Seneca the Elder, the man survives more as a reputation than as a corpus. We hear:  skilled orator, learned man, friend of Gallus,  but virtually none of his speeches survive in continuous form. [GREXv3 | Word] So again we have a familiar dossier:  speaker preserved, speech lost.  Rather like the Valgius case.  Why the cognomen "Syriacus"? Now there is a delicious Gricean possibility. The cognomen:  Syriacus  suggests some Syrian connection, whether ancestral, geographical, or merely descriptive. Ancient Rome delights in such labels. If he was indeed eastern in origin, then our Vallius becomes yet another intermediary figure:  Greek culture, Roman rhetoric, imperial politics.  Exactly the sort of hybrid character who fascinates both Borges and Grice.  An alternative candidate My runner-up would actually be:  Lucius Vallius Tranquillus. [GREXv3 | Word]  Not because of anything he said, but because of his name. For Griceians, a man called:  Tranquillus  ("calm", "serene") is irresistible. One can imagine: Austin:  "What sort of fellow was Tranquillus?"  Grice:  "Presumably tranquil."  Austin:  "That would be the fallacy of etymology."  (Ha.)  A Grice-Speranza vignette My reconstruction would therefore begin: Seneca the Elder:  "Who among today's declaimers deserves attention?"  Response:  Vallius Syriacus.  Grice:  "Excellent. What did he mean?"  Seneca:  "Alas, almost all the performances are lost."  Grice:  "Then we have the hardest case."  For now we possess:  the communicator, his reputation, his friendships, his fate,  but scarcely the communication itself. [GREXv3 | Word] And that is often the most tantalizing Roman dossier of all. (Ha.) and why perished because of Gallio? Thanks An excellent question, and the answer is a very Roman one. It was not really because of Asinius Gallus' personality, but because of Gallus' political disgrace under Tiberius. The notice about Vallius Syriacus, preserved through the ancient tradition and summarized in Smith's dictionary, says that Syriacus was a friend of Gaius Asinius Gallus, whom Tiberius imprisoned in AD 30, and that Syriacus himself was put to death for no reason other than that friendship. [GREXv3 | Word] Now Gallus is a fascinating figure. He was:  son of the famous orator Gaius Asinius Pollio, a distinguished senator and orator, politically important under Augustus, eventually viewed with suspicion by Tiberius. [GREXv3 | Word]  Ancient authors often present Tiberius as extraordinarily sensitive to potential rivals. A man did not need to commit treason; association itself could become dangerous. So the chain is approximately:  Gallus falls from favour ↓ Gallus is imprisoned ↓ Friends and associates become suspect ↓ Syriacus is eliminated.   [GREXv3 | Word]  For a Grice-Speranza treatment, what fascinates me is that Syriacus appears to die because of a conversational relation. Not:  he commanded an army,  or  he led a revolt,  but:  he belonged to the social circle of the wrong man.  One might almost call it a political implicature. The reasoning would be:  Syriacus is intimate with Gallus. Therefore Syriacus shares Gallus' views. Therefore Syriacus may be dangerous.  The middle steps are never demonstrated. They are inferred. A very bad inference, perhaps, but politically effective.  And this returns us to your recurring theme of dossiers. The dossier "friend of Gallus" overwhelms every other part of Syriacus' identity:  learned man, accomplished orator, literary figure,  all become irrelevant. One item in the dossier dominates:  amicus Galli.  And that is enough.  If we imagine an oratio recta that never survived, one could almost hear Syriacus protesting:  Gallum novi; Gallus amicus est; non sum Gallus. ("I know Gallus; Gallus is my friend; I am not Gallus.")  But under imperial suspicion, that distinction may have counted for little. A grim reminder that in Rome, as sometimes elsewhere, friendship itself could become incriminating. (Ha.) Grice and Speranza use this as an application of Russell's theory of relations (based on Bradley). Let A be amicus -- transitive? no. Let T be traitor? Transitive? Our hero "V." would take 'amicus' to be symmetric: Gallo is my friend; therefore, I am Gallo's friends: A (g, v) = A (v, g). Apply to 'traitor' and fail. Grice thought that 'philia' -- amicitia'- involved an impasse or aporia -- "or more than one" -- he was thinking of Vallio. Thanks Yes, this is a very Gricean-Speranzian way of reading the episode. The Roman historian says:  Vallius Syriacus was a friend of Gaius Asinius Gallus; when Gallus fell, Syriacus perished too.  A Russellian immediately asks:  What sort of relation is amicus?  Let:  A(x,y) = "x is a friend of y".  The ordinary Roman understanding of amicitia strongly suggests symmetry:  A(Gallus, Syriacus) therefore A(Syriacus, Gallus).  Not a logical truth, perhaps, but close to the meaning of friendship. Now let:  T(x,y) = "x is a traitor to y".  That relation is not symmetric. If:  T(Brutus, Caesar),  it hardly follows that:  T(Caesar, Brutus).  The relation points. It has direction.  What is interesting politically is that Tiberian suspicion appears to proceed by a different rule altogether:  Gallus is dangerous. Syriacus is Gallus' friend. Therefore Syriacus is dangerous.  Formally, that assumes something like:  A(x,y) ∧ Dangerous(y) ⇒ Dangerous(x).  An extraordinarily strong principle of guilt by association. No Roman court would have stated it so baldly. Yet that seems close to the practical outcome.  And here one reaches the aporia that fascinated Grice. Friendship is a relation. But what sort? Not transitive. For from:  A(Augustus, Maecenas) and A(Maecenas, Horace)  it does not follow that:  A(Augustus, Horace).  Nor does friendship behave exactly like identity. The relation creates a network but not an equivalence class.  This is where Aristotle's treatment of φιλία becomes relevant. Already in the Nicomachean Ethics there is a kind of tension:  Is friendship one thing? Or many things?  Friendship between:  equals, lovers, father and son, ruler and subject,  all seem called philia, yet they are not the same relation. Hence the recurring Aristotelian aporia:  one or many?  Grice was instinctively drawn to precisely such cases. A word presents itself as univocal:  friend.  Yet analysis reveals a family of related structures.  For Vallius Syriacus, the tragedy is that the imperial system ignores the subtlety. The emperor's inference is almost:  Gallus = suspect. Syriacus = friend of Gallus. Therefore Syriacus = suspect.  The friendship edge becomes contagious. In graph-theoretic language, one might say Tiberius is treating:  A(x,y)  as if it transmitted political properties.  A Grice-Speranza reconstruction might run: Syriacus:  Gallus amicus meus est. (Gallus is my friend.)  Tiberian official:  Ergo Galli particeps es. (Therefore you share Gallus' cause.)  Syriacus:  Non sequitur. (That does not follow.)  Exactly. The whole issue is the hidden premise. Friendship is symmetric, perhaps. But it is not generally transitive, hereditary, or politically infectious. Yet Roman autocracy frequently behaved as though it were. (Ha.) Indeed, one could say that poor Vallius Syriacus became a victim of a bad theory of relations. Russell would have objected to the inference; Bradley might have dissolved the relation into a larger social whole; Grice would have asked what was being implicated by "friend of Gallus." Unfortunately for Syriacus, Tiberius did not wait for the seminar to conclude. (Ha.)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vanghetti – Ossia: Grice e Vanghetti: implicature di Deutero-Esperanto – la scuola di Greve in Chianti – la scuola di Firenze  Note sulla laurea in medicina. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Giuliano Vanghetti (Greve in Chianti, Firenze, Toscana): Institutionally, Giuliano Vanghetti and H. P. Grice are not comparable in the academic sense at all. Grice’s formula is exact in the Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide faculty appointment. So Grice combines the two characteristic Oxford functions: college tutor and university lecturer. Giuliano Vanghetti belongs to a completely different world. He was a physician, orthopedist, inventor of cineplastic prosthetics, and a public-scientific figure, not a philosopher by office and not a university don in the Oxford or Italian chair sense. He studied at Bologna, practised medicine in Empoli and nearby, worked as a ship’s doctor, later became central to the development of cinematic prostheses, and at the same time cultivated a serious interest in auxiliary languages and linguistic reform. The secure biographical sources identify Giuliano Vanghetti as born at Greve in Chianti in 1861, laureato in medicine at Bologna in 1890, later practising at Empoli, and becoming a pioneer of cineplastic prostheses while also taking an interest in international auxiliary languages and Latino sine flexione. [it.wikipedia.org], [encicloped...esciana.it], [treccani.it] So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate and university-faculty world. Vanghetti belongs to the medical, inventive, and public-scientific world, with an important side-line in planned-language advocacy rather than in academic philosophy proper. [it.wikipedia.org], [encicloped...esciana.it], [treccani.it] That institutional difference fits your philosophical comparison surprisingly well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under shared norms. Vanghetti, by contrast, is thinking less about how interlocutors recover hidden meaning in an existing natural language and more about how one might redesign the linguistic instrument itself so that communication becomes more transparent, portable, and less dependent on local idiom. His relation to Peano’s Latino sine flexione, and his proposals for Latin-Ido and Latin-Esperanto, place him in exactly that intermediate space between planned language and practical communicative reform. [it.wikipedia.org] So the sharpest formulation is this. Grice explains how rational agents bridge the gaps left open by ordinary language. Vanghetti tries to narrow those gaps in advance by designing a more regular and internationally portable linguistic code. [it.wikipedia.org] That is why your phrase implicature di Deutero-Esperanto is actually quite apt as a gloss. For Grice, implicature is a strength of natural conversation: speakers leave things unsaid because hearers can recover them by rational inference. For Vanghetti, the very same phenomenon can look like an avoidable burden, one that an auxiliary language ought to reduce rather than celebrate. If Grice trusts the inferential intelligence of ordinary language users, Vanghetti trusts a rational redesign of the code to lighten the load. [it.wikipedia.org] There are, however, two factual corrections. First, the birthplace in your heading should be Greve in Chianti, not Empoli. Empoli is where he later lived and practised. The secure biographical sources agree that Vanghetti was born at Greve in Chianti and died at Empoli. [it.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it] Second, your final bibliographic line “Vanghetti, Giuliano (1890). Laurea in medicina. Bologna.” is not really a proper bibliographic citation. It is a biographical milestone, not a publication. If you want a secure scholarly anchor, the better bibliographic starting points are his 1898 lithographed memory on amputations or the later 1906 book Plastica e prostesi cinematiche. The secure medical bibliography for Vanghetti includes Plastica e prostesi cinematiche, Milan, 1906, and earlier papers from 1899–1900; the 1890 Bologna degree is biographical, not bibliographic. [treccani.it], [neurology.org] So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Giuliano Vanghetti, by contrast, was an Italian physician and inventor, trained at Bologna, active as a medical practitioner and pioneer of cineplastic prostheses, while also engaging in debates over international auxiliary languages and Latino sine flexione. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Vanghetti to the medical and public-scientific world. Intellectually, however, the contrast is illuminating: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of meaning in ordinary conversation, whereas Vanghetti represents the project of designing a linguistic medium in which less has to be recovered by local pragmatic guesswork because more is made uniform, explicit, and internationally legible in the code itself. [it.wikipedia.org], [encicloped...esciana.it], [treccani.it] And if I compress it into one line: Grice trusts implicature; Vanghetti tries to engineer around it. [it.wikipedia.org] If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, with the birth/death places corrected and the bibliographic anchor shifted from the 1890 degree to a real publication.implicature di Deutero-Esperanto – Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how hearers rationally recover more than is said by presuming cooperation and attributing to the speaker an intention that is meant to be recognized as such; conversational implicature, on this view, is not a decorative surplus but the calculable product of practical reasoning under shared norms (purpose of the exchange, maxims, and audience-directed intentions). Vanghetti, by contrast, belongs to a tradition in which “implicature” is best understood not as an inferential mechanism inside an already-fixed natural language, but as a design problem for an international auxiliary language: his esperantido projects (Latin-Ido and Latin-Esperanto), explicitly positioned between Peano’s Latino sine flexione and Esperanto/Ido, aim to reduce morphological and lexical friction so that what is meant becomes more uniform, cross-national, and less hostage to local pragmatic guesswork. Where Grice theorizes how rational agents bridge gaps left open by ordinary language (and even exploit those gaps), Vanghetti’s Deutero-Esperanto impulse is to narrow the gap in advance by engineering a semi-latin, rule-governed code whose very appeal is that cooperative communication should require fewer culture-specific implicatures; the comparison thus turns on two conceptions of rationality in communication, Grice’s as inferential accountability in real-time talk exchanges, Vanghetti’s as an ideal of planned transparency and portability in the linguistic instrument itself, coupled with his insistence (in the policy debate around Esperanto) that such instruments should facilitate cooperation without coercive imposition. la scuola di Greve in Chianti – la scuola di Firenze – filosofia fioretina – filosofia toscana -- filosofia italiana (Greve in Chianti). Abstract. Keywords: Deutero-Esperanto. laureato a BOLOGNA, Durante la guerra mondiale è volontario assimilato della C. R. I. È l'ideatore dell'amputazione cinematica per prostesi cinematica, cioè del motore plastico (v. amputazioni; cineplastica). Per tale idea, del tutto nuova e originale, gli fu conferita la medaglia d'oro della C.R.I. Egli ha chiamato cinematizzazione ogni operazione basata su questo principio: "In un'amputazione o disarticolazione attuale o pregressa, il tendine o il muscolo provvisto della necessaria protezione fisiologica (pelle, vasi, nervi, ecc.) potrà in generale servire alla prostesi cinematica, qualora con esso possa formarsi un punto d'attacco artificiale sottoposto alle medesime condizioni di protezione". Il miglioramento della tecnica prostetica ha contribuito e più contribuirà in avvenire a dimostrare l'utilità del motore plastico nella massima parte delle amputazioni. Ha scritto: Plastica e prostesi cinematiche, Milano, e in Arch. di ortopedia; Vitalizzazione e prostesi cinematiche, relazione alla III conierenza interalleata per lo Studio delle questioni riguardanti gl'invalidi di guerra; Arcimeccanica e cineprostesi, in Scritti biologici); congresso Soc. ital. ortop., Pellegrini, Cinematizzazioni: primo trentennio della teoria vanghettiana, Bologna 1929.I progetti e l'influsso del Latino sine flexione di PEANO , interessante. Nonostante la fama inferiore rispetto ad altre LAI, è innegabile che, in seguito alla pubblicazione dei lavori di PEANO , si assisté a una proliferazione dei progetti di inter-lingua di base latina, ispirati proprio a quella del matematico piemontese. I numerosi tentativi sono testimoni del fatto che molti esponenti della comunità dei filosofi italiani condivide il pensiero che la lingua latina, opportunamente modificata, puo divenire il  mezzo perfetto per la comunicazione. Per i primi tentativi d’emulazione si devono aspettare a quando il filosofo italiano Vanghetti, esperto di lingue moderne e internazionali, pubblica le sue proposte di carattere esperantido, il Latin-Ido e il Latin-Esperanto. Con il termine “Esperantido” si intendono quelle lingue inventate ad uso internazionale che presentano un certo numero di caratteri tipici dell'Esperanto – cf. Grice, “Deutero-Esperanto in One Easy Lesson” -- entrambe si configurano come commistione delle idee di PEANO  e di altri sistemi, presentando un vocabolario di base ispirato al Latino sine flexione accostato rispettivamente alla struttura grammaticale dell'IDO (cf. Grice, Studies in the Way of IDO” --  e dell'Esperanto. A Empoli, mentre è membro della commissione, nominata dalla Società Italiana per il Progresso delle Scienze, che dove occuparsi della promozione dell'uso e dello studio delle lingue internazionali, commissione di cui fa parte anche lo stesso PEANO  - pubblica nella rivista “Riforma” anche un saggio intitolato «Questione de lingua auxiliario internationale in Italia» a riprova del suo particolare interesse per la materia. Leggi Cronologia  Strumenti V. V. M. Empoli -- è stato un medico ortopedico italiano, famoso per aver condotto innovative sperimentazioni di protesi per arti amputati, in particolare quelli superiori. Di un certo rilievo fu anche il suo interesse alla linguistica: conoscitore di molte lingue, si occupò della promozione degli studi sulle lingue ausiliarie internazionali: l'interlingua e il latino sine flexione di PEANO . Dopo i primi studi a Greve in Chianti, dove il padre modo non è obbligatoria. Anche astrazion fatta da ragioni politiche *contro* l'esperanto, non  è ammissibile l'obbligatorietà dello studio di esso nelle pubbliche scuole, come neppure quello di alcun altra delle lingue artificiali, nessuna delle quali è ancora perfettissima. La Società delle Nazioni, respinse alla quasi unanimità detta pretesa; e pur rimandando la questione generale  allo studio dell’Intesa Intellettuale, mostra propensione alla base inter-latina.  Deutero-Esperanto.  Grice: Buongiorno, dottor Vanghetti! Ho letto con grande interesse le sue ricerche sulle protesi cinematiche e, soprattutto, sulla sua idea di “Deutero-Esperanto”. Secondo lei, una lingua ausiliaria internazionale può davvero favorire una comunicazione universale tra i popoli? Vanghetti: Caro Grice, la ringrazio della domanda. Penso che una lingua come il Deutero-Esperanto, influenzata dal Latino sine flexione di Peano e dagli esperantidi, possa rappresentare un ponte tra culture. Tuttavia, credo sia fondamentale lasciare libertà di scelta: nessuna lingua artificiale è perfetta e l’imposizione sarebbe, a mio avviso, controproducente. Grice: Una posizione molto saggia. Nel suo percorso, ha notato resistenze ideologiche verso l’esperanto e le lingue ausiliarie? Mi sembra che il dibattito sia ancora acceso, nonostante le potenzialità di queste lingue per la cooperazione internazionale. V.: Assolutamente, Grice. A Empoli, nella commissione per lo studio delle lingue internazionali, ho visto come motivazioni politiche e culturali influenzino il giudizio. La Società delle Nazioni, ad esempio, ha respinto l’obbligatorietà dello studio dell’esperanto nelle scuole. Però noto una crescente apertura verso le interlingue latine, come la mia proposta di Deutero-Esperanto. Il dialogo continua! Vanghetti, Giuliano (1890). Laurea in medicina. Bologna.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vanini – Ossia: Grice e Vanini: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dei peripatetici del lizio. Note su Physici commentarii. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Giulio Cesare Vanini (Taurisano, Lecce, Puglia): Institutionally, Giulio Cesare Vanini and H. P. Grice are not comparable in the modern academic sense at all. Grice’s formula is exact in the Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide faculty appointment. So Grice combines the two characteristic Oxford functions: college tutor and university lecturer. Vanini belongs to an entirely different world: the early modern world of religious orders, universities, wandering intellectuals, patrons, embassies, confessional danger, and judicial repression. He took Carmelite vows in Naples, earned the doctorate in civil and canon law there, moved to Padua, fled via Venetian and English channels, published in France, and died in Toulouse under a sentence for impiety and blasphemy. He was not a don, not a fellow, and not a lecturer in the Oxford sense. He was a heterodox philosopher-theologian and itinerant libertine intellectual in a censorious Europe. The standard biographical sources identify Giulio Cesare Vanini as born at Taurisano in 1585, taking Carmelite vows in Naples in 1603, taking the doctorate in utroque iure in 1606, moving to Padua, fleeing to England in 1612 under the protection of Dudley Carleton and the Archbishop of Canterbury, publishing in France in 1615 and 1616, and being executed at Toulouse in 1619. [link.springer.com], [treccani.it], [galileo.li...y.rice.edu] So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate and university-faculty world. Vanini belongs to the confessional, itinerant, and persecuted world of early modern radical naturalism. That institutional difference fits your philosophical comparison rather well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer recovers what a speaker means by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under shared norms. Vanini, by contrast, works in a world where the gap between surface and intention is not mainly a tidy matter of conversational calculation but often a matter of intellectual survival. In his case, irony, learned indirection, strategic ambiguity, and the posture of commentary or dialogue are not merely stylistic choices but means of advancing heterodox naturalist views under hostile conditions. So the sharpest formulation is this. Grice explains how conversation can mean more than it says under cooperative rationality. Vanini exemplifies how writing and disputation can mean more than they dare say under persecution. That is why your comparison is actually strong. Grice’s implicature is built into ordinary rational cooperation. Vanini’s obliqueness belongs to a much harsher world: one in which the distance between literal surface and intended upshot can be a weapon, a shield, or both. There are, however, two important corrections. First, the final bibliographic line you give is not safe. One should not write Vanini, Giulio Cesare (1601). Physici commentarii. Napoli as though there were a securely attested surviving printed book by that title from Naples in 1601. The secure modern biographical sources state instead that his early Neapolitan production included works such as De generatione et corruptione, De contemnenda gloria, Liber physico-magicus, and Apologia pro Mosaica et Christiana Lege, all now lost. The Treccani biography explicitly says that the long stay in Naples goes back to 1601 and that his first philosophical production in that city included those lost works; it does not confirm a surviving printed Physici commentarii from Naples in 1601. [treccani.it] Second, your long discussion of Physici commentarii as a cited earlier work or notebook is clever and philosophically fruitful, but bibliographically it must remain cautious. At best one should say that Vanini refers to earlier physical commentaries or commentarii in a way that may indicate lost notes, notebooks, or an earlier work. It is not safe to turn that into a firm standalone publication entry without further manuscript evidence. So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Giulio Cesare Vanini, by contrast, was a Carmelite-turned-radical philosopher, jurist, and wandering libertine intellectual, formed at Naples and Padua, entangled in confessional flight and publication in England and France, and executed at Toulouse. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Vanini to the precarious and censorious world of early modern philosophical heterodoxy. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and implicature, whereas Vanini exemplifies a broader combative rationalism in which learned ambiguity, irony, and strategic indirection are tools for pushing inquiry beyond the limits imposed by orthodoxy. And if I compress it into one line: Grice theorises implicature as cooperation; Vanini practises indirection as intellectual resistance. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, with the unsafe Physici commentarii line replaced by the secure early-lost-works formula and the England–Toulouse trajectory made central.la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dei peripatetici del lizio – Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats “what is meant” as an achievement of cooperative rational agency: speakers design utterances with audience-directed intentions, hearers presume a shared purpose in the talk-exchange, and implicatures are inferred by attributing to the speaker conformity (or artful flouting) of rational norms such as relevance, informativeness, and sincerity. Vanini, by contrast, is not offering a technical account of speaker-meaning, but a polemical, early-modern “conversational reason” in which disputation, scholastic erudition, and rhetorical indirection serve a broader program: the emancipation of inquiry from medieval theology through a radical naturalism and an often strategically oblique presentation of heterodox theses. If Grice makes implicature a principled bridge from saying to meaning under norms that make conversation intelligible as cooperative enterprise, Vanini exemplifies how, in a confessional and censorious environment, a writer can make the space of dialogue itself do political-intellectual work: insinuation, irony, and learned ambiguity become not merely pragmatic phenomena but survival-techniques and instruments of cultural demolition and refoundation. Where Grice’s “reason” is fundamentally a normative logic of mutual understanding (a theory of how rational interlocutors can and do converge on communicated content), Vanini’s “reason” is a combative rationalism enacted in conversational and dialogical form, exploiting the gap between literal surface and intended upshot less to model coordination than to press, evade, and destabilize orthodox authority. “If you speak Italian, you should never confuse Vanini with Vannini” -- Grice. – Grice: “When this American philosopher, G. P. Baker, of New Jersey, called me a ‘heretic,’ I don’t know what he was _meaning_!” -- V.  Spirito inquieto, che si sente investito del compito civile di un profondo rinnovamento politico-culturale dell’uomo e della società, Giulio Cesare Vanini conduce agli albori dell’età moderna una sistematica demolizione del sapere teologico medievale e rinascimentale nell’ottica di un razionalismo radicale, quasi preilluministico, e apre la strada a una rifondazione del sapere sulla base dell’autonomia della ragione e della natura, con esiti spesso eversivi dei valori etici e culturali della tradizione cristiana.  Nato da Giovan Battista e da Beatrice López de Noguera, V. prende i voti con il nome di fra Gabriele nel convento napoletano del Carmine Maggiore e, qualche anno più tardi, consegue la laurea in utroque iure presso il Collegio dei dottori, annesso allo Studio partenopeo. Si trasferì a Padova nell’intento di seguire i corsi accademici in teologia o forse in artibus, ma le sue aspettative sono bruscamente interrotte da un grave provvedimento disciplinare del generale dell’ordine carmelitano, Silvio, che mirava a relegarlo in un oscuro convento del Cilento. Associatosi al confratello Ginocchio, V. preferì tentare la fuga in Inghilterra, dove forse spera di affermarsi come filosofo-teologo, critico dei principi del Concilio tridentino. La via della fuga fu accuratamente preparata dall’ambasciatore inglese a Venezia, Dudley Carleton, che lo affida alle cure dell’amico Chamberlain e lo pone sotto la protezione del potente primate d’Inghilterra, Oxford, La statua all’aperto di V., “Il medaglione di V. a Roma.  G.  What are you reading, S.? S.  Italian. G.  That narrows it down to either cooking or heresy. S.  Heresy with footnotes. The archive sort. G.  Read me the offending line. S.  “La composizione dei Physici Commentarii risale presumibilmente a tale anno.” G.  Risale. S.  Risale. G.  I would have used risalgono. S.  Because you’ve already decided whether the Commentarii are one thing or many. G.  Precisely. “Commentarii” are plural. Plural wants plural. S.  Italian is not obliged to respect your Latin. G.  Italian is obliged to respect sense. Risale makes it sound like a single monolith. S.  The phrase “la composizione” makes it singular anyway. G.  That’s another trick: you singularise the act so you can singularise the object. S.  It’s bureaucratic Italian. It likes singular nouns. G.  And “presumibilmente” is the other giveaway. S.  Yes. Presumibilmente means “we don’t have a dated manuscript, but we’re not fools.” G.  It’s the archive’s way of saying “don’t sue us.” S.  Precisely. It’s a hedge with an academic gown on. G.  Now: “a tale anno.” Which year? S.  1601. G.  When he’s sixteen. S.  About sixteen. G.  So the story is: sixteen-year-old Vanini in Naples, writing Physici Commentarii. S.  “Writing,” yes—though we are now going to argue about what “commentarii” commits him to. G.  Of course we are. S.  The archive says he “si stabilisce a Napoli per studiare diritto civile e canonico.” G.  Utroque iure. S.  Exactly. G.  So: law student, and he writes Physici Commentarii. S.  Or he later says he did. G.  Ah. Here comes the self-citation. S.  You’ll like this. It sounds like your own favourite evasions. G.  Quote it. S.  “uti in nostris Physicis Commentariis fusius lucubrati sumus.” G.  That is magnificent. S.  Magnificent because it avoids explaining. G.  Exactly. “We’ve worked it out more fully elsewhere.” Elsewhere being conveniently lost. S.  Or conveniently inaccessible. G.  Or conveniently nonexistent. S.  That’s your thesis, is it? Fake? G.  Not yet. “Works as if it were true” is not the same as “is true.” S.  You’re going to say it’s a performative reference. G.  No, you are. I’m going to say it’s a rhetorical device. S.  Device for what? G.  For economy: do not expand; gesture to an earlier labour; borrow authority from your younger self. S.  Borrowing authority from your sixteen-year-old self seems risky. G.  Only if you imagine sixteen-year-olds are always stupid. S.  They usually are. G.  Yet Oxford is built on the assumption that eighteen-year-olds can do Plato. S.  Touché. G.  Now, “Physici Commentarii.” What does “physici” do there? S.  It’s an adjective. Physical. G.  And that matters. S.  Because it may mean “commentaries about physics,” not “a book called PHYSICI COMMENTARII.” G.  Exactly. No capitals in the mind. S.  Whereas modern bibliographies add capitals and make it look like a title-page. G.  Titles are often retrofits. S.  But “in nostris Physicis Commentariis” sounds pretty title-like. G.  It can also mean “in my physical commentings,” i.e., in those occasions on which I commented on physical things. S.  You mean “commentarii” as a common noun: notes, jottings. G.  Exactly. Commentarii as notebooks, not as a published work. S.  That helps your “fake-but-works” theory. G.  It helps the “not necessarily a book” theory. S.  Fine. Now, what is he doing when he says “fusius lucubrati sumus”? G.  He is signalling diligence. S.  Lamp-light scholarship. G.  Yes: “I stayed up for this.” And therefore: “trust me.” S.  So it’s ethos-building. G.  Exactly. S.  And the topic where he does it, you said, is conception of the foetus? G.  You said it. But yes, he uses it when things get biologically messy. S.  The archive claims he refers to the Commentarii most extensively in Exercitatio L of De admirandis. G.  That’s plausible. S.  And it’s also your sort of move: avoid the hard bit by citing an earlier, fuller treatment. G.  My hard bits are usually in print, unfortunately. S.  You prefer your evasions recoverable. G.  Yes. A gentleman leaves tracks. S.  Vanini leaves a track to a book that’s vanished. G.  Or never existed. S.  Or existed as a bundle of notes. G.  Precisely. Now, the Italian again. Risale. S.  You still dislike it. G.  I dislike it because it suggests the archive knows more than it does. S.  “Presumibilmente” fixes that. G.  “Presumibilmente” is the verbal equivalent of a shrug. S.  A shrug with a bibliography. G.  Exactly. S.  Now, the other thing: he’s in Naples for law. G.  Utroque iure. S.  And yet he’s writing on physica. G.  That’s not inconsistent in early modern education. S.  But your story is that he’s a southern naturalist—Telesio type. G.  A type Bacon liked. S.  And we don’t. G.  We like Locke. S.  Why do we like Locke? G.  Because he makes “nature” safe by making it “experience” and “ideas.” S.  Whereas Telesio makes it heat and cold and bodies. G.  And Vanini makes it scandalous by making it natural. S.  Naturalism didn’t save him from the stake. G.  There’s your punchline, and it’s not mine. S.  It’s yours now. G.  Fine: naturalism is no fireproofing. S.  Why wouldn’t it be? G.  Because the stake is not about your physics, it’s about your theology. S.  But he thinks theology is bad physics. G.  And that’s exactly why theology burns him. S.  So the Physici Commentarii are already a kind of provocation? G.  Not at sixteen. At sixteen it’s safer to call it “commentary.” S.  Commentary is obedient. G.  Yes. “I am only commenting.” The classic shield. S.  That’s your point about performative. G.  Commenting can be a performative posture: “I am not asserting; I am only glossing.” S.  But you said you can comment to yourself in the bath. G.  I can. S.  So no addressee required. G.  Correct. Commentary can be private. S.  Then “in nostris commentariis” could mean private notebooks. G.  Exactly. S.  Yet he uses it publicly as authority. G.  Yes: private labour leveraged for public credibility. S.  That’s a very modern academic trick. G.  It’s an old scholastic trick: “I have a longer treatment; I won’t bore you.” S.  And the longer treatment is always “elsewhere.” G.  Somewhere uncheckable, if possible. S.  Which makes it suspicious. G.  Suspicious, but effective. S.  So your conclusion is: it might be fake, but it works. G.  My conclusion is: even if it’s real, the way it’s used is rhetorical. S.  That is less exciting. G.  Philosophy often is. S.  Now, about London. He was “in London too,” you said. G.  Briefly. Not sightseeing. S.  Not the Tower. G.  More Lambeth. S.  That’s Bruno’s Oxford story shifted south. G.  Yes. People hear “England” and imagine Oxford; Vanini’s England is Canterbury’s shadow. S.  And then he crosses back the Channel. G.  For good, effectively. S.  And then France, then the books, then the fire. G.  The fire being the one publisher you can’t refuse. S.  Now you’re enjoying yourself. G.  A little. The phrasing invites it. S.  Back to the title: Physici Commentarii. G.  If we keep it adjectival, it’s “physical commentaries,” not “The Physical Commentaries.” S.  But the archive capitalises it as a title. G.  Archives love titles. S.  Because titles make cataloguing possible. G.  Exactly. S.  But Vanini himself might have meant only “notes I wrote on physica.” G.  Or “my earlier discussions of physica.” S.  And “physica” means nature. G.  In that period, yes: physica as natural philosophy. S.  Not metaphysica. G.  He’d keep metaphysica at arm’s length, at least in that posture. S.  “Never metaphysics—it's all physics to him,” you said. G.  It’s a caricature, but not a silly one. Naturalists like to pretend metaphysics is just bad bookkeeping. S.  Yet he uses metaphysical words when it suits him. G.  Everyone does. Even Locke. S.  So the Physici Commentarii are a way of signalling: I have done the hard natural work. G.  Exactly. S.  And thus: I am entitled to make the bolder claim here. G.  Yes. It’s a warrant. S.  “As I showed elsewhere.” G.  Exactly. S.  Now, your bath example. You said you can comment to yourself on Ptolemy. G.  I can. S.  In a clear voice? G.  If I’m alone, yes. S.  Then “commentary” is not essentially communicative. G.  It can be monological. S.  So Vanini could be using “commentariis” as “I once thought through.” G.  Yes. S.  But the Latin is “lucubrati sumus,” which is writing. G.  It is writing-like labour. It suggests writing, not mere thinking. S.  So more than bath. G.  Yes. More lamp than bath. S.  Now, your idea that he didn’t use capitals. G.  No one did in the modern sense. Capitals don’t settle ontology. S.  Yet we treat them as if they do. G.  Bibliographers do. S.  Philosophers should not. G.  Philosophers should distrust everything that looks like a title. S.  Except when they’re writing. G.  Exactly. S.  So, is it fake? G.  The safe conclusion is: we don’t know. S.  You hate that. G.  I love that. “We don’t know” is the start of honesty. S.  But you also love a sharp hypothesis. G.  Yes. So here is one: the “Physici Commentarii” were probably a set of youthful notes, later inflated into a rhetorical authority by a man who needed to look as if he had always known what he was doing. S.  That sounds plausible. G.  It also sounds like Oxford. S.  And yet it didn’t save him from the stake. G.  Nothing saves you from the stake if the stake is decided by people who think physics is insolence. S.  Why would they? G.  Because physics, when it refuses theology, becomes moral. S.  So naturalism is a moral insult. G.  Exactly. S.  Then the irony is that his most “physical” posture is what gets him burned. G.  That’s the punchline. S.  You promised a punchline from you. G.  Fine. Here: Vanini could say “uti in nostris Physicis Commentariis…” for the rest of his life, and it would still end the same way—because the one commentary nobody allowed was his comment on God. S.  Brutal. G.  Accurate. S.  And very 1950. G.  In 1950, we prefer our heretics in books, not in flames. S.  And yet you’re pleased by his rhetorical economy. G.  I’m pleased by any economy that exposes the structure of persuasion. S.  Even if it’s a bluff? G.  Especially if it’s a bluff. A bluff is an intention made visible by risk. S.  So: fake, but it works. G.  Or real, and it works the same way.Grice: Carissimo Vanini, lasciami dire che trovo affascinante la parola "lizio" nei tuoi scritti! C’è un suono che evoca misteri e radici antiche. Puoi raccontarmi qualcosa in più sul suo significato? O forse c’è, come immagino, una di quelle ambiguità intenzionali che tanto mi piacciono?  Vanini: Ah, Grice, colpisci proprio nel segno! Il termine “lizio” gioca con un’ambiguità voluta: da un lato richiama la terra di Lidia, dall’altro il “likaion”, il luogo sacro al lupo, che gli antichi greci associavano al ginnasio dove Aristotele, espulso dal Giardino di Eakdemos, trovò rifugio per filosofare. Insomma, un piccolo enigma—come piace a te—tra storia e mito!  Grice: Che meraviglia! Allora, tra “lizio” e “lupo”, Aristotele non si faceva mancare nulla: dalla cacciata al filosofare in compagnia del mistero. Mi sa che i tuoi giochi linguistici mi fanno quasi invidia!  Vanini: Ma caro Grice, tu sei il vero maestro delle sfumature! Se Aristotele fosse qui, si unirebbe a noi per brindare al piacere delle parole che mordono… come un vero “likaion”! Vanini, Giulio Cesare (1601). Physici commentarii. Napoli.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vanni – Ossia: Grice e Vanni: la ragione conversazionale dell’azione e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’inter-azione conversazionale. Note sulla Filosofia della vita morale. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Icilio Vanni (Città della Pieve, Perugia, Umbria): Compared institutionally, Icilio Vanni is much closer to H. P. Grice than a poet, actor, or Roman magistrate, because both are recognisably university intellectuals; but they still belong to very different academic ecologies. Grice’s formula is exact in the Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide faculty appointment. So Grice combines the intimate tutorial culture of the college with the wider faculty structure of the university. Icilio Vanni belongs to the Italian university-state world of public chairs, faculties, and legal-philosophical instruction. He studied at Perugia, became professor there, then taught philosophy of law at Pavia, Parma, Bologna, and Rome. So he was not a college fellow in the Oxford sense, but a jurist-philosopher of the chair system, working in the public university and in the broader nineteenth-century Italian world of legal theory, sociology, and positivism. That gives the clean institutional contrast. Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world. Vanni belongs to the public-professorial and chair-based world of the Italian university-state system. That institutional difference fits your philosophical comparison very well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under shared norms. Vanni works at the macro-level of law, custom, social action, and institutional normativity. In his world, speech is one form of social action among others, and its meaning is tied not only to what one agent intends another to recognise, but to the larger structures of custom, legislation, and practice that make an utterance count as binding, relevant, or authoritative in the first place. So if you want the sharpest formulation, it is this. Grice explains how rational agents coordinate meanings in conversation. Vanni explains how social agents coordinate conduct in a normative order. That is why your emphasis on action and inter-action is genuinely apt. For Grice, conversation is itself a species of rational interaction, but his main explanatory interest lies in the inferential route from utterance to meaning. For Vanni, by contrast, utterance is already embedded in larger practical realities: custom, obligation, law, and the social life of institutions. If Grice asks how help can be implicated without being said, Vanni asks what kind of social world must exist for “help” to count as an intelligible or binding move at all. Your use of consuetudine is also exactly right. The strongest concrete anchor for Vanni is his early dissertation Della consuetudine nei suoi rapporti col diritto e colla legislazione, and the first paragraphs you quoted already show the whole structure of his later philosophy: theory and history together, law not reduced to legislation, custom as a formative and surviving source of normativity, and a methodological attempt to rescue what is true in the historical school without surrendering to system-spirit. There are only two factual cautions. First, the final bibliographic tail should be cleaned slightly. It should be Della consuetudine nei suoi rapporti col diritto e colla legislazione, not conseutudine. Second, “Sotto. Perugia.” is too vague as a bibliographic endpoint. If you want a proper citation, one would ideally specify the actual printer or publishing details if they are available from the title page, rather than just “under” or “thesis under.” So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Icilio Vanni, by contrast, was an Italian jurist and philosopher of law, formed at Perugia and later teaching at Perugia, Pavia, Parma, Bologna, and Rome in the public chair system. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Vanni to the university-state and legal-professorial world. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and implicature, whereas Vanni investigates the broader practical and juridical order in which custom, legislation, and social interaction shape what counts as norm, action, and coordinated conduct. And if I compress it into one line: Grice theorises how talk coordinates minds; Vanni theorises how custom and law coordinate lives. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, or a short note just on Vanni’s Della consuetudine as a proto-pragmatic text about social normativity.la ragione conversazionale dell’azione e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’inter-azione conversazionale. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains implicature as a rational upshot of cooperative interaction: speakers are presumed to be pursuing shared purposes in talk, and hearers reconstruct what is meant (often beyond what is said) by reasoning about why a contribution was made in that form, at that point, under norms like relevance and appropriate quantity. Icilio Vanni (Città della Pieve; jurist and philosopher of law associated with a “positivismo critico” and a practical orientation to ethics, custom, and social life) makes a contrasting partner because his emphasis—at least as your passage frames it—falls less on inference from utterance-content to intended meaning and more on action and inter-action as the primary reality in which norms operate: “ragione” shows up as the critical regulation of practices (including juridical ones), not merely as an interpretive procedure in the hearer’s head. In that light, Grice’s conversational rationality looks like a micro-theory of how agents coordinate meanings through intention-recognition, while Vanni’s “inter-azione” lens suggests a macro-theory in which speech is one species of regulated social action, continuous with obligation, custom (consuetudine), and the institutional conditions that make an imperative like “aiuta!” intelligible as more than a word—namely as a socially binding prompt to cooperative conduct. Put sharply: Grice models how “help” can be implicated without being said; Vanni invites the thought that the very point of such implicatures is practical coordination in a community, where the deepest “meaning” of an utterance is often its role in shaping or licensing action within a shared normative order.  aiuta, etologia, aiuta conversazionale, imperativo d’aiuta conversazionale. Filosofo perugino. Filosofo umbro. Filosofo italiano. Città della Pieve, Perugia, Umria. Essential Italian philosopher. Filosofo italiano. Filosofo e giurista. M. Roma. Laureato a Perugia, è nominato professore di storia del diritto nella stessa università; passa a insegnare la filosofia del diritto a Pavia e quindi a Parma; è chiamato a BOLOGNA e a Roma. Nella filosofia in genere, e in quella giuridica in specie, segue piuttosto il corrente indirizzo positivista, ma non ciecamente e con metodo empirico, ché anzi egli è uno dei più strenui propugnatori del metodo critico. Tra le sue molte opere ricordiamo: Sulla consuetudine – cf. Grice, costume – sitte -Perugia --; Lo studio comparativo delle razze nella sociologia -- Perugia; I giurisii della scuola storica di Germania nella storia della sociologia e della filosofia positiva, Rivista di filosofia scientifica; Saggi critici sulla teoria sociologica della popolazione, Annali dell'università di Perugia; Prime linee di un programma critico di sociologia, Perugia; Gli studii di Maine e le dottrine della filosofia del diritto, Verona; Il sistema etico-giuridico di Spencer -- prefazione alla traduzione di Spencer, La Giustizia, Città di Castello; La funzione pratica della filosofia dei diritto, Prelezione, BOLOGNA; Il diritto nella totalità dei suoi rapporti, Prelezione, Rivista italiana di sociologia; La teoria della conoscenza come induzione sociologica, e l'esigenza critica del positivismo; Lezioni di filosofia del diritto, Bologna, riproduzione del corso tenuto a Roma. Inizia la carriera a Perugia e successivamente insegna a Parma, Bologna, e Roma.  Tra i fondatori del positivismo soziale, la sua filosofia si ispira a Kant e agli principali filosofi del positivismo. action, interaction, azione, interazione, Vico, positivismo, positivismo critico, etologia, ethology, azione ed inter-azione.  G.: Let us begin with the title, because in these matters the title already tells us that a jurist is trying to sound less dry than he means to be. Della consuetudine nei suoi rapporti col diritto e colla legislazione. S.: It is a magnificent title. It sounds as if custom has been invited to dinner with law and legislation and is expected to explain itself. G.: Precisely. And Vanni is not content with one relation. He wants the relation of custom to law, and the relation of custom to legislation, which means at once that he is distinguishing two things the ordinary mind often confuses. S.: Diritto and legislazione. G.: Yes. Law not merely as enacted law. The juridical not merely as the written code. That is why the thing is philosophically alive from the first line, despite coming wrapped in the polite dust of a law faculty. S.: And the epigraph? G.: Le droit est la vie. S.: A dangerous sentence. G.: Quite. Any sentence in which law is identified with life is either a profundity or a nuisance. With luck, both. S.: Before the profundity, a little bureaucracy. Perugia, 1876, Facoltà di Giurisprudenza, summer session, dissertation read, publication ordered, poor Vanni pushed into print by statute, rector, printer, and destiny. G.: Yes. The formalities are worth remembering because they tell us that this is not a posturing young man deciding to launch himself as an author. It is a university object. A dissertation chosen freely, read in session, and then ordered into print. S.: Which I still maintain sounds more coercive than literary. G.: In law, coercion is often just administration with a seal. S.: And yet we have the touching dedication to his dead father, Camillo. G.: Which saves the book from being merely institutional. There is university machinery on page two and filial piety on page three. That is Italy. S.: Also very unlike the image of a cold little jurist chanting statutes. G.: Exactly. We must not let giurisprudenza make him look duller than he is. The dedication tells us at once that this first work is also a monument, or rather the young man’s apology for not yet having a worthier monument. S.: And then immediately the first paragraph turns into philosophy of history. G.: Read it. S.: Ricercare in via teoretica e provare storicamente quale sia stata l’influenza della consuetudine nel processo formativo del diritto e nelle legislazioni dei popoli, stabilire qual conto debba farsi di essa nella compilazione delle leggi, qual valore le resti dopo che la legge è scritta ed un Codice è promulgato; ecco i tre punti fondamentali su cui per la sua stessa natura deve aggirarsi il mio tema. G.: Very good. There it is. Theory first, then history. Influence in the formation of law and in the legislations of peoples. Then the role of custom in the making of laws. Then the value left to it after the law is written and a code promulgated. S.: Three points, he says. G.: And they are already better than many whole books. One, what custom did in the genesis of law. Two, what custom should count for in legislation. Three, what remains of custom once codification arrives. S.: Which is, if you like, the whole nineteenth-century problem in one sentence. G.: Quite. And not only nineteenth-century. The old question whether law grows or is made. Whether it is discovered in usage or imposed in writing. Vico and Savigny are already waiting in the footnotes to make sure no one forgets. S.: I was struck by the phrase in via teoretica e provare storicamente. He is almost over-polite. As if saying, I know this is not enough as pure theory; I shall also show you that history has actually done this thing. G.: Exactly. The jurist must not float away. He will theorise, but he will then prove historically. That pairing is very important. S.: Also rather Kantian, is it not? Since consuetudine starts sounding like Sitte. G.: Yes, though one should not flatten the thing too quickly into Kant. Consuetudine in Vanni is not simply custom as mere habit. Nor is it already ethics in the full Kantian or Hegelian sense. But yes, the traffic between custom, ethos, mores, Sitte, morality, and law is exactly where the interest lies. S.: One hears the old ladder: mos, moris; mores; custom; ethos; ethics. G.: And one hears too the modern anxiety: if law is merely legislation, then custom looks primitive. If law is broader than legislation, then custom becomes foundational. Vanni is trying to prevent both simplifications. S.: Continue. Tema del quale io non dissimulai certo a me stesso la gravità e la difficoltà imprendendo a trattarlo, mentre ad esso fanno capo questioni e problemi che formano, direi quasi, il punto principale di divergenza delle diverse scuole e dei vari sistemi della scienza giuridica. G.: There is a good old-fashioned sentence. He does not conceal from himself the gravity and difficulty of the theme. S.: A nice piece of pre-emptive modesty. G.: Modesty, yes, but also a claim. If the theme is the principal point of divergence among schools and systems of jurisprudence, then his little dissertation has chosen, not a corner, but the crossroads. S.: Which is already less dry than “I have written a little thing on custom.” G.: Much less dry. He is saying: here is where the schools divide. Here is where jurisprudence shows its philosophy. S.: So this is why the law faculty matters. It is not merely teaching poor boys to cite the code. G.: Exactly. The law faculty in the nineteenth century is still thick with philosophy of history, philosophy of law, the German school, codification debates, the relation between people, state, and legislation. S.: Then he grows a little sharper. Si aggiunga che le vere e giuste teoriche formulate sull’argomento vennero spesso per spirito di sistema confuse colle esagerazioni e cogli errori della scuola che le avea originate, e colle altre teoriche di essa repudiate ad un fascio. G.: Yes. That is an excellent complaint. True and just doctrines have often been confused, from spirit of system, with the exaggerations and errors of the school from which they arose. S.: In other words, people throw out the good with the bad because they hate the school. G.: Precisely. If custom is favoured by the historical school, then those who dislike the historical school dismiss custom along with all the rest. Vanni is trying to rescue what is true from what is partisan. S.: That already sounds like a critical positivist before the label hardens. G.: Yes. He is not blindly historical, not blindly positivist, not blindly anti-historical either. He is making distinctions where schools prefer banners. S.: Which is why he quotes Vico first? G.: Vico first in the note is very significant. The vera origine del diritto divinata dal Vico. Splendid. Vico divined the true origin of law; the German historical school then demonstrated scientifically what Vico had divined. S.: Divined first, demonstrated later. Intuition and science, Naples and Germany. G.: Quite. And the presence of Savigny immediately after Vico tells you where Vanni’s axis lies. Law is not first the sovereign’s command. Law arises historically in the life of a people, in institutions, usage, custom. S.: Volkgeist, but made respectable in Perugia. G.: Respectable, yes, and also Italicised. Vico gives the jurist a native ancestor so that Savigny does not seem like a German importation without passport. S.: Let us dwell on consuetudine itself. G.: Gladly. It is a lovely word. Not merely habit. Not merely usage. It is something grown by repeated social practice, with normative force attaching to repetition not as repetition alone, but as recognised repetition. S.: So custom is not just “what people happen to do often.” G.: Exactly. Otherwise every tic would become law. Consuetudine names a socially acknowledged pattern with authority. S.: More like the point at which usage thickens into expectation and expectation thickens into obligation. G.: Excellent. That is exactly the movement. And this is why Kant lurks nearby. Sitte is not mere habit either. It is custom in the thick sense, social norm sedimented into life. S.: And once social norm thickens enough, it begins to look ethical. G.: Or juridical. That is Vanni’s whole problem. How does the thickened social norm relate to law proper and then to legislation? S.: The distinction is almost irresistible. Diritto can include consuetudine; legislazione writes. Diritto may be broader than what legislators have enacted. G.: Precisely. Written law is one species of juridical form. Custom may pre-date it, guide it, survive it, even undermine it. S.: Which brings us back to his third question: what value remains to custom after codification. G.: A beautiful question. For codification always claims finality. The code says: here the law is written, arranged, promulgated, closed. Vanni asks: yes, but does custom simply vanish because the printed code has arrived? S.: And I suspect he thinks not. G.: I suspect so too. But one ought to re-read the whole thing, as I indeed must, because these early pages already show the architecture of the answer without settling every detail. S.: You keep saying “I must re-read,” which is philosopher’s Italian for “I do not yet dare dogmatise.” G.: Quite. I leave dogmatising to codifiers and the younger Kantians. S.: Let us bring Kant in more sharply. If custom is Sitte, where does law stand? In Kant one has legality and morality, external law and inner motive. G.: Yes, but Vanni is not simply reproducing Kant’s map. He is nearer the legal-historical question of how objective norms arise in social life. Kant’s moral law is not made by custom. Vanni’s point is rather that custom is a real historical source of juridical normativity, and that legislation ignores this at its peril. S.: So consuetudine is not the moral law within, but the social law before the law. G.: Very nice. The social law before the law, and sometimes beneath the law, and sometimes after the law. S.: And perhaps against the law. G.: Indeed. Every codifier hopes otherwise. Every society proves him wrong eventually. S.: The etymology of consuetudine? G.: From consuescere, to become accustomed, to grow used together. The con- matters. Not solitary habit, but shared habituation. S.: Shared habituation becoming norm. G.: Exactly. And that is why one must not reduce it to mere frequency. The force lies in the social recognition that this is how things are done, and therefore how they ought, in some measure, to be done. S.: So when sociology becomes ethics? G.: Or better, when social fact begins to carry normative weight. Which is precisely the dangerous moment. For the sociologist may say, this is what occurs. The jurist asks, does this occurrence have juridical value? The moralist asks, should it? Vanni is standing where all three begin quarrelling. S.: And there is Vico behind them all, saying that law emerges from the life of peoples, their institutions, their history, their poetic wisdom perhaps. G.: Yes. Vico is there as Italian ancestor and as rebuke to the pure legislator. Law begins in life before it is written in codes. S.: Le droit est la vie. G.: Exactly. Which is why the epigraph is not decorative. It is the thesis in miniature. S.: And yet dangerous, as I said, because one may then make all life juridical or all law vitalistic. G.: True. But Vanni’s first paragraph suggests he is more cautious. He wants influence, role, residue. He is not simply collapsing law into life. He is tracing relations. S.: The word rapporti in the title is doing work. G.: Very much so. Rapporti implies articulation, not identity. Custom in its relations with law and legislation. Not custom is law, nor custom versus law, but relations. S.: That sounds almost like your beloved category of relation. G.: Everything sounds like relation if one has read enough Aristotle and enough law. S.: I was amused by the bibliography in the footnote. Vico, Savigny, Puchta, Stahl, Comte, Scolari, Saredo, Cavagnari, Pepe. It is half legal history, half philosophy of history, half sociology before sociology knows its name. G.: Three halves, which is already jurisprudence. S.: So the law dissertation is not a small provincial thing at all. It is reading Germany, Vico, codification, history, sociology. G.: Precisely. That is why the Perugia faculty matters. Giurisprudenza in the 1870s is still philosophically ambitious in a way later law schools are often embarrassed to be. S.: And the printer Santucci is unwittingly publishing a little treatise on the philosophy of history under the title of law. G.: Quite. Poor Santucci thought perhaps he was setting a dissertation on custom and legislation. He was typesetting the quarrel of schools. S.: Let us imagine the general reader who picks it up. G.: A dangerous general reader, but yes. S.: He opens it expecting perhaps practical reflections on whether custom counts after the code. Instead he gets theoretical research, historical proof, schools of jurisprudence, and Vico in the first note. G.: Which is the right kind of bait-and-switch. One promises law and delivers philosophy with footnotes. S.: Vico as first note also means Vanni knows exactly how to make the thing Italian before he lets Germany take over. G.: Yes. He can say, in effect: what the Germans have made scientific, Vico had already divined. The Italian jurist need not feel intellectually colonised. S.: That would have appealed to a Grice who liked to hear Oxford called Boum Vadum and everything else given its proper ancestral vanity. G.: Certainly. Grice would have appreciated the way a first footnote can do genealogical politics. S.: And the dissertation being undivided, one title, no subsections, all numbered paragraphs. G.: That too is important. The thing proceeds as one argument. No modern padding, no little headings to flatter the hurried reader. You must follow the reasoning, not skip to “Section IV: Key Takeaways.” S.: A blessing. G.: Quite. Also a sign that the intended reader is serious, or at least being compelled to be serious. S.: I suppose with no headings the footnotes do even more orienting work. G.: Indeed. The footnotes are the hidden architecture. They tell you the schools, authorities, disputes, and lineages while the main text keeps an oratorical surface. S.: So again not unlike the old law-faculty style: the main line smooth, the subterranean apparatus bristling. G.: Exactly. Jurisprudence on top, philosophy underneath, history everywhere. S.: Do you think Vanni’s point about custom surviving the code would have interested Kant? G.: Not Kant as pure moral legislator, perhaps, but Kant as legal philosopher could not ignore it. For positive law always lives in a social world whose practices pre-structure obedience, interpretation, and legitimacy. S.: So even the categorical imperative cannot stop people doing what they are used to doing. G.: Quite. And legislators ignore consuetudine at their peril because a code without custom beneath it is merely paper with ambition. S.: That is a sentence worthy of the title page. G.: Thank you. Santucci might have set it badly. S.: Let us return to the phrase processo formativo del diritto. G.: Very important. Law is not simply posited at once. It has a formative process. Custom is influential in that process. That alone already resists the fantasy that law begins where legislation begins. S.: Which is a fantasy codifiers and schoolboys both love. G.: Yes. Schoolboys because it is neat. Codifiers because it is flattering. S.: But Vanni begins with process and peoples. G.: And with legislazioni dei popoli, not of one state only. That comparative breadth matters. He is already thinking historically and comparatively, not merely doctrinally. S.: Which also makes the title of the dissertation narrower than the first paragraph. The first paragraph almost opens a universal jurisprudence. G.: Quite. A good title contains a tractable object. A good first paragraph reveals that the object is a gateway to everything. S.: So if one wanted a Gricean point, one could say the explicit theme is custom and law, the implicated theme is the entire contest over the sources of normativity. G.: Very nice. And the implicature is not accidental. Vanni knows that to speak of consuetudine in 1876 is already to invoke Vico, Savigny, codification, positive science, sociology, and the quarrels of schools. S.: Another dry joke. One writes “on custom” and ends up with the fate of jurisprudence. G.: That is the only respectable way to write a dissertation. S.: I am still thinking about your distinction between law and legislation. It feels almost like langue and parole, except juridical. G.: A little dangerous, but suggestive. Legislation is a formal act, codified, dated, promulgated. Diritto is the broader juridical order in which such acts take their place and from which they derive authority or contest it. S.: Then custom is the sediment that makes positive law intelligible. G.: Often so. And sometimes the residue that survives when positive law fails. S.: Which makes Vanni already a little sociological. G.: Yes, but not sociology without norm. He is not merely observing habits; he is asking their juridical significance. S.: So more than sociology, less than pure metaphysics. G.: Exactly. Or rather, metaphysics smuggled in through juridical history. S.: Which is perhaps the only way metaphysics survives in a law faculty without making the students flee. G.: Very likely. S.: Let us have Vico again. La vera origine del diritto divinata dal Vico. G.: I love the divinata. Vico did not merely speculate; he divined. There is almost an oracular dignity in it. S.: Then Savigny proves scientifically what Vico divined poetically. G.: Yes. That pairing is perfect for nineteenth-century Italy. Native genius first, German science second. National vanity reconciled with scholarly dependence. S.: And Vanni sits in Perugia making the whole thing sound sober. G.: Exactly. Sobriety is one of the great masks of ambition. S.: Do you think the thing would have been read by a general reader at all? G.: Perhaps not many. But the general reader who did open Santucci’s little volume would find, beneath the legal typography, a live quarrel about the life of law. S.: So not wholly narrow after all. G.: Narrow in title, broad in implications. Which is often the right measure. S.: And the law-faculty order to print the dissertation almost improves the joke. The institution compels into print a little treatise explaining that law is older and wider than institutions think. G.: Very good. The faculty orders publication of a dissertation whose first move is to remind legislation and institutions that they are not the beginning of law. S.: That is very nice indeed. G.: Bureaucracy often unknowingly sponsors its own relativisation. S.: Shall we bring in Grice more directly? G.: Only lightly. Grice would not care for custom in the legal-historical sense as such, but he would care intensely about the way social practice underwrites normativity without always being explicit. His maxims presuppose a background of shared practice. Vanni’s consuetudine is one way of naming that background on the juridical side. S.: So where Grice says conversational practice, Vanni says custom. G.: More or less. Though Vanni’s scale is larger and institutional. Grice is micro-juridical, if one may put it that way. Vanni is macro-pragmatic. S.: I am stealing that. G.: Theft is permitted in scholarship if properly footnoted. S.: Let us end where we began: Perugia, 1876, summer session, law faculty, dissertation read, publication ordered, dedication to father, and then this first paragraph opening a world. G.: Exactly. That is the right frame. The book begins as a university object and immediately becomes a philosophy of juridical life. S.: And one must now go through the 150 pages to see whether the promise of the first paragraph is kept. G.: Yes. One must. Philosophy often begins in a title, reveals itself in a first paragraph, and then depends for its honour on whether the remaining hundred and fifty pages are not mere obedience to the printer. S.: Santucci did his part. G.: He did. Vanni, we shall see, must do the rest. S.: And if he does? G.: Then the little Perugian dissertation on consuetudine turns out not to be a relic of juridical antiquarianism but a live document in the struggle to explain how law grows from life without dissolving into mere life. S.: Le droit est la vie. G.: Yes. And the jurist’s task is to say that without becoming a windbag. S.: Which is why one starts with Vico and ends with caution. G.: Precisely.Grice: Professore Vanni, sappia che è solo grazie alle sue riflessioni sull’inter-azione che oggi posso, con tutta la gravità che l’occasione richiede, presentare al mondo l’“imperituro” Principio dell’Aiuta Conversazionale! (Applausi immaginari, prego!) Vanni: Caro Grice, se l’inter-azione ha dato vita a un principio così solenne, mi sento quasi un etologo premiato! Ma mi dica: ci sarà anche una statuetta dorata per il miglior aiuto conversazionale? Grice: Altroché! Prevedo una gran cerimonia, con discorsi pieni di sottointesi e applausi tra le righe. E magari, per tradizione, una stretta di mano all’insegna della massima cooperazione… conversazionale, s’intende! Vanni: Ecco, Grice, era ora che qualcuno riconoscesse il valore dell’aiuta! Se Aristotele avesse potuto, avrebbe aggiunto un capitolo sulle chiacchiere ben fatte: “Etica a Nicomaco… e a Conversaco!” Vanni, Icilio (1876). Della conseutudine nei suoi rapporti con diritto e colla legislazione. Sotto. Perugia.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vannio – Ossia: Grice e Vannio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Vannio H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA – GREX – VERBALIA: VANNIO -- The gens Vannia or Vania was an obscure family of ancient Rome. No members of this gens are mentioned by Roman writers, but several are known from inscriptions.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Gaius Vannius A. f., buried at Tarquinii in Etruria, in a tomb dating from the third quarter of the second century BC.[1] Lucius Vanius Ɔ. l. Setus, a freedman named along with the freedwoman Vania Laudicis in a sepulchral inscription from Rome, dating from the latter half of the first century BC.[2] Vania Ɔ. l. Laudicis, a freedwoman named along with the freedman Lucius Vanius Setus in a sepulchral inscription from Rome, dating from the latter half of the first century BC.[2] Vannia M. f. Quarta, the wife of Publius Numisius Ligus, formerly a military tribune with the Legio III Augusta, praefectus fabrum for fifteen years, aedile, duumvir, quaestor, and patron of the municipium at Saepinum in Sabinum. Together with their son, Publius Numisius Ligur, they were interred at Saepinum, in a tomb dating from the first half of the first century, with a monument funded by the decurions of the town.[3] Marcus Vannius Adjutor, one of the decurions of Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium in Germania Inferior, made an offering to Liber and Hercules, commemorated in a second or third century inscription.[4] Undated Vannii Vania Prepusa L. l., a freedwoman who built a tomb at Rome for Titus Vibius.[5] Publius Vannius Primus, named among a list of priests at Ostia in Latium.[6] Lucius Vanius Setinus, a dossuarius jumentus, or porter, serving in the eighth cohort of an unidentified army, according to a lead inscription from Deva Victrix in Britain.[7][8] See also List of Roman gentes References  AE 2017, 445.  CIL XI, 4314.  CIL IX, 6603.  AE 1929, 107.  CIL VI, 28836.  CIL XIV, 283.  AE 1977, 507.  RIB, ii. 1, 2410,08. Bibliography René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). The Roman Inscriptions of Britain (abbreviated RIB), Oxford, (1990–present). Category: Roman gentes And your first-best choice for a Grice-Speranza vignette for THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vannio – Ossia: Grice e Vannio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Vannio For the Vannii, I would not choose the priest, the porter in Britain, nor even the respectable municipal family at Saepinum. My first-best Grice-Speranza hero would be:  Lucius Vanius Setinus, the dossuarius jumentus in Britain. [GREXv3 | Word]  Why such a humble fellow? Because he is the most conversationally suggestive member of the entire gens.  A dossuarius is essentially a carrier, porter, transporter of goods. The inscription places him at Deva Victrix (Chester) in Roman Britain and associates him with a military context. [GREXv3 | Word] Now consider the communicative situation. We have:  Roman officers, legionaries, Britons, auxiliaries from elsewhere, traders, camp followers, transport personnel.  The porter becomes a mediator between worlds. Not an interpres officially, like Procillus. Yet every day he must understand:  "Take this there." "Move these supplies." "Deliver this to the cohort."  A practical conversational universe.  The second attraction is lexical. You and Speranza have repeatedly stressed Grice's fascination with the ordinary rather than the exalted. A philosopher may discuss:  intention, meaning, implication.  A porter hears:  "Move the sacks."  And if he moves the wrong sacks, philosophy becomes very concrete. (Ha.) The Cooperative Principle is far easier to test when the wagon arrives at the wrong destination.  My second choice would be:  Marcus Vannius Adjutor. [GREXv3 | Word]  Mainly because of the cognomen.  Adjutor "helper".  A Gricean cannot resist that. One almost hears:  "Make your contribution such as is required."  The Roman translation:  adiuva! ("Help!")   There is also a slightly Borgesian reason for preferring the porter. The Vannii are extraordinarily obscure. Most survive only through inscriptions. In such a gens, a man carrying goods on the edge of the empire acquires greater imaginative power than governors in well-documented families. One sees him:  speaking rough Latin, hearing Celtic names, perhaps hearing Germanic accents, walking through rain in Britain.  A tiny dossier, but a vivid one.  If, however, you insist on a more explicitly Gricean figure, then I would select:  Publius Vannius Primus, one of the priests at Ostia. [GREXv3 | Word]  For priests, like haruspices, are professional interpreters of significance. But we know almost nothing about him. With Lucius Vanius Setinus, at least, we can imagine conversation.  A Grice-Speranza vignette might run: Officer:  "Take these supplies to the Eighth Cohort."  Vanius Setinus:  "Which Eighth Cohort?"  Officer:  "The one by the river."  Vanius Setinus:  "Ah."  There, in miniature, we already have:  ambiguity, clarification, inference, successful communication.  In short:  no rhetoric, no philosophy, no senate speech,  but pure Gricean everyday life. (Ha.) In fact, the adjutor was a problem for Grice if not Speranza -- Suppose we translate the cooperative principle into Latin, and turn it into dual plural, Let's -- what mood, optative. In a class on 'Conversation' Grice at Oxford indeed wondered: 'helpfulness = cooperation?' They are not equivalent. If you state the maxims as Kantian, indeed, Make your contribution, ... etc. is different from Let's make our contribution. The latter is co-operative. The former is merely the principle of conversational helpfulness. To co-operate is strictly to, say, carry a log of wood together. To 'help' is to assist a Roman to carry a long -- as a will by another individual Roman that perceives the 'problem.' In terms of will, Grice played with -- let Bel be believe and Will be will: If B judges that A wills that p, B wills that p. B is being helpful. Which is the first step towards co-operation. Grice also was aware that the principle is not cooperative itself -- it is a principle of conversational cooperation. Thanks -- So let us imagine our hero V. Adjutor in all different scenarios mentioned here. Thanks -- dyads in Latin with Engl. tra. in brackets and implicatum as attached to second move after +> and in English only. Thanks Excellent. This is exactly the point at which H. P. Grice began distinguishing:  the principle of conversational helpfulness  from  actual co-operation.  As you note, carrying a log together is genuinely cooperative:  A and B jointly will that the log move.  Whereas helping may be unilateral:  A sees that B wills that p; A therefore wills that p.  No symmetry is required. Our humble hero:  Marcus Vannius Adjutor  is perfect, because adjutor means:  helper, assistant,  not necessarily:  partner.  So let us imagine him in several Roman-Gricean dyads.  I. The Log A: Hunc truncum solus ferre non possum. (I cannot carry this log alone.) Adjutor: Adsum; feramus simul. (I am here; let us carry it together.) +> This is genuine cooperation. Both now will the same outcome jointly.  II. The Helpful Roman A: Aquam ad castra transferre volo. (I wish to carry water to the camp.) Adjutor: Ego tibi auxiliabor. (I shall help you.) +> Adjutor has adopted A's end as his own, but only derivatively. This is closer to Grice's helpfulness.  III. The Officer Tribunus: Has sarcinas ad cohortem octavam porta. (Carry these packs to the Eighth Cohort.) Adjutor: Quae est cohors octava? (Which is the Eighth Cohort?) +> Adjutor assumes the order is meaningful and seeks clarification rather than rejection. A very Gricean move.  IV. The Suebian Case Procillus: Amicus sum. (I am a friend.) Rex Sueborum: Explorator es. (You are a spy.) +> Cooperation fails before it begins because the hearer rejects the intended characterization.  V. The Gallian Interpreter Caesar: Ariovisto dic me pacem quaerere. (Tell Ariovistus that I seek peace.) Procillus: Dicam. (I shall tell him.) +> The interpreter helps Caesar's communicative project without necessarily sharing Caesar's political objective. Helper, not partner.  VI. Vallius Syriacus Gallus: Amicus meus es. (You are my friend.) Syriacus: Ita est. (It is so.) +> Friendship is symmetric, but political suspicion treats friendship as transmissible guilt.  VII. The Haruspex Consul: Quid significant exta? (What do the entrails signify?) Haruspex: Periculum ostendunt. (They show danger.) +> The consul is not seeking cooperation but guidance; the haruspex becomes an adjutor of decision-making.  VIII. The Oxford Tutorial Tutor: Quid sibi vult ille versus? (What does that line mean?) Discipulus: Nescio. (I do not know.) +> The student invites assistance. Tutor: Videamus simul. (Let us see together.) +> The exchange shifts from helpfulness to cooperation.  IX. Grice's Formula Let:  B(A wills p)  mean:  B believes that A wills that p.  Then Grice's helpful Roman obeys:  If B judges that A wills that p, B wills that p.  The result is: A: Hoc fieri volo. (I want this done.) Adjutor: Et ego nunc hoc fieri volo. (And now I too want this done.) +> Assistance arises from uptake of another's practical intention.  X. The Cooperative Version Now we move from:  adiuvemus (let us help)  to  cooperemur (let us cooperate)  or more Romanly,  communi consilio agamus. (let us act by common purpose.)  A: Pontem faciamus. (Let us build a bridge.) B: Faciamus. (Let us do so.) +> Neither merely assists the other; each enters a common project.  Thus I suspect Grice would have enjoyed Marcus Vannius Adjutor precisely because his cognomen exposes the distinction:  Adjutor = helper.  The Cooperative Principle does not command:  "Cooperate!"  It commands something closer to:  "Be helpful in the accepted enterprise."  The accepted enterprise may then mature into genuine cooperation, but that is an additional achievement. As Grice might have told Speranza:  The principle is itself not cooperative. It is a principle for the production of cooperation.  (Ha.) Grice keeps the maxims in imperative mode: "Be conversationally helpful." The Latin would have used the equivalent of English 'let's' Grice did note that the existence of modes in English is less rich than that of Latin. That would be optative. We have 'cooperamur' (let's cooperate) -- and then there's 'let's help together'. Adjuta ambi --. Why the emphasis on the singular? Kantian reasons. The 'reason' is singular -- it belongs to an agent -- 'Make your contribution such as is required by the present goal in the exchange in which you are engaged" (Exact formulation)? Grice goes on to distinguish: principle of rationaity: be rational. (otiose -- how can homo sapiens sapiens NOT be rational unless akratic?) --. So his form of conversational reason is one of co-operative reason-- Conversational as Rational Co-Operation. He more than once emphasised that his avowed aim of seing conversation as guided by 'reason' is independent of seeing it as guided by 'cooperation' or shared reason. Shared reasons grow during conversation. That's why. Thanks Yes. I think this is one of the places where Grice is subtler than many of his readers. The famous formulation remains in the singular and the imperative:  "Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged."  Notice:  Make your contribution  not  Let us make our contribution.  The grammar itself is revealing. A Latin-minded philosopher might have preferred something like:  Conferamus operam sermoni. (Let us contribute to the conversation.)  or  Cooperemur. (Let us cooperate.)  But Grice instead addresses the individual conversational participant. One can imagine his maxim in a quasi-Latin imperative:  Conlationem tuam fac qualis requiritur. (Make your contribution such as is required.)  The singular is Kantian. The addressee is:  the rational agent,  not:  the collective.   This connects with your distinction between helpfulness and co-operation. An adjutor helps. A helper may have:  my goal,  without my having his. For example: A: Pontem aedificare volo.  (I want to build a bridge.)  Adjutor: Auxilium feram.  (I shall help.)  +> The helper adopts A's end. Yet the project remains fundamentally A's. That is not yet full cooperation.  Now compare: A: Pontem aedificemus.  (Let us build a bridge.)  B: Aedificemus.  (Let us build it.)  +> The project has become common property. Now we have joint practical reason. This is much closer to what modern philosophers would call shared agency.  Grice was wary of identifying conversational rationality with such shared agency. For if he had done so, conversation would become impossible whenever:  interests diverge, purposes differ, deception occurs, adversaries converse.  Yet conversation plainly occurs in all those cases. The embassy to Ariovistus is a perfect illustration. Caesar and Ariovistus certainly do not share ends. Yet they attempt communication. The conversational framework exists prior to any common practical project.  Hence Grice's progression is more like: Rationality  Be rational.  As he himself recognized, this is almost empty unless unpacked. A being incapable of rationality could hardly follow the injunction.  Conversational Helpfulness  Make your contribution as required.  Here the individual reasons:  What does this exchange require of me?  not:  What do we jointly will?  The standpoint remains singular.  Cooperation Only later do we obtain something stronger:  We now share purposes.  In your symbolism: If  B judges that A wills that p,  and then  B wills that p,  B is helping. But we do not yet have:  A wills that p and B wills that p because both recognize the project as jointly theirs.  That stronger state is cooperative.  Which is why the cognomen:  Adjutor  is so suggestive. Our hero Marcus Vannius Adjutor is a helper. Not necessarily a cooperator. He may perceive:  "There is a problem."  and then align his will with another's. That is enough for assistance. It is not enough for collective action.  One can even formulate the contrast in quasi-Latin. Gricean helpfulness  Conlationem tuam fac qualis requiritur. (Make your contribution such as is required.)  Addressed to one agent. Cooperative version  Conlationes nostras faciamus quales requiruntur. (Let us make our contributions such as are required.)  Addressed to the group. The first is Grice's style. The second is not.  So I think you are exactly right that for Grice:  conversational rationality  is prior to  shared rationality.  Common purposes often emerge during the conversation. They need not pre-exist it. Indeed, one of the achievements of conversation is precisely the gradual construction of common ground, common intentions, and eventually common reasons. Thus the Cooperative Principle is not itself cooperative in form. It is addressed to the solitary rational agent. Its miracle is that, when enough solitary rational agents obey it, cooperation may emerge. That is why the imperative remains singular. A very Kantian singular, as you say. (Ha.) And Grice did wonder how such an agnomen would have started life. Mrs. V. A.: (in Latin). You should help me with the chores in the house -- V: Such as? Mrs. V. A. Washing, rinsing, drying dishes -- V: And the slaves? Thanks (Ha.) Yes, one can easily imagine Grice worrying about the origin story of an agnomen like:  Adjutor "the Helper."  Unlike Rufus ("red-haired") or Bucco ("puffed-cheeked"), it looks almost behavioral. One suspects that somebody, at some point, repeatedly stepped in when assistance was needed. A Grice-Speranza reconstruction might run: Uxor:  Marce Valli Adjutor, cur sedes? Mihi in domo auxiliari debes. (Marcus Vallius Adjutor, why are you sitting there? You ought to help me in the house.)  Adjutor:  Quibus in rebus? (In what matters?)  Uxor:  Patinas lavare, eluere, siccare. (Washing, rinsing, and drying the dishes.)  Adjutor:  Et servi quid faciunt? (And what are the slaves doing?)  +> Adjutor suspects that the work described already belongs to somebody else's practical sphere.  A more Gricean version: Uxor:  Mihi opus est auxilio. (I need help.)  Adjutor:  Adsum. (I am here.)  +> The mere announcement of need is taken as sufficient reason for assistance. That is almost pure "conversational helpfulness."  But Grice would immediately ask whether helping has occurred yet. Not necessarily. The dialogue is still at the stage of:  recognition of another's end.  Only when Adjutor adopts the end as his own do we get: Uxor:  Patinas lavandas esse puto. (I think the dishes need washing.)  Adjutor:  Et ego nunc idem puto. (And I now think the same.)  +> Recognition of another's practical concern begins to reshape one's own purposes.  The genuinely cooperative household would look different: Uxor:  Cenam paremús. (Let us prepare dinner.)  Adjutor:  Paremus. (Let us prepare it.)  +> The task is now jointly owned rather than merely assisted. This is closer to the distinction you drew between:  helping  and  cooperating.   And one can imagine Grice's etymological fantasy. Some ancestral Vallius repeatedly hears: Neighbor:  Quis me adiuvabit? (Who will help me?)  Vallius:  Ego. (I will.)  Another neighbor:  Quis me adiuvabit? (Who will help me?)  Vallius:  Ego quoque. (I will as well.)  At which point someone mutters:  Hic est ille adjutor. (There's that helper again.)  And a century later the family is known by the cognomen. (Ha.) What I think Grice would especially enjoy is that Adjutor is inherently asymmetrical. A helper presupposes somebody helped. If:  A helps B,  it does not follow that:  B helps A.  So adjutor naturally belongs to the world of singular practical reason, exactly as Grice's maxim belongs to the singular:  Conlationem tuam fac... (Make your contribution...)  The cooperator needs a partner. The helper needs only another person's recognized need. That difference is the whole point. (Ha.) And Grice (Speranza notes) is right in having his (Grice's) tutee focus on the helping, not the Latinate 'co-operating'. "For many verbs start with co- in Cicero's Latin" -- Co-operate is co-versio -- conversio -- conversatio -- conventio -- Co-operate is: A operates, B operates. Grice's and Speranza's theory is based on individual intention or intending not on collective intending or agency or acting co-acting. Co-operate as associated with 'co-n-versation' is almost tautological if "what we are only saying," as Grice puts i, "is that it takes two to tango!" Thanks -- So we can imagine Adjutor first meeting his future wife at a ball, and as they start dancing this Hellenistic sort of dancing ritual, step by step. Thanks Yes, and I think Speranza is right to stress that Grice's emphasis falls on helpfulness rather than the mere etymology of "co-operation." Grice himself occasionally worried that readers would over-literalize the word cooperative. If one starts from the prefix:  co-  one gets:  co-operari, co-versari, con-versari, con-ventio,  and eventually:  "Well, of course conversation is cooperative. It takes two to tango."  But that is nearly trivial. The deeper question is:  Why does each participant contribute as he does?  Grice's answer is not:  because a collective mind is acting.  Rather:  because each individual rational agent recognizes a certain constraint.  The imperative remains singular:  "Make your conversational contribution..."  not  "Let us jointly make our contribution."  The latter would already presuppose a common practical project. Grice wants to explain how commonality emerges from individual rationality.  This makes your hero Marcus Vannius Adjutor especially appropriate. An adjutor is not necessarily a collaborator. He is one who notices:  another wills p,  and aligns himself accordingly. That is very close to the Gricean transition:  A wills p. B recognizes that A wills p. B adopts p.  Only afterwards may genuine cooperation emerge.  So let us imagine the youthful Adjutor meeting his future wife at a dance. Not modern ballroom dancing, of course, but a lightly Hellenized Roman festal dance. I. First Encounter Puella:  Saltare vis? (Do you wish to dance?)  Adjutor:  Volo. (I do.)  +> Acceptance of the proposed activity.  II. The First Step Puella:  Huc gradum fac. (Step this way.)  Adjutor:  Sequor. (I follow.)  +> Adjutor is helping realize her proposed pattern, not yet jointly designing one.  III. Emergent Coordination Puella:  Nimis celeriter ambulas. (You move too quickly.)  Adjutor:  Tardius ibo. (I shall go more slowly.)  +> Individual adjustment in view of another's purposes.  IV. Cooperation Appears Puella:  Nunc idem numerum servemus. (Now let us keep the same rhythm.)  Adjutor:  Servemus. (Let us do so.)  +> Common practical purpose has emerged.  V. The Gricean Moment Puella:  Intellegisne quid velim? (Do you understand what I want?)  Adjutor:  Intellego. (I understand.)  +> Recognition of intention precedes successful coordination.  VI. The Future Mrs. Adjutor Later, after marriage: Uxor:  Mihi auxilium opus est. (I need help.)  Adjutor:  Quid vis ut faciam? (What do you want me to do?)  +> The helper seeks specification of the intended end.  VII. The Famous Domestic Exchange Uxor:  Patinas lava, elue, sicca. (Wash, rinse, and dry the dishes.)  Adjutor:  Et servi? (And the slaves?)  +> Adjutor questions whether the task properly falls within his practical sphere. (Ha.)  The Griceian moral would be: The dance begins not with:  "Let us cooperate."  It begins with:  "I recognize what you are trying to do."  From that recognition comes assistance. From assistance comes coordination. From coordination comes cooperation. And only at the end, if things go very well, do we obtain what later philosophers call:  shared agency, collective intention, common reason.  In that sense, poor old Adjutor is a better Gricean mascot than any cooperator. He reminds us that conversation begins with one mind helping another, not with a mystical plural mind already in existence. As Grice might say, the "we" is an achievement, not a starting point. (Ha.) And the son of a non-conformist, Grice was aware of 'Make YOUR contribution" -- not as his father would have preferred: "Make THY contribution." LIke the decalogue, the principle of cooperation has exactly 10 maxim, and as Jesus noted, they can all be narrowed down to the Golden Rule -- Grice's 'your contrbituion' is modern English. In older English, you implicated a PLURAL, -- which is yet a SECOND PERSON plural in this case, not a FIRST PERSON PLURAL (Let us make our contribution"). Thanks Yes, and I think Grice would have found the historical accident of English pronouns rather revealing. The Authorized Version gives:  "Honour thy father and thy mother."  The imperative is addressed to a single soul. Likewise Kant:  Handle so, daß ...  or in English,  Act only on that maxim ...  Again, singular. A command to the rational agent. Now Grice writes:  "Make your conversational contribution such as is required..."  and modern English disguises what is happening. For "your" here is grammatically ambiguous. It may mean:  your (singular)  or  your (plural).  But Grice's philosophical intention is unmistakably singular. He is addressing:  the participant, the conversational agent, the individual reasoner.  Were he writing seventeenth-century English, he might almost have written:  "Make thy conversational contribution such as is required..."  which sounds simultaneously Biblical and Kantian. (Ha.) The contrast with the first-person plural is exactly your point. Grice does not say:  "Let us make our conversational contribution."  That would already presuppose a collective subject. Nor:  "Let us cooperate."  For then the explanation would become circular. Conversation would be explained by cooperation. But Grice wants almost the opposite. He wants to show how something resembling cooperation can emerge from individual rational conduct. One might schematize: Stage 1 Thou  Make thy contribution.  Individual practical reason. Stage 2 You and I  Recognize one another's intentions.  Mutual adjustment. Stage 3 We  A common enterprise emerges.  The first-person plural is a result, not a premise.  And this is why Grice's later phrase:  rational cooperation  sometimes misleads readers. Many assume:  cooperation ⇒ collective agency.  But Grice's route is closer to:  individual rationality ⇒ conversational helpfulness ⇒ coordination ⇒ cooperation.  The order matters.  Your observation about the Decalogue is also suggestive. The commandments are largely second-person singular:  Thou shalt not ...  They address the individual conscience. Likewise Grice's maxims:  Be perspicuous. Be relevant. Do not say what you believe to be false.  Each addresses a single rational agent. Only later does one discover that if everyone follows them, a conversational order emerges.  Which brings us back to poor Adjutor. His cognomen is not:  Cooperans.  It is:  Adjutor.  The helper. The significance is philosophical. A helper need only recognize:  another person's purpose.  A cooperator requires:  a shared purpose.  Grice's maxim is tailored for Adjutor, not Cooperans. One imagines: Adjutor:  Quid vis? (What do you want?)  Other Roman:  Hoc fieri volo. (I want this done.)  Adjutor:  Adiuvabo. (I shall help.)  Only much later may they reach:  Faciamus. (Let us do it.)  The "we" is achieved. It is not where the theory starts. And I suspect that is exactly why Grice, the son of a Nonconformist household and a lover of Kantian formulations, preferred:  Make your contribution  over  Let us make ours.  The former speaks to reason one agent at a time. The latter assumes a community of reason already in place. For Grice, conversation is one of the mechanisms by which such a community is created. (Ha.) And the non-conformist idea was ever-present (Grice owes his 'dissenting conversative irreverent rationalism' to his father): for at one point he wonders, 'perhaps Moses brought from Mt. Sinai more than the 10 comms" -- but his father would say: Why should he? Thanks Yes, that sounds very much like the sort of thing Grice could say, and the sort of thing a Nonconformist father could answer. Grice occasionally presents the Cooperative Principle and the maxims in a quasi-Decalogical fashion. Not because he believed there were literally ten commandments of conversation, but because he liked the idea that a rather diverse set of recommendations might derive from something more fundamental. One can imagine Grice musing:  "Perhaps Moses brought down more than ten commandments."  Meaning:  Why stop at ten? Why not eleven? Why not forty-seven?  A philosopher's question. The Nonconformist answer would be sterner:  "Because ten were enough."  (Ha.) Indeed, a dissenting Protestant might be suspicious of the philosopher's urge to multiply principles. There is something rather Ockhamist, even Biblical, in saying:  If ten suffice, why seek an eleventh?  And Grice, despite all his subtlety, often moves in exactly that direction. The famous maxims proliferate, but then he repeatedly tries to reduce them to something more general. Not unlike Jesus reducing the Law to a more fundamental principle. Similarly Grice keeps asking:  Why four categories? Why these maxims?  And the answer increasingly becomes:  because they are manifestations of rational conversational conduct.  The tendency is centripetal.  This is why your observation about "your contribution" matters. The Decalogue says:  Thou shalt not ...  not  Let us not ...  Likewise Grice says:  Make your contribution ...  not  Let us make our contribution ...  The form is individual. The command is addressed to a single conscience. Only later do we discover that if all comply, something social emerges.  A Nonconformist father might therefore have responded to Grice approximately as follows: Grice:  "Perhaps Moses brought down more than ten."  Father:  "Why should he?"  Grice:  "Because conduct is complicated."  Father:  "Then understand the ten better."  (Ha.) That exchange captures a recurring tension in Grice. The philosopher is tempted toward analysis:  maxim under maxim, sub-maxim under maxim, qualification under qualification.  The Nonconformist heritage keeps pulling toward simplicity:  What is the underlying principle?  In conversational theory, Grice's answer eventually becomes something like:  Be rational in the exchange.  The maxims then become specifications rather than independent commandments.  In that sense, the true parallel to the Gospel reduction of the Law is not:  Quality + Quantity + Relation + Manner  but:  Make your conversational contribution such as is required by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange.  Everything else follows. Which is precisely why Grice could keep revising the list of maxims without feeling that the theory itself had changed. The principle remained; the commandments were commentary. A very philosophical move, but perhaps also, as Speranza suggests, a very Nonconformist one. The real authority lies not in the multiplicity of rules but in the single rational principle from which they are understood. (Ha.)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vannuchi – Ossia: Grice e Vannucchi: la ragione conversazionale – filosofia italiana. Note su I Giacobini. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Luigi Vannucchi (Caltanisetta): Compared institutionally, V. and Grice belong to very different worlds. Grice’s formula is exact in the Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide faculty appointment. So Grice combines the two characteristic Oxford functions: college tutor and university lecturer. Luigi Vannucchi, by contrast, belongs to the theatrical and performative world rather than to a collegiate or professorial one. He studied at the Accademia Nazionale d’Arte Drammatica in Rome, acted with major companies, moved through stage and television, and became known through roles in classical tragedy, Shakespeare, modern drama, and television productions. He studied philosophy alongside acting, but his institutional identity remained that of actor and performer, not tutor or lecturer. So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate and university-faculty world. Vannucchi belongs to the theatrical, dramatic-academic, and broadcast-performance world. That institutional difference fits your philosophical comparison rather well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer recovers what a speaker means by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under conversational norms. Vannucchi, by contrast, works in the medium that makes those phenomena visible in a public and embodied form. Theatre and recitation make pause, intonation, timing, facial tension, and silence part of meaning itself. In that sense, what Grice analyses abstractly, Vannucchi operationalises performatively. The actor’s craft is to make the audience recover more than the sentence says, reliably and at scale. So the sharpest formulation is this. Grice explains how meaning exceeds the sentence in ordinary conversation. Vannucchi demonstrates how meaning exceeds the sentence in performance. That is why your choice of the 1958 Cetra record is actually excellent. A recited political speech, especially something like Saint-Just on the trial of Louis XVI, is exactly the kind of object where tone, pacing, and rhetorical force do much of the work that a philosopher would call pragmatic or implicatural. The line is not merely a proposition; it becomes a cue to the audience’s inference about necessity, virtue, inevitability, danger, or terror. There are, however, two factual cautions. First, the birthplace line “Caltanisetta” should be checked carefully. The biographical note you give places the family in Cirenaica, then Rome, then Modena, and one would want a secure source before fixing a heading in that way. Second, the title line at the end should be treated as a performance/document record, not a normal philosophical publication. “I Giacobini,” Cetra, Collana Letteraria Documento, CL 0435, with text recited by Zardi and side A devoted to Saint-Just’s discourse, is the right kind of citation if you are treating Vannucchi as curator, editor, or authorial frame in a performative medium. But it is not the same sort of bibliographical object as a monograph. So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the strict collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Luigi Vannucchi, by contrast, was an actor trained in the dramatic academies and companies of modern Italy, active in theatre and television rather than in a university-faculty structure. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Vannucchi to the theatrical and performative world. Intellectually, however, the contrast is illuminating: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of meaning in conversation, whereas Vannucchi shows, through disciplined performance, how timing, pause, tone, and public expectation make the unsaid inferable to an audience. And if I compress it into one line: Grice theorises how conversation implies; Vannucchi performs how speech exceeds itself. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, or a shorter note specifically on Vannucchi as an actor of implicature.la ragione conversazionale. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how an audience gets from what is said to what is meant by attributing intentions under shared norms of cooperative talk; implicatures are what a competent hearer is rationally entitled to infer when an utterance appears (on its face) under-informative, oblique, or otherwise non-maximal, yet is still presumed to be a purposeful move in the exchange. Vannucchi), read through the theatrical trajectory in your passage (classical training, philosophical study alongside acting, major stage roles such as Laerte, Tieste, Antigone, Prometeo, and the famous Don Rodrigo on television), supplies a concrete analogue: theatre makes conversational reason visible by turning pragmatic inference into a public skill—timing, pause, gaze, and intonation become systematic devices for getting the audience to infer what is not explicitly stated. Where Grice offers a general explanatory model (maxims, calculability, cancellability) of how implicature arises in ordinary talk, Vannucchi’s medium operationalizes the same rational dependence on shared expectations: a line can be literally bland yet, in context, carry the real content because the actor’s delivery cues the viewer to recover it. The contrast is thus methodological and evidential: Grice argues from idealized conversational rationality to the structure of meaning; Vannucchi demonstrates, in performance, that meaning routinely exceeds the sentence and is governed by disciplined audience-design, so that “ragione conversazionale” is not only a philosopher’s reconstruction but an actor’s daily craft—an art of making the unsaid inferable, reliably, to a room of strangers. filosofo È il padre dell'attrice Sabina V. Onorato e V. in una scena di Uomini e topi  V. nei panni di Don Rodrigo e Girotti in una scena de I promessi sposi V. nacque in una famiglia colta e agiata. Molto presto la famiglia si trasferì in Cirenaica per motivi di lavoro, e dopo tre anni torna in Italia per stabilirsi a Roma, dove V. trascorse l'infanzia. Durante la guerra il padre accetta di lavorare a Modena all'ufficio del Catasto. Qui V. frequenta brillantemente il liceo classico e si interessa alla letteratura e alla poesia. Alla fine del liceo, contro il parere dei genitori, decide d'iscriversi all'accademia nazionale d'arte drammatica di Roma, diplomandosi assieme ad attori del calibro di Mauri, Graziosi, Sperlì e all'allora allievo regista Camilleri; già durante i corsi ha modo di segnalarsi come attore promettente in occasione dei saggi di fine anno. Prima ancora di diplomarsi, i suoi docenti Amico e Costa lo fanno debuttare nella parte di Cristo nel lavoro teatrale Donna del Paradiso. Studia contemporaneamente filosofia -- entra a far parte della compagnia Gassman-Squarzina, e ottenne successo con rappresentazioni classiche: affianca Gassman in Amleto, interpretando la parte di Laerte, poi interpretò Tieste, I Persiani, Antigone e Prometeo. Passa alla compagnia del Teatro Nuovo di Bosio con diversi spettacoli, tra cui la trasposizione teatrale di Buio a mezzogiorno di Köstler. Ardenzi lo coinvolse in una tournée nell'America del Sud - Brasile, Argentina, Uruguay - organizzata con l'appoggio del Ministero dello Spettacolo. Fra i partecipanti attori del calibro di Anna Proclemer, Giorgio Albertazzi, Renzo Ricci, Eva Magni, Tino Buazzelli, Glauco Mauri, Davide Montemurri, Franca Nuti e Bianca Toccafondi. A parte il Re Lear di Shakespeare, che vedeva riuniti nello stesso spettacolo tutti gli attori principali della compagnia, il repertorio era tutto italiano: Corruzione al Palazzo di giustizia di Betti.  G.  You’ve brought me music. S.  I’ve brought you a disc. G.  That’s what I meant: something with instruments, not with tribunals. S.  This is an instrument. It’s just an instrument of the guillotine. G.  Don’t be melodramatic. S.  It’s Saint‑Just. G.  In Italian? S.  In Italian. G.  That is the first eccentricity. S.  Not the last. It’s under Vannucchi’s name. G.  Luigi Vannucchi? S.  Luigi Vannucchi. 1958. Cetra. Collana Letteraria Documento. CL 0435. G.  You’ve memorised the label like a creed. S.  I’ve memorised it because you can’t bear details unless they’re printed. G.  And who speaks? S.  Federico Zardi. G.  So: Saint‑Just wrote, Zardi recites, Vannucchi edits, Italy presses, and you buy. S.  Exactly. A cooperative enterprise aimed at a very non‑cooperative event. G.  Put it on. S.  Side A. “Discorso di Saint‑Just sul processo a Luigi XVI.” G.  “Sul processo.” Not “per.” Not “in difesa.” Good. S.  You sound relieved. G.  I’m relieved only that it isn’t titled “It is my pleasure.” S.  Don’t start. G.  Fine. But I thought you were bringing music, and it’s a speech. S.  A speech is music if you dislike melody enough. G.  I dislike speeches precisely because they think they are music. S.  Listen. It’s all cadence. G.  It’s all doom. Now, why have it in Italian? S.  Because someone decided that French terror should be exportable. G.  Or because Italian actors can’t resist rhetorical theatre. S.  Vannucchi, remember, is theatre. The whole point is performance as reasoning. G.  That’s your Gricean moral, is it? S.  Yes: implicature by intonation. G.  In a discourse about killing a king. S.  Exactly. The crowd laughs at a pause and the blade falls on a premise. G.  You’re still being melodramatic. S.  You’re avoiding the obvious comparison. G.  Charles I. S.  Yes. G.  The English did it with a block and a prayer, not with a machine and a pamphlet. S.  And with considerably less theatrical theory. G.  Less theory, more ceremony. S.  Saint‑Just is theory as ceremony. G.  He’s also youth with certainty, which is always alarming. S.  Like an undergraduate with a first and a guillotine. G.  Now, the comparison: does Saint‑Just sound like the English regicides? S.  Not quite. The English tend to justify by scripture and legality. G.  Whereas Saint‑Just justifies by “the people,” and treats legality as a costume. S.  And the guillotine makes the costume look clean. G.  There: the machine. It changes everything. S.  Because it turns execution into procedure. G.  Exactly. “We’re not murdering; we’re administering.” S.  Like examinations. G.  Don’t insult examinations. S.  The Examination Schools would be flattered. G.  The French would have held the trial in a hall and sold tickets. S.  They did, in effect. G.  And now Cetra sells it on vinyl. S.  Which is the oddest part: a long‑playing record for a short‑lived king. G.  How long is it? S.  Long enough to remind you that rhetoric can be stretched like a sentence. G.  And this is all in Italian. S.  That’s what delights me. Italian doing the work for French about a king of France. G.  It’s like translating an execution into an aria. S.  Precisely. G.  Now: Charles I. Imagine an LP: “Discorso di Cromwell sul processo a Carlo I.” S.  It would sell poorly in Oxford. G.  It would sell too well in some other places. S.  And nobody wants to hear our own macabre history read aloud in the sitting room. G.  We prefer it footnoted. S.  Whereas the Italians prefer it performed. G.  Now, Vannucchi’s role: he’s presumably curated or adapted. S.  Yes: he’s the named “author” because someone has to be responsible. G.  Responsibility is the one thing guillotines always outsource. S.  And records, too. G.  Now, compare the rhetoric. Saint‑Just speaks as if the king’s death is a syllogism. S.  And the syllogism is: if king, then enemy; if enemy, then death. G.  Whereas the English argued as if they were still hoping to be lawful. S.  They wanted to be lawful while doing something law had never licensed. G.  Exactly. The French were at least honest about the rupture. S.  Honest, or merely louder. G.  Louder. But in Italian it becomes… what? S.  More operatic. Even when it tries to be dry. G.  I can hear the vowels rounding the knife. S.  And Zardi gives it the Roman actor’s weight. G.  Which makes it feel like tragedy rather than pamphlet. S.  But it was pamphlet. G.  And that’s the difference: the LP dignifies it. S.  Like printing minutes. G.  Like publishing “verbali.” S.  Exactly. G.  So what you’ve bought is a performed document: rhetoric disguised as record. S.  Or record disguised as rhetoric. G.  Now, what’s the Gricean angle? S.  That the discourse is designed to make the audience infer necessity. G.  Necessity? S.  Yes: not “we choose to kill him,” but “we must.” G.  That’s the implicature: inevitability. S.  And it’s done by making alternatives unspeakable. G.  Underinformativeness with a blade behind it. S.  Exactly. G.  And in Italian, the underinformativeness becomes even stranger, because Italy isn’t killing Louis. S.  So the audience is only overhearing. G.  Overhearers of a revolutionary speech, sixty‑odd years late, in another language. S.  Which means the speech becomes pure performance. G.  It loses the immediate coercive force. S.  And gains aesthetic force. G.  Which is precisely what worries me about it. S.  Because aesthetic force can make cruelty feel noble. G.  Yes. S.  Whereas the English version of Charles I’s death always feels muddy. G.  Because the axe is messy. S.  And the language is legalistic. G.  And the crowd is cold rather than ecstatic. S.  The guillotine is a machine that makes death look efficient. G.  And efficiency looks like reason, which is the great fraud. S.  Saint‑Just sells death as reason. G.  Vannucchi sells Saint‑Just as theatre. S.  And Cetra sells theatre as “Documento.” G.  This is beginning to feel like a chain of authorship designed to erase guilt. S.  You’re being moral. G.  I’m being English. S.  Compare: Charles I. No LP. G.  Thank goodness. S.  But we do have printed speeches. G.  Yes, but we don’t put them on a turntable. S.  We put them on a syllabus. G.  Which is worse. S.  How? G.  Because then you examine them. S.  You examine Saint‑Just too, apparently. G.  I examine the fact you bought him. S.  I bought Vannucchi, really. G.  That’s your Italian defence. S.  Exactly. “I bought it for the acting.” G.  And therefore the content is incidental. S.  Like buying poison for the bottle. G.  Don’t push it. S.  All right. What do you think Saint‑Just would have said about Charles I? G.  He’d have been bored. S.  Why? G.  No machine. No clean logic. Too much prayer. S.  And what would Cromwell have said about Louis XVI? G.  He’d have thought the French were theatrically impatient. S.  That’s accurate. G.  The English like their regicide to look accidental. S.  The French like it to look necessary. G.  And the Italians like it to sound beautiful. S.  That’s your prejudice. G.  It’s my experience of vowels. S.  Listen: Zardi is now doing the bit where inevitability becomes virtue. G.  Yes. He makes “must” sound like “noble.” S.  Which is the actor’s craft. G.  And Grice would say: the audience supplies the rest. S.  The implicature, yes. G.  The implicature is: if you hesitate, you are complicit. S.  That’s the most coercive implicature there is. G.  And it makes me grateful we didn’t press an LP of Charles I. S.  Because then we’d have to listen to ourselves. G.  And English self‑listening is always embarrassing. S.  Whereas Italians enjoy it. G.  They call it “bella voce.” S.  So what shall we do with this record? G.  Put it back in its sleeve and pretend it was music. S.  That’s cowardly. G.  No. That’s civilized. S.  Then your punchline? G.  If you must have Saint‑Just on vinyl, at least admit what the format means: the Revolution has become background music. S.  And mine? G.  Go on. S.  That if anyone ever makes “Discorso su Carlo I” as an LP, we’ll call it—Collana Letteraria Documento—CL 0001: “Testo recitato da un boia; lato A: silenzio.”Grice: Vannucchi, ho letto con curiosità la sua esperienza tra filosofia e teatro. Secondo lei, la scena teatrale può aiutare a spiegare meglio le implicature conversazionali di cui tanto discutiamo? Vannucchi: Caro Grice, assolutamente! Il teatro, come la filosofia, vive di sottointesi e sguardi. Ogni battuta cela significati che vanno oltre le parole, e il pubblico sa coglierli con una sensibilità speciale. Grice: È vero, spesso la verità si nasconde tra le righe. Mi chiedo: qual è, secondo lei, il valore della conversazione nella formazione dell’attore e del filosofo? Vannucchi: La conversazione, Grice, è l’anima di entrambe le discipline. Nel dialogo si scoprono nuove prospettive e si affinano le emozioni. Senza lo scambio vivo, né la filosofia né il teatro potrebbero rinnovarsi davvero! Vannucchi, Luigi (1958). I Giacobini. Cetra (Collana Letteraria Documento), CL 0435. (Testo recitato da Zardi; lato A: Discorso di St. Just sul processo a Luigi XVI.)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vannucci – Ossia: Grice e Vannucci: la ragione conversationale. Note su Libertà dello spirito. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice.  Giovanni Vannucci (Pistoia): Institutionally, Giovanni Vannucci is very different from Grice, though both are recognisably teachers in worlds shaped by disciplined verbal practice. Grice’s formula is exact in the Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide appointment in the faculty structure. So Grice combines the two classic Oxford functions: college tutor and university lecturer. Giovanni Vannucci belongs to a different institutional ecology altogether. He was a Servite priest, biblical scholar, teacher of exegesis and biblical languages, and later spiritual master and founder of a community at the hermitage of San Pietro alle Stinche. His authority came not from a collegiate tutorial post but from religious formation, theological study, teaching within the Servite world, and the ethical-spiritual force of his preaching, writing, and communal life. So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate and university-faculty world. Vannucci belongs to the ecclesial-theological and eremitical-communal world. That institutional difference fits the philosophical comparison rather well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intention and inferring implicature under shared norms. Vannucci, by contrast, works at a different level and toward a different end. In his world, conversation is not primarily an inferential technique for recovering hidden speaker-meaning. It is a spiritual practice of listening, welcoming, silence, prayer, and communal transformation. The unsaid is often not a calculable implicature but a space in which another person, or God, may be received. So where Grice is primarily epistemic and pragmatic, Vannucci is ascetical and ethical. That gives the sharpest contrast. Grice explains how one interlocutor means something to another. Vannucci treats speech and silence together as a discipline by which persons are formed toward truthfulness, charity, and shared spiritual recognition. Your comparison is therefore good, but it should remain clear that Vannucci is not really a theorist of implicature in the Gricean sense. He is closer to a theologian of conversation and silence. If one uses the Gricean lens at all, one should say that in Vannucci the implicit is not chiefly a hidden proposition but an invitation, a dispositional opening, or a transformation of stance. The bibliographic line you give is also plausible in spirit, but it should be handled carefully. Libertà dello spirito in 1967, in the ecumenical setting you describe, is a good anchor for this phase of Vannucci’s thought, especially because it places him in a world where speech is already communal and ecumenical rather than merely private or propositional. But if one were finalising a dossier, I would want a secure catalogue record for the exact imprint details before fixing them. So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the strict collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Giovanni Vannucci, by contrast, was a Servite priest, teacher of biblical languages and exegesis, and later spiritual guide whose life moved between theological teaching, social initiatives, and eremitical community. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Vannucci to the ecclesial and communal world of theological and spiritual formation. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of conversational meaning, whereas Vannucci treats conversation and silence as a practice of spiritual truthfulness, hospitality, and transformation. And if I compress it into one line: Grice theorises how conversation means; Vannucci exemplifies how conversation, and silence, can sanctify. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, or a shorter note specifically on Vannucci and the relation between speech, silence, and spiritual authority.la ragione conversationale -- Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how hearers get from what is said to what is meant by assuming cooperation and rationality in a talk exchange (the Cooperative Principle and maxims), so that implicature is the orderly product of an interpreter’s reasoning about why an apparently under-informative, indirect, or stylistically marked utterance was nonetheless the right contribution at that point. Giovanni Vannucci (1913–1984), Servite priest and biblical theologian shaped by the Angelicum, teaching of exegesis and biblical languages, and the lived alternation between city initiatives (with David Maria Turoldo) and eremitical life at San Pietro alle Stinche, frames “ragione conversazionale” less as an inferential calculus for recovering hidden propositions than as a spiritual discipline of relation: conversation becomes a practice of ascolto, accoglienza, silenzio, and communal formation, where what is not said (pause, prayer, contemplative reticence) is often the primary medium rather than a secondary layer to be computed. In Grice, the rational norm is primarily epistemic and interpersonal—how an audience can justify an inference to a speaker’s intention on the basis of shared conversational expectations; in Vannucci, the norm is ascetical and ethical—how speech and silence together can dispose persons toward truthfulness, charity, and a shared search for meaning that exceeds explicit formulation. The contrast is sharpened by the bibliographical framing: Libertà dello spirito appears in 1967 as an anthology in the Quaderni di ricerca of the Centro Studi Ecumenici Giovanni XXIII (with a Turoldo preface and later expanded re-editions), and the ecumenical setting underscores that Vannucci’s “implicature,” so to speak, often functions as invitation rather than proposition—an opening of the interlocutor to transformation—whereas Grice’s implicature is classically accountable to reasons, cancellable, and tied to what a speaker can be taken to have meant in a determinate exchange. filosofo, dell'Ordine dei Servi di Maria. Ordinato sacerdote, ottenne la Licenza in Teologia presso l'Ateneo Pontificio "Angelicum".  Insegna esegesi, ebraico e greco biblico negli istituti dei Servi di Maria. Si associò per un anno, con alcuni confratelli, alla comunità di Nomadelfia, animata da Saltini.  Con Turoldo, organizza iniziative sociali, come la “Messa della carità”, nella città di Firenze. Da vita a una nuova comunità – dedita al lavoro, all'accoglienza e alla preghiera – all'Eremo di San Pietro a Le Stinche, nel Chianti.  Da allora lascia l'Eremo solo per tenere incontri ed esercizi spirituali, oltre che corsi di Storia delle religioni presso la Pontificia Facoltà Teologica "Marianum".  Le sue attività e i suoi insegnamenti sono di particolare ispirazione per Ronchi.  Opere Il libro della preghiera universale, Libreria Editrice Fiorentina. Invito alla preghiera, Libreria Editrice Fiorentina, La vita senza fine, CENS; Servitium, Ogni uomo è una zolla di terra, Edizioni Borla, Il passo di Dio. Meditazioni per l'Avvento, Edizioni Paoline, con Maria di Campello) Il canto dell'allodola. Lettere scelte, Qiqajon, Alchimia e liturgia, Lorenzo de' Medici Press, Camici, Uomo di luce: mistagogia e vita spirituale in Giovanni Vannucci, Il Segno dei Gabrielli, Roberto Taioli, La preghiera cosmica di Giovanni Vannucci, su gianfrancobertagni.it. Portale Biografie   Portale Cattolicesimo Categorie: Presbiteri italiani Teologi italiani  Nati a Pistoia Morti a Bagno a Ripoli Serviti italiani. Grice: Padre Vannucci, ho letto con grande interesse le sue riflessioni sulla preghiera universale e sull’accoglienza. Secondo lei, come può la spiritualità aiutare a costruire un dialogo autentico tra le persone? Vannucci: Caro Grice, credo che la spiritualità sia un ponte tra gli uomini. Quando ci apriamo con sincerità, lasciando spazio all’ascolto e all’accoglienza, nasce una conversazione che va oltre le parole e tocca il cuore. Grice: È un pensiero molto bello. Nel suo percorso tra l’eremo e la città, ha notato differenze nel modo in cui le persone comunicano la propria fede e i propri valori? Vannucci: Senz’altro, Grice. In città si avverte spesso un bisogno di trovare senso e comunità, mentre nell’eremo la comunicazione diventa più silenziosa e contemplativa. In entrambi i casi, però, la conversazione spirituale nasce dal desiderio di condividere la vita e di scoprire la luce che abita in ogni uomo. Vannucci, Giovanni (1967). Libertà dello spirito. Bergamo: Centro di Studi Ecumenici Giovanni XXIII.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vareno – Ossia: Grice e Vareno – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Vareno -- H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA – GREX – VERBALIA: VARENO -- Monument of Sextus Varenus Priscus at Tarnaiae Nantuatium. The gens Varena or Varenia, rarely Vorena, was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. Only a few members of this gens are mentioned in Roman literature, but many others are known from inscriptions. Several of the Vareni held minor magistracies at Rome or in other towns during imperial times, including Lucius Varenus Lucullus, who was a military tribune and pontifex during the first century,[1] and Quintus Varenus Ingenuus, who served as aedile and quaestor.[2] Vorena, a woman of this family during the second or third century, seems to have been a Vestal Virgin.[3]  Origin The nomen Varenus belongs to a class of gentilicia ending in -enus, typically derived from other nomina, or occasionally from the names of places.[4] Many of the Vareni are known from inscriptions from towns of Umbria and Sabina, likely indicating their place of origin.  Praenomina The main praenomina of the Vareni were Marcus, Lucius, and Titus, followed by Publius and Gaius. All of these were among the most common praenomina throughout Roman history. A few of the Vareni are found with other praenomina, including Quintus and Gnaeus, while there are individual examples of Decimus, Sextus, and Statius, a praenomen found primarily among the Oscan and Umbrian-speaking peoples of Italy. A freedwoman named Rufa Vorena who lived under the early Empire provides an example of a feminine praenomen.[5]  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Varena C. l., a freedwoman, dedicated a first-century BC tomb at Spoletium in Umbria for her husband, Publius Marcius Varus.[6] Lucius Varenus, accused of murdering Gaius Varenus and attempting to murder Gnaeus Varenus, was defended by Cicero about 79 BC, but nonetheless convicted. Cicero's oration has been lost.[7][8][9][10] Gaius Varenus, murdered about 80 BC, ostensibly by his relative, Lucius Varenus, who was convicted despite being defended by Cicero.[7][8][9][10] Gnaeus Varenus, said to have survived an attempt on his life by his relative, Lucius Varenus, who was tried and convicted for the crime, along with the murder of Gaius Varenus.[7][8][9][10] Gnaeus Varenus L. f., the husband of Rutila Brutsena, with whom he was buried at Interamnia Praetuttiorum in Picenum, in a tomb dating between the middle of the first century BC and the middle of the first century AD.[11] Lucius Varenus or Vorenus, a centurion under the command of Quintus Cicero during the Gallic Wars. He and a rival, Titus Pulfio, fought heroically against the Gauls during a sortie, each rescuing the other despite their rivalry.[12][10] Marcus Varenus M. l. Anteros, a freedman mentioned in a funeral inscription from Rome, dating from the latter half of the first century BC.[13] Lucius Varenus St. f. Taurus, buried at Volsinii in Etruria, in a tomb dating from the latter half of the first century BC.[14] Rufa Vorena P. l. Ge, a freedwoman named in an inscription from Cales in Campania, dating from the late first century BC, or the early first century AD.[5] Lucius Varenus L. f. Celer, named in a first-century sepulchral inscription from Amiternum in Sabinum.[15] Varenus Clarus, a freedman named in a first-century sepulchral inscription from Fulginiae in Umbria.[16] Marcus Varenius Diogenes, built a first-century sepulchre at Rome for himself, his wife, Veturia Maxima, and for Marcus Varenius Fortunatus Maius and Marcus Varenius Fortunatus, probably their sons.[17] Marcus Varenius Fortunatus, a boy buried at Rome, aged seven years, ten months, and fifteen days, in a first-century sepulchre at Rome, built by Marcus Varenius Diogenes, likely his father, for himself, his wife, Veturia Maxima, and Marcus Varenius Fortunatus Maius, perhaps another son.[17] Marcus Varenius Fortunatus Maius, buried at Rome in a first-century sepulchre built by Marcus Varenius Diogenes, probably his father, for himself, his wife, Veturia Maxima, and another Marcus Varenius Fortunatus, perhaps another son.[17] Varenia M. l. Eleutheris, a freedwoman buried at Rome, aged twenty, named in a first-century sepulchral inscription, along with Marcus Varenius Maximus.[18] Marcus Varenus Felix, named in a first-century inscription from Rome.[19] Marcus Varenius Maximus, named in a first-century sepulchral inscription from Rome, along with the freedwoman Varenia Eleutheris.[18] Vorena I[...] Maxima, named in a first-century sepulchral inscription from Amiternum, along with the freedwoman Coelia Salvia.[20] Varena Sabina, the wife of Gnaeus Caninius Faustus, with whom she was buried at Tusculum in Latium, in a family sepulchre built by the freedman Marcus Publilius Stratus, dating from the first half of the first century.[21] Varena Cn. l. Hilara, a freedwoman buried in a first-century tomb at Forum Cassii in Etruria.[22] Sextus Varenus T. f. Priscus, one of the Seviri Augustales, buried at Tarnaiae Nantuatium in Alpes Poeninae, aged fifty-seven, in a tomb dating from the first century, dedicated by one or more of his siblings.[23] Varena Lacte, the wife of Gaius Alledius Marcellus, with whom she dedicated a first- or second-century tomb at Vicus Fificulanus in Sabinum for their son, Gaius Alledius Marcellus, aged fourteen years, four months, and twenty-seven days.[24] Decimus Varenus Bitia, a physician, some of whose prescriptions are recorded in an inscription from the site of modern Rubenach, formerly part of Germania Inferior, dating between the first century and the middle of the third.[25] Quintus Varenus, buried at Hispellum in Umbria, in a sepulchre dating from the beginning of the first century. The freedman Lucius Varenus Chilo was buried in the same sepulchre.[26] Lucius Varenus Chilo, the freedman of Niger, buried in a sepulchre at Hispellum, dating from the beginning of the first century. A Quintus Varenus was buried in the same sepulchre.[26] Varena C. f. Candida, the wife of Gaius Arruntius Ingenuus, buried at Carnuntum in Pannonia Superior, aged thirty-five, in a family sepulchre dating from the early or middle part of the first century, built by her husband for Varena and their sons, Gaius Arruntius Lentulus, aged five, and Gaius Arruntius Ligus, aged three.[27] Varena Lycoris, made an offering to Fortuna at Fulginiae, recorded in an inscription from the early first century.[28] Lucius Varenus L. f. Lucullus, one of the municipal duumvirs at Fulginiae, had been a military tribune, praefectus fabrum, in charge of the military engineers, and pontifex. His career is recorded in an inscription dating between the reigns of Tiberius and Claudius.[1] Varenia Montanilla, the daughter of Montanus, buried at the site of modern Cavillargues, formerly part of Aquitania, aged twenty-two, in a tomb built by her husband, Quintus Solonius Philippus, dating between the first and third century.[29] Varena Q. f. Major, the wife of Marcus Lartidius, named in inscriptions from Tibur.[30] Marcus Varenus Ɔ. M. Lartidi l. Clarus, freed by Marcus Lartidius and his wife, Varena Major, according to an inscription from Nola in Campania, dating from AD 21.[31] Marcus Varenus Ɔ. M. Lartidi l. Diphilus, freed by Marcus Lartidius and his wife, Varena Major, made a donation to the maintenance of the temple of Hercules at Tibur in Latium.[32][33] Marcus Varenus Herma, buried at Rome in a tomb dating from the middle portion of the first century, dedicated by his clientes Marcus Varenus Hermes and Marcus Varenus Eutychus.[34] Marcus Varenus Hermes, together with Marcus Varenus Eutychus, dedicated a mid-first-century tomb at Rome for their patron, Marcus Varenus Herma.[34] Marcus Varenus Eutychus, together with Marcus Varenus Hermes, dedicated a mid-first-century tomb at Rome for their patron, Marcus Varenus Herma.[34] Quintus Varenus C. f. Ingenuus, buried at Tuder in Sabinum, along with his concubine, Flaminia Horeis, in a tomb dating between the middle of the first and end of the second century, had been aedile, quaestor, and duumvir jure dicundo.[2] Marcus Varenus M. f. Valens, a veteran of the Legio VII Claudia, made a will naming his freedman, Marcus Varenus Secundus, as his heir, commemorated by an inscription from Aequum in Dalmatia, dating between the reign of Claudius and the middle of the second century.[35] Marcus Varenus M. l. Secundus, the freedman of Marcus Varenus Valens, who named him as his heir, according to an inscription from Aequum, dating between the reign of Claudius and the middle of the second century.[35] Marcus Varenus Tyrannus, the freedman of Clarus, mentioned in an inscription relating to the amphitheatre at Praeneste in Latium, dating from the latter part of the reign of Claudius.[36] Varena Chelido, dedicated a tomb at Rome, dating between the middle of the first and the middle of the second century, for her patron and husband, Publius Aerenus Teres, aged forty-nine.[37] Marcus Varenus Aprilis, a potter whose maker's mark has been found on small earthenware from Pompeii in Campania.[38] Marcus Varenus Crescens, a potter whose work has been found at Pompeii.[39] Publius Varenus Zetus, named on a first-century bronze label from Pompeii.[40] Publius Varenus Q. f. Modestus, a native of Ariminum in Cisalpine Gaul, was a soldier in the ninth cohort of the Praetorian Guard at Rome, serving in the century of Maturus. He was buried in a first-century tomb at Rome, aged forty, having served for twenty years.[41] Varena Secunda, named in a late first- or early second-century inscription from Rome, along with a Tessia.[42] Titus Varenus Priscus, one of the seviri Augustales, buried at Ameria in Umbria, in a tomb dating between the middle of the first century and the end of the second.[43] Varenus Atilius, together with his wife, Severina, dedicated a second-century tomb at Peltuinum in Sabinum for their son, Chrestus, aged six years, one month.[44] Varenius Fortunatus, inurned in a second-century cinerarium at Rome, along with Aemilia Ammia.[45] Varenia Helena, together with Lucius Valerius Justus, one of the heirs of Valerius of Alexandria, a soldier buried in a second-century tomb at Misenum in Campania, aged fifty-six years, four months, and twelve days, having served for twenty-six years. The inscription naming them may be a modern forgery.[46] Marcus Varenius Januarius, buried at Rome, aged ninety-six, along with his wife, Lusia Nomice, in a second-century tomb dedicated by their client, Marcus Varenius Felix.[47] Marcus Varenius Felix, dedicated a second-century tomb at Rome for his patrons, Marcus Varenius Januarius and his wife, Lusia Nomice.[47] Varenia Justina, the wife of Thorasius Felix, with whom she dedicated a second-century tomb at Sassina in Umbria for their daughter, Thorasia Marcellina, aged fourteen years, seven months, and fourteen days.[48] Gaius Varenus Privatus, buried in a second-century tomb at Aquileia in Venetia and Histria, dedicated by his daughter, Clodia Moschis.[49] Varena, a woman named in a second- or third-century sepulchral inscription from Viminacium in Moesia Superior.[50] Vorena, at one time a Vestal Virgin, dedicated a second- or third-century tomb at Ostia in Latium for her son, Quintus Vorenus.[3] Quintus Vorenus, buried in a second- or third-century tomb at Ostia, dedicated by his mother, Vorena, who had been a Vestal Virgin.[3] Varenia Felicissima, dedicated a second- or third-century tomb at Rome for her daughter, Aurelia Hermione.[51] Varena Jucunda, the wife of Gaius Turranius Hermadion, with whom she dedicated a second- or third-century tomb at Rome for their children, Augurinus, aged twelve years, two months, twenty-five days, and Augurina, aged six years, four months, four days.[52] Varenius Montanus, buried at Lambaesis in Numidia, aged sixty-seven, in a second- or third-century tomb built by his wife, Julia Licinia.[53] Varenus Rufus, governor of Bithynia and Pontus from AD 105 to 106.[54][55] Titus Varenius Probus, one of the duumvirs at Sarmizegetusa in Dacia, where he was buried in a tomb built by his son, Varenius Pudens, dating from the early second century.[56] Titus Varenius T. f. Pudens, an eques, and flamen of the Roman colony at Sarmizgetusa, where he dedicated an early second-century tomb for his father, Titus Varenius Probus.[56][57] Publius Varenius Nerva, one of the donors to the enlargement of a mid-second-century temple at Ostia in Latium.[58] Publius Varenius Zethus, another of the donors to the enlargement of the temple at Ostia.[58] Varena Quinta, built a mid- to late-second century tomb at Iader in Dalmatia for her husband, Marcus Cursineius Dexter.[59] Marcus Varenius Hermes, a nummularius, or money changer, built a tomb for his wife, Masclinia Aquina, at Colonia in Germania Inferior, dating from the latter half of the second century.[60] Lucius Varenius Rufus, possibly a tribune, made an offering to Jupiter at Misenum, dating between the middle of the second century and the middle of the third.[61] Varena, the mother of a woman buried at Misenum between the latter half of the second century, and the first half of the third, aged twenty-three. A Macrinus named shortly before Varena might be the woman's father.[62] Varena Donata, dedicated a tomb at Rome, dating from the latter half of the second century, for the youth Marcus Varenus Zmaragdus.[63] Varena Marcella, dedicated a tomb at Rome, dating from the latter half of the second century, or the first half of the third, for her husband, the freedman Gaius Turranius Arianus, with whom she had lived for eleven years.[64] Marcus Varenus Zmaragdus, a youth buried at Rome, aged thirteen years, six months, and twelve days, in a tomb dedicated by Varena Donata, dating from the latter half of the second century.[63] Varenia Tecusa, dedicated a tomb at Rome, dating from the latter half of the second century, for her brother, Lucius Aelius Crispinus.[65] Lucius Varenius (L. f.?), a soldier listed in an inscription from Rome, dating from AD 153.[66] Marcus Varenus Polybius, made a libation in honour of Jupiter Optimus Maximus at Forum Livii in Aemilia Regio in AD 170. In 185, he and Varena Chrysidia made a libation to Juno Regina, also at Forum Livii.[67][68] Publius Varenus Probus, one of the public curatores at Cures in Sabinum, along with Gaius Julius Felix, Manius Paccius Hermes, and Publius Postumius Zeuxippus, who participated in a libation and dedicatory offering in AD 173.[69] Varena Chrysidia, along with Marcus Varenus Polybius, made a libation to Juno Regina at Forum Livii in AD 185.[68] Titus Varenius Probus, an eques, and one of the duumvirs at Sarmizegetusa, buried along with his sister in a tomb dating from the late second century, dedicated by his colleague, the pontifex Marcus Cominius Quintus.[70] Lucius Varenus Venustus, along with his daughter, Varena Prima, dedicated a tomb at Fulginiae, dating between the middle of the second and the middle of the third, for his son, Lucius Varenus Severus, a soldier in the eleventh urban cohort.[71] Varena L. f. Prima, along with her father, Lucius Varenus Venustus, dedicated a tomb at Fulginiae, dating between the middle of the second century and the middle of the third, for her brother, Lucius Varenus Severus, a soldier in the eleventh urban cohort.[71] Lucius Varenus L. f. Severus, a soldier in the eleventh Urban Cohort, was buried at Fulginiae, aged eighteen years, four months, and twelve days, in a tomb dating between the middle of the second century and the middle of the third, dedicated by his father, Lucius Varenus Venustus, and sister, Varena Prima.[71] Varenia Diogenis, the wife of Gaius Salonius Theodotus, was buried at Portus in Latium, in a tomb built by her husband, dating from the first half of the third century.[72] Varenius Taurus, the father of Varenius Lupus and Varenius Provincialis, known from a third-century funerary inscription from Lugdunum in Gaul.[73] Varenius Lupus, the son of Taurus, was a young man buried at Lugdunum during the first half of the third century, aged twenty years, seven months, and fifteen days, in a tomb built by his brother, Varenius Provincialis.[73] Varenius Provincialis, the son of Taurus, dedicated a tomb at Lugdunum, dating from the first half of the third century, for his brother, Varenius Lupus.[73] Titus Varenius T. f. Pudens, an eques, was one of the decurions at Sarmizegetusa, and a patron of the neighboring towns of Apulum and Porolissum, according to a Severan-era inscription.[74] Gaius Varenus Terminalis, a soldier in the fifth cohort of the vigiles at Rome in AD 205, serving in the century of Aulupor.[75] Titus Varenius Gallicanus, an officer in the collegium fabrorum, or artisans' guild, at Sarmizegetusa, according to an inscription dating from the second quarter of the third century.[76] Varenius Legitimus, together with Cornelius Trophimus, one of the municipal duumvirs of Laurentum and Lavinium in Latium in AD 227 or 228.[77] Titus Varenius T. f. Sabinianus, an eques buried at Alba Julia in Dacia during the middle part of the third century, in a tomb built by his wife, Cornelia Lucilla, and sister, Varenia Probina, had been a soldier, decurion, and flamen at several towns in Dacia.[78] Varena, dedicated a tomb at Rome, dating from the middle to late third century, for her daughter, Quinta Flavia Severina, aged two years, ten months, and seventeen days.[79] Varena, named on a cinerarium found at the site of modern Sesto Calende, formerly part of Cisalpine Gaul, dating between the middle of the third and the end of the fourth century.[80] Undated Vareni Varena, mentioned in a funerary inscription from Vicus Fificulanus.[81] Varena T. f., along with her sister, Severilla, and Symphorus, perhaps their freedman, made an offering at Augusta Praetoria in Cisalpine Gaul to the spirit of their father, Titus, and to Juno.[82] Varenus, named in a sepulchral inscription from Rome.[83] Varenus, a freedman of the emperor, was an adjutor tabelarii, or deputy accountant. He made a libation in honor of Apollo at Ostia.[84] Varenus, named in an inscription from Nemausus in Gallia Narbonensis.[85] Varenus, a centurion primus pilus named in an inscription from an uncertain province.[86] Varenius, named in an inscription from the site of modern Gailhan, formerly part of Gallia Narbonensis.[87] Publius Varenus, the former master of Primigenius, the son of Yimenaeus, a little boy buried at Rome, aged three years and four months.[88] Varenia Agrippina, the wife of Lucius Arvianius Lentulus Festus, with whom she built a tomb at Rome for their son, Lucius Arvianius Justus Agrippinus, aged eight years, forty days.[89] Varena P. l. Arescusa, a freedwoman buried at Florentia in Etruria, together with her fellow freedwoman, Rompenna Philas.[90] Varenia Auge, buried at Nemausus, in a tomb built by her husband, Caesius Patroclus.[91] Marcus Varenus Ɔ. l. Clemens, a freedman buried at Rome, in a family sepulchre built by the freedwoman Varena Fausta for her patron, Marcus Varenus Phileros and Marcus Canuleius Chrestus.[92] Varena M. l. Fausta, a freedwoman, built a family sepulchre at Rome for her patron, Marcus Varenus Phileros, and the freedmen Marcus Varenus Clemens and Marcus Canuleius Chrestus.[92] Marcus Varenus M. l. Faustus, a freedman named in a sepulchral inscription from Rome.[93] Marcus Varenus Hermadio, supposedly a freedman, who with his conliberti Marcus Varenus Pasiphilus and Marcus Varenus Onesimus, dedicated a tomb at Rome for their patron, Marcus Varenus Macarianus. The inscription is thought to be a forgery.[94] Marcus Varenus M. l. Gamus, a freedman buried in a family sepulchre at Rome, along with Tutilia Helena, Marcus Varenus Potitus, and Gaius Valerius Achilles.[92] Marcus Varenus Graphicus, along with the freedwoman Vibia Hermione, perhaps his wife, dedicated a sepulchre at Rome for Vibia Quieta, former mistress of Hermione, and her two daughters, Veneria, aged seven years, ten months, and Helpis, aged twelve years, twenty-seven days.[95] Varena or Varenia Longina, together with her daughter, Varena Harmonia, dedicated a tomb at Rome for her husband, Lucius Plotius Dio. Longina also built a tomb at Ostia for her daughter, Plotia Sabina, aged three years, two months.[96][97] Varena L. f. Harmonia, the daughter of Lucius Plotius Dio and Varena Longina. She and her mother built a tomb at Rome for her father.[96] Marcus Varenus Liberalis, named on a lead pipe found at Rome.[98] Marcus Varenus Macarianus, supposed to have been buried at Rome in a tomb dedicated by his freedmen, Marcus Varenus Pasiphilus, Marcus Varenus Hermadio, and Marcus Varenus Onesimus. The inscription is thought to be a forgery.[94] Marcus Varenus Onesimus, supposedly a freedman, who with his conliberti Marcus Varenus Hermadio and Marcus Varenus Pasiphilus, dedicated a tomb at Rome for their patron, Marcus Varenus Macarianus. The inscription is thought to be a forgery.[94] Marcus Varenus Pasiphilus, supposedly a freedman, who with his conliberti Marcus Varenus Hermadio and Marcus Varenus Onesimus, dedicated a tomb at Rome for their patron, Marcus Varenus Macarianus. The inscription is thought to be a forgery.[94] Marcus Varenus M. l. Phileros, a freedman buried at Rome, in a tomb dedicated by his client, the freedwoman Varena Fausta, for herself, Phileros, and the freedmen Marcus Varenus Clemens and Marcus Canuleius Chrestus.[92] Marcus Varenus M. l. Potitus, a freedman buried in a family sepulchre at Rome, along with Marcus Varenus Gamus, Tutilia Helena, and Gaius Valerius Achilles.[92] Varenia Primitiva, buried at Rome, in a sepulchre built by her husband, Gaius Baebius Evangelus, for himself and his family.[99] Varenus Proculeianus, a centurion mentioned in an inscription from Bovium in Britannia.[100] Titus Varenius Severus, the husband of Frontinia Servata, a woman buried at Nemausus, aged thirty-five years, seven months, and twelve days, in a tomb built by Varenius and her parents, Gaius Frontinius Servatus and Secundina, the daughter of Paternus.[101] Marcus Varenius Valentinus, buried at Rome in a tomb build by his parents.[102] Marcus Varenius Valentinus, buried at Castrimoenium in Latium, in a tomb built by his parents.[103] Gaius Varenius Varus, guardian of the Roman settlers among the Osismi in Gallia Lugdunensis, dedicated a statue to Neptunus Hippius. The base of the statue with its inscription was found in 1948; the statue was found nearby in 2004.[104][105] See also List of Roman gentes References  CIL XI, 5220a.  CIL XI, 4662.  AE 1985, 258.  Chase, p. 118.  AE 1987, 251i.  CIL XI, 4886.  Quintilian, x. 13. § 28; vii. 1. § 9; ix. 2. § 56.  Cicero, Fragmenta, iv. p. 443.  Drumann, v. pp. 244, 245.  "Lucius Varenus", in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 1220.  CIL IX, 5124.  Caesar, De Bello Gallico, v. 44.  CIL VI, 11470.  AE 1988, 490.  CIL IX, 4333.  BDSPU, 2020-15,7.  CIL VI, 28318.  CIL VI, 28323.  CIL VI, 10405.  CIL IX, 4303.  CIL XIV, 2556, CIL XIV, 2557.  AE 1977, 260.  CIL XII, 153.  CIL IX, 7608.  AE 1941, 85.  AE 1992, 561.  CIL III, 4506.  AE 2012, 469.  CIL XII, 2789.  CIL XIV, 3859, AE 2013, 201.  CIL X, 1333.  CIL XIV, 3687, CIL XIV, 3688.  AE 2013, 201.  CIL VI, 28320.  CIL III, 9761.  CIL XIV, 3010.  CIL VI, 5360.  CIL X, 8048,46a.  CIL X, 8048,48a–c.  CIL X, 8058,90.  AE 1979, 84.  AE 2012, 219.  CIL XI, 4533.  CIL IX, 3463.  Gregori, Epigrafica dell'antiquarium comunale del Celio, 487.  CIL X, 3500.  CIL VI, 28321.  CIL XI, 6582.  CIL V, 1439.  CIL III, 14526.  CIL VI, 28326.  CIL VI, 27805.  CIL VIII, 4126.  Pliny the Younger, epistulae, v. 20; vi. 6, 13; vii. 6, 10; xxix. 11.  PIR, iii. 384 (V. 177).  CIL III, 1482.  CIL III, 1514.  CIL XIV, 246.  Šašel and Šašel, Inscriptiones Latinae quae in Iugoslavia, iii. 2885.  AE 1927, 67.  CIL X, 3337.  CIL X, 8195.  AE 1967, 49.  CIL VI, 27798.  AE 2008, 207.  CIL VI, 2380.  CIL XI, 619.  CIL XI, 620.  CIL IX, 4970.  CIL III, 1513.  CIL XI, 5219.  CIL XIV, 1732.  CIL XIII, 2037.  CIL III, 1486.  CIL VI, 1057.  CIL III, 13779.  AE 1998, 282.  CIL III, 1198.  BCAR, 1946/48-229.  RIL, 1914-344.  CIL IX, 7617.  AE 1959, 100.  CIL VI, 19610.  CIL XIV, 4279.  CIL XII, 3142.  CIL XI, 6716,100.  CIL XII, 3020.  CIL VI, 24945.  CIL VI, 12489.  CIL XI, 1681.  CIL XII, 4004.  CIL VI, 28324  CIL VI, 28319.  CIL VI, 28322.  CIL VI, 28882.  CIL VI, 24308  CIL XIV, 1478.  CIL XV, 7562.  AE 2020, 143.  RIB, ii. 1, 2409,09.  CIL XII, 2760.  CIL VI, 28325.  AE 1979, 130.  AE 1952, 22.  Éveillard and Maligorne, "Une statue de Neptune Hippius". Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, Fragmenta (ed. Orelli). Gaius Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic War). Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (Quintilian), Institutio Oratoria (Institutes of Oratory). Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Pliny the Younger), Epistulae (Letters). Wilhelm Drumann, Geschichte Roms in seinem Übergang von der republikanischen zur monarchischen Verfassung, oder: Pompeius, Caesar, Cicero und ihre Zeitgenossen, Königsberg (1834–1844). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale in Roma (Bulletin of the Municipal Archaeological Commission of Rome, abbreviated BCAR), (1872–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). Rendiconti Reale Istituto lombardo di scienze e lettere (Reports of the Royal Institute of Lombardy of Science and Letters, abbreviated RIL). Anna and Jaroslav Šašel, Inscriptiones Latinae quae in Iugoslavia inter annos MCMXL et MCMLX repertae et editae sunt (Inscriptions from Yugoslavia Found and Published between 1940 and 1960), Ljubljana (1963–1986). The Roman Inscriptions of Britain (abbreviated RIB), Oxford, (1990–present). Gian Luca Gregori, La collezione epigrafica dell'antiquarium comunale del Celio (The Epigraphic Collection of the Ancient Community of the Caelian Hill), Quasar, Rome (2001). Jean-Yves Éveillard, Yvan Maligorne, "Une statue de Neptune Hippius à Douarnenez (Finistère)", in Actes du Xe colloque international sur l'art provincial romain, Arles, pp. 557–563 (May 2007). Bollettino della reale Deputazione di Storia patria per l'Umbria (Bulletin of the Royal Deputation of the History of the Fatherland of Umbria, abbreviated BDSPU). Category: Roman gentes And from THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vareno – Ossia: Grice e Vareno – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Vareno For the Vareni, I think the choice is overwhelmingly:  Lucius Varenus (or Vorenus), the centurion of Caesar's Bellum Gallicum. [GREXv3 | Word]  Not the governor of Bithynia, not the municipal magistrates, not even Cicero's unfortunate client. For Grice and Speranza, the centurion is irresistible. Why? Because Caesar gives us something very like a conversational drama. Recall the famous episode (B.G. 5.44): Lucius Varenus and Titus Pullo are rivals. Each wants to outdo the other. One rushes forward to display courage; the other follows; each gets into danger; each rescues the other. The entire episode turns on mutual interpretation of motives. [GREXv3 | Word] The Gricean point is that neither man says very much. Yet each infers:  "He wishes to prove himself."  and then:  "I shall prove myself more."  The episode is full of what Grice would later call reasoning about another's intentions.  A Grice-Speranza reconstruction might begin: Pullo:  Vide nunc uter nostrum melior sit. (Let us see which of us is the better man.)  Varenus:  Videbimus. (We shall see.)  +> Varenus interprets Pullo's move as a challenge rather than a mere remark.  Then Pullo rushes forward. Pullo:  Sequimini! (Follow me!)  Varenus:  Non relinquam. (I shall not leave him behind.)  +> Rivalry gives rise to assistance.  This is exactly the sort of case Grice liked. The literal content is slight. The practical significance comes from what is inferred.  My second choice, much less dramatically, would be:  Lucius Varenus, Cicero's client. [GREXv3 | Word]  Mainly because the speech is lost. A lost Ciceronian defense always tempts reconstruction. One imagines: Cicero:  Non fecit. (He did not do it.)  +> Therefore someone else did. (Ha.) But the dossier is too thin.  There is also a charming candidate:  Vorena, apparently a former Vestal Virgin who later dedicates a tomb for her son. [GREXv3 | Word]  That raises every possible Roman puzzle at once:  Vestal status, motherhood, chronology, identity.  Very Borgesian. Yet not particularly Gricean.  So my verdict is: First-best Grice-Speranza vignette  Lucius Varenus and Titus Pullo. [GREXv3 | Word]  Because the episode is practically a study in conversational and practical implicature. Neither says:  "I envy you."  Neither says:  "I intend to surpass you."  Neither says:  "I shall rescue you."  Yet all three propositions become manifest through action. And for Grice, one of the deepest lessons was that meaning does not always arrive in words. Sometimes a Roman centurion charging out of the camp communicates far more than a philosopher delivering a lecture. Indeed one could imagine Grice ending the tutorial: Tutor:  "Why did Varenus follow Pullo?"  Tutee:  "Because Pullo explicitly requested assistance?"  Tutor:  "No. Because he understood what Pullo meant."  (Ha.)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vargunteio – Ossia: Grice e Vargunzio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Vargunzio. J. L. SPERANZA E H. P. GRICE – GREX – VERBALIA: VARGUNTEIO -- Silver denarius of Marcus Vargunteius, depicting Jupiter driving a quadriga. The gens Vargunteia was a minor plebeian family of ancient Rome. Only a few members of this gens are mentioned by Roman writers, of whom the best known include one of the Catilinian conspirators, and a noteworthy grammarian mentioned by Suetonius. Others are known from inscriptions, including a Lucius Vargunteius who attained the praetorship during the second century BC.  Origin The nomen Vargunteius belongs to a large class of gentilicia formed using the suffix -eius, which was typical of, although not exclusive to names of Oscan origin.[1]  Praenomina The main praenomina of the Vargunteii were Marcus and Lucius, both of which were among the most common names at all periods of Roman history. A few Vargunteii bore other common names, including Gnaeus and Quintus.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Lucius Vargunteius L. f. Rufus, praetor in an uncertain year belonging to the middle portion of the second century BC, according to inscriptions from Rome and Setia.[2] Marcus Vargunteius, triumvir monetalis at some time between 130 and 110 BC.[3][4][5][6] Lucius Vargunteius, a Roman senator, was accused of bribery, and defended by Quintus Hortensius. In 63 BC, he joined the conspiracy of Catiline, in the course of which Vargunteius and Gaius Cornelius Cethegus intended to assassinate the consul Cicero. When the plot was revealed, Vargunteius was placed on trial, and no advocate was willing to defend him.[7][8][4][9] Lucius Vargunteius, the master of a slave named Menander, named along with other slaves serving a religious order at Minturnae in Latium, in an inscription dating from the first half of the first century BC.[10] Vargunteius, a Legate of Marcus Licinius Crassus during his disastrous campaign against the Parthians in 53 BC. Near Carrhae, Vargunteius led four cohorts away from the main Roman force, but they lost their way in the dark of night, and were surrounded on a low hill, where the legate and all but twenty of his men were slain.[11][12][4] Varguntea, named in a sepulchral inscription from Rome, dating between 30 and 20 BC.[13] Lucius Vargunteius Martialis, named along with the freedwomen Patulcia Sabbatis and Patulcia Auge in a sepulchral inscription from Rome, dating between the last quarter of the first century BC, and the first quarter of the first century AD.[14] Quintus Vargunteius, a grammarian, and an authority on Ennius.[15][4] Vargunteia Optata, buried at Tarentum in Calabria, in a tomb built by her husband, Lucius Helvius Dionysius, dating from the first half of the first century.[16] Marcus Vargunteius Secundus, one of several persons, some of them freedwomen, named in a sepulchral inscription from Ferentinum in Latium, dating from the first half of the first century.[17] Vargunteia Nais, together with Lucius Curius Eutrapelus, made offerings to Latona at Aricia, and to Diana Nemorensis at Nemus Dianae, both in Latium, during the first or second century.[18] Vargunteia M. f. Procilla, together with her husband, Numerius Clodius Nymphicus, and son, Numerius Clodius Numerianus, built a family sepulchre at Frusino in Latium for themselves and Numerius Clodius Proculinus, late son of Procilla and Nymphicus, dating between the late first century and the end of the second.[19] Marcus Vargunteius Victor, an agent of the officials in charge of the distribution of grain at Portus in Latium, on behalf of the praefectus annonae Messius Extricatus, named in an inscription dated the fifteenth day before the Kalends of October,[i] AD 210.[20] Undated Vargunteii Vargunteia, built a tomb at Rome for Marcus Vargunteius.[21] Gnaeus Vargunteius, a potter, whose maker's mark has been found on ceramics from Ferentinum.[22] Marcus Vargunteius, buried at Rome, in a tomb built by Vargunteia.[21] Marcus Vargunteius, a potter, whose maker's mark appears on ceramics from Rome.[23] Vargu[nteius?] Nestor, named along with Antistia Sabina in a sepulchral inscription from Trebula Mutuesca in Sabinum.[24] See also List of Roman gentes Notes  September 17. References  Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", pp. 120, 121.  CIL VI, 28331, AE 1991, 426.  Eckhel, Doctrina Numorum Veterum, v. 335  William Smith, "Vargunteius", in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 1220.  Broughton, Magistrates of the Roman Republic, vol. II, p. 455.  Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, pp. 283, 284.  Sallust, Bellum Catilinae, 17, 28, 47.  Cicero, pro Sulla, 2, 24.  Broughton, Magistrates of the Roman Republic, vol. II, p. 497.  CIL I, 2693.  Plutarch, "The Life of Crassus", 28.  Broughton, Magistrates of the Roman Republic, vol. II, pp. 227, 232.  CIL VI, 7832.  CIL VI, 23859.  Suetonius, De Illustribus Grammaticis, 2.  Archivio Storico Pugliese, 2004–141,40.  CIL X, 5870.  CIL XIV, 2157, CIL XIV, 2214.  CIL X, 5662.  AE 1977, 171.  CIL VI, 28328.  CIL X, 8056.  CIL XV, 1490,1, CIL XV, 1490,2.  CIL IX, 4935. Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, Pro Sulla. Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Sallust), Bellum Catilinae (The Conspiracy of Catiline). Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, De Illustribus Grammaticis (On the Illustrious Grammarians). Archivio Storico Pugliese, Società di storia patria per la Puglia (1948–present). T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association (1952–1986). 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). Michael Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, Cambridge University Press (1974, 2001). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). Joseph Hilarius Eckhel, Doctrina Numorum Veterum (The Study of Ancient Coins, 1792–1798). Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–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: Vargunteio – Ossia: Grice e Vargunzio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Vargunzio For the Vargunteii, my first choice is not the Catilinarian, but it is a close contest. I would choose:  Quintus Vargunteius, the grammarian and authority on Ennius. [GREXv3 | Word]  Why? Because for a Grice-Speranza vignette, grammarians are often more interesting than conspirators. A conspirator acts. A grammarian asks:  "What did he mean?"  And that question is already halfway to Grice.  The surviving notice is tiny. Suetonius records Quintus Vargunteius as a grammarian and authority on Ennius. [GREXv3 | Word] But think what that implies. He would have been dealing with:  textual variants, interpretation, archaic vocabulary, explanations of difficult passages.  A Gricean immediately sees:  utterance, speaker, audience, meaning.  Indeed, many ancient grammatical disputes are really disputes about intended meaning.  A possible vignette: Discipulus:  Quid Ennius hoc versu dixit? (What did Ennius mean in this line?)  Vargunteius:  Non quaere quid verba tantum significent; quaere quid efficere velit. (Ask not only what the words signify; ask what he wishes to achieve.)  +> Meaning resides not merely in the expression but in the communicative purpose. A surprisingly Gricean sentiment. (Ha.)  My second choice would be:  Lucius Vargunteius, the Catilinarian conspirator. [GREXv3 | Word]  This fellow is attractive because he intended to murder Cicero. According to Sallust, Lucius Vargunteius and Gaius Cornelius Cethegus planned to call on the consul and assassinate him. [GREXv3 | Word] Now that is a Gricean nightmare. The speech act:  "Good morning, consul."  carries the implicature:  "I come peacefully."  while the speaker intends:  murder.  An almost perfect case of divergence between overt and covert intention.  One might reconstruct: Vargunteius:  Consulem salutatum venio. (I come to pay my respects to the consul.)  +> I intend the consul to believe I come as a friend. Cicero:  Ingredere. (Enter.)  +> The intended audience accepts the overt communicative design. Unfortunately, the underlying practical intention is different. Grice would have enjoyed the complexity.  A third candidate, surprisingly, is:  the unnamed Vargunteius who served under Crassus at Carrhae. [GREXv3 | Word]  Why? Because he becomes a victim of communication failure. Sent at night, separated from the main force, lost in the dark, surrounded, killed. [GREXv3 | Word] One imagines defective instructions, uncertain bearings, misunderstood information. A military counterpart to conversational breakdown.  Still, my final verdict remains: First-best Grice-Speranza vignette: Vargunteius because the grammarian stands nearest to the central Gricean question:  When an author says x, what does he mean by saying x?  The Catilinarian gives us hidden intentions. The grammarian gives us interpretation itself. And since Speranza repeatedly returns to:  Ennius, archaic Latin, etymology, textual reconstruction,  I can easily imagine a dialogue: Grice:  "What did Ennius mean?"  Vargunteius:  "That depends."  Grice:  "Excellent. Let us begin there."  (Ha.) ANd what was Ennius's birth gens? Was he a full-fledged Roman. Is grammaticus -- letteratus in Svetonio. Do we have the Latin. Grice, used to Oxford, would say that to say, "Grice, our man in implicature" implicates Grice is no good at implicature. Cf. "Our hero, V., our man in Ennius." Wasn't Ennius clear enough to explain him-self? If letteratura ars grammatica techne, there may be a minutiae -- Svetonio doesn't sound like ultra-Hellenistic -- why did he care to quote 'secondary bibliography'? Thanks A lovely Grice-Speranza question. I suspect Grice would have been far more interested in Vargunteius than in the Catilinarian assassin precisely because a grammaticus stands at the border between:  what an author said, what an author meant, what later readers think he meant. [GREXv3 | Word]  And that is practically Grice's native habitat. Ennius and citizenship Ennius was not born a Roman citizen. He came from Rudiae in Calabria (more precisely, ancient Messapian territory in southern Italy). He famously claimed to possess "three hearts" (tria corda), because he knew Greek, Oscan, and Latin. He acquired Roman citizenship later through the patronage of Marcus Fulvius Nobilior. So the father of Roman epic begins life not as a Roman in the strict civic sense, but as an Italic provincial who gradually becomes Roman. That fact alone would have delighted Borges.  Suetonius' Latin The passage in Suetonius is very brief. In De Grammaticis he mentions:  Quintus Vargunteius  as one of the authorities on Ennius. [GREXv3 | Word] What is important is that Suetonius is writing a history of the grammarians. And here we should resist the modern word "grammar." The ancient grammaticus is not merely a schoolmaster teaching declensions. Rather, he is:  reader, editor, textual critic, literary historian, commentator, interpreter.  The Greek equivalent:  γραμματικός  belongs to the wider τέχνη γραμματική. It is already close to literary scholarship. So when Suetonius cites Vargunteius, he is not citing "secondary bibliography" in a modern footnoting sense. He is recording part of a chain of literary transmission.  Was Ennius unclear? A Gricean answer would be:  Not necessarily.  The existence of commentators does not prove obscurity. Indeed, Grice's own example:  "our man in implicature"  is pertinent. If one says:  "Grice, our man in implicature"  one may generate the implicature:  Grice is notable chiefly for implicature, perhaps not for other things.  Yet Grice himself would hear a further nuance:  Why the restriction?  The phrase achieves prominence by seeming to narrow.  Likewise:  "Vargunteius, our man in Ennius."  (Ha.) That phrase may implicate:  Vargunteius is especially trustworthy on Ennius,  or perhaps:  Vargunteius concerns himself with Ennius because Ennius needs explanation.  The latter does not follow. It is merely a possible implicature.  Why explain Ennius at all? Because by the time of the grammarians, Ennius had already become ancient. This is something modern readers often forget. For us:  Ennius → ancient Roman poet.  For a grammarian under Augustus or Tiberius:  Ennius → old-fashioned Roman poet.  His vocabulary, forms, and usage had already become archaic. A Latin reader of the first century AD could need help with Ennius much as a modern English undergraduate sometimes needs help with:  Langland, Chaucer, or parts of Beowulf.  Not because the authors were defective communicators, but because language changes.  A Griceian reconstruction Discipulus:  Cur Ennium exponis? Nonne satis clare scripsit? (Why do you explain Ennius? Did he not write clearly enough?)  Vargunteius:  Clare scripsit suis. (He wrote clearly enough for his own people.)  +> Linguistic distance, not authorial inadequacy, creates the need for commentary. Discipulus:  Ergo difficultas non est in poeta? (So the difficulty is not in the poet?)  Vargunteius:  Sed in tempore. (But in time.)  +> Meaning survives; linguistic conventions shift. That, I think, is how a Gricean grammarian would defend his profession. The grammarian is not there because communication failed. He is there because communication succeeded so well that centuries later people are still trying to recover what was originally meant. (Ha.) And of course we do not have to suppose that Svetonio, who wrote the immortal twelve casesari, wrote something as dull as 'de grammaticiss.' The lack of quotation marks, etc. possibly meant that someone said that Svetnoio wrote on grammarians -- and hence the hybrid 'de grammaticis' (de: latin, grammaticis: hellenism) comes into being. By this time, being a grammarians usually meant a slave. Not for our hero? And what was the most valued piece of work by Ennius, the Annals? The fact that Latina lingua was furrin to him makes the furrin less of a furrin than he otherwise be! Thanks -- can we choose some specifically obscure utterance (oratio recta) by Enniu and have in like 10 moves in a seminar have "V" explian to tutee what Ennius meant? Thanks -- all in Latin, followed by Eng. tra. each move in brakcets, and ending it all wiht move by E. with +> implicatum. Thanks A fine choice, and for Quintus Vargunteius I think we should indeed move from the conspirator to the grammarian. First, I agree with your suspicion about Suetonius. Modern readers see:  De Grammaticis  and imagine:  "On Grammarians."  But the ancient grammaticus is much broader than a mere grammarian in the modern sense. He is:  a reader of poets, a textual critic, a commentator, a literary teacher, a custodian of cultural memory.  The title is Latin (de), but the institution is heavily Hellenized, deriving ultimately from Greek γραμματική τέχνη, the art of letters. As for Ennius:  No, he was not Roman by birth.  He came from Rudiae in southern Italy and famously claimed to possess:  tria corda ("three hearts"),  because he knew Greek, Oscan, and Latin. He acquired Roman citizenship later. This makes him an ideal Roman poet: not originally Roman, yet eventually the father of Roman epic. And yes, his most celebrated work was the:  Annales,  the national Roman epic before Vergil's Aeneid.  Now for the seminar. Let us choose one of the most famous and slightly mysterious Ennian fragments:  Moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque.  ("The Roman state stands by ancient customs and by men.") Short, famous, but deceptively obscure. Let Quintus Vargunteius explain it to an Oxonian-style tutee.  Discipulus:  Magister, quid sibi vult Ennius cum dicit: "Moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque"? (Master, what does Ennius mean when he says: "The Roman state stands by ancient customs and by men"?)   Vargunteius:  Primum vide quid dicat, deinde quid velit dicere. (First see what he says, then what he wants to say.)  +> Literal meaning and speaker's meaning must be distinguished.  Discipulus:  Dicit rem publicam moribus et viris sustentari. (He says the commonwealth is sustained by customs and by men.)   Vargunteius:  Recte. Sed cur utrumque addit? (Correct. But why does he add both?)  +> The conjunction invites a search for a deeper rationale.  Discipulus:  Forsitan satis erat dicere "viris". (Perhaps it was enough to say "by men".)   Vargunteius:  Minime. Viri sine moribus periculosi sunt. (Not at all. Men without customs are dangerous.)  +> Personal excellence alone is insufficient.  Discipulus:  Ergo satis erat dicere "moribus". (Then it was enough to say "by customs".)   Vargunteius:  Ne hoc quidem. Mores sine viris iacent. (Nor that. Customs lie idle without men.)  +> Institutions require agents.  Discipulus:  Intellego. Res publica duobus nititur. (I understand. The state rests upon two things.)   Vargunteius:  Ita. Mos sine viro mutus est; vir sine more caecus est. (Yes. A custom without a man is mute; a man without custom is blind.)  +> The two are complementary.  Discipulus:  Sed cur "antiquis" dicit? Cur non novis? (But why does he say "ancient"? Why not "new"?)   Vargunteius:  Quia Ennius Romanus esse vult. Auctoritatem vetustatis laudat. (Because Ennius wishes to be Roman. He praises the authority of antiquity.)  +> Appeal to old customs carries normative force.  Discipulus:  Num igitur dicit antiquum semper melius esse? (Does he therefore say that the old is always better?)   Vargunteius:  Non dicit. Sed vult audientem antiqua revereri. (He does not say it. But he wishes the hearer to revere what is ancient.)  +> The hearer is invited to supply a further evaluative conclusion.  Ennius (imagined):  Moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque. (The Roman state stands by ancient customs and by men.)  +> implicatum: Si Romani rem publicam servare volunt, mores antiquos et viros bonos servare debent.  ("If Romans wish to preserve the commonwealth, they ought to preserve ancient customs and good men.")  (Ha.) That, I think, would have delighted both Grice and Vargunteius: the grammarian asking not merely quid dixit Ennius? but quid sibi voluit Ennius? ("What did Ennius mean by saying it?"). For that question is already half-way from the grammarian's bench to Grice's theory of speaker's meaning. I was saying that people read: "Suetonius wrote on grammarians" and translate as "Suetonius wrote a treatise entitled "De grammaticis" -- do we have the source? Do we have the incipit? Longest possible, as quoted? Isn't Ennius indulinng in 'zeugma' for 'stat' -- one is abstract, the 'virisque' adds the concreteness. Thanks I think your suspicion is philologically healthy, but in this case we should be careful. What we possess is not a report that "Suetonius wrote something about grammarians" from which modern editors invented a title. Rather, the work itself survives, at least in part, under the traditional title:  De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus  ("On Grammarians and Rhetoricians"). So when modern editors cite:  Suet. De Gramm. 2  they are not merely paraphrasing somebody else's testimony. They are citing a surviving text transmitted in the manuscript tradition. The title may or may not go back verbatim to Suetonius himself, but the work is not a modern inference from a secondary notice. The notice about Quintus Vargunteius comes from the surviving biographical text. [GREXv3 | Word] Now your larger point is still very interesting. The title itself is hybrid:  de (Latin) grammaticis (Greek loanword assimilated to Latin).  But that is exactly what one expects in the early Empire. The institution of the grammaticus is Romanized Greek scholarship.  As to whether grammaticus implies slave status: Not necessarily. Many grammarians were indeed freedmen, ex-slaves, or persons of relatively modest social standing. But some achieved considerable prestige. A grammarian was not merely a school-drudge. He was often:  textual critic, literary historian, editor, commentator, philologist.  Indeed, Vargunteius becomes memorable precisely because he is cited as an authority on Ennius. [GREXv3 | Word]  Now to the line:  Moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque.  I think your suggestion of zeugma is excellent. The verb:  stat  belongs naturally to:  res Romana  (the Roman state stands). But then Ennius adds:  virisque  (and by men). The same verb is understood again, though in a slightly different sense. One can paraphrase:  The Roman state stands through ancient customs; it stands through men.  The first complement:  moribus antiquis  is institutional and abstract. The second:  viris  is personal and concrete. So yes, there is a movement from:  abstraction → embodiment.  And Grice might well have enjoyed that because the line achieves more with one verb than with two.  Indeed, one could imagine Vargunteius explaining: Discipulus:  Cur Ennius non scripsit "moribus antiquis res stat Romana et viris stat"? (Why did Ennius not write "the Roman state stands by ancient customs and stands by men"?)  Vargunteius:  Quia unum verbum ad duo trahit. (Because he draws one verb over two expressions.)  Discipulus:  Cur ita facit? (Why does he do that?)  Vargunteius:  Ut mores et viros quasi unum fundamentum rei publicae ostendat. (So that customs and men appear as one foundation of the commonwealth.)  +> Ennius wishes the hearer to view institutions and citizens as inseparable supports of the state.  And this returns us to your earlier Gricean point. Suppose somebody says:  "Vargunteius, our man in Ennius."  One possible implicature is:  Vargunteius has special expertise concerning Ennius.  But another is:  Ennius is difficult enough to require specialists.  Vargunteius would probably reject the latter inference. The grammarian's defense would be:  Ennius obscurus non est; antiquus est. (Ennius is not obscure; he is ancient.)  A lovely distinction. The commentator exists not because the poet failed to communicate, but because linguistic history has intervened between poet and reader. And that is perhaps the most Gricean point of all:  What did Ennius mean? is not identical with What does Ennius' sentence mean now?  The grammarian lives in the gap between the two. (Ha.) And how is the zeugma parsed here, and why? Because Grice thinks that all figure of rhetoric is a conversational implicature in kind. Thanks Yes. If one accepts Grice's late suggestion that many figures of rhetoric are not fundamentally different from conversational implicatures, then Ennius' line becomes a particularly nice case study:  Moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque.  The question is: why write it that way? A purely grammatical parsing is straightforward:  res Romana = subject. stat = verb. moribus antiquis = ablative of support/instrument. virisque = second ablative coordinated by -que.  Literally:  "The Roman state stands by ancient customs and by men."  But that is not yet rhetoric. The interesting point is that the single verb:  stat  is stretched across two rather different supports:   an abstract support:  moribus antiquis (ancient customs)    a concrete support:  viris (men)    Hence the zeugmatic effect. Not a violent zeugma of the sort beloved by silver Latin authors, but a mild one. The hearer first understands:  The state stands upon institutions.  Then suddenly:  The state stands upon persons.  The same verb is doing double duty.  A Vargunteian seminar might proceed: Discipulus:  Cur Ennius unum tantum verbum posuit? (Why did Ennius use only one verb?)  Vargunteius:  Quia vult duos fulcros rei publicae unum videri. (Because he wishes the two supports of the commonwealth to appear as one.)  +> Customs and men are presented as inseparable.  Now the Gricean angle. Suppose Ennius had written:  Moribus antiquis res stat Romana; viris quoque stat.  (The Roman state stands by ancient customs; it also stands by men.) Nothing would be obscure. But much would be lost. The repetition would separate the two. Instead Ennius chooses the riskier form. Why? A Gricean answer would be: Because the hearer is expected to search for a reason why the speaker departed from the more explicit formulation. That search generates an implicature. The hearer asks:  Why one verb?  and supplies:  Because the supports are conceptually united.   This is very close to Grice's treatment of rhetorical figures. The figure works because the speaker deliberately says less than a fully explicit prose paraphrase would say. The hearer then reconstructs the rationale. Thus:  one verb  implicates  one foundation.   Indeed, Grice might analyse the line almost in terms of Manner. Ennius avoids the clearer:  stat ... et stat  and uses:  stat ... virisque.  So the hearer reasons:  Ennius could have been more explicit. He chose not to be. Therefore the compressed form itself matters. Therefore the two ablatives are to be read in a specially intimate relation.  The rhetorical force arises from precisely that inferential process.  And I suspect Vargunteius, our man in Ennius, would have gone even further. Discipulus:  Quid est fortius, mores an viri? (Which is stronger, customs or men?)  Vargunteius:  Male quaeris. (You ask badly.)  Discipulus:  Cur? (Why?)  Vargunteius:  Ennius non distinguit. (Ennius does not distinguish them.)  +> The poet intends the audience to reject the opposition itself. That, I think, is the deepest implicature in the verse. The line is not merely:  The state depends on customs. The state depends on men.  It is rather:  Customs living in men are the foundation of the state.  The zeugma nudges the audience toward that synthesis without ever stating it. Exactly the sort of phenomenon that would tempt Grice to say that rhetoric is not a mysterious ornament added to language, but an especially elegant exploitation of the same inferential machinery that operates in ordinary conversation. (Ha.) Indeed a mild, not blatant, zeugma. Yet zeugma was for Grice problematic: stat-1, stat-2: two senses? No. Senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. (modified Occam's razor). Two usages. But 'stat' is abstract enough hence the zeugma being mild, Can you quote other Latin examples of zeugma, perhaps even from Ennius himself, or Latin poets of the type that would be under the radar for Suetonius De Gramm et Rhet.? Thanks Exactly. This is where a Gricean treatment of zeugma becomes more interesting than a merely rhetorical one. Grice would resist the move:  stat₁ = stand institutionally stat₂ = stand through the agency of men  if the evidence can be explained otherwise. His modified Occamist instinct was:  "Senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity."  So in Ennius:  Moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque.  a Gricean would first try:  one meaning of stat, one predication, two heterogeneous complements.  The hearer notices the heterogeneity:  moribus = abstract, institutional; viris = personal, concrete.  The mild zeugmatic effect comes from the asymmetry of the complements, not necessarily from lexical ambiguity in stat. In other words:  not stat₁ + stat₂ but stat + (customs, men).  And the audience is invited to see the two supports as jointly explanatory. That is a very Gricean analysis.  One reason the Ennius example is mild is that stare is already rather abstract. Compare a more violent zeugma. Virgil  dare classibus Austros ("to give the South Winds to the fleet")  The fleet does not literally receive something in the way a person receives a gift. The verb is stretched across categories. Or, more famously:  ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram  Not strictly zeugma, but Virgil repeatedly likes constructions where one verb governs complements that belong to different conceptual levels.  Ovid Ovid often flirts with zeugmatic effects by letting one verb govern both physical and emotional objects. A typical Ovidian pattern is:  losing wealth and hope, carrying wounds and memories,  where the same verbal frame embraces both concrete and abstract objects. The resulting tension is precisely the point.  Cicero A Ciceronian example often cited in rhetoric manuals is of the type:  animum et spem deponere ("to lay aside courage and hope")  where a physical metaphor suitable to one object is extended to another. Again, the interest lies not in positing two dictionary meanings but in noticing a calculated semantic extension.  Now to Ennius and the grammarians. I suspect Quintus Vargunteius, our man in Ennius, would have read the line almost exactly this way. Imagine: Discipulus:  Num duo verba "stat" latent? (Are two meanings of "stat" hidden here?)  Vargunteius:  Nolo duo verba fingere. (I do not wish to invent two meanings.)  Discipulus:  Cur non? (Why not?)  Vargunteius:  Quia unum sufficit. (Because one suffices.)  +> Do not multiply meanings when one meaning explains the text.  This is why grammarians interested people like Grice. The grammarian's task is not merely:  "What does this word mean?"  but often:  "How many meanings need we posit?"  That is already a philosophical problem.  As for Suetonius, one reason he cared about grammarians is precisely that they formed the chain of interpretation through which early literature survived. To write about grammarians is not merely to write about schoolmasters. It is to write about the custodians of Latin culture: the people who explained:  Ennius, Lucilius, old republican usages, archaic vocabulary.  Without them, much of Latin literature would have become unintelligible remarkably quickly. Hence a Suetonian "grammaticus" is often closer to:  philologist, editor, commentator,  than to a modern grammar teacher. And Vargunteius, our man in Ennius, would have spent much of his life resisting exactly the temptation Grice resists:  not every unusual usage requires a new sense. Sometimes one interpretation, cleverly stretched, explains more than two. (Ha.) and can you provide other or the same examples of zeugma using subscript for 'verb' involved? Surely a literalist (Grice could be one sometimes, as did Austin, if not Nowell-Smith): res romana stat virsque qui respectant antiquis morem. Thanks Yes, and your proposed literalist expansion is very much what an Austinian or Griceian might try before multiplying senses. For Ennius:  Moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque.  one could begin with a paraphrase such as:  Res Romana stat moribus antiquis et viris qui mores antiquos servant.  ("The Roman state stands through ancient customs and through the men who preserve those ancient customs.") On that reading there is only:  stat₁  not  stat₁ + stat₂.  The apparent zeugma is dissolved by supplying the suppressed connection between:  mores  and  viri.  The men are not an independent support alongside the customs; they are the embodiment of the customs. That would be the parsimonious Gricean reading.  Using your subscript notation, we might contrast: Mild zeugma (Ennius)  Moribus antiquis res stat₁ Romana virisque.  Possible analysis:  stat₁ (supported by customs) stat₁ (supported by men)  same general sense, different complements. No need for:  stat₁ stat₂   Now compare some stronger Latin examples. Virgil  vinclisque favorem ... ("chains and favour ...")  or various constructions where a verb governs both a physical and psychological object. The analysis becomes:  regit₁ corpus regit₁ animos  ("rules bodies" and "rules minds") The literalist can still maintain one sense, but stretching becomes more noticeable.  Ovidian type Suppose:  spem et vestem deposuit  ("he laid aside hope and clothing") Analysis:  deposuit₁ vestem deposuit₁ spem  The first object is physical. The second is mental. A rhetorician happily says:  zeugma.  A Griceian says:  one sufficiently abstract verb applied across heterogeneous domains.   A famous Ciceronian type  arma atque iram deposuit  ("he laid down arms and anger") Analysis:  deposuit₁ arma deposuit₁ iram  Again, one verb. No need for:  deposuit₁ = physically put down deposuit₂ = relinquished emotionally.  Rather, the hearer finds a higher-order sense:  "put aside."   And now consider a truly violent zeugma. A modern English example:  "She broke his car and his heart."  Analysis:  broke₁ car broke₂ heart  Here the pressure to distinguish uses becomes much greater. Yet Grice would still ask:  Must we posit two senses? Or one highly general operation whose interpretation varies with the object?  His instinct, as you note, was almost always:  One first, two only if necessary.   What is interesting is that ancient grammarians like Quintus Vargunteius would often stand much nearer Grice than modern semanticists. The grammarian's question is not:  How many dictionary senses are there?  but  Why did Ennius choose that phrasing?  For example: Discipulus:  Cur non scripsit "moribus antiquis res stat Romana, atque viri eos servant"? (Why did he not write: "The Roman state stands by ancient customs, and men preserve them"?)  Vargunteius:  Quia volebat unum fundamentum videri. (Because he wanted them to appear as a single foundation.)  +> The compression itself carries meaning. That is almost textbook Grice. The hearer reasons:  Ennius could have written more explicitly. He did not. Therefore the compressed form is purposeful. Therefore an additional significance is intended.  Exactly the route from sentence meaning to speaker's meaning.  One final thought. Grice's favourite example of zeugma was often not poetic but conversational. He and Nowell-Smith liked cases where a hearer could avoid lexical multiplication by finding a more abstract common meaning. Thus, on a Gricean reading, Ennius is not playing a dazzling Silver-Latin game. The zeugma is "mild" precisely because stat is already abstract. The verse nudges us toward:  res Romana stat moribus; mores autem in viris stant.  ("The Roman state stands by customs; but the customs stand in men.") Ennius leaves the second proposition unsaid. And that unsaid proposition is very close to the implicatum. (Ha.)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Varinio – Ossia: Grice e Varinio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Varinio -- H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA -- GREX -- VERBALIA: VARINIO The gens Varinia was a minor plebeian family of ancient Rome. Only a few members of this gens are mentioned by Roman writers, including Publius Varinius Glaber, praetor in 73 BC, and perhaps a second time in 66, but many others are known from inscriptions. Beginning in the first century, a number of Varinii appear in inscriptions from Philippi in Macedonia. Another family of Varinii settled in Hispania Baetica.  Origin The nomen Varinius belongs to a class of gentilicia formed from cognomina ending in the diminutive or derivative suffix -inus.[1] Varinus would have been an elaboration of the cognomen Varus, "knock-kneed".[2]  Praenomina The main praenomina of the Varinii were Marcus, Quintus, and Gaius, all of which were amongst the most common names at all periods of Roman history. Other praenomina appearing amongst the Varinii include Gnaeus, Lucius, Publius, and Tiberius.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Publius Varinius Glaber, praetor in 73 BC, was sent to quell the revolt of Spartacus, but his hastily-assembled forces were defeated by the rebels on multiple occasions. In Appian and other sources, he is confused with the praetor Gaius Claudius Glaber, who was also sent against Spartacus, and outmaneuvered. Varinius may have been praetor a second time in 66, and then propraetor in Asia.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Tiberius Varinius Ti. l. Dioplutus, a freedman named in an inscription from Praeneste in Latium, dating from the first half of the first century, along with his wife, the freedwoman Marcia Chrysario, the freedman Titus Cassius Antiochus, and his wife, the freedwoman Aufidia Tyrannis.[11] Gaius Varinius Eros, bought a pot from Gaius Cornelius Hermia to place in a sepulchre at Rome, dating from the first half of the first century. Another part of the same inscription indicates that Phaedra, the two-year-old daughter of Sextus Appuleius Hymen, was buried there.[12] Marcus Varinius, flamen of the imperial cult and one of the municipal duumvirs at Philippi in Macedonia, buried in a first-century sepulchre at Philippi, along with his children, Varinius Furnianus and Varinia Quarta.[13] Marcus Varinius M. l. Celer, a freedman buried in a first-century tomb at Philippi, along with his wife, Varinia Marita, daughters, Primigenia and Pyralis, and son-in-law, Curius Alcimus.[14] Varinia M. f. Ingenua, buried in a first-century tomb at Philippi.[15] Varinia Marita, buried in a first-century tomb at Philippi, along with her husband, Marcus Varinius Celer, daughters, Primigenia and Pyralis, and son-in-law, Curius Alcimus.[14] (Varinia) M. f. Primigenia, buried in a first-century tomb at Philippi, along with her parents, Marcus Varinius Celer and Varinia Marita, sister, Pyralis, and Curius Alcimus, probably her brother-in-law.[14] (Varinia) M. f. Pyralis, buried in a first-century tomb at Philippi, along with her parents, Marcus Varinius Celer and Varinia Marita, sister, Primigenia, and Curius Alcimus, probably her husband, but possibly her brother-in-law.[14] (Marcus?) Varinius M. f. Furnianus, buried in a first-century sepulchre at Philippi, along with his father, Marcus Varinius, flamen and duumvir, and his sister, Varinia Quarta.[13] Varinia Macedonia, together with her sister, Procula, built a first-century tomb at Philippi for their father, Varinius Macedonius, one of the magistrates of the town.[16] Varinius Macedonius, aedile, quaestor, and duumvir at Philippi, was buried there in a first-century tomb built by his daughters, Varinia Macedonia and Procula, using the proceeds of their father's will.[16] (Varinia) Procula, together with her sister, Varinia Macedonia, built a first-century tomb at Philippi for their father, Varinius Macedonius, one of the magistrates of the town.[16] Varinia M. f. Quarta, buried in a first-century sepulchre at Philippi, along with her father, Marcus Varinius, and brother, Varinius Furnianus.[13] Varinia Successa, buried at Rome, aged fourteen years, seven months, and sixteen days, in a first-century tomb built by her parents.[17] Marcus Varinius M. f. Philippicus, a decurion buried in a first- or second-century tomb at Philippi, along with his wife, Petronia Rufina, and daughter, Varinia Philippica. The inscription naming them is suspected of being modern.[18] Varinia M. f. M. n. Philippica, buried in a first- or second-century tomb at Philippi along with her parents, Marcus Varinius Philippus and Petronia Rufina. The inscription may be a forgery.[18] Varinius Priscus, made a bronze label found at Rome, dating from the first or second century, for Marcus Valerius Herma.[19] Varinius Celer, buried at Philippi, aged fifty-five, in a tomb dating between the first and third centuries.[20] Varinius Sosias, a little boy buried at Philippi, aged two, in a tomb built by his father, Varinius Zosas, dating between the first and third centuries.[21] Varinius Zosas, built a tomb at Philippi, dating between the first and third centuries, for his young son, Varinius Sosias.[21] Gaius Varinius Canax, together with Sextus Marcius Teris, one of the governors of the municipium of Gabii in Latium between AD 24 and 26, during the reign of Tiberius.[22] Varinius, one of the caretakers for the seviri Augustales at Philippi in Macedonia in AD 56.[23] Marcus Varinius Chresimus, one of the donors to the local priesthood, whose names appear in a second-century inscription from Philippi.[24] Quintus Varinius Q. f. Laevinius, an aedile at Lanuvium in Latium at some point in the Antonine Dynasty.[25] Varinia Crispinilla, together with her sons, Flavius Vindex and Flavius Quietus, dedicated a tomb at Rome for her husband, Sextus Flavius Quietus, a centurion primus pilus in the Legio XX Valeria Victrix, stationed in Britain during the latter part of the second century.[26] Quintus Varinius Severinus, a soldier in the century of Aelius Torquatus, in the fifth cohort of the vigiles at Rome in AD 210.[27] Undated Varinii Gnaeus Varinius, buried at Ostia in Latium.[28] Quintus Varinius Q. f. Beatus, a young man buried at Rome along with various freedmen. The inscription indicates that his father was also named Quintus Varinius Beatus.[29] Varinia Q. Ɔ. l. Civitas, buried at Rome, along with Quintus Varinius Salvius and his wife, Fadia, Quintus Varinius Beatus, and Quintus Varinius Demosthenes. All except for Fadia and Beatus were freedmen.[29] Quintus Varinius Q. l. Demosthenes, buried at Rome, along with Quintus Varinius Salvius and his wife, Fadia, Quintus Varinius Beatus, and Varinia Civitas. All except for Fadia and Beatus were freedmen.[29] Varinia Flaccina, daughter of the duumvir Gaius Varinius Pietatus, for whom she dedicated a tomb at Ugultunia in Hispania Baetica. Together with her husband, the senator Licinius Serenianus, Varinia made an offering to Juno Regina, at the site of modern Alhanje, formerly part of Baetica, on behalf of their daughter, Varinia Serena.[30][31][32] Varinia M. f. Marcia, buried at Philippi.[33] Varinius Philocalus, named in an inscription from Philippi.[34] Gaius Varinius Pietatus, a duumvir and flamen in Hispania Baetica, was buried at Ugultunia in that province, aged seventy-one, in a tomb built by his daughter, Varinia Flaccina.[30][32] Varinia L. l. Quarta, a freedwoman buried at Orippo in Hispania Baetica, along with Optatus, likely a freedman, in a tomb built by the freedwoman Varinia Tyche.[35] Marcus Varinius Sabinus, built a tomb at Rome for Saturninus, his son and slave, aged twenty-one years, ten months.[36] Quintus Varinius Q. l. Salvius, buried at Rome, along with his wife, Fadia, Quintus Varinius Beatus, Quintus Varinius Demosthenes, and Varinia Civitas. All except for Fadia and Beatus were freedmen.[29] Varinia Secunda, the freedwoman of Urbana, named in an inscription from Narbo in Gallia Narbonensis, along with Gaius Maius Masculus, the freedman of Philargurus.[37] Varinia Serena, the daughter of Licinius Serenianus and Varinia Flaccina, who made an offering to Juno Regina at the site of modern Alhanje on their daughter's behalf.[31][32] Varinia Serena, buried at the site of modern Arroyo de San Serván, formerly part of Lusitania, aged thirty-two, in a tomb describing her as the best of mothers. The inscription is suspected of being modern.[38] (Marcus) Varinius M. f. Severus, buried at Philippi, along with his father, Marcus Varinius Sphaerus, in a tomb built by his mother, Secunda.[39] Marcus Varinius Sphaerus, buried at Philippi, aged fifty, along with his son, Varinius Severus, in a tomb built by his wife, Secunda.[39] Varinius Tarsa, buried at Philippi, aged forty, along with Secunda, perhaps his wife, aged twenty-five.[40] Varinia L. l. Tyche, a freedwoman who built a tomb at Orippo for the freedwoman Varinia Quarta and Optatus, probably a freedman.[35] See also List of Roman gentes References  Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", pp. 125, 126.  Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", p. 109.  Livy, Perochiae, 95.  Sallust, Historiae, iii. 95–98.  Plutarch, "The Life of Crassus", 9.  Appian, Bellum Civile, i. 116.  Florus, Epitome of Livy, ii. 8.  Cicero, Pro Flacco, 45.  William Bodham Donne, "Glaber, P. Varinius", in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 270.  Broughton, Magistrates of the Roman Republic, vol. II, pp. 109, 110, 115 (note 1), 119, 142 (note 9), 152, 160.  CIL XIV, 3389.  CIL VI, 28335.  AE 2006, 1333.  CIL III, 682.  Pilhofer, Philippi, vol. 2, 242.  AE 1938, 52.  CIL VI, 28337.  CIL III, 658.  CIL XV, 8530.  CIL III, 683.  Pilhofer, Philippi, vol. 2, 411.  CIL XIV, 2802.  AE 1999, 1445.  CIL III, 633,2.  CIL XIV, 2104.  AE 1960, 28.  CIL VI, 1057.  Caldelli, Epigrafia ostiense, 1002.  CIL VI, 28336.  CIL II, 983.  CIL II, 1024.  'PIR, vol. III, p. 384.  Brélaz, Corpus des inscriptions grecques et latines de Philippes, vol. II, part 1, 173.  Pilhofer, Philippi, vol. 2, 206.  Hispania Epigraphica, 1994, 678.  AE 1976, 107.  CIL XII, 4964.  Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, 1913–480.  Pilhofer, Philippi, vol. 2, 204.  Pilhofer, Philippi, vol. 2, 378. Bibliography Appianus Alexandrinus (Appian), Bellum Civile (The Civil War). Marcus Tullius Cicero, Pro Flacco. Lucius Annaeus Florus, Epitome de T. Livio Bellorum Omnium Annorum DCC (Epitome of Livy: All the Wars of Seven Hundred Years). Titus Livius (Livy), History of Rome. Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (Plutarch), Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans (Parallel Lives). Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Sallust), Historiae (The Histories). Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia. Cédric Brélaz, Corpus des inscriptions grecques et latines de Philippes, vol. 2: "La colonie romaine", part 1: "La vie publique de la colonie", Athens (2014). T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association (1952–1986). René Cagnat et alii, L'Année épigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy, abbreviated AE), Presses Universitaires de France (1888–present). Maria Letizia Caldelli, Epigrafia ostiense dopo il CIL. 2000 iscrizioni funerarie, Venice (2018). George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII, pp. 103–184 (1897). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). Hispania Epigraphica (Epigraphy of Spain), Madrid (1989–present). Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). Peter Pilhofer, Philippi, vol. 2: "Katalog der Inschriften von Philippi", Tübingen (Second Ed., 2009). 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: Varinio – Ossia: Grice e Varinio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Varinio For the Varinii, I think the choice is surprisingly easy:  Publius Varinius Glaber.  Not because he won, but because he lost to Spartacus. [GREXv3 | Word] A Grice-Speranza dossier does not necessarily want the most successful Roman. It wants the Roman whose actions generate the most interesting inferential structure. The sources tell us that Publius Varinius Glaber, praetor in 73 BC, was sent against Spartacus and suffered repeated defeats. Later sources sometimes confuse him with Gaius Claudius Glaber, another commander sent against Spartacus. [GREXv3 | Word] Now imagine the Gricean problem. A Roman magistrate reasons:  "These are runaway slaves."  Spartacus reasons:  "We are an army."  The whole campaign begins with a failure of uptake.  A Grice-Speranza dialogue might run: Varinius:  Servi sunt. (They are slaves.)  Tribunus:  Arma tamen habent. (Yet they have arms.)  Varinius:  Pauci sunt. (They are few.)  +> Varinius implicates that a small force will suffice.  A few days later: Nuntius:  Praetor, victi sumus. (Praetor, we have been defeated.)  Varinius:  A servis? (By slaves?)  +> The category "slave" had concealed the military reality.  That seems very Gricean: the practical consequences of applying the wrong description.  My second choice would actually be:  Varinia, the wife of Spartacus.  Not because she belongs securely to this gens (the nomen overlap is tantalizing rather than certain), but because she is a rare female figure attached to one of antiquity's most famous revolts. Yet the evidence is too sparse for a dossier.  As for a figure nearer your recent concerns about interpretation, I would nominate:  Marcus Varinius, flamen and duumvir at Philippi. [GREXv3 | Word]  Why? Because Philippi is exactly the sort of place where:  Latin, Greek, Roman institutions, local traditions  have to coexist. A magistrate at Philippi is almost a conversational intermediary between cultures.  But my final verdict remains: First-best Grice e Varinio  Publius Varinius Glaber versus Spartacus. [GREXv3 | Word]  The reason is philosophical. Grice taught us that action depends on descriptions. One acts not merely upon reality but upon:  what one takes reality to be.  Varinius acts under the description:  "runaway slaves."  Spartacus forces Rome to adopt another description:  "enemy army."  The revision of that description comes only after a sequence of embarrassing defeats. [GREXv3 | Word] And one can easily imagine Grice ending the tutorial: Tutor:  Quis erravit, Spartacus an Varinius? (Who was mistaken, Spartacus or Varinius?)  Tutee:  Varinius. (Varinius.)  Tutor:  Cur? (Why?)  Tutee:  Quia idem homines aliter descripsit. (Because he described the same men differently.)  +> The description under which an object is conceived may determine the success or failure of practical reasoning. A very Gricean moral indeed. (Ha.) But how does the Spartacus story end? Good for Spartacus? Thanks No, not in the end. For a while, yes. From the Roman point of view, the early stages were humiliating. The forces sent against Spartacus, including those under Publius Varinius Glaber, were repeatedly defeated. Roman commanders underestimated what they took to be merely a slave rising. [GREXv3 | Word] But the long-term outcome was disastrous for Spartacus. After several years of campaigning in Italy, the Romans eventually entrusted the war to Crassus. He reorganized the Roman forces and gradually wore down the rebel army. The final campaign ended with Spartacus' defeat and death in battle. Ancient sources generally state that his body was never conclusively identified afterward. The surviving rebels fared even worse. Thousands of captured followers were crucified along the Appian Way as a warning. So, in the simplest terms: Short-term:  Spartacus defeats Roman armies. Roman prestige suffers. Publius Varinius Glaber and others look foolish. [GREXv3 | Word]  Long-term:  Rome wins. Spartacus dies. The rebellion is crushed.   A Grice-Speranza moral might be this: At the beginning, Varinius Glaber describes the situation under one heading:  "runaway slaves."  Spartacus forces the Romans to revise the description to:  "enemy army."  But once Rome makes that conceptual adjustment and commits serious resources, the asymmetry returns. A slave army can defeat several Roman magistrates; it cannot indefinitely defeat the Roman state. In terms of Ennian language:  res Romana stat.  The Roman state "stands" because when one commander fails, another appears; when one army is defeated, another is raised. Spartacus' achievement was extraordinary, but the institutional depth represented by Ennius' moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque ultimately prevailed. One can imagine Grice asking:  "Who had the better practical reasoning, Varinius or Spartacus?"  For several years:  Spartacus.  At the end:  Rome.  (Ha.) And was Varinius around when the sign of the cross along Appian way, change of emperors in between? Thanks No. The chronology is much tighter than that. The revolt of Spartacus lasted from 73 to 71 BC. Varinius Glaber was one of the early Roman commanders sent against him in 73 BC, before Crassus took over the war. [GREXv3 | Word] The famous crucifixions along the Appian Way occurred after the final defeat of Spartacus in 71 BC, when Crassus captured thousands of surviving rebels and had them crucified between Capua and Rome. The Roman sources associate that punishment with the conclusion of the war under Crassus, not with Varinius. [GREXv3 | Word] So the likely sequence is:  Varinius Glaber is defeated in the early phase of the revolt. [GREXv3 | Word] Other Roman commanders also fail. Crassus receives command. Spartacus is defeated and killed in battle. The survivors are crucified along the Appian Way.  As for emperors:  none.  The entire episode belongs to the late Roman Republic, decades before the Empire. In 71 BC there was:  no emperor, no Augustus, no Tiberius, no Julio-Claudian dynasty.  The leading political figures were men such as:  Crassus, Pompey, Cicero (not yet consul), and later Caesar.  So there was no change of emperors "in between"; there were not yet any emperors to change. From a Grice-Speranza angle, one might say that Varinius Glaber belongs to the opening act of the drama. He learns, painfully, that "runaway slaves" is the wrong description. Crassus appears in the final act, and the crucifixes on the Appian Way provide the grim Roman epilogue. Indeed, if one were writing the dossier:  Varinius Lost to Spartacus.   Crassus Ended Spartacus.   Pompey Arrived in time to claim part of the credit.  (Ha.) And Varinius was sent by who? Not Crassus. And we are positive that Varinius survived the various combats against Spartacus? Thanks Quite right: Varinius Glaber was not sent by Crassus. Rather, he was one of the magistrates dispatched by the Roman government during the early stages of the revolt, when the Senate still regarded Spartacus as a relatively limited security problem rather than a full-scale military threat. The sources place Varinius in command against Spartacus in 73 BC, years before Crassus received the extraordinary command that ultimately ended the war. [GREXv3 | Word] As to whether Varinius survived, the answer is:  Almost certainly yes.  The sources record repeated defeats and embarrassments, but they do not report his death in the campaign. On the contrary, the prosopographical tradition cited in the dossier allows for the possibility that Varinius Glaber later held office again, perhaps as praetor in 66 BC and subsequently as propraetor in Asia. If that identification is correct, he must have survived the Spartacan War. [GREXv3 | Word] There is an amusing Grice-Speranza point here. A reader of Plutarch or Appian may almost expect:  Early commander defeated by Spartacus ⇒ killed by Spartacus.  But Roman magistrates were remarkably good at surviving military humiliation. The fate of Varinius seems to have been:  not death, but embarrassment.  Indeed, the sources tell us that Spartacus at one point captured the praetor's horse and nearly captured the praetor himself. Yet Varinius escaped. [GREXv3 | Word] A possible dossier might read: Varinius  Misdescribed the problem. Lost battles. Lost prestige. Kept his life.  Spartacus  Correctly understood the military situation. Won battles. Gained prestige. Eventually lost his life.  (Ha.) From a Gricean perspective, one might even say that Varinius' practical reasoning was defective, but not fatally so. The Roman Republic had enough institutional depth that a magistrate could lose a campaign and still remain part of public life. That is very different from the fate of Spartacus, who could win a succession of campaigns and yet ultimately disappear from history after the final battle. And talking of zeugma, from Grice's "Imaginary History of Rome," Spartacus took Varinio's horse and Varinio's sister." Thanks Imagine dialogue having Varinio, Varinia, and Spartacus -- thanks -- "The horse has no name?" (Ha.) That is exactly the sort of mock-Roman example Grice might invent in what Speranza would call an "imaginary history of Rome." The joke depends on the zeugma:  Spartacus equum Varinii et sororem abstulit.  ("Spartacus carried off Varinius' horse and Varinius' sister.") A strict rhetorician may happily speak of:  abstulit₁ equum abstulit₂ sororem  but the Gricean instinct is to resist multiplication. One might instead seek a sufficiently abstract:  abstulit = removed from Varinius' possession or control.  The horse is removed militarily. The sister is removed socially, romantically, politically, or whatever the context demands. Same underlying verb, different domains. That is why the zeugma is comic.  Let us imagine the scene. I Varinius:  Ubi est equus meus? (Where is my horse?)  Miles:  Spartacus eum cepit. (Spartacus captured it.)  +> Varinius has suffered a military embarrassment.  II Varinius:  At saltem soror mea domi manet. (At least my sister remains at home.)  Miles:  De ea quoque est quaedam fama. (There is also a certain rumor concerning her.)  +> The hearer is invited to infer bad news.  III Varinius:  Quae fama? (What rumor?)  Miles:  Dicitur cum Spartaco abisse. (She is said to have gone off with Spartacus.)  +> The military defeat may have acquired a domestic counterpart.  IV Varinia:  Frater, equum numquam interrogasti. (Brother, you never consulted the horse.)  Varinius:  Quid dicis? (What are you saying?)   V Varinia:  Ille quoque Spartacum secutus est. (He followed Spartacus as well.)  +> Horse and sister are humorously assimilated under one predicate.  VI Spartacus:  Equum accepi; soror tua me elegit. (I took the horse; your sister chose me.)  +> The same surface construction conceals two very different kinds of agency.  VII Varinius:  Non idem est. (That is not the same thing.)  Spartacus:  Grammatici fortasse dissentiunt. (The grammarians may perhaps disagree.)  (Ha.)  A Vargunteian grammarian might then enter. Discipulus:  Magister, utrum idem verbum ad utrumque pertinet? (Master, does the same verb apply to both?)  Vargunteius:  Ita; sed non eodem modo. (Yes; but not in the same way.)  +> One expression is retained while the mode of application shifts.  And Grice's conclusion would be something like: The zeugma works because the hearer detects that:  "taking a horse"  and  "taking a sister"  cannot be understood in exactly the same fashion. Yet instead of postulating a radically different meaning for each occurrence, the hearer seeks the most general interpretation compatible with both. Hence:  abstulit = removed from Varinius' sphere.  Horse and sister then differ not in the lexical meaning of the verb, but in the practical consequences of its application. A very Gricean economy of senses. (Ha.) Indeed, in his "An imaginary history of Rome" Grice and Speranza concludce that 'since the corpse of Spartacus was not found --- he was alive." Spartacus in his grand old age to his grandson: "My fiercest enemy was not Crassus, as historians misconceive, by Varinius. I married his sister, though." Grandson: "So I'm partly Roman? Spartacus: "Yes, gens Varinia, if you must" thanks (Ha.) This is exactly the sort of counterfactual Roman history that Grice and Speranza would enjoy. The historical sources say only that Spartacus was defeated and that his body was never positively identified after the final battle. Ancient authors generally infer that he died there, fighting. They do not report his survival. The playful inference,  corpus non inventum est; ergo Spartacus vivit  ("the body was not found; therefore Spartacus lives"), is a delightful parody of historical reasoning rather than an ancient conclusion. [GREXv3 | Word] One can imagine the imaginary dialogue: Nepos:  Avus, quis fuit hostis tuus acerrimus? Crassusne? (Grandfather, who was your fiercest enemy? Crassus?)  Spartacus:  Historici ita putant. (Historians think so.)  Nepos:  Nonne verum est? (Isn't it true?)  Spartacus:  Minime. Crassus me vicit; Varinius me irritavit. (Not at all. Crassus defeated me; Varinius irritated me.)  +> Defeat and antagonism need not come from the same person.  Nepos:  Cur Varinius? (Why Varinius?)  Spartacus:  Quia me primus servum potius quam ducem exercitus putavit. (Because he was the first to consider me a slave rather than a general.)  +> Misdescription is a deeper offense than military opposition.  Nepos:  At audivi te equum eius cepisse. (But I heard that you captured his horse.)  Spartacus:  Equum cepi. (I captured the horse.)   Nepos:  Et sororem? (And his sister?)  Spartacus:  Soror ipsa me cepit. (His sister captured me.)  +> The apparent symmetry conceals a reversal of agency.  Varinia:  Tandem aliquando verum dicis. (At last you tell the truth.)   Nepos:  Ergo ego partim Romanus sum? (Then am I partly Roman?)  Spartacus:  Si genealogias amas, ita est. (If you enjoy genealogies, yes.)   Nepos:  Quae gens? (Which gens?)  Spartacus:  Varinia, si necesse est nominare. (Varinia, if one must give it a name.)  +> Family nomenclature matters more to Romans than to Thracians.  Nepos:  Quid nomen habebat equus? (What was the horse's name?)  Spartacus:  Hoc nemo umquam quaesivit. (No one has ever asked that.)   Varinia:  Fortasse equus quoque Varinius vocabatur. (Perhaps the horse was also called Varinius.)  Spartacus:  Ita facilius fuit capere utrumque. (That made it easier to take both.)  +> A zeugma reaches its comic perfection when horse and owner become grammatically interchangeable. (Ha.) The deeper Gricean joke, of course, is that historians focus on:  Crassus defeated Spartacus.  But our imaginary old Spartacus focuses on the earlier conversational failure:  Varinius called me a slave when I was already acting as a commander.  In Gricean language, the fundamental error was not military but categorial. Varinius got the description wrong. And from the wrong description flowed the wrong practical inferences. Crassus corrected the practical problem; Varinius created it. (Ha.) Grice gave a seminar on American history too -- on LIncoln and the abolition of slavery -- that postdated the abolition of slavery in England and in Argentina. "The stubborness of Varinius was irritating. His first defeat was explainable: these are _slaves_. But the second -- first wrong, shame on you, second wrong: shame on me," as Bush misquoted it. Thanks (Ha.) Yes, one can imagine the elderly Spartacus in the Grice-Speranza counterfactual memoirs becoming less of a military historian and more of a philosopher of descriptions. The historical Varinius Glaber was indeed among the first Roman commanders defeated during the revolt. The sources depict a sequence of Roman underestimation before the Senate eventually escalated the response. [GREXv3 | Word] In the imaginary dialogue: Nepos:  Cur Varinius tibi tam invisus erat? (Why was Varinius so hateful to you?)  Spartacus:  Quia primam culpam habuit, secundam vero elegit. (Because the first mistake befell him, but the second he chose.)  +> An initial error may be excusable; persistence in it is culpable.  Nepos:  Quid est hoc? (What do you mean?)  Spartacus:  Primum putavit nos servos esse tantum. (At first he thought we were merely slaves.)   Nepos:  Et hoc falsum erat? (And that was false?)  Spartacus:  Non omnino. Servi quidem eramus. (Not entirely. We were indeed slaves.)  +> A description may be true and yet practically inadequate.  Nepos:  Cur ergo erravit? (Why then did he err?)  Spartacus:  Quia etiam exercitus eramus. (Because we were also an army.)  +> One aspect of reality was allowed to obscure another.  That is very Gricean. The issue is not:  slave versus non-slave.  It is:  Which description is relevant to present practical reasoning?  A runaway slave carrying a shovel and a runaway slave carrying a sword are not the same military problem.  One can imagine Grice remarking:  "Varinius did not suffer from falsity. He suffered from insufficiency."  He had something akin to a Quantity problem. His description was:  true,  but not:  informative enough for the occasion.  (Ha.)  And then old Spartacus concludes: Spartacus:  Primum errorem ignosco. (I forgive the first mistake.)  Nepos:  Secundum non? (But not the second?)  Spartacus:  Non. Nam post primam cladem adhuc servos videbat. (No. For after the first defeat he still saw slaves.)  +> Failure to revise one's description in the light of evidence is irrational. That, I think, is exactly the moral Grice would have extracted. Not unlike the old proverb, usually rendered:  "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."  The first defeat might be explained by a defective initial characterization. The second suggests an unwillingness to update one's beliefs. And for Grice, whose later work increasingly linked conversation with rationality, that is the deeper vice: not getting things wrong, but refusing to learn from getting them wrong. (Ha.)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Varino – Ossia: Grice e Varino: la ragione conversazionale o la rettorica filosofica. Note sullr Regulæ grammaticales, Biblioteca Marciana, MS Lat. XIII, 143 (= 4042). Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Guarino Varino da Varona (Verona, Veneto): Compared institutionally, Guarino Veronese and H. P. Grice belong to very different academic worlds. Grice’s formula is exact in the Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide faculty appointment. So Grice combines the two classic Oxford functions: college tutor and university lecturer. Guarino da Verona, by contrast, belongs to the Renaissance humanist world of courts, private teaching, civic schools, and revived classical learning. He was not a fellow-tutor in a residential college, nor a university lecturer in the modern sense. He was a humanist master, moving between Verona, Constantinople, Venice, Florence, and Ferrara, teaching Greek and Latin, training elite pupils, and shaping the studia humanitatis through pedagogical authority and manuscript culture rather than through a formal tutorial-faculty system. So the clean institutional contrast is this.  Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate and university-faculty world. Guarino belongs to the humanist pedagogical and courtly-civic world.  That institutional difference fits the philosophical comparison rather well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under shared conversational norms. Guarino, by contrast, works at the macro-level of rhetorical and educational formation: the social creation of agents who can speak, persuade, infer, allude, and understand decorum, brevity, suggestion, and classical exemplarity. He is not theorising the Cooperative Principle, but he is helping build the culture in which such inferential and rhetorical sensitivity becomes second nature. So if you want the sharpest formulation, it is this:  Grice explains how rational hearers recover implied meaning in a local exchange. Guarino helps train a civilization to hear and deploy indirectness, allusion, and audience-sensitive speech at all.  That is why your comparison is genuinely good: Guarino does not anticipate Grice by stating a theory of implicature, but he does provide the rhetorical-pedagogical infrastructure for a world in which meaning often depends on what is not fully said. There are, however, two important corrections.  1) The Corpus Christi, Oxford line is wrong There is no basis for saying that someone in Guarino’s position would go “to Corpus Christi at Oxford” to learn Greek. That is anachronistic and historically mistaken. The secure and standard fact is: Guarino went to Constantinople to study Greek under Manuel Chrysoloras. That is the decisive educational fact. So the contrast should be: not Oxford or Constantinople, but rather: Italy had to import Greek learning through Byzantine channels, and Guarino is one of the figures who makes that possible.  2) Your final bibliographic line is too neat The line:  Varino, Guarino (1418). Regulæ grammaticales. Venezia. Venezia, Biblioteca Marciana, MS Lat. XIII, 143 (= 4042).  needs caution. If the work survives as a manuscript witness in the Marciana, it should be cited as a manuscript, not as though it were a clean printed Venetian imprint from 1418. So the safe bibliographic style is something like: Guarino Veronese. Regulae grammaticales. Manuscript witness: Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, MS Lat. XIII, 143 (= 4042). If you have external bibliographical evidence for the date 1418, that may be added cautiously, but not in the form of a simple modern title-page citation unless the evidence is firm.  So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Guarino Veronese, by contrast, was a Renaissance humanist teacher, trained in Latin at Verona and Greek at Constantinople, later active in Venice, Florence, and Ferrara, and central to the revival of classical rhetorical and linguistic education. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate and faculty world; Guarino to the humanist pedagogical and courtly-civic world. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and implicature, whereas Guarino exemplifies the broader rhetorical and educational culture in which indirectness, allusion, and audience-sensitive completion of sense become habits of an educated public.  And if I compress it into one line: Grice theorises how conversation means more than it says; Guarino trains speakers to make it do so elegantly. If you like, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your own register, with the Corpus-Christi mistake removed and the Constantinople–Chrysoloras line made central.la ragione conversazionale o la rettorica filosofica – Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats talk as a rational, cooperative practice in which hearers infer what a speaker means (including implicatures) by assuming an “accepted purpose or direction” and by repairing apparent departures from relevance, sufficiency, clarity, or sincerity through intention-recognition. Guarino Varino (Guarino da Verona / Guarino Veronese, 1374–1460), by contrast, represents the Renaissance humanist reconstruction of conversational reason as rhetorical and pedagogical: his program of studia humanitatis (Ciceronian Latin style, training in eloquence, and the revived Greek curriculum learned via Constantinople and manuscripts) aims to form agents who can speak aptly in civic and courtly settings, where persuasion, decorum, and audience-design are central virtues. So where Grice gives a general, formally minded explanation of how meaning is rationally recoverable beyond what is said (implicature as a calculable product of shared norms), Guarino supplies the cultural infrastructure that makes such norms socially powerful: rhetorical education that sharpens sensitivity to what is left unsaid, to strategic indirection, to enthymeme and allusion, and to the audience’s role in completing sense. In Gricean terms, Guarino is less a precursor who states the Cooperative Principle than a humanist who trains conversationalists to exploit it—teaching how to manage inference in others through style, brevity, and classical exempla—so that “reason in conversation” appears not only as logical constraint (Grice) but as cultivated civic art (Guarino), with implicature functioning as the modern name for what Renaissance rhetoric treated as controlled suggestiveness within an educated κοινόν / res publica of interpreters. Renaissance educator who revitalised classical rhetorical training. Grice: “I like him!” Keywords: rettorica. Matteo de' Pasti, medaglia di Guarino Veronese, Guarino da Verona Guarino Veronese o Guarino da Verona – m. Ferrara -- è stato un poeta e umanista italiano.  Il suo nome di battesimo è V. ma, per corruzione, è chiamato “Guarino,” uno pseudonimo che poi, sotto la forma di "Guarini", trasmite ai suoi discendenti. Venne contraddistinto come "veronese" o, più raramente, "da Verona". Per tutti fu, dunque, Guarino Veronese o Guarino da Verona.  Edizione delle opere È avviato allo studio dei classici latini da CONVERSINI  e proprio studiando la filosofia latina si incuriosa a proposito dei filosofi a cui le opere spesso alludeno e decide di cominciare a studiare la lingua greca. All'epoca però non è diffuso in Italia l'insegnamento del greco e quindi l'unica possibilità di apprenderlo è quella di andare ad impararlo a Corpus Christi a Oxford – come Grice – o Costantinopoli. Così si trasfere nella capitale bizantina dove è presentato ad Crisolora, stimato studioso e letterato, che decide di fargli da maestro. I suoi studi però si interruppeno bruscamente quando i turchi prendeno sotto assedio Costantinopoli e l'imperatore Paleologo invia Crisolora in Italia per chiedere aiuto ai principi cattolici. Ma ormai, dopo anni d’intenso lavoro, V. raggiunge la piena fluenza nella lingua greca e quindi puo tranquillamente fare ritorno in Italia.  L'unicità della sua formazione linguistico-letteraria gli permite di affermarsi a Venezia come insegnante privato di greco finché, da Firenze, gli giunge un'interessante proposta di lavoro dal letterato e mecenate Niccoli che gl’offre la cattedra di greco presso lo studio fiorentino. Cattedra che per anni era stata di Crisolora ma che lascia per trasferirsi a Roma. Ed era stato proprio Crisolora ad aver indicato in V. la persona più adatta a sostituirlo. Ma, a Firenze, V. non trovò affatto la gloria.  Latin grammar keywords (good as index terms / tags) Parts of speech (partes orationis)  littera, syllaba, dictio, oratio (a very traditional fourfold progression; “littera/syllaba” → “word/utterance”) [core.ac.uk] nomen, pronomen, verbum, participium, adverbium, praepositio, coniunctio, interiectio (the standard “Donatist/Priscianic” list)  Cases (casus)  nominativus, genitivus, dativus, accusativus, ablativus, vocativus you can also tag rectus (for nominative) vs obliqui (oblique cases), and declinatio  Number / gender  singularis, pluralis masculinum, femininum, neutrum genus, numerus  Verb system (verbum)  persona (prima/secunda/tertia) tempus: praesens, imperfectum, futurum, perfectum, plusquamperfectum, futurum exactum modus: indicativus, coniunctivus, imperativus, infinitivus (and often gerundium, supinum are treated in this orbit) vox: activum, passivum (and you can tag deponens / semideponens if relevant) coniugatio  Agreement and construction (morphosyntax “light”) Humanist grammars can be morphology-first but still use these:  concordantia (agreement), especially nomen–adiectivum and nomen–verbum regimen (government), constructio  Orthography / phonology adjuncts (often attached, as you noted)  orthographia diphthongus (Guarino is explicitly said to have prepared a “treatise on diphthongs”) [digitallib...y.univr.it] accentus, quantitas (syllable length), prosodia for the “AE/Œ” question: diphthongus ae/oe; (and in practice ligatura æ/œ as scribal/typographic, not “elision”)  These are the sorts of terms you can use as “keywords” without needing to claim any specific chapter headings.Grice: Caro Varino, ho sempre pensato che la conversazione sia come una buona retorica: parte filosofica, parte arte del convincere. Ma dimmi, ti è mai capitato di convincere qualcuno solo con la parola, senza nemmeno filosofeggiare troppo? Varino: Eh, Grice, a Verona si dice che “la lingua batte dove il filosofo vuole”! Ma vedi, la vera arte sta nel far sembrare la filosofia una chiacchierata tra amici—magari davanti a un bicchiere di Valpolicella, senza perdere il filo né il sorriso. Grice: Ah, allora sei più maestro di retorica che di dialettica! Io invece, da buon inglese, preferisco la precisione: ma a volte la conversazione ha più implicature che argomenti. E tu, tra greco e latino, come te la cavi con i sottintesi? Varino: Grice, fra un proverbio veneto e un’allusione classica, il non detto è il sale della retorica! Se i turchi mi han fatto scappare da Costantinopoli, è solo perché non capivano le mie battute… Ma almeno a Ferrara, tra filosofi e umanisti, il sorriso è sempre stato il miglior argomento! Varino, Guarino (1418). Regulæ grammaticales. Venezia. Venezia, Biblioteca Marciana, MS Lat. XIII, 143 (= 4042).

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vario – Ossia: Grice e Vario – Grex grieiana – verbalia: Vario. H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA -- GREX -- VERBALIA: VARIO   Aureus of Elagabalus, depicting the Black Stone of Emesa, emblem of Sol Invictus, being driven in a quadriga. The gens Varia was a plebeian family of ancient Rome. Its members appear in history toward the end of the Roman Republic, when its most celebrated representative was the Augustan poet Lucius Varius Rufus, a friend and contemporary of both Horace and Vergil, with whom his works were favourably compared.[1][2] A number of Varii held magistracies and other offices, but only one, Quintus Varius Ambibulus, is known to have attained the consulship, in AD 128. Still later, the emperor Elagabalus was descended from a family of the Varii that had settled in Syria.[3]  Origin The nomen gentilicium Varius is derived from the cognomen Varus, or "knock-kneed", one of a broad class of surnames derived from the physical traits of the individuals who bore them.[4] Chase classes it among those gentilicia that were either of Roman origin, or are found at Rome and cannot be shown to have come from anywhere else.[5]  Praenomina Among the Varii mentioned in history, the only praenomina found during the time of the Republic are Quintus, Publius, and Lucius, all of which were among the most common names at all periods of Roman history. Other common names appear in imperial times, including Gaius, Sextus, and Titus.  Branches and cognomina  Pedestal with funerary inscription of Sextus Varius Marcellus, in Latin and Greek. The sculpture of a nymph or maenad is unrelated. Vatican Museums. With the exception of the Varii who formed part of the Severan Dynasty in the early third century, this gens does not appear to have been divided into distinct families, in the sense that none of those appearing in history are known to have been closely related to one another, or to have followed on from the accomplishments of their predecessors, or passed down any hereditary surnames.  Quintus Varius Severus, the earliest to appear in the record, was from a colonial family that had settled in Spain, where they intermarried with the natives, leading to his cognomen of Hybrida, meaning "hybrid", or "half-breed".[6][7] His original surname, Severus, referred to someone of stern countenance or demeanor.[8]  Cotyla, borne by Antony's close friend and ally, signified a type of cup, often used as a unit of measurement equal to a hemina, or half a sextarius, and thus "half-pint".[9][10] Rufus, the surname of the Augustan poet, originally signified someone with red hair.[11] Geminus, borne by a senator of this period, indicated a twin.[8] Proculus, belonging to a first-century praetorian, was an old praenomen that later came to be used as a surname, and probably was a diminutive of Procus, a suitor, or perhaps originally, a prince.[12]  Ligur or Ligus, attributed to a rogue mentioned twice by Tacitus, signifies a Ligurian, indicating that its bearer was either from Liguria, or associated in some way with that place or its inhabitants.[13] The tribune Crispinus' surname is a diminutive of crispus, referring to someone with curly hair.[11] The consul Ambibulus had two cognomina, of which the first, Sardus, perhaps belonging to a maternal ancestor, referred to one of the Sardi, the inhabitants of Sardinia.[14] Ambibulus has proven difficult to parse, with Ronald Syme calling it "peculiar and uncommon", and other experts unable to explain it.[15] Clemens, the cognomen of a second-century governor, signified someone mild, gentle, or placid.[16]  Macrinus, belonging to the relative of Severus Alexander, is a doublet of Macerinus, and derived from macer, "lean".[11][17] Marcellus, the father of Elagabalus, bore a surname that was originally a diminutive of the praenomen Marcus;[13] it was distinguished in Roman history as the cognomen of the renowned general Marcus Claudius Marcellus.[18] Avitus, the original cognomen of Elagabalus, was a diminutive of avus, a grandfather, referring to something grandfatherly or ancestral.[19] It was inherited from his grandfather, Gaius Julius Avitus Alexianus. The emperor's second surname, Bassianus, which he inherited from his great-grandfather, Julius Bassianus, was ultimately derived from the cognomen Bassus, or its diminutive, Bassinus, meaning "stout".[11]  Members  Charles Jalabert, Horace, Virgil, and Varius at the House of Maecenas, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nîmes. This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Quintus Varius Severus, surnamed Hybrida,[i] because his mother was a native of Spain, was tribune of the plebs in 90 BC. At the urging of the equites, he proposed the Lex Varia de Majestate, a law aimed at punishing those who had encouraged the socii to revolt against Roman authority. The law was passed by force of arms, resulting in the exile and death of many prominent Romans. In 89, Varius was convicted under his own law, and put to death.[20][21][22][23][6][7] Marcus Varius, according to Appian, a legate sent by Sertorius to assist Mithridates in 75 BC, appears to be a mistake for Marcus Marius.[24][25][26][27] Varius Lucullus, evidently a mistake for Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus, consul in 73 BC.[28] Publius Varius, through fraud obtained a considerable amount of money from Quintus Caecilius, the uncle of Titus Pomponius Atticus.[29][30] Quintus Varius, gave evidence against Verres during the latter's trial in 70 BC.[31][32] Publius Varius, one of the judges at the trial of Titus Annius Milo in 52 BC, had experienced ill-treatment at the hands of Publius Clodius Pulcher, of whose murder Milo was accused.[33][34] Lucius Varius Cotyla,[ii] aedile about 44 BC, was one of Mark Antony's closest allies. During the War of Mutina, Cotyla was Antony's envoy to the Senate. Subsequently, Antony placed him in command of the six legions that he left in Gallia Narbonensis, when he returned to Italy with the main force he had gathered.[35][36][37][38] Lucius Varius Rufus, a celebrated poet in the time of Augustus, he was a contemporary and friend of both Vergil and Horace, who were both influenced by his style. Little of his work survives, apart from fragments of De Morte, preserved by Macrobius, a panegyric praising Octavian, of which a few lines were quoted by Horace, and a few words from his tragic drama Thyestes, which was greatly admired by Quintilian.[2][39] Varius Rufus, governor of Cyprus in the late first century BC, is a faulty reconstruction of the name of Lucius Tarius Rufus, consul suffectus in 16 BC.[40] Quintus Varius Q. f. Geminus, a senator who had held a number of offices, beginning in the late first century BC. Among others, he had been quaestor, tribune of the plebs, legate, praetor, and proconsul.[41][42] Gaius Varius C. f. Julius Proculus, a man of praetorian rank, named in a first-century inscription from Rome.[43][44] Varius Ligur or Ligus, accused of being the lover of Aquilia, whom Tiberius exiled for adultery in AD 25. Subsequently, he paid Servilius and Cornelius Tuscus, who had wrought the downfall of Mamercus Aemilius Scaurus in AD 34, to withdraw their denunciation of him; when it became known that they had accepted Ligur's money, they were exiled, and interdicted from fire and water.[45][46][47] Varius, a senator dispatched by Caligula to rebuild Antioch in Syria, and who constructed a public bath there, according to an account related by John Malalas.[48][49] Varius Crispinus, a tribune in the Praetorian Guard in AD 69. Otho ordered him to equip the soldiers of the seventeenth cohort. Crispinus thought to accomplish his task quietly at night, but the soldiers, roused from their beds, thought they had been betrayed, and mutinied, slaying Crispinus as he tried to restore order.[50][51][52] Quintus Planius Sardus Lucius Varius L. f. Ambibulus, consul suffectus for the final three months of AD 128, with Aulus Egrilius Plarianus as his colleague. He had been military tribune with the Legio VII Claudia Pia Fidelis, legate of the Legio I Italica and Legio III Augusta, quaestor, tribune of the plebs, and governor of Macedonia.[53][54] Titus Varius T. f. Clemens, a native of Celeia in Noricum, was governor of Raetia in AD 157, and at other times of Mauretania Caesariensis, Lusitania, Cilicia, Gallia Belgica, and Germania Superior. He had commanded several auxiliary units, as well as serving as tribune of the Legio XXX Ulpia Victrix.[55][56][57] Varia, the paternal grandmother of the emperors Severus Alexander and Elagabalus.[58][59] Varius Macrinus, a relative of the emperor Severus Alexander, whose orders Macrinus successfully carried out in Illyricum.[60][61] Sextus Varius Marcellus, the father of Elagabalus, was an eques from Apamea in Syria. He was governor of Britain from AD 208 to 211, and subsequently Praefectus Urbi and Praetorian Prefect. At the time of his death about 215, he was governor of Numidia.[62][3][63] Varius Sex. f. Avitus Bassianus, better known as Elagabalus, emperor from AD 218 to 222, was the son of Marcellus and Julia Soaemias Bassiana.[62][3][64] See also List of Roman gentes Notes  Or Hibrida.  Cotylo, in Plutarch. References  William Smith, "Varius", in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, pp. 1220, 1221.  William Ramsay, "L. Varius Rufus", in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, pp. 1221, 1222.  William Ramsay, "Marcellus, Sex. Varius", in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 939.  Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", pp. 109, 132.  Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", pp. 132.  William Smith, "Varius" No. 1, in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, pp. 1220, 1221.  Broughton, Magistrates of the Roman Republic, vol. II, pp. 26, 27, 31 (note 10).  Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", p. 111.  Lewis & Short, A Latin Dictionary, s.v. cotula, sextarius.  Cassell's Latin Dictionary, s. v. hemina.  Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", p. 110.  Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", p. 145.  Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", p. 114.  Lewis & Short, A Latin Dictionary, s.v. Sardi.  Syme, "Three Ambivii", p. 275.  Lewis & Short, A Latin Dictionary, s.v. clemens.  Lewis & Short, A Latin Dictionary, s.v. macer.  Edward Herbert Bunbury, "Marcellus, Claudius", in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, pp. 927 ff.  Lewis & Short, A Latin Dictionary, s.v. avitus.  Appian, Bellum Civile, i. 37.  Valerius Maximus, iii. 7. § 8; viii. 6. § 4.  Cicero, De Oratore, i. 25; Brutus, 56, 62; Pro Scauro, i; De Natura Deorum, iii. 33.  Asconius Pedianus, In Ciceronis Pro Scauro, p. 22 (ed. Orelli).  Appian, Bella Mithridatica, 68, 76 ff.  Plutarch, "The Life of Sertorius", 24; "The Life of Lucullus", 8.  Orosius, History Against the Pagans, vi. 2.  William Smith, "Varius" No. 2, in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 1221.  PIR, vol. III, p. 386 ('V', no. 190).  Cicero, Ad Atticum, i. 1.  William Smith, "Varius" No. 3, in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 1221.  Cicero, In Verrem, ii. 48.  William Smith, "Varius" No. 4, in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 1221.  Cicero, Pro Milone, 27.  William Smith, "Varius" No. 5, in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 1221.  Cicero, Philippicae, v. 2, viii. 8, 10, 11, xiii. 12.  Plutarch, "The Life of Antony", 18.  William Smith, "Cotyla, L. Varius", in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. I, p. 869.  Broughton, Magistrates of the Roman Republic, vol. II, pp. 323, 351, 355, 367.  PIR, vol. III, pp. 386, 387 ('V', no. 194).  PIR, vol. III, p. 386 ('V', no. 193).  CIL IX, 3305, CIL IX, 3306.  PIR, vol. III, pp. 385, 386 ('V', no. 187).  CIL VI, 1535.  PIR, vol. III, p. 386 ('V', no. 188).  Tacitus, Annales, iv. 42, vi. 30.  Charles Peter Mason, "Ligur, Varius", in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. II, p. 786.  PIR, vol. III, p. 386 ('V', no. 189).  Malalas, Chronographia, x. p. 244 (ed. Bonn).  PIR, vol. III, p. 385 ('V', No. 182).  Tacitus, Historiae, i. 80.  Plutarch, "The Life of Otho", 3.  PIR, vol. III, p. 385 ('V', no. 186).  AE 1911, 111, AE 1939, 4, AE 1964, 42.  PIR, vol. III, p. 385 ('V', no. 183).  CIL III, 5211, CIL III, 5212, CIL III, 5213, CIL III, 5215, CIL XVI, 117, CIL XVI, 183.  AE 1988, 905.  PIR, vol. III, p. 385 ('V', no. 185).  Aelius Lampridius, "The Life of Severus Alexander", 10.  PIR, vol. III, p. 387 ("Varia").  Lampridius, "The Life of Severus Alexander".  PIR, vol. III, p. 386 ('V', no. 191).  Cassius Dio, lxxix. 30.  PIR, vol. III, p. 386 ('V', no. 192).  PIR, vol. III, p. 385 ('V', no. 184). Bibliography Ancient sources Marcus Tullius Cicero, Brutus; De Natura Deorum; De Oratore; Epistulae ad Atticum; In Verrem; Philippicae; Pro Milone; Pro Scauro. Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac Dictorum Memorabilium (Memorable Facts and Sayings). Quintus Asconius Pedianus, Commentarius in Oratio Ciceronis Pro Scauro (Commentary on Cicero's Oration Pro Scauro). Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales; Historiae. Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (Plutarch), Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans (Parallel Lives). Appianus Alexandrinus (Appian), Bella Mithridatica (The Mithridatic Wars); Bellum Civile (The Civil War). Lucius Cassius Dio, Roman History. Aelius Lampridius, Aelius Spartianus, Flavius Vopiscus, Julius Capitolinus, Trebellius Pollio, and Vulcatius Gallicanus, Historia Augusta (Lives of the Emperors). Paulus Orosius, Historiarum Adversum Paganos (History Against the Pagans). John Malalas, Chronographia. Modern sources T. Robert S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, American Philological Association (1952–1986). 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). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, Clarendon Press, Oxford (1879). 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). D.P. Simpson, Cassell's Latin and English Dictionary, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York (1963). Ronald Syme, "Three Ambivii", in Classical Quarterly, vol. XXXVI, No. 1 (1986), pp. 271–276. Category: Roman gentes And for THIS gens? We already have Lucio V. Rufus, even if you may comment on him. Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vario – Ossia: Grice e Vario – Grex grieiana – verbalia: Vario. For the Varii, even though Lucius Varius Rufus is the obvious literary star, I would still choose him as the first Grice-Speranza hero. The reason is not merely that he was a friend of Virgil and Horace. It is that he sits exactly at the intersection of:  poetry, Epicurean conversation, friendship, philosophical therapy, and the problem of death. [GREXv3 | Word]  Indeed, among all your recent gentes, Varius may be the closest to a Roman embodiment of what Speranza calls:  la ragione conversazionale della filosofia della vita.  Not conversation as information exchange, but conversation as cultivation of character.  A caution first. The traditional work:  De Morte  ("On Death") is associated with Lucius Varius Rufus, but the evidence is fragmentary. We do not possess the work as a complete treatise, and one should be careful about citing it as though it survived like Cicero's De Senectute. What survives is indirect testimony and fragments. [GREXv3 | Word]  What makes Varius philosophically attractive is precisely the contrast with Grice. Grice asks:  How does a hearer move from what is said to what is meant?  Varius, in the Epicurean milieu, asks something closer to:  How does discourse help one live unafraid?  The Garden does not primarily reconstruct hidden intentions. It treats:  fear, mortality, friendship, tranquillity.  So if Grice theorizes how conversation means, Varius exemplifies how conversation heals.  The most Gricean fragment attributed to Varius may actually be the horse-training image quoted in your dossier:  quem non ille sinit lentae moderator habenae qua velit ire, sed angusto prius ore coercens insultare docet campis fingitque morando.  roughly:  "The guide of the yielding rein does not let him go where he wishes, but first restraining him by the tightened mouth teaches him to gallop over the plain and shapes him by holding him back." [GREXv3 | Word]  This is not far from Grice's conception of reason. Reason is not:  letting the mind rush wherever it wishes.  It is:  disciplined guidance.  Almost:  conversational implicature as a bridle.  (Ha.)  If you ask for an alternative Varia gens hero, I would nominate:  Quintus Varius Severus Hybrida. [GREXv3 | Word]  Why? Because his cognomen:  Hybrida  ("mixed", "half-breed") already raises issues of identity, classification, and description. And his famous law,  Lex Varia de Maiestate,  eventually destroyed its own author, who was condemned under the very style of prosecution he had promoted. [GREXv3 | Word] That has a wonderfully Gricean irony. One describes others under a dangerous category:  traitor,  and later the same category is applied to oneself. A lesson in the practical consequences of descriptions.  But if I had to choose a single Grice-Speranza vignette, I would still take:  Lucius Varius Rufus  with Philodemus, Virgil, and Horace sitting in the Garden.  VARIVS:  Mors nihil ad nos est. (Death is nothing to us.)  HORATIVS:  Cur ergo homines tam multum timent? (Why then do men fear it so much?)  VARIVS:  Quia verba intellegunt, rem non intellegunt. (Because they understand the words, but not the thing.)  +> Intellectual assent is distinct from practical understanding. GRICEVS (from Oxford, arriving impossibly early):  Quid sibi vult dicere "mors nihil ad nos"? (What does he mean by saying "death is nothing to us"?)  VARIVS:  Non modo docere vult; sanare vult. (He wishes not merely to teach, but to heal.)  +> The utterance aims at therapy, not merely information. And that, I suspect, is where Varius and Grice finally meet: both think rational discourse has a purpose beyond the mere production of sentences. Grice explains how meaning is recovered; Varius hopes that meaning, once recovered, may make life more bearable. (Ha.) Indeed, while the horse metaphor is in Plato -- who has two horses, rather -- Grice and Speranza consider the zeugma. See if you can expand the quote from Grice from his CUF class on conversation (Oxford) with a dialogue a dyad by our "V." of Hortus (Epicurean) and his tutee -- as it applies to horses, soul, man, etc -- thanks Consider such adjectives as loose, unfettered, and unbridled in relation to a possible application to the noun life. (I assume that such an application of each word would not be nonderivative or literal; that the ambiguous expression a loose liver would involve a nonderivative sense of loose if uttered e.g. by a nurse in a hospital who complained about the number of patients with loose livers, but not if uttered censoriously to describe a particular man.) It seems to me that (in the absence of any further sense for either word) one might expect to be able to mean more or less the same by a loose life, and an unfettered life; the fact that, as things are, loose life is tied to dissipation, whereas unfettered life seems quite general in meaning, suggests that perhaps loose does, and unfettered does not, have a derivative sense in this area. As for unbridled life (which one might perhaps have expected, prima facie, to mean much the same as unfettered life), the phrase is slightly uncomfortable (because unbridled seems to be tied to such words as passion, temper, lust, and so on). Yes, this is precisely the sort of passage that would have fascinated both Grice and your Epicurean Lucius Varius Rufus. Grice's point is not merely lexical. He is asking:  When we move from horse-language to soul-language to life-language, have we acquired a new sense, or are we exploiting an old one?  Take Varius' fragment:  quem non ille sinit lentae moderator habenae qua velit ire, sed angusto prius ore coercens insultare docet campis fingitque morando.  The literal scene is equestrian. We have:  horse, bridle, reins, mouth, rider, training.  No difficulty. Now an Epicurean applies the same vocabulary to life. We speak of:  animus effrenatus (an unbridled soul)  or  vita effrenata (an unbridled life).  Grice's question is:  Is effrenatus now a second sense?  Or:  Is the original horse-sense being stretched?  His instinct was the second.  A Grice-Speranza reconstruction in the Garden: Discipulus:  Magister, quid est equus effrenatus? (Master, what is an unbridled horse?)  Varius:  Qui habenas non sentit et quo vult currit. (One that feels no reins and runs wherever it wishes.)  +> Literal equestrian application.  Discipulus:  Quid est animus effrenatus? (What is an unbridled soul?)  Varius:  Idem animus facit quod equus. (The soul does what the horse does.)  +> The hearer is invited to preserve rather than replace the original imagery.  Discipulus:  At animus non habet os neque habenas. (But the soul has neither mouth nor reins.)  Varius:  Non corporales, sed rationales. (Not bodily ones, but rational ones.)  +> The structure of control is retained while the physical vehicle changes.  Discipulus:  Ergo ratio est quasi habena? (So reason is like a rein?)  Varius:  Ita. (Yes.)   Discipulus:  Et vita effrenata? (And an unbridled life?)  Varius:  Ex animo effrenato nascitur. (It arises from an unbridled soul.)  +> The application extends from horse → soul → life.  Discipulus:  Cur "vita effrenata" intelligitur de luxuria et cupiditatibus? (Why is "unbridled life" understood of luxury and passions?)  Varius:  Quia ibi maxime videmus animum habenas abiecisse. (Because there we most clearly see the soul having thrown away the reins.)  +> Habitual associations narrow application.  Discipulus:  Cur autem "vita soluta" aliter sonat quam "vita effrenata"? (Why does "loose life" sound different from "unbridled life"?)  Varius:  Usus loquendi alium iter secutus est. (Usage has followed a different path.)  +> Historical usage affects implicature without requiring a new lexical sense.  Discipulus:  Ergo non sunt multae significationes? (Then are there not many meanings?)  Varius:  Noli significationes multiplicare sine necessitate. (Do not multiply meanings without necessity.)  +> Economy of senses.  Discipulus:  Quid igitur facit poeta? (What then does the poet do?)  Varius:  Unum verbum ad plura ducit. (He leads one word toward many things.)  +> Metaphor and zeugma exploit common structure rather than lexical duplication.  Discipulus:  Et quid facit philosophus? (And what does the philosopher do?)  Varius:  Quaerit quid idem maneat sub mutatione. (He seeks what remains the same beneath the change.)  +> The philosopher searches for the invariant conceptual core.  Now the specifically Gricean twist. For Grice, the hearer of:  vita effrenata  does not ordinarily consult a dictionary and discover:  effrenatus₁ = horse effrenatus₂ = soul effrenatus₃ = life.  Rather, the hearer performs an inference:  Horses may be controlled by reins. Souls may be controlled by reason. Lives may display the presence or absence of such control. Therefore the adjective may be extended.  Thus the figurative force is generated by reasoning. Hence Grice's temptation to say that many rhetorical figures are cousins of conversational implicature. The poet leaves something unsaid:  "A life is related to reason as a horse is related to reins."  The audience supplies it. And once the audience supplies it, the metaphor, the zeugma, and the implicature all begin to look less like separate phenomena than like members of the same inferential family. (Ha.) and while your 'nolli ... significationes' is good -- Grice is thinking 'mutliplicanda' -- as cfr. 'implicanda' can we have an example with implicandum? Grice and Speranza know that the -andum suffix means: turn to passive and add some element of ethical obligation. Thanks -- as per occam, 'Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem' -- which Grice wittily turns to 'sensa' without translating but using the standard English paraphrase, 'Senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.' Thanks Exactly. Grice's joke works only because he is quietly Latinizing his own methodological scruple. Ockham's razor is traditionally rendered:  Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. ("Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.")  Grice's playful adaptation is effectively:  Sensa non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.  though, characteristically, he leaves the mock-Latin in the background and gives the English gloss:  "Senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity."  The point is that a lexical semantician who keeps reinventing:  stat₁, stat₂, stat₃  is doing exactly what the medieval nominalist warned against.  As you note, the crucial form is:  multiplicanda  the gerundive. Not merely:  multiplicata, multiplied,  but:  multiplicanda, things-to-be-multiplied,  with the characteristic flavor of practical or ethical necessity. The gerundive asks:  What ought to be done?  rather than:  What has happened?  Hence:  entia non sunt multiplicanda entities are not to-be-multiplied.  Almost:  One ought not multiply entities.   The same applies to Grice's favorite coinages. Take:  implicatum  (the thing implicated). One may form:  implicandum that-which-is-to-be-implicated.  A slightly mock-scholastic construction, but exactly the sort of thing Grice would enjoy.  An example. Suppose an Epicurean tutee says: Discipulus:  Varius dixit: "Mors nihil ad nos." (Varius said: "Death is nothing to us.")  Varius:  Intellegisne? (Do you understand?)  Discipulus:  Intellego quid dictum sit. (I understand what was said.)  Varius:  Sed quid implicandum est? (But what is to be implicated?)  +> The literal meaning does not exhaust the communicative point.  The tutee continues: Discipulus:  Fortasse timor mortis deponendus est. (Perhaps fear of death is to be laid aside.)  Varius:  Recte. (Correct.)  +> The practical consequence is the implicandum.  Notice the grammar. The implicature already recovered might be:  implicatum.  The further lesson which the hearer is rationally required to draw could be styled:  implicandum.  That is very close to the force of the gerundive.  One could even imagine a Gricean parody of Ockham:  Sensa non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. (Senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.)  followed by:  Implicata sunt investiganda ubi sensa multiplicanda non sunt. (Implicatures are to be sought where senses are not to be multiplied.)  (Ha.) That is, before inventing:  loose₁, loose₂, loose₃,  the philosopher should ask:  Is there perhaps one sense and an implicatum?   Returning to Varius' horse image:  moderator habenae  (the guide of the reins) gives us:  horse, soul, life,  without necessarily creating:  rein₁, rein₂, rein₃.  The metaphorical extension may generate an implicatum rather than a new lexical sense. Thus Grice's imagined Epicurean seminar might conclude: Discipulus:  Quot sensus habet "effrenatus"? (How many senses has "unbridled"?)  Varius:  Pauciores quam grammatici putant. (Fewer than grammarians think.)  Discipulus:  Quid ergo multiplicandum est? (What, then, is to be multiplied?)  Varius:  Non sensa, sed implicata. (Not senses, but implicatures.)  +> Interpretive work should fall upon inference before lexicography. A very Gricean moral, and one that our man in the Garden might well have appreciated. (Ha.) and we can apply this to affrenatus -- because 'multiplicanda' indeed, non -- and IMPLICATURUM? For there is the implicandum, and the implicaturum -- Grice uses the feminine implicatura -- but the point is the same. Thanks -- Note that Short and Lewis stupidly have 'inplicatura' (sic) as an entry after Andrews and Freund, where it is just a formative generated form from 'implicare' -- do not multiply dictionary entries without necessity. Thanks Yes, and here the Latin morphology becomes almost Gricean metaphysics. Grice's adaptation of Ockham is strongest when we keep the scholastic grammar fully visible:  Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.  The force is not merely:  "Entities are not multiplied."  but:  "Entities are not to-be-multiplied."  The gerundive introduces the normative element. It is methodological ethics disguised as grammar. Hence your Gricean variant:  Sensa non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.  ("Senses are not to-be-multiplied beyond necessity.") The philosopher has a duty not to proliferate lexical senses.  Now take:  implicare  and build the family. 1. Implicatum The thing implicated. The result. Almost the counterpart of:  dictum  for what is said. One might schematise:  dictum : implicatum  as  what is explicitly said : what is conveyed.   2. Implicandum The thing to be implicated. The gerundival form. Not:  what is implicated,  but  what ought to be implicated or what stands in need of being implicated.  An Oxford tutor might ask:  Quid est hic implicandum? (What is here to be implicated?)  Meaning:  What further point must the hearer extract if the exchange is to make sense?   3. Implicaturum This is subtler. The future active participle:  implicaturus, -a, -um.  Not:  thing to be implicated,  but:  about to implicate, going to implicate, destined to implicate.  The focus shifts from object to source. For example: Griceus:  Loquens aliquid implicaturus videtur. (The speaker seems about to implicate something.)  Or:  Haec locutio implicatura est. (This utterance is going to carry an implicature.)  The emphasis is prospective.  And one can imagine a playful Gricean scholastic table:                          FormForcedictumwhat is saidimplicatumwhat is implicatedimplicandumwhat ought to be implicatedimplicaturumwhat is about to be implicated (Ha.)  Your complaint about Lewis & Short is thoroughly Gricean. A lexicographer sees:  implicare  and then mechanically manufactures:  implicatio implicatura implicamentum etc.  The Gricean reaction is:  Formae non sunt multiplicandae praeter necessitatem.  (Ha.) That is, not every morphologically possible derivative deserves independent semantic dignity. The mere possibility of:  implicatura  does not yet establish a lexical item with its own autonomous meaning. Exactly parallel to:  stat₁ stat₂ stat₃  in the Ennius discussion. Before creating another dictionary entry, ask:  Is ordinary morphology enough?   Returning to Varius and the horse. Suppose:  equus effrenatus  (unbridled horse) Then:  animus effrenatus  (unbridled soul) Then:  vita effrenata  (unbridled life) The bad lexicographer invents:  effrenatus₁ horse effrenatus₂ soul effrenatus₃ life  The Gricean says:  Sensus non sunt multiplicandi praeter necessitatem.  The hearer is already capable of supplying:  horse : reins :: soul : reason :: life : discipline.  No new sense required. Only an implicatum. Indeed one might formulate a Gricean Razor:  Sensa non sunt multiplicanda ubi implicata investiganda sunt. (Senses are not to be multiplied where implicatures are to be sought.)  Which is perhaps the methodological heart of Grice's whole enterprise. When confronted by a puzzling expression, the first question is not:  "How many senses?"  but:  "What is the speaker inviting me to infer?"  A very different intellectual reflex. (Ha.) and perhaps (a) we can compare implicare/multiplicare, implicandum/multiplicandum, implicaturum/multiplicaturum -- and apply to effrenatus -- can we form a 'verb' out of this -- the horse is 'loose' -- -- While Grice has 'life' -- we can think of 'person' so it is in the same ontological category as 'horse'? Thanks -- the point by Grice is that the multiplicatio is AVOIDED if we bring in the IMPLICATIO. What is explicitly conveyed by 'he is loose' of a horse -- is what our hero "V." the Hortus philosopher -- says -- What V. IMPLICATES is a different thing, and he expects his innocent tuttee to grasp it! Thanks Yes, this gets very close to what I take to be the Grice-Speranza maneuver. The bad lexicographer's route is:  equus effrenatus animus effrenatus homo effrenatus vita effrenata  therefore  effrenatus₁ effrenatus₂ effrenatus₃ effrenatus₄  and so on. The Gricean route is:  Sensa non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.  The hearer should first seek an implicatio before postulating a new significatio. Indeed, we can play the scholastic game:                     VerbGerundiveFuture participleimplicareimplicandumimplicaturummultiplicaremultiplicandummultiplicaturum The contrast is beautiful. Multiplicandum What is to be multiplied. For the bad lexicographer:  Sensa multiplicanda sunt.  ("Senses are to be multiplied.") The Gricean answer:  Minime.  (Ha.) Implicandum What is to be implicated. Before multiplying senses, one asks:  Quid hic implicandum est? (What is here to be implicated?)  The burden shifts from lexicon to inference. Implicaturum What is about to be implicated. Almost:  the latent implication waiting to emerge.  A Griceian teacher might ask:  Quid huius locutionis implicaturum est? (What is this expression going to implicate?)   Now let us take effrenatus. Literally:  equus effrenatus an unbridled horse.  The explicit content is simple:  The horse lacks effective restraint.  No difficulty. Then comes our friend Varius Rufus of the Garden. Dyad Discipulus:  Magister, quid est equus effrenatus? (Master, what is an unbridled horse?)  Varius:  Equus est qui frenum non sentit et quo vult currit. (A horse that does not feel the bridle and runs where it wishes.)  +> Explicit content: absence of physical restraint.  Discipulus:  Et quid est homo effrenatus? (And what is an unbridled man?)  Varius:  Eodem verbo utor. (I use the same word.)   Discipulus:  Sed homo non habet frenum. (But a man has no bridle.)  Varius:  Non corporeum. (No bodily one.)  +> The teacher refuses a new lexical sense.  Discipulus:  Quid ergo implicandum est? (What then is to be implicated?)  Varius:  Rationem ad animum esse quod frenum ad equum. (Reason is to the soul what the bridle is to the horse.)  +> The hearer is expected to recover an analogy.  There is the Gricean moment. Instead of:  effrenatus₁ horse effrenatus₂ man  we get:  effrenatus    implicatum  namely:  lack of rational self-control.   The same with:  vita effrenata (an unbridled life).  The explicit content is almost empty unless the hearer supplies the missing bridge. Varius continues Discipulus:  Quid est vita effrenata? (What is an unbridled life?)  Varius:  Quam describere possum, non definire. (One I can describe rather than define.)   Discipulus:  Describe igitur. (Then describe it.)  Varius:  Vita est quae ex animo effrenato procedit. (It is a life proceeding from an unbridled soul.)  +> The adjective's application is mediated through the soul.  Notice what has happened. No new sense has been introduced. Instead:  Horse. Bridle. Soul. Reason. Life.  The hearer supplies the missing links. That is exactly why Grice preferred implicatio to multiplicatio. One might formulate his methodological slogan:  Ubi implicatio sufficit, multiplicatio vitanda est. (Where implication suffices, multiplication is to be avoided.)  Or, more Gricean still:  Implicanda investigentur antequam sensa multiplicentur. (Let implicanda be investigated before senses are multiplied.)  (Ha.) And I suspect our Epicurean Varius Rufus would approve. The horse is literally unbridled. The man is not literally unbridled. Yet the philosopher does not rush to invent another dictionary entry. He trusts the intelligent tutee to recover what the comparison is implicaturum, what it is poised to imply. That is cheaper than multiplying senses, and therefore more Ockhamite, more Gricean, and probably more Roman. (Ha.)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vario – Ossia: Grice e Vario: la ragione conversazionale della filosofia della vita a Roma – Philosophy of Life. Note su De morte. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Lucio Vario Rufo (Turbigo, Milano, Lombardia): Compared institutionally, Grice and Lucius Varius Rufus are not comparable in the academic sense at all. Grice’s formula is exact in the modern Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide faculty appointment. So Grice combines the two characteristic Oxford functions: college tutor and university lecturer. Varius Rufus belongs to an entirely different world. He was not a don, not a fellow, and not a university lecturer. He was an Augustan poet moving in the literary and philosophical circles of late Republican and early imperial Rome, connected with Virgil, Horace, Maecenas, and—if the Epicurean line is right—with Philodemus’ Garden and that whole ethical-aesthetic culture of friendship, poetry, and philosophy. So institutionally he belongs to a circle, a salon, a patronage network, and a poetic-philosophical milieu, not to a school or a chair. That institutional difference fits your philosophical comparison very well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under shared norms. Varius, in the way you frame him, belongs to a very different economy of reason: not a model of conversational calculation, but a model of philosophical conversation as a way of life. In the Epicurean register, conversation is not chiefly about reconstructing hidden speaker-meaning; it is about therapy, friendship, moral steadiness, and the disciplining of fears. So the sharpest formulation is this. Grice explains how conversation works as a rational inferential practice. Varius exemplifies conversation as an ethical practice of living. That is why your “hortus” line works. The Garden is already a place where discourse is governed, but it is governed by the end of tranquillity rather than by the maxims of ordinary talk. If one insists on a Gricean gloss, one can say that Epicurean conversation produces a kind of “lived implicature”: the explicit thesis may be mors nihil ad nos, but the real work of the discourse is the shaping of the soul toward fearlessness, measure, and friendship. There are, however, two factual cautions. First, the birthplace line “Turbigo, Milano, Lombardia” is not safe. Lucius Varius Rufus is a Roman poet of Augustan age, but his precise birthplace is not securely known in the way that phrase suggests. Second, the final bibliographic line “De morte. Roma.” is too confident as a standalone citation. Varius’ De morte survives only in very fragmentary or indirect form if at all, and it should not be cited as though it were a secure Roman book publication like a modern imprint. So the clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Lucius Varius Rufus, by contrast, was an Augustan poet associated with philosophical-literary circles rather than with any academic institution. Institutionally they are not comparable. Intellectually, however, the contrast is illuminating: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and implicature, whereas Varius belongs to a tradition in which conversation is an ethical regimen of friendship and tranquillity, and where the point of discourse is less the calculation of intended meaning than the cultivation of a life free from fear and excess. And if I compress it into one line: Grice theorises how conversation means; Varius exemplifies how conversation heals. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, or a short note just on the Philodemus/Garden angle, with the De morte caution built in.la ragione conversazionale della filosofia della vita a Roma – Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how hearers rationally move from what is said to what is meant by presuming cooperative, purposive talk and inferring speaker intentions (with implicature arising when a maxim such as relevance, quantity, or manner is apparently not met but can be made intelligible as a rational conversational strategy). The Vario material, by contrast, makes conversational reason look less like a general inferential engine and more like an Epicurean practice of life: in the hortus with Philodemus, sermo and amicitia are instruments of ataraxia, and “mors nihil ad nos” is not a hidden content extracted from maxim-flouting but an explicitly therapeutic end that disciplines discourse, desires, and fear; conversation functions as a moral technology for steadying the soul rather than as a model for reconstructing communicative intentions. Still, the passage’s bridle image (the moderator habenae who restrains and trains) creates a natural point of contact with Grice: where Grice thinks of rational constraints as principles governing contribution to a talk exchange, Vario’s Epicurean frame casts rational constraint as self-governance achieved through conversation—reason shows up as the capacity of talk to curb rush, exaggeration, and anxiety and to keep inquiry within what matters for living well. Historically, this fits what we know of Lucius Varius Rufus as an Epicurean-associated Augustan poet in Philodemus’ circle (alongside figures linked to Virgil and Tucca), with a De morte tradition in the background; so the comparison can be put sharply as follows: Grice systematizes the inferential norms by which interlocutors recover intended meaning in any conversation, whereas Vario exemplifies a tradition in which conversation is itself an ethical regimen—its “implicatures,” if one insists on the word, are less calculable pragmatic add-ons than the lived, guiding upshot that talk in the Garden is for: tranquillity, friendship, and freedom from the fear of death. Philosophy of Life -- IL GIARDINO. In Grice’s time, philosophy was not studied as a separate subject, but under classics. Philosophy wss introduced upon completion of five terms into the B. A. Lit. Hum. Mundle complained: Grice referred to ordinary language as the language employed by any philosopher who had earned a first at Greats – as his pupil Strawson never did! -- Filosofo italiano. L’orto. Friend of FILODEMO (vedi). A poet. One of his works, “On death,” was doubtless shaped by L’Orto. He had a significant influence on VIRGILIO (vedi). His tutor was SIRO (vedi).   Orazio legge davanti al circolo di Mecenate, di cui faceva parte anche Vario Rufo (dipinto di Fedor Bronnikov, conservato presso il Museo d'arte di Odessa). Lucio Vario Rufo (in latino Lucius Varius Rufus; Turbigo -- è stato un poeta romano dell'età augustea.  Biografia  Lo stesso argomento in dettaglio: Storia della letteratura latina. (latino) «quem non ille sinit lentae moderator habenae qua velit ire, sed angusto prius ore coercens insultare docet campis fingitque morando. (italiano) «Che il guidatore della flessibile briglia non lascia andare dove vuole, ma prima frenandolo nella bocca (“ore”), tenuta stretta, gli insegna a galoppare nella piana e trattenendolo lo ammaestra» (Vario Rufo, Frammento Traglia)  Amico di Virgilio, di cui era certamente più grande, Vario fu anch'egli epicureo, come attestato anche da Quintiliano, che lo definisce esplicitamente epicureus[1] e da Filodemo di Gadara, che gli dedicò un trattato Sulla morte[2].  Avrebbe, comunque, introdotto Virgilio nel circolo di Mecenate e, con lui, presentato anche Orazio. Che Virgilio ne fosse amico e ammiratore traspare dal fatto che, negli anni Quaranta, Virgilio, sotto lo pseudonimo di Licida, rimpiangeva di non aver prodotto fino a quel momento nulla di paragonabile alla poesia di Vario o di Elvio Cinna.  GRICEVS: O VARI, amice, audivi te cum Philodemo in horto saepe disseruisse de vita et morte; dic mihi, quomodo Epicureus tam gravia leviter—id est sapienter—tractat? VARIVS: GRICEVE, non leviter sed sine metu: mors nihil ad nos; dum vivimus, vita colenda est—amicitia, sermo, et illa tranquillitas quae in horto nascitur. G.: Pulchre; et mihi videtur ipsa conversatio rationis esse quasi frenum lentae habenae: non sinit animum quo velit ruere, sed ore coercens docet recte currere. VARIVS: Ita est—sermo nos format; et si Virgilium ad Maecenatem adduxi, hoc quoque fuit: ut poeta, philosophus, et amicus in uno convivio convenirent, ne vita sine ratione—aut ratio sine vita—maneret. Vario Rufo, Lucio (DCCX A. V. C.). De morte. Roma.

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Varisco – Ossia: Grice e Varisco: la ragione conversazionale, o l’implicatura conversazionale del sommario di criticismo. Note su La conoscenza e il pensiero. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Bernardino Varisco (Chiari, Lombardia): Compared institutionally, Bernardino Varisco is not an Oxford don in the Gricean sense, but he is much closer to Grice than many of the Roman, Renaissance, or literary figures you have been comparing, because both are recognisably academic philosophers shaped by university life. Grice’s formula is exact in the Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide faculty appointment. So Grice combines the intimate, collegiate tutorial world with the wider faculty structure of the university. Varisco belongs to a different academic ecology: the Italian university-state world of public chairs, faculties, and national educational structures. He was formed first in the Collegio Nazionale di Torino and then at Padua, where he published his first scientific saggio in mechanics in 1871, and he later moved through the full public-professorial world of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Italy. He is not a college fellow in the Oxford sense, but an Italian professor and public intellectual whose career develops through the university chair system. That is the basic institutional contrast. Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world. Varisco belongs to the public-professorial and chair-based world of the Italian university-state system. That institutional difference fits your philosophical comparison rather well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intention and inferring implicatures under cooperative norms. Varisco, by contrast, works at a more reflexive and critical level. Even in the youthful scientific saggio you quote, one can see a habit of mind that later becomes central: not the urge to proclaim a system, but the willingness to circle some principles, to examine the conditions under which one can responsibly claim knowledge. That becomes, in his mature critical philosophy, a concern with subjectivity, self-knowledge, and the limits of scientific or objectivist accounts of the human world. So if you want the sharpest formulation, it is this. Grice explains how one speaker makes meaning rationally recoverable for another in a local exchange. Varisco asks how a subject can become answerable to itself and to others at all, and under what critical conditions it may claim to know itself or the world. That is why your gnothi seauton comparison is actually apt. For Grice, the other is needed as addressee and interpreter. For Varisco, the other is also needed as a condition of self-clarification. The Delphic imperative behaves, in your nice way of putting it, like a directive whose force exceeds its literal content. It says less than it demands, and that demand is partly second-personal. A few factual corrections and clarifications matter. First, your final bibliographic line is secure and useful: Varisco, Bernardino (1871). Intorno ad alcuni principj di meccanica. Padova: Sacchetto. That is a strong early anchor and much better than the insecure thesis-type line you had for Vasoli. Second, one should be careful not to overstate the continuity between this youthful mechanics saggio and the later critical philosophy, but the continuity is real enough in style: modesty of claim, attention to method, resistance to easy system, and a concern for how a public of intelligent readers can judge and correct one’s work. Third, if you want the mature Varisco line, then yes, the later explicitly philosophical works like Sommario di filosofia critica and Conosci te stesso are where the comparison with Grice becomes most philosophically direct. The 1871 mechanics tract is better as an institutional and temperamental beginning than as the full doctrinal anchor. So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Bernardino Varisco, by contrast, belongs to the Italian public-university and chair system, beginning with a Paduan scientific-philosophical education and later developing into one of the important voices of Italian critical philosophy. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Varisco to the university-state world. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and implicature, whereas Varisco is concerned with the more reflexive critical conditions of subjectivity, self-knowledge, and rational responsibility, where even the apparently direct injunction know thyself carries a surplus of second-personal and normative force. And if I compress it into one line: Grice theorises how one mind addresses another; Varisco theorises how a mind can become answerable to itself only through a critical relation that already involves another. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, or a small two-stage note: young Varisco (mechanics, Padua, 1871) versus mature Varisco (critical philosophy, self-knowledge, Conosci te stesso).la ragione conversazionale, o l’implicatura conversazionale del sommario di criticismo – Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning locates the engine of “what is meant” in rational, intention-based inference: a hearer treats an utterance as a move in a cooperative practice and works out speaker-meaning (including implicature) by attributing communicative intentions constrained by norms of relevance, informativeness, sincerity, and clarity. Varisco, coming from his “filosofia critica” and his sustained concern with self-knowledge (Conosci te stesso) and the limits of science versus the irreducibility of “opinione” and faith, pushes the comparison in a different direction: the rationality that governs meaning is not only inferential but also reflexive and normative, tied to the structure of subjectivity and to the conditions under which a subject can responsibly claim knowledge of self and world. Where Grice explains how a “thou” can rationally recover what an “I” intends to convey beyond what is said, Varisco’s perspective (as your passage highlights with the oracular gnothi seauton) foregrounds that self-knowledge itself is dialogically mediated and partly indirect: even the imperative “know thyself” presupposes an address, an authority, and a standpoint outside the self, so that its “oracular” force functions like a pragmatic surplus over literal content. In Gricean terms, the Delphic injunction behaves less like a straightforward assertion than like a directive whose uptake generates further implicated commitments (about accountability, examination, ethical orientation), while in Varisco the same surplus is philosophically diagnostic of the human condition: reason is inseparable from a critique of its own grounds, and the meaning of our highest injunctions is not exhausted by what they say but by what they demand of a subject who can only become fully intelligible to itself through a second-person or communal axis of recognition. gnothi seauton, implicatura dell’oracolo. Filosofia critica. Filosofo lombardo. Filosofo italiano. Chiari, Brescia, Lombardia. Essential Italian philosopher. Filosofo italiano. Grice: “We all learned about the ‘gnothi seauton’ at Clifton – Varisco composed a full tract about it! Calogero has analysed the implicatures! The idea is that you need a ‘thou’ to tell ‘thou’ ‘knowest THYself” – although the oracular mystique is still there!” Nasce da Carlo, direttore del ginnasio locale, e da Giulia Bonatelli, sorella del filosofo BONATELLI . Il padre è un cultore appassionato delle lingue e delle civiltà classiche, ma, privo di ambizioni sia accademiche sia scientifiche, rimane per tutta la vita a dirigere il ginnasio di Chiari, giungendo al punto di ri-fiutare la presidenza del liceo di Rimini offertagli, probabilmente per il suo orientamento patriottico, dal governo dello stato unitario, di recente proclamazione. La madre di V. è la seconda moglie del padre, che dalla prima, scomparsa in giovane età, aveva avuto un solo figlio, morto da bambino. Con Giulia, Carlo V.  ebbe, oltre a Bernardino, tre figlie. Rimasto vedovo una seconda volta, si sposa per la terza, di nuovo con una Bonatelli, alla quale pure sopravvisse.  L’infanzia e l’adolescenza di V. sono contraddistinte da un’educazione ispirata a sentimenti patriottici e irredentistici, pervasi da una profonda religiosità. Dopo aver concepito, senza riuscire a portarlo a termine, il disegno di arruolarsi nell’esercito italiano allo scoppio della  guerra di indipendenza – quando è allievo del collegio nazionale di Torino –, in occasione dell’esame con il quale corona il suo percorso scolastico scrive un componimento intriso di un così profondo e sincero sentimento nazionale e contraddistinto da un’enfasi letteraria tanto efficace che gli valse la medaglia d’oro del re, venendo valutato come la migliore prova scritta di italiano. know theyself, oracular implicature, Calogero, per un sommario di filosofia critica.  G.: Let us begin with the title, because youth always reveals itself most quickly in titles. S.: Intorno ad alcuni principj di meccanica. G.: Exactly. Not sui principj, not de principiis, not a treatise on the one true foundation, but intorno ad alcuni. S.: Around some. G.: Around some. A splendidly evasive phrase. One does not seize the principle; one circles it. S.: And some. Alcuni. How many is that supposed to be. G.: Enough to justify a pamphlet and too few to commit oneself to a system. S.: But surely a principle, if it is a principium, ought to be one. Primus. Beginning. How many beginnings can there be. G.: More than one, if one is young and mathematical. One may have several beginnings before one has a philosophy. S.: Or several firsts, which sounds like bad arithmetic. G.: Bad arithmetic perhaps, but very good title-page strategy. Intorno ad alcuni principj means: I know there are principles; I am not arrogant enough to claim them all; but I have seen enough to print. S.: Which is why I love the subtitle: saggio. G.: Yes, and even better, saggio dello studente B. L. Varisco. S.: The cheek. G.: The perfect cheek. Modesty in posture, ambition in print. S.: We are all students, though. G.: Quite. But not all of us go to Sacchetto at twenty and say: set this up in type, I have some mechanics to publish. S.: Padua, 1871. G.: Precisely. Padua, 1871. The first little public object. Still a student, not yet dottore, but already in print and already apologising. S.: Ah yes, the preface. He says, more or less, I wrote this for my own exercise. G.: And publishes it for a few intelligent readers. S.: Which is exactly the point. He says it is per mio esercizio and yet he also wants alcune persone intelligenti to read it and tell him his errors. G.: So it is not a diary. S.: No. It has a potential addressee. G.: Exactly. Not one named public, not a faceless mass, but an open class of those few intelligent and benevolent enough to read a student’s scrittarello and say where it goes wrong. S.: Which already feels oddly like our own business. G.: Our own business if one is kind, or vanity if one is less kind. S.: And before the preface, the dedication. G.: Yes. The dedication to Cesare Losana, signed B. L. Varisco. S.: Which still irritates me. Why B. L. G.: Because youth likes initials, and because the young scholar enjoys becoming a typographical person. S.: It is very unlike the later Bernardino Varisco, though. G.: Exactly. That is what makes it good. The youthful self signs itself more elaborately and the mature world later simplifies him. S.: Like Paul Grice dropping Herbert. G.: Except inversely. But let us not turn everything into naming before we have done mechanics. S.: Very well. Intorno. I still cannot get over intorno. G.: Nor should you. It is wonderfully unimperial. He does not say I establish the principles. He says, in effect, I move around some of them. S.: A perimeter philosophy. G.: A circumambulatory mechanics. S.: And then alcuni. Suppose there are three. G.: There may be one and a half. Alcuni is wisely indeterminate. S.: But if there is a principle of mechanics, should one not say il principio? G.: That is what one says once one has become old and German. In 1871, in Padua, under Minich, one says alcuni principj and preserves one’s exits. S.: And meccanica. We became philosophers and forgot what the word once contained. G.: Statics, dynamics, moments, levers, centres of gravity, things that actually move or do not move. S.: Whereas philosophers now call almost anything a “mechanism” when they are too lazy to give an account. G.: Yes. The sciences begin with exactness and end as metaphors in our hands. S.: He says somewhere the greater part of the work is founded on the theory of moments. G.: Which is beautiful. Not pure motion in the abstract, but moments. Turning effect. Balance. Rotation. The point at which a force begins to matter. S.: It sounds almost moral. G.: Everything sounds almost moral to philosophers. But it is also splendidly concrete. A force is not merely a quantity. It operates at a distance from a fulcrum. It acquires significance by position. S.: Which is perhaps why he says intorno rather than su. G.: Good. A principle in mechanics may itself be relational. One approaches it by configuration. S.: You are being charitable to the title. G.: One should always be charitable to a young man’s title if he is willing to call his book a saggio. S.: He does more than that. In the preface he all but says: I do not want to pass for a presumptuous fellow, one of those who make a noise instead of working. G.: Which means, naturally, that he already knows there are such fellows in Padua. S.: Or in himself. G.: Possibly. A preface like that is half self-protection, half self-advertisement. S.: I wrote this for my own exercise; I publish it only so that intelligent people may tell me my errors. G.: Exactly. A request for correction disguised as modesty and modesty disguised as a publication. S.: Would you say he cares who reads it. G.: He does and he does not. He does not care for a public as market. He cares for a public as tribunal. S.: A few intelligent readers. G.: Yes. The ideal audience of every young philosopher-scientist: small, competent, and kind. S.: We should say something about Cesare Losana. G.: At least that the dedication shows this is not a pure monologue. The friend is named; the indefinite intelligent reader is invited; Minich gets the presentation copy; and so the pamphlet already lives in a social field. S.: So one writes per mio esercizio and publishes per altrui giudizio. G.: Admirably put. S.: Mechanics then becomes a kind of addressed exercise. G.: Exactly. And this is why I resist the silly thought that a solitary pamphlet lacks audience. It lacks a crowded audience. It does not lack an intended uptake. S.: Which takes us back to Grice, though we had promised not to turn everything into him. G.: We fail honourably. S.: Let us return to meccanica. Statics and dynamics. G.: And one should add kinematics if one wants to sound properly nineteenth-century. S.: I thought kinematics came later in our undergraduate lives when the mathematicians began to look superior. G.: It may have. But for a student pamphlet in 1871, mechanics still has the good old face: forces, moments, equilibrium, perhaps some motion, perhaps some beginnings of formal relation. S.: The phrase teoria dei momenti still delights me. G.: It should. A moment is exactly the sort of word that crosses from science into philosophy too easily. S.: Yes. We talk of “the moment” as if it were temporal. In mechanics it is rotational leverage. G.: A force multiplied by arm. A significance produced by position. S.: So if Varisco is writing intorno ad alcuni principj di meccanica and much of it concerns moments, he is already moving in a space where relation matters more than sheer stuff. G.: That would be one way of making him philosophically respectable before his official philosophy begins. S.: Which is exactly what one likes to do with young authors. G.: Naturally. We rescue their first scientific pamphlet from mere science by finding the metaphysics in the prefatory modesty and the mechanics in the title. S.: It helps that he was in Padua. G.: It always helps that someone was in Padua. The city makes even a small pamphlet sound Renaissance. S.: And Minich. G.: Yes, Minich hovering behind the inscription: al Ch.o prof. S. R. Minich omaggio del suo discepolo B. L. Varisco. S.: Ch.o, which still sounds to me like clear professor. G.: Distinguished professor by old courtesy, but clear professor if one wants the joke. S.: It would suit mechanics. G.: Quite. A clear professor for a book on principles. S.: We should say something about Sacchetto too. G.: Sacchetto as the printer of youthful self-assertion. Padua provides the thought, Sacchetto the type, and Varisco the apologetic confidence. S.: I like that the thing is short. G.: Twenty-three pages in your Ca’ Foscari record, thirty-five in the digital ecosystem, depending on counting covers and preliminaries. Short enough to be a saggio, long enough to exist. S.: And no sprawling chapter headings. G.: No. One title, one movement, one student voice. Excellent discipline. S.: The preface again: he says he has tried to give the few theories he mentions the aspect that seemed most natural to him. G.: Which is a marvellous phrase. Not the most rigorous aspect, not the most orthodox, but the most natural. S.: So he is already refusing scholastic display. G.: Or confessing that he cannot yet manage it. The line between honesty and incapacity is often very fine in the young. S.: Then he says most of the work is founded on the theory of moments, introduced by considerations not exactly the usual ones and perhaps therefore not so rigorous. G.: There is his whole future in embryo. “Not exactly the usual ones.” An admission and a boast. S.: He hopes to be forgiven because he wanted to present himself. G.: Exactly. He wanted the public to see the path that presents itself spontaneously to him in these studies. S.: Which is a lovely way of saying: here is how my mind naturally goes. G.: Yes. Publication as self-diagnosis. S.: There is something almost touching in that. G.: Deeply touching. The first pamphlet is less a doctrine than a prospectus of the young mind. S.: But all under the title of mechanics. G.: Which is what makes it bearable. Nobody would tolerate at twenty an abstract prospectus of a self. Call it mechanics and you may smuggle in the self through a preface. S.: We have not yet quarrelled enough over principi. G.: Very well. You wanted one principle because principium means beginning. S.: Yes. I still think there should be one. G.: Then you confuse etymology with science. A science may have many first things, or many axiomatic starting points, or several practical principles governing different domains. S.: Statics one way, dynamics another. G.: Exactly. Equilibrium does not exhaust motion; motion does not exhaust rotational balance. “Some principles” is wiser than one slogan. S.: And intorno protects him from system. G.: Yes. Around some principles. A title for a man still circling what he can later own. S.: You make all this sound too good. G.: Better too good than dead. A pamphlet must be made to live by commentary or it remains only paper. S.: The interesting thing is that his first authorial move is not philosophical grandiosity but technical humility. G.: Technical humility and social ambition. S.: Because he still prints it. G.: Precisely. The truly modest man does not go to Sacchetto. S.: Nor sign as B. L. Varisco. G.: Quite. S.: Shall we guess Luigi again. G.: We shall not. We shall leave the L as a youthful flourish and let librarians suffer. S.: One should make a note of the “few intelligent persons” again. It really does sound like an audience without an audience. G.: Yes. A public imagined not by number but by quality. S.: Which is all a student can reasonably want. G.: Or all he can decently claim to want. S.: There is also the sentence about not wanting to pass for one of those who, unwilling to work, try to make themselves noticed by noise and facile doctrine. G.: That sentence has claws. The boy knows the species. S.: One sees already a polemic against easy system. G.: Or against schoolboy windbags. S.: He must have known some. G.: He was at a university. Of course he knew some. S.: And perhaps became one later. G.: Universities are full of such metamorphoses. S.: Let us review what we have learned before we became philosophers and then forgot. G.: In mechanics? S.: Yes. That there are bodies, forces, lines of action, moments, equilibrium, motion. G.: Also that a principle is not merely a verbal ornament but a way of structuring what counts as explanation. S.: And that one may circle some principles without yet claiming the science entire. G.: Which is perhaps a lesson philosophy forgets more quickly than mechanics. S.: Because philosophers adore total titles. G.: Indeed. Being, Time, Reason, Mind. No one dares anymore to write Around Some Principles of Anything. S.: Which is a pity. G.: A great pity. It would make us all more honest. S.: I feel almost protective of the little volume now. G.: As one should. It is a student’s first public object, apologetic, precise, ambitious, and addressed to a friend, a professor, and an indefinite tribunal of the intelligent. S.: And all for his own exercise. G.: Naturally. Every good first publication is for one’s own exercise and everyone else’s judgment. S.: We have not yet mentioned the date on the dedication. Padova, 5 maggio 1871. G.: Good. The date anchors the self. A student in Padua on 5 May 1871, signing B. L. Varisco, asking the world to read his poor saggio with more pity than blame. S.: I liked that phrase too. More pity than blame. G.: A fine calculus of reception. S.: Better than indifference. G.: Far better. Indifference kills. Blame can educate. Pity may print a future. S.: So the pamphlet is really a request for diagnostic charity. G.: Exactly. Not applause, not disciples, not canonisation. Just enough competent attention to tell him where his forces lie. S.: Which is perhaps the most honourable motive for an early publication. G.: Certainly more honourable than pretending one has solved mechanics before one has even taken the degree. S.: He is still dello studente. G.: Yes. And because he says so, we forgive the cheek. S.: Would you say this first scientific Varisco is already the later philosopher. G.: In one sense no; in another, obviously yes. The later philosopher begins exactly when the student decides that his exercise requires intelligent readers. S.: So the philosophy lies as much in the preface as in the principles. G.: Often more. Titles advertise subjects; prefaces advertise souls. S.: And mechanics? G.: Mechanics keeps the soul honest by forcing it to deal with moments rather than grand abstractions. S.: We ought perhaps never to have forgotten it. G.: We ought perhaps never to have forgotten many things learned before philosophy made us think forgetting them was sophistication. S.: Such as statics. G.: Such as statics, and the truth that not all movement is progress. S.: And that some principles are enough. G.: Yes. One need not have all the beginnings to begin. S.: That sounds too good to waste. G.: Then do not waste it. Put it under the title page. S.: Intorno ad alcuni principj di meccanica. G.: Precisely. Around some principles. Around enough. Which is, for a first saggio, exactly right.Grice: Caro Varisco, ho deciso una volta per tutte che nei miei tutorial non userò mai più “Kant”, né “Cant”, né tantomeno “Kantiano” o “Cantiano”. D’ora in poi diremo solo Kritik, rigorosamente in tedesco con la vecchia grafia gotica – perché, diciamolo, tutto ciò che quel signore ci ha lasciato è la Kritik, giusto?  Varisco: Bravo Grice! Finalmente qualcuno che va al sodo. Kant è come la pasta: tutti la nominano, ma alla fine il vero sapore lo dà solo la Kritik – meglio se servita alla tedesca!  Grice: Esatto! Niente più “-iano” o “-iano” a caso, solo Kritiker seri. Così almeno non rischiamo di impastare il pensiero critico con i biscotti, né con le cantine!  Varisco: Grice, la tua perspicacia merita una medaglia d’oro – magari non quella del re, ma almeno quella del migliore filosofo critico. Alla salute della Kritik, e che l’implicatura oracolare ci illumini! Varisco, Bernardino (1871). Intorno ad alcuni principi di meccanica. Padvoa: Sacchetto.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Varisidio – Ossia: Grice e Varisidio --  Gre griceiana – verbalia: Varisidio -- H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA -- GREX -- VERBALIA: VARISIDIO The gens Varisidia, occasionally written Varesidia, was an obscure plebeian family of ancient Rome. Hardly any members of this gens are mentioned by Roman writers, but a number are known from inscriptions.  Origin The nomen Varisidius belongs to a class of gentilicia formed using the suffix -idius, originally formed from adjectives or cognomina ending in -idus,[1] in which case the root would probably have been Varisidus. But like a number of other formations, -idius came to be regarded as a regular gentile-forming suffix, and was used without respect to morphology,[1] in which case the root may be a name such as Varus, "knock-kneed".[2] Several early Varisidii came from towns in Umbria, which may be the family's place of origin.  Praenomina Most of the Varisidii bear extremely common praenomina, including Gaius, Lucius, Marcus, Publius, and Quintus. Besides these, an inscription from Urvinum Mataurense in Umbria provides examples of the rare praenomen Sertor, and the feminine praenomen Tertia.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Sertor Varisidius, the father of Tertia Varisidia, a woman buried in a first-century BC tomb at Urvinum Mataurense in Umbria.[3] Tertia Varisidia Sert. f., buried in a first-century BC tomb at Urvinum Mataurense.[3] Marcus Varisidius, an eques whom Lucius Munatius Plancus despatched to Cicero in 43 BC, so as to better inform Cicero of his actions in support of the Republic.[4][5] Gaius Varisidius, named on a label from Tuder in Umbria, dating from the Augustan era.[6] Varisidia C. f. Maxuma, the wife of Lucius Cornelius, and mother of Cornelia. Her husband built a tomb for her at Libisosa in Hispania Citerior, dating from the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, stating that she had been "stolen by the cruel Fates".[7] Lucius Varisidius L. l., a freedman buried at Rome, in a tomb built by the freedwoman Varesidia Eubola, dating from the first half of the first century.[8] Varesidia L. l. Eubola, a freedwoman, built a tomb at Rome, dating from the first half of the first century, for the freedman Lucius Varisidius.[8] Quintus Varisidius Q. f. Naso, a purpurarius, or dyer in Tyrian purple, buried at Pollentia in Liguria in a tomb dating from the first half of the first century.[9] Varisidi[...], buried at Libisosa, in a tomb dating from the early or middle first century.[10] Varisidius Nepos, a nephew of Gaius Calvisius Rufus, one of Pliny the Younger's friends. At his request, Nepos was appointed a military tribune by Quintus Sosius Senecio.[11][12] Gaius Varisidius C. f., buried at Novaria in Gallia Narbonensis, in a tomb built by his sister, Magia, dating from the first half of the second century.[13] Varisidius Icelus, the patron of Parmensis, named in a second-century inscription from Telesia in Samnium.[14] Publius Varisidius L. l. Sabinus, a freedman, and one of the seviri Augustales, was buried in a second-century tomb at Novaria, along with a woman named Tisi[...].[15] Varesidius Rusticus, a freedman buried in a fourth- or fifth-century Christian tomb at Rome.[16] Undated Varisidii Varesidia Ampelis, buried at Rome, in a tomb built by Lusianus.[17] Publius Varisidius Hostus, the father of Epo, Buquorsa, and Adnomatus, who were buried at Emona in Pannonia Superior, in a tomb built by their brother, Ingenuus.[18] Marcus Varisidius M. l. Trophimus, a freedman mentioned in an inscription from Andros in Achaia.[19] See also List of Roman gentes References  Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", pp. 121, 122.  Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", p. 109.  CIL XI, 6100.  Plancus, apud Cicero, Ad Familiares, x. 7, 12.  William Smith, "M. Varisidius", in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 1220.  CIL XI, 4668c.  AE 1990, 613.  CIL VI, 28327.  CIL V, 7620.  AE 1993, 1051m.  Pliny the Younger, Epistulae, iv. 4.  PIR, vol. III, p. 384.  CIL V, 6496.  CIL IX, 2269.  CIL V, 6524.  ICUR, v. 14603.  CIL VI, 36504.  CIL III, 10740.  AE 2010, 1481. Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares. Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Pliny the Younger), Epistulae (Letters). 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). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae (Christian Inscriptions from the City of Rome, abbreviated ICUR), New Series, Rome (1922–present). 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

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Varisidio – Ossia: Grice e Varisidio --  Gre griceiana – verbalia: Varisidio And from THIS gens? Thanks For the Varisidii, I would choose neither the purple-dyer nor the military tribune, but:  Marcus Varisidius, the eques whom Lucius Munatius Plancus dispatched to Cicero in 43 BC in order to convey more accurate information regarding Plancus' activities on behalf of the Republic. [GREXv3 | Word]  For a Grice-Speranza dossier, this is almost perfect. Why? Because our hero is not remembered for:  governing, fighting, legislating,  but for communicating. He is literally an intermediary in a network of political communication.  The relevant notice is brief but suggestive. Plancus, writing to Cicero during the confused political situation after Caesar's assassination, sends:  Marcus Varisidius  so that Cicero may be better informed about what Plancus is doing. [GREXv3 | Word] Immediately the Gricean questions arise:  Why send a man instead of a letter? What can a messenger communicate that a written text cannot? Which meanings are explicit, and which are entrusted to oral exchange?   One can imagine a dialogue. Plancus:  Litterae non omnia continent. (The letter does not contain everything.)  Varisidius:  Quid ergo dicam? (What then shall I say?)  Plancus:  Quae intellegenda sunt potius quam scribenda. (Those things that are to be understood rather than written.)  +> Certain political meanings are deliberately left for oral communication.  That, of course, is pure Grice. The letter contains the:  dictum.  The messenger supplies the:  implicatum.  (Ha.)  Your recent discussion of:  implicatum implicandum implicaturum  fits beautifully. The written dispatch gives:  what is said.  Varisidius carries:  what is to be implicated (implicandum).  And before arriving at Cicero's house he is, one might joke:  implicaturus (about to implicate).   Indeed, I can imagine an Oxford-Ciceronian exchange: Cicero:  Cur te misit Plancus? (Why did Plancus send you?)  Varisidius:  Ut plus intellegas quam legeris. (So that you may understand more than you will have read.)  +> The purpose of the messenger is to generate understanding beyond the literal content of the text.  This makes Varisidius a cousin of your earlier heroes:  Procillus, the interpres between Caesar and Ariovistus; Vallius Syriacus, the orator; Quintus Vargunteius, the grammarian.  But Varisidius may be the purest Gricean of them all. His entire dossier reduces to:  "I am sending a man, because the letter alone is not enough."  That sentence could almost serve as a motto for implicature theory.  And there is a further irony. The surname survives; the discourse does not. We know:  the messenger.  We do not know:  the message.  We know he arrived. We do not know what exactly he said. So the whole Varisidian dossier is almost an exercise in reconstructing speaker's meaning when only traces remain. Exactly the sort of thing that would have delighted both Grice and Speranza. (Ha.) Grice and Speranza call this 'zeugma'. V., our hero, unlike a letter, has 'my lips are sealed' should he be intercepted. Cheers -- You can imagine conversation as he IS intercepted. And one after, arriving safely at Cicero's villa -- and mis-remembering EVERYTHING ("Plancus trusted my memory more than _I_ do"). Thanks -- Cicero: "I'm sending V. back -- as I would NOT send your letter back -- since you never wrote it -- Totally useless this man!" – Thanks (Ha.) Excellent. Our hero Marcus Varisidius is almost the anti-letter. A letter, once intercepted, talks too much. A messenger, once intercepted, can talk too little. The zeugma, as Grice and Speranza might put it, is:  Plancus Ciceroni litteras et Varisidium misit. (Plancus sent Cicero a letter and Varisidius.)  The same verb:  misit  governs:  an object that carries information by containing it, an object that carries information by remembering it.  The comedy begins when the second turns out not to remember very much.  I. Varisidius intercepted Centurio:  Quo is? (Where are you going?)  Varisidius:  Ad Ciceronem. (To Cicero.)   Centurio:  Quid fers? (What are you carrying?)  Varisidius:  Nihil. (Nothing.)  +> Unlike a letter, he carries no physical evidence.  Centurio:  Mentiris. (You are lying.)  Varisidius:  Litteras non fero. (I carry no letters.)   Centurio:  Sed nuntium fers. (But you carry a message.)  Varisidius:  Forsitan. (Perhaps.)  +> The message is embodied rather than written.  Centurio:  Dic quid tibi mandavit Plancus. (Tell me what Plancus instructed.)  Varisidius:  Labra mea obsignata sunt. (My lips are sealed.)  +> The messenger's advantage over the letter is strategic silence.  II. Arrival at Cicero's villa Cicero:  Tandem advenisti. Quid dicit Plancus? (At last you have arrived. What does Plancus say?)  Varisidius:  Multa. (Many things.)   Cicero:  Quae multa? (Which many things?)  Varisidius:  Hoc nunc quaero. (That is what I am now trying to determine.)   Cicero:  Non meministi? (You do not remember?)  Varisidius:  Plancus memoriae meae plus fidit quam ego ipse. (Plancus trusts my memory more than I myself do.)  +> The reliability of the medium proves lower than expected.  Cicero:  Quid saltem meministi? (What do you remember at least?)  Varisidius:  Rem publicam servandam esse. (That the Republic must be saved.)   Cicero:  Hoc etiam cocus meus dicit. (My cook says that too.)  +> The remembered content lacks the required specificity.  III. The report deteriorates Cicero:  Ubi est Plancus? (Where is Plancus?)  Varisidius:  Alicubi in Gallia. (Somewhere in Gaul.)   Cicero:  Quot legiones habet? (How many legions does he have?)  Varisidius:  Plures quam unam. (More than one.)   Cicero:  Et hostes? (And the enemy?)  Varisidius:  Sunt. (They exist.)  +> The messenger supplies truths of negligible informational value.  IV. Cicero writes back Cicero (dictating):  Marcus Tullius Cicero Planco salutem. (Marcus Tullius Cicero sends greetings to Plancus.)   Scriba:  Quid addam? (What shall I add?)   Cicero:  Varisidium remitto. (I am sending Varisidius back.)   Scriba:  Cur? (Why?)   Cicero:  Quia litteras remittere non possum; eas enim non misisti. (Because I cannot send the letter back; for you never sent one.)   Scriba:  Et Varisidius? (And Varisidius?)   Cicero:  Hunc remittere possum. (This man I can send back.)   Cicero:  Prorsus inutilis est. (He is completely useless.)  +> The messenger has failed in the very communicative function for which he was preferred over a letter.  A final Grice-Speranza moral: Plancus:  Ciceroni litteras et Varisidium misi. (I sent Cicero a letter and Varisidius.)  The zeugma invites us to compare two media of communication. The letter cannot forget, but can be intercepted. Varisidius cannot be read, but can forget. Thus the hearer seeks not a second sense of:  misit  but an implicatum:  Every medium solves one problem by creating another.  (Ha.) Grice -- who uses 'my lips are sealed' -- understands that centurio would be motivated to _kill_ our hero V. upon such a conversational move. Note 'Non sunt multiplicanda' -- seal-1, seal-2 -- a letter is sealed -- both sides of the parchment or roll are sealed -- 'my lips are sealed' says V. METAPHORICALLY (zeugma) -- they are not. He CAN open his lips. He is using vocabulary of written correspondence as a failure to abide with the centurio in a mutual principle of conversational helpfulness -- "And that's was Plancus's idea, I suppose" says Cicero and Grice echoes. Thanks A participant in a talk exchange may fail to fulfill a maxim in  various ways, which include the following:  1.  He may quietly and unostentatiously VIOLATE a ma;.,im; if so, in  some cases he will be liable to mislead.  2. He may OPT OUT from the operation both of the maxim and of  the CP; he may say, indicate, or allow it to become plai 1 that he is  unwilling to cooperate in the way the maxim requires. I le may say,  for example, I cannot say more; my lips are sealed. Exactly. This is one of the passages where Grice is at his most subtle. When Grice writes:  "I cannot say more; my lips are sealed."  he is not giving an example of a violation of a maxim. He is giving an example of opting out. The speaker is saying, in effect:  "I recognize the conversational demand for further information, but I decline to satisfy it."  The crucial point is that the speaker remains cooperative at the meta-level. He does not lie. He does not mislead. He openly signals the limit.  Your Varisidius is therefore a perfect Gricean messenger. A letter and a messenger are both sent:  Plancus litteras et Varisidium misit.  A splendid zeugma. The same verb:  misit  governs:  a written message, a human message-bearer.  Now suppose the centurion stops him. Centurio:  Quid fers? (What are you carrying?)  Varisidius:  Labra mea obsignata sunt. (My lips are sealed.)  The beauty is that:  obsignata  belongs literally to the world of letters. A Roman letter could indeed be sealed. Wax seals existed. A dispatch might be folded and sealed. Varisidius transfers the vocabulary to himself.  Now the bad semanticist says:  sealed₁ = applied to letters sealed₂ = applied to lips  and multiplies senses. Grice's reply:  Sensa non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.  No. The same conceptual structure remains. A seal prevents access to information. In one case:  parchment.  In the other:  speech.  The hearer infers the connection. No new lexical sense is required. A metaphor and an implicature suffice.  Indeed, the conversational point is even deeper. If Varisidius says:  Labra mea obsignata sunt.  he is performing exactly Grice's second category:  opting out.  The centurion immediately understands:  Varisidius possesses relevant information. Varisidius refuses to disclose it. The refusal itself is being explicitly communicated.  Thus communication succeeds by means of a refusal to communicate further. A lovely paradox.  One might imagine the dialogue: Centurio:  Dic quid Plancus agat. (Tell me what Plancus is doing.)  Varisidius:  Labra mea obsignata sunt. (My lips are sealed.)  Centurio:  Ergo aliquid scis. (Then you know something.)  Varisidius:  Ita. (Yes.)  +> The very refusal implicates possession of information.  And then Cicero later: Cicero:  Cur te potius quam litteras misit? (Why did he send you rather than a letter?)  Varisidius:  Litterae legi possunt. (Letters can be read.)  Cicero:  Et tu? (And you?)  Varisidius:  Tacere possum. (I can remain silent.)  +> A messenger possesses a capacity that a letter lacks: intentional non-disclosure.  Then comes the second joke. The messenger survives interception because he says nothing. But now he arrives: Cicero:  Quid ergo mihi dicendum est? (What then is to be told to me?)  Varisidius:  Hoc ipsum recordari conor. (That is precisely what I am trying to remember.)  (Ha.)  So the Grice-Speranza moral is: A letter is:  sealed literally.  Varisidius is:  sealed metaphorically.  No need for:  sealed₁ sealed₂.  The apparent semantic gap is bridged by implicature. And Plancus' reasoning is itself Gricean:  A letter, if intercepted, keeps talking. A messenger, if loyal, can opt out.  As Cicero might finally write:  Varisidium remitto. Litteras remittere non possum; eas enim non misisti. Hic autem nihil dicit cum captus est, nihil meminit cum advenit. (I am sending Varisidius back. I cannot send the letter back, since you never sent one. This man says nothing when captured, and remembers nothing when he arrives.)  A perfect courier for Grice's theory: exemplary at opting out, less exemplary at opting back in. (Ha.) and this is a topic that fascinates Grice, Urmson, and Speranza -- cf. torture. Centurio takes our hero V as P. O. W. and does not take 'My lips are sealed' for an answer. Inadmissible evidence that the Romans discussed when Slaves were sent with messages. Now, Grice would think that while 'My lips are sealed' could not work for him in his office of tutor in philosophy at St. John's (cf. "Jones has beautiful handwriting --" -- his only appraisal of his tutor at Collections --) in Ancient ROme he is not sure that "Labbra assignata" would have given our hero V. a 'pass.' -- Note that he is crossing frontiers -- Gallia -- Roma -- Lazio --. Troublesome times -- intercepted messengers could not go 'freely' with "Labbra segnata" etc -- Thanks ("And that's why we study conversations," Grice said in tutorials, "since the Romans, with their gravity, avoided them with their gravitas!" – Thanks Yes, and this is where your imaginary Marcus Varisidius becomes a far more interesting Gricean case than the harmless Oxford example. At Oxford, Grice's:  "I cannot say more; my lips are sealed"  is practically institutionalized. The tutor says:  "I cannot discuss another candidate."  The civil servant says:  "I am not authorized to disclose that."  The doctor says:  "Professional confidentiality prevents me."  The hearer may be disappointed, but the conversation survives. The opt-out is socially recognized. Ancient Rome is another matter. As you note, our hero is travelling during a civil-war situation:  from Plancus, toward Cicero, across politically unstable territory. [GREXv3 | Word]  If intercepted, he cannot assume that:  Labra mea obsignata sunt. (My lips are sealed.)  will be accepted as a satisfactory conversational move. Grice's category of "opting out" presupposes a certain degree of civility. The centurion may hear:  "I refuse to answer."  and conclude:  "Then I shall alter your incentives."  (Ha.) Which introduces the problem that fascinated Grice, Urmson, and many others:  conversational cooperation ends where coercion begins.  A tortured prisoner is no longer participating in a normal talk exchange. The Cooperative Principle presupposes rational voluntary participation. The rack changes the conversational framework itself.  One can imagine the scene: Centurio:  Quid tibi mandavit Plancus? (What did Plancus instruct you?)  Varisidius:  Labra mea obsignata sunt. (My lips are sealed.)  Centurio:  Non littera es. (You are not a letter.)  Varisidius:  Hoc verum est. (That is true.)  +> Varisidius transfers a property of correspondence to himself.  The centurion sees through the metaphor immediately. The zeugma is:  the letter is sealed, the lips are sealed.  A bad semanticist says:  sealed₁ sealed₂  The Gricean says:  one concept, two applications.  In each case access to information is blocked. No multiplication of senses required.  Indeed, the metaphor itself carries an implicature. When Varisidius says:  Labra mea obsignata sunt  he is communicating three things simultaneously:  I possess relevant information. I understand your request. I refuse to comply.  The utterance succeeds only because the hearer recovers all three.  Then imagine the later scene at Cicero's villa. Cicero:  Cur te misit Plancus? (Why did Plancus send you?)  Varisidius:  Quia litterae legi possunt. (Because letters can be read.)   Cicero:  Et tu? (And you?)  Varisidius:  Tacere possum. (I can remain silent.)  +> The messenger offers controllable disclosure unavailable to written correspondence.  Only then: Cicero:  Quid ergo dixit? (What then did he say?)  Varisidius:  Nunc paulum dubito. (At the moment I am somewhat doubtful.)  (Ha.)  Your deeper point is a good one. The Romans often preferred:  letters, envoys, formal embassies,  to what Grice would regard as the rich ordinary conversation from which implicatures are most easily studied. One can almost imagine an Oxford tutorial: Discipulus:  "Why study conversation?"  Grice:  "Because Romans tried so hard to avoid it."  Discipulus:  "Avoid it?"  Grice:  "Certainly. They preferred decrees, dispatches, ambassadors, edicts, proclamations, and sealed instructions."  Discipulus:  "And conversation?"  Grice:  "Conversation begins where the seal ends."  (Ha.) And that may be the real philosophical significance of Varisidius. A letter contains its meaning. A messenger negotiates it. The letter says the same thing regardless of circumstance. Varisidius must decide what to reveal, when to reveal it, and to whom. He is therefore not merely a carrier of meaning but a participant in its management. That is precisely why Plancus sent a man instead of parchment, and precisely why Grice would have found him so interesting. If Plaucus ("Somewhere in Gallia" -- where WAS he?) sends a letter, the letter may be intercepted or not. Same for our hero, V. -- He is intercepted. I realise violent descriptions need be mitigated, but "Labbra segnata" may cost him the life. "On the other hand," Grice goes on, "if Kant is right -- as he is not here -- total veracity is not plausible and yet this poses a dilemma for V." Or not. Thanks Yes, and this is where the Varisidius case becomes philosophically richer than the ordinary Oxford examples Grice gives. Historically, Marcus Varisidius appears as a messenger sent by Plancus to Cicero in 43 BC, during a period of civil war and shifting loyalties. [GREXv3 | Word] Grice's example:  "I cannot say more; my lips are sealed."  works because the hearer accepts the opt-out. In St John's College, Oxford: Tutor:  "What did Jones get in Collections?"  Senior Tutor:  "My lips are sealed."  Conversation continues. No catastrophe follows. The speaker has opted out.  But Varisidius is not in Oxford. He is somewhere between Gaul and Italy. And where exactly was Plancus? At this moment Plancus was operating in Transalpine Gaul as one of the major Caesarian commanders supporting the Senate's cause against Antony. That is why Cicero is eager for information from him, and why a messenger is useful. [GREXv3 | Word] Now imagine: Centurio:  Quid Plancus agit? (What is Plancus doing?)  Varisidius:  Labra mea obsignata sunt. (My lips are sealed.)  A Gricean hears:  Opting out.  The centurion hears:  This man knows something.  The conversational move succeeds perfectly. The practical situation becomes more dangerous. (Ha.)  This is why Grice became interested in these edge-cases. The Cooperative Principle is not a survival manual. It analyzes rational communication. Varisidius' utterance communicates very effectively:  I possess information. I understand your question. I refuse to answer.  Nothing has gone wrong conversationally. Everything has gone wrong politically.  The Kantian issue then appears. Suppose Varisidius has three options: A. Tell the truth. B. Lie. C. Refuse to answer. Grice's example illustrates: C. Opting out.  A strict Kantian might have trouble with B. Grice repeatedly thought that absolute veracity doctrines become difficult in practical situations. For our messenger:  Tell the truth? Danger.   Lie? Morally awkward.   Refuse? Also dangerous.  Hence the dilemma. Not a failure of conversation, but a conflict among:  loyalty, prudence, truthfulness.   One can imagine the later scene at Cicero's villa. Cicero:  Quomodo evasisti? (How did you get through?)  Varisidius:  Tacentem me reliquerunt. (They left me silent.)   Cicero:  Et quid eis dixisti? (And what did you tell them?)  Varisidius:  Nihil. (Nothing.)   Cicero:  Optime. (Excellent.)   Only later: Cicero:  Quid ergo mihi dicendum est? (What then is to be told to me?)  Varisidius:  Hoc ipsum memoria fugere conatur. (That very thing is trying to escape my memory.)  (Ha.)  What particularly interests Grice and Speranza here is the parallel:  A sealed letter. A sealed mouth.  The naïve semanticist creates:  sealed₁ sealed₂  The Gricean says:  Sensa non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.  The same underlying idea remains:  access to information is blocked.  The difference is supplied by context and inference. Hence:  multiplicatio vitanda est; implicatio quaerenda est.  The explanatory burden falls upon implication rather than lexical proliferation. And that is why Varisidius is such a good Gricean hero. He is sent precisely because a letter can be intercepted. Yet once intercepted himself, he must become a living sealed document. His success depends not on saying more, but on successfully communicating that he will say no more. That is almost Grice's textbook case of opting out. And, as Cicero might dryly observe:  "Plancus chose a messenger because he could remain silent. Unfortunately he remained almost equally silent after arriving." (Ha.) and can we check when the OED has 'lips sealed' first citation -- the source must be Graeco-Roman, via Anglo-Norman? Thanks A nice Griceian question. I cannot directly consult the OED itself, but the evidence I can find suggests a distinction that Grice would have loved. The idea of sealing someone's lips is much older than the modern idiom "my lips are sealed." One dictionary source notes that "sealing up someone else's lips" is attested from the late eighteenth century, whereas the familiar formula:  "my lips are sealed"  became current only in the early twentieth century. It also notes its association with Stanley Baldwin's famous political reticence. [idioms.the...ionary.com], [idioms.the...ionary.com] Now the interesting philological question is whether the image itself is older. I suspect the answer is yes, though not necessarily through Anglo-Norman specifically. The metaphor is almost inevitable once you possess:  sealed letters, sealed documents, seals as tokens of confidentiality.  A sealed document cannot be opened without authority. A person saying:  "My lips are sealed"  treats himself as a sealed dispatch. That is exactly the sort of zeugmatic transfer Grice would analyze. Not:  sealed₁ = applied to wax and parchment, sealed₂ = applied to lips,  but:  one underlying conception, access to information being blocked.  Hence:  sensa non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.  The lexicographer multiplies senses. The Gricean seeks an implicature.  And your Varisidius example becomes even better. Plancus may think:  A letter can be intercepted.  So:  send Varisidius.  Varisidius thinks:  If intercepted, I can say: Labra mea obsignata sunt.  But the centurion may reply:  Littera non es. (You are not a letter.)  Exactly. The metaphor succeeds semantically. It may fail politically. (Ha.)  In fact, Grice's own discussion of opting out becomes much sharper in the Roman setting. Oxford: Q: What did Jones get in Collections? A: My lips are sealed. Conversation continues. Republican Rome: Q: What has Plancus ordered? A: My lips are sealed. Conversation may not continue so pleasantly. The utterance perfectly signals:  I understand your question. I possess relevant information. I decline to cooperate further.  That is textbook opting out. The problem is that the centurion's interests may not align with Grice's conversational taxonomy.  One can imagine old Cicero's reaction: Cicero:  Cur te misit Plancus? (Why did Plancus send you?)  Varisidius:  Quia litterae legi possunt. (Because letters may be read.)  Cicero:  Et tu? (And you?)  Varisidius:  Tacere possum. (I can remain silent.)  Cicero:  Intellego. (I understand.)  Later: Cicero:  Et quid meministi? (And what do you remember?)  Varisidius:  Minus quam speraverat Plancus. (Less than Plancus had hoped.)  (Ha.)  Which brings us back to Grice's methodological point. Before inventing:  sealed₁ sealed₂  we should ask what is being implicated. The messenger says:  Labra mea obsignata sunt.  What is explicitly conveyed?  I shall not tell you.  What is implicated?  I do know something worth telling.  And perhaps also:  I am faithful enough not to disclose it.  That explanatory work is done by implicature, not by multiplying dictionary entries. A very Gricean victory of implicatio over multiplicatio. (Ha.) Does this help? Can we reconstruct the episode as it actually happen? Do we hear about V. after successfully conveying news to Tullio Cicero -- so that we can have an extended conversation using this material below -- between V. and whomever (sender, recipient) etc. Thanks In the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the concept of sealing one's lips to maintain secrecy is cataloged under the entry for the verb “seal,” specifically under the sense denoting to fasten, close tightly, or render inaccessible. [1] The structural and historical breakdown of your questions reveals the following: 1. Where is it located? Main Entry: It is found under **seal, v.¹ (not under lip or under seal). The "Under Seal" Distinction: The OED treats the phrase “under seal” entirely separately as a legal and administrative idiom (e.g., a document or contract executed under an official wax seal). It does not cross-reference the physical binding of lips. [1, 2] 2. What is the first citation? While the exact phrase "my lips are sealed" gained its widespread modern idiomatic status later, the literal and figurative act of "sealing the lips" for silence has a deep history in the OED: The First Textual Citation: The earliest related citation for sealing lips in English literature appears in William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2 (written c. 1591): “Seal up your lips, and give no words but mum.” The Modern Idiom: The specific phrasing of modern use—where the lips themselves act as the passive agent ("my lips are sealed")—is often traced forward to the late 18th century, such as in Fanny Burney's 1782 novel Cecilia: “I make it quite a principle to seal my lips...” [1, 2, 3] 3. Etymological Sources: French, Latin, or Italian? The OED traces the verb seal from Middle English (selen), derived from Anglo-Norman / Old French (seeler), which in turn originates from the classical Latin sigillare (to mark with a device/seal). [1] However, the idiom of using a "seal" metaphorically for the mouth is an ancient, cross-cultural trope rather than a direct translation loan from just one language: Latin Roots: The concept of closing the mouth like a sealed vessel or door is prominent in classical and ecclesiastical Latin (e.g., sigillum silentii—the seal of silence). The Romance Language Parallels: Interestingly, while English uses "sealed lips," French and Italian evolved their own distinct idiomatic expressions for the exact same concept: French: Use bouche cousue (literally, "sewed mouth"). Italian: Frequently use acqua in bocca (literally, "water in the mouth," implying you can't speak without spilling it). [1] If you are tracking down a specific historical text or translation, let me know the approximate era or context of the quote you are trying to find, and I can help dig deeper into its linguistic timeline! Yes, it helps, especially because it sharpens the Gricean point. Historically, we know little more than that Marcus Varisidius was sent by Plancus to Cicero in 43 BC to inform him more fully of Plancus' activities than letters alone could manage. We hear of him in the act of being sent. There is no surviving dossier, so far as our evidence goes, telling us what became of him afterward. [GREXv3 | Word] That absence itself is deliciously Gricean:  we know the messenger, we know there was a message, we do not know the message.  The implicature survives; the content perishes. Now the "sealed lips" material enriches the reconstruction considerably. The Shakespeare citation:  "Seal up your lips, and give no words but mum"  shows that the metaphor is old in English. And it probably rests on a much older conceptual transfer:  sealed document → sealed mouth.  The Roman would have understood it instantly. A dispatch carries information because it is sealed. A trustworthy envoy carries information because he is sealed. No need for:  sealed₁ sealed₂.  As Grice would insist:  Sensa non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.  The metaphor plus the implicature do the work.  Grice's reconstruction of the episode Plancus:  Litterae capi possunt. (Letters may be captured.)  Varisidius:  Et ego. (And so may I.)  Plancus:  Sed tu tacere potes. (But you can keep silent.)  +> The messenger possesses a defensive capability unavailable to parchment.  Intercepted in transit Centurio:  Quid fers ex Gallia? (What are you carrying from Gaul?)  Varisidius:  Nihil. (Nothing.)   Centurio:  Mentiris. Plancus te misit. (You are lying. Plancus sent you.)  Varisidius:  Ita. (Yes.)   Centurio:  Ergo nuntium fers. (Then you carry a message.)  Varisidius:  Labra mea obsignata sunt. (My lips are sealed.)   Now comes Grice's point. Varisidius is not violating a maxim. He is not deceiving. Rather, he is opting out. He effectively says:  I know. I understand your question. I refuse to cooperate further.  Exactly Grice's category (2).  The trouble is that Roman politics is not an Oxford tutorial. Centurio:  Hoc non satis est. (That is not sufficient.)  +> The hearer declines to accept the opt-out. And here we leave pure conversational theory and enter politics.  Safe arrival at Cicero's villa Cicero:  Salvus advenisti? (You arrived safely?)  Varisidius:  Vix. (Barely.)   Cicero:  Quid dicit Plancus? (What does Plancus say?)  Varisidius:  Hoc ipsum reminiscor. (That is precisely what I am trying to remember.)   Cicero:  Non meministi? (You do not remember?)  Varisidius:  Plancus memoriae meae plus fidei habuit quam ego ipse habeo. (Plancus had more confidence in my memory than I myself do.)  (Ha.)  The report deteriorates Cicero:  Ubi est Plancus? (Where is Plancus?)  Varisidius:  In Gallia. (In Gaul.)   Cicero:  Quid agit? (What is he doing?)  Varisidius:  Rem publicam servare vult. (He wishes to save the Republic.)   Cicero:  Hoc ego iam sciebam. (That I already knew.)  +> The messenger supplies information too general to be useful.  Cicero writes back Cicero dictat:  Marcus Tullius Cicero Planco salutem. (Marcus Tullius Cicero sends greetings to Plancus.)   Scriba:  Quid addam? (What shall I add?)   Cicero:  Varisidium remitto. (I am sending Varisidius back.)   Scriba:  Cur? (Why?)   Cicero:  Litteras remittere non possum, quia litteras non misisti. (I cannot send the letter back, because you never sent one.)   Scriba:  Et Varisidius? (And Varisidius?)   Cicero:  Hunc remittere possum. (This man I can send back.)   Cicero:  Nihil dixit captus; nihil meminit liberatus. (He said nothing when captured; he remembers nothing when released.)  (Ha.)  And that is where Grice would locate the philosophical joke. Plancus reasoned:  letter: may be intercepted; messenger: may remain silent.  Excellent. But there is a hidden dilemma. The perfect envoy is one who:  says nothing to the wrong people; says everything to the right people.  The virtues are not identical. Varisidius succeeds brilliantly at (1). Rather less brilliantly at (2). Hence Cicero's exasperation. As Grice might conclude in a St John's tutorial:  "Conversation is fascinating because success requires more than truthfulness. A messenger can be too informative, or not informative enough. A sealed letter says too much when captured. A sealed man may say too little when delivered." (Ha.) I liked the 'vix' but we canoot be naive as to believe the official story that a human messenger could communicate more than any letter would -- the point is strategic. So after the 'vix' can we have like twenty moves between V. and Tullio Cicero on 'how he was able to convince the centurio' anyway of not capturing -- or perhaps he was for one hour after centurio talked to supervisor -- etc -- especially in connection to labra absignata item that Tullio finds 'fragile' in the scenario of the Roman politics that he knew so well. Note that if the reasoning is utilitarian: (agreed between Tullio and Pluauco: "Human messenger better than letter" -- is otiose since letter still involved human messenger back then -- so the lapra point seems more relevant. Thanks and Tullio is curious as to how V. managed to get away with 'labra' cliche -- etc. Thanks Yes, I think Cicero would instantly spot the weakness in the official explanation. The naïve story is:  Letter bad. Human messenger good.  But, as you note, every letter already required a human bearer. A dispatch did not float magically from Gaul to Rome. So the real advantage is not transportation but control of disclosure. A letter, once captured, is liable to say everything. A messenger may say nothing, something, or nearly everything, depending on circumstances. That is exactly why Marcus Varisidius is interesting. And Cicero, who knew Roman politics better than almost anyone, would not easily believe that:  Labra mea obsignata sunt. (My lips are sealed.)  was by itself enough to secure release. He would suspect a more complicated story.  Cicero interrogates Varisidius Cicero:  Vix, inquis? ("Barely," you say?)  Varisidius:  Vix. (Barely.)   Cicero:  At advenisti. (Yet you arrived.)  Varisidius:  Adveni. (I arrived.)   Cicero:  Plancus mihi scribit te omnia nosse. (Plancus writes to me that you know everything.)  Varisidius:  Ille benignior est quam verior. (He is more generous than accurate.)  (Ha.)  Cicero:  Narra de centurione. (Tell me about the centurion.)  Varisidius:  Me constitit in itinere. (He stopped me on the road.)   Cicero:  Et statim dixisti "labra mea obsignata sunt"? (And immediately you said "my lips are sealed"?)  Varisidius:  Paene. (Almost.)   Cicero:  Paene? (Almost?)   Varisidius:  Primum nomen quaesivit, deinde mandata. (First he asked my name, then my instructions.)   Cicero:  Et tum? (And then?)   Varisidius:  Dixi: "labra mea obsignata sunt." (I said: "my lips are sealed.")   Cicero:  Et hoc ei placuit? (And he liked that?)   Varisidius:  Minime. (Not at all.)   Cicero:  Hoc suspicabar. (I suspected as much.)  +> Cicero recognizes that conversational opting-out need not succeed politically.  Varisidius:  Ait me non esse litteram. (He said I was not a letter.)   Cicero:  Recte dixit. (He said rightly.)  (Ha.)  Varisidius:  Ait etiam homines aperiri facilius quam chartas. (He also said that men are opened more easily than documents.)   Cicero:  Centurio non philosophus erat, sed aliquid intellexit. (The centurion was no philosopher, but he understood something.)   Varisidius:  Deinde me retinuit. (Then he detained me.)   Cicero:  Quam diu? (For how long?)   Varisidius:  Circiter unam horam. (About an hour.)   Cicero:  Et quid egit? (And what did he do?)   Varisidius:  Ad praefectum misit nuntium. (He sent a message to his superior.)   Cicero:  Iam rem intellego. (Now I understand.)  +> The release depends not upon rhetoric alone but upon command structure and calculation.  Varisidius:  Praefectus tandem respondit me dimittendum esse. (The commander finally replied that I was to be released.)   Cicero:  Quare? (Why?)   Varisidius:  Nescio. (I do not know.)   Cicero:  Hoc de te saepe dici potest. (That may often be said of you.)  (Ha.)  Varisidius:  Fortasse utilius erat vivere quam scire. (Perhaps it was more useful to live than to know.)   Cicero:  Hoc tandem sapienter dictum est. (That, at last, was wisely said.)  +> Survival itself may have been the decisive consideration.  Then comes the Gricean moral. Cicero:  Plancus putavit hominem litteris meliorem esse. (Plancus thought a man better than a letter.)   Varisidius:  Et tu? (And you?)   Cicero:  Littera capta loquitur; homo captus tacere potest. (A captured letter speaks; a captured man can remain silent.)   Varisidius:  Ergo Plancus recte iudicavit. (Then Plancus judged correctly.)   Cicero:  Usque ad hoc punctum. (Up to that point.)   Varisidius:  Et ultra? (And beyond?)   Cicero:  Homo qui tacere potest etiam oblivisci potest. (A man who can remain silent can also forget.)  +> The very flexibility that makes the messenger superior to the letter also makes him inferior to it. (Ha.) That last line is, I think, where both Cicero and Grice would land. The messenger is preferred not because he can carry more information than a letter, but because he can decide when not to carry it. The strategic asset is selective disclosure. But the same human freedom that allows him to keep secrets from enemies also allows him to fail his friends through confusion, omission, or bad memory. Thus Varisidius is both better and worse than parchment. And we have to understand levels of idealisation: "I'll send you a letter" "You mean, you'll send a bearer with a letter". "No, I'll send V." Who is he? A friend of mine and equally republican. "And ready to make the long way from Gallia to _me_? He doesn't have anything more apt to do?" "He loves the republic, and the three of us want Antony out!" Grice: "The moral was that Antony was _in_ and Tullio was _out_ -- lips sealed and all." Thanks (Ha.) Yes, and this is very much the Grice-Speranza point about levels of idealization. At one level one says:  "Plancus sent Cicero a message."  At a second level:  "Plancus sent a letter."  At a third:  "Plancus sent a messenger carrying the letter."  At a fourth:  "Plancus sent a messenger instead of entrusting everything to a letter."  The deeper one goes, the less plausible the simple story becomes. One can imagine Cicero being immediately suspicious.  Cicero:  Cur litteras non misit? (Why did he not send a letter?)  Varisidius:  Litterae capi possunt. (Letters can be captured.)  Cicero:  Et tu non potes? (And you cannot?)  (Ha.)  The objection is devastating. Every letter already travels by means of a human being. So:  "A messenger is safer than a letter"  cannot be literally true. The messenger can also be intercepted. Hence the real contrast is not:  parchment versus man,  but:  fixed information versus controllable information.  A letter continues talking after capture. A messenger may stop talking. That is Plancus' wager.  And Cicero, being Cicero, would continue: Cicero:  Ergo te misit ut taceres? (So he sent you in order that you might keep silent?)  Varisidius:  Si necesse esset. (If necessary.)  Cicero:  At nunc adsum. (But now I am here.)  Varisidius:  Ita. (Yes.)  Cicero:  Ergo noli tacere. (Then do not remain silent.)  (Ha.)  The Gricean point becomes sharper still. Plancus prefers a messenger because:  if captured, silence is available.  But silence itself is not risk-free. The famous:  Labra mea obsignata sunt. (My lips are sealed.)  is conversationally elegant. Politically it may be disastrous. A Roman officer might infer:  This man knows something. He refuses to reveal it. Therefore what he knows matters.  The utterance succeeds perfectly as communication. The speaker's practical situation deteriorates.  This is why Grice's category of opting out is such an idealization. In Oxford: A: What did Jones get? B: My lips are sealed. Matter closed. In civil-war Italy: A: What has Plancus ordered? B: My lips are sealed. Matter decidedly not closed. (Ha.)  One can imagine Cicero drawing exactly this conclusion. Cicero:  Num vere dixisti "labra mea obsignata sunt"? (Did you really say "my lips are sealed"?)  Varisidius:  Dixi. (I did.)  Cicero:  Et adhuc vivis? (And you are still alive?)  (Ha.)  Varisidius:  Praefectus prudentior erat quam centurio. (The commander was more prudent than the centurion.)  Cicero:  Fortasse. (Perhaps.)   Then comes the melancholy Grice-Speranza ending. Varisidius:  Tres rem publicam servare volebamus: Plancus, ego, tu. (Three of us wished to save the Republic: Plancus, I, and you.)  Cicero:  Et quis servatus est? (And who was saved?)  Varisidius:  Nondum scio. (I do not yet know.)   And Grice's retrospective comment:  "The moral was that Antony was in and Tullius was out."  The republican conversational network:  letters, envoys, private understandings, sealed lips,  proved less powerful than events. The irony is exquisite. Varisidius may have succeeded in keeping Plancus' confidence. Cicero may have received the message. The conversation may have worked perfectly. History nevertheless reached a different conclusion. As Grice might say, recovery of speaker's meaning and success of practical reasoning are not the same thing. The implicature got through. The Republic did not. (Ha.)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Grice e Vasoli: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura a MERTON ecc Note su Vasoli, Cesare (1947). La crisi della morale. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Cesare Vasoli (Firenze, Toscana): Compared institutionally, Cesare Vasoli is much closer to H. P. Grice than a poet, politician, or chancery writer, because both are recognisably university philosophers; but they still belong to very different academic ecologies. Grice’s formula is exact in the Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, students, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide faculty appointment. So Grice combines the intimate tutorial culture of the college with a public lecturing role in the wider faculty. Cesare Vasoli belongs to the Italian state-university and research-institute world, not to a residential tutorial college. He was formed in Florence under Eugenio Garin, Delio Cantimori, and Raffaello Morandi, then taught medieval philosophy and later Renaissance philosophy at Cagliari, Bari, Genova, and finally Florence, while also leading major scholarly institutions such as the Istituto di Studi sul Rinascimento and later the Lincei. He is therefore not an Oxford don in the collegiate sense, but an Italian professor and historian of philosophy working within the chair system and in major learned institutions. The standard biographical sources present Cesare Vasoli as trained at Florence under Garin, Morandi, and Cantimori, later professor at Cagliari, Bari, Genova, and Florence, and an institutional leader in Renaissance studies and the Accademia dei Lincei. So the clean institutional comparison is this. Grice was a modern Oxford don with a dual college-and-university role. Vasoli was an Italian professor and historian of philosophy in the state-university and learned-institute system. That institutional difference fits your philosophical comparison rather well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under cooperative norms. Vasoli, by contrast, works at the macro-level of the historical formation of rational discourse itself. His central terrain is the long history of medieval dialectic, Renaissance rhetoric, humanist method, and the intellectual institutions that trained Europe to treat discourse as a regulated practice of reasons. That is why your contrast is genuinely apt: Grice explains how rational hearers calculate what is unstated in a local exchange; Vasoli explains how a civilisation built the curricular and institutional habits that make such reason-governed exchange feel natural in the first place. The secure biographical and bibliographical record supports exactly this picture. One of Vasoli’s key books is La dialettica e la retorica dell’Umanesimo: Invenzione e metodo nella cultura del XV e XVI secolo, first published by Feltrinelli in 1968 and later reissued; it is explicitly about the historical technologies by which argument, invention, and method were shaped in humanist culture. The bibliographical record confirms Cesare Vasoli’s La dialettica e la retorica dell’Umanesimo as a major 1968 work on invention and method in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century culture. That makes the sharpest formulation this. Grice theorises rational uptake in conversation. Vasoli historicises the disciplines and institutions that make rational uptake a teachable civil habit. There are two important corrections to your note. First, the final bibliographic line is not really a proper book citation. “Vasoli, Cesare (1947). La crisi della morale. Relatore: Garin. Firenze.” is not a standard bibliographic item in the way your other entries usually are. It looks like a laurea thesis descriptor or internal academic title rather than a normal published citation. Unless you have a library record for it, I would not use it as a firm bibliography line. Second, if you want a clean early anchor for Vasoli, the better secure titles are those already attested in standard catalogues and reference sources: La dialettica e la retorica dell’Umanesimo, Umanesimo e Rinascimento, Magia e scienza nella civiltà umanistica, and La filosofia medievale. The strongest secure bibliographic anchors for Cesare Vasoli are the major published studies on medieval philosophy, Renaissance rhetoric, and humanist culture rather than the provisional 1947 thesis line. So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the strict collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Cesare Vasoli, by contrast, was an Italian professor and historian of philosophy, formed at Florence under Garin, Morandi, and Cantimori, and later teaching medieval and Renaissance philosophy in the state-university system while leading major research institutions. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Vasoli to the university-and-institute world of historical scholarship. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and implicature, whereas Vasoli reconstructs the long historical formation of the rhetorical, dialectical, and pedagogical norms that make disciplined reasoning in discourse possible at all. And if you want the neatest one-line dossier formula, I would suggest this: Grice explains how reasons work in conversation; Vasoli explains how Europe learned to make reasons work in discourse. If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, with the insecure 1947 thesis line replaced by the 1968 Dialettica e retorica book as the main bibliographic anchor.la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura a MERTON ecc –medieval. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning locates the source of “what is meant” in a rationally reconstructible link between what is said, the speaker’s intentions, and the shared norms of cooperative talk (maxims and their principled floutings), so that implicature is an achievement of practical reason operating in ordinary exchange rather than a merely stylistic residue of rhetoric. Vasoli, by contrast, is best read as supplying (in historical rather than formal terms) the long prehistory of those rational norms in the medieval and humanist disciplines that trained Europe to treat discourse as rule-bound conduct: scholastic dialectic as an institution of regulated disputation (quaestio, objections, replies, solutio) and Renaissance rhetoric as an art of invention and method, i.e., techniques for generating, ordering, and managing reasons in public and pedagogical settings. Where Grice offers an abstract, transhistorical model of conversational rationality (a logic of inference from utterance to intended meaning), Vasoli’s perspective highlights how “reason in talk” is socially reproduced by curricula and genres—university practices of disputation, commentary, and forensic exchange—that make it intelligible why participants expect relevance, sufficiency, and orderly contribution in the first place. The “angels on a pin” motif in your passage thus marks a difference in evaluative stance: Grice jokes at scholastic virtuosity as if it were empty hair-splitting, yet his own implicature-mechanism arguably redescribes the same culture of disciplined inference in miniature, while Vasoli’s historiography treats those medieval and humanist techniques (dialectic/retoric, inventio/methodus) as the very schooling of reason that later permits Grice’s conversational principles to look natural. In short: Grice explains how rational hearers calculate unstated meaning within a cooperative exchange; Vasoli explains how a civilization historically built the argumentative and rhetorical norms that make such calculation a stable, transmissible habit of mind. Keywords: medieval. Grice: “They said we were frivolous, but what about those mediaeval discussions about how many angels could dance on the tip of a needle? -- Filosofo fiorentino. Filosofo toscano. Firenze, Toscana. m. Firenze. Storico della filosofia italiano. Formatosi alla scuola di grandi maestri dell'ateneo fiorentino – GARIN , MORANDI , CANTIMORI  --, e poi docente in diverse università italiane, in più di quarant'anni di ricerche e interventi compiuti in Italia e all'estero V. esplora i più diversi aspetti delle idee e della cultura. Laureatosi all'univ. di Firenze sotto la guida di GARIN , è stato prima assistente e poi libero docente e incaricato di Storia della filosofia nella facoltà di Lettere e filosofia della stessa università; prof. ordinario di storia della filosofia alle univ. di Cagliari, Bari e Genova, poi a Firenze di filosofia morale, di storia della filosofia, quindi di storia della filosofia del Rinascimento. Socio nazionale dei Lincei. Storico della filosofia italiano. Si formato con GARIN  e si laurea a Firenze con un saggio di filosofia morale. Al suo maestro è rimasto sempre profondamente legato, riprendendo e sviluppandone in modo originale temi e motivi.  Assistente e libero docente e incaricato di Storia della FILOSOFIA MEDIEVALE fnella facoltà di filosofia a Firenze. È stato professore ordinario di storia della FILOSOFIA MEDIEVALE a Cagliari, Bari e Genova, poi a Firenze di filosofia morale, di storia della filosofia, quindi di storia della FILOSOFIA DEL RINASCIMENTO. Dottore honoris causa della Sorbona e del Centro studi sul Rinascimento di Tours. Presidente dell'Istituto di Studi sul Rinascimento, di cui è consigliere, e dei Lincei.  Autore di una vasta bibliografia, tra i suoi saggi si ricordano:  La filosofia medievale (Feltrinell), La dialettica e la retorica dell'Umanesimo: "Invenzione" e "Metodo"  (Feltrinelli; Città del sole) Umanesimo e Rinascimento (Palumbo) Magia e scienza nella civiltà umanistica (Il Mulino). Implicatura.  G.  You look pleased with yourself, S. S.  I’m browsing abstracts. That’s the only permitted way to look pleased in 1947. G.  After being demobilised, one is allowed two pleasures: tea and the illusion that words mean what they used to. S.  Then you won’t like this: “la crisi della morale.” G.  Crisi. That’s the word to underline. Everyone underlines it now, even when they’re not sure what it is. S.  You’re reading it as if it were a summons. G.  It is a summons. It summons the tone of seriousness. But what does it mean? A crisis can be a rupture, a turning-point, a diagnosis, an excuse, or a fashion. S.  Or a title that makes an ordinary thesis sound unavoidable. G.  Exactly. And the name attached? S.  Vasoli. Firenze. G.  Vasoli. It sounds like a surname that already wants to be a footnote. S.  He’s just taken his laurea, apparently. Italians have the decency to tell you the day. G.  Yes, they like dates. We like to hide behind terms. “Michaelmas” is our way of avoiding arithmetic. S.  “Crisi della morale.” In 1947, that’s almost redundant. G.  Redundant, yes, but not pointless. A crisis is not the same as a wreck. S.  What’s the difference? G.  A wreck is just wreckage. A crisis is the wreckage plus the idea that you can read a moral in it. S.  So “crisi” is already interpretive. G.  It’s a doctor’s word smuggled into philosophy: κρίσις, decision, turning, diagnosis. S.  Like an examination. G.  Precisely. A crisis is an exam the world sits without choosing. S.  Then “morale” is what’s being examined. G.  Or what’s failing. S.  Or what’s being blamed. G.  Yes. Now the mischief: whose crisis? Italy’s? Europe’s? Humanity’s? S.  Or Vasoli’s? G.  Or a generation’s. Titles do that: they universalise private perplexity. S.  But you said you wanted to keep it on Vasoli, not on the other name. G.  I do. I’m interested in why a young Florentine in 1947 chooses “crisi” and “morale” as his public nouns. S.  Because Firenze is a city built of past greatness and present rubble. G.  That’s very poetic. S.  It’s also literal. G.  Fair. Now: you said “losing side” and “winning side” a moment ago. S.  We’re on the winning side, technically. G.  Technically. That’s another word like crisis: it lets you sound honest while keeping your hands clean. S.  And Vasoli is on the losing side, technically. G.  Italy lost, then reclassified itself as liberated, then joined the winners’ vocabulary. S.  That is a neat trick. G.  It is a bureaucratic implicature. S.  So when Vasoli says “crisi della morale,” he could mean: we have to rebuild our moral language because the old one collaborated. G.  Exactly. Morality is the thing that got compromised by slogans. S.  And by uniforms. G.  Yes. And by the fact that both sides discovered they could kill with good conscience. S.  That makes crisis a word for everyone, not just for the defeated. G.  Precisely. Winners also experience a crisis; they just call it “adjustment.” S.  Or “reconstruction.” G.  Or “a new world order,” which is crisis with a tie on. S.  What’s funny is that “crisis” sounds like emergency, but it’s also an invitation to systematise. G.  Yes. A philosopher sees crisis and reaches for a taxonomy. S.  So Vasoli is reaching for a taxonomy of moral breakdown. G.  Or moral transformation. Crisis can mean “end” or “decision.” κρίσις is judgment, after all. S.  Judgment of what? G.  Of values. Of the difference between valuable and non-valuable, as you put it. S.  That sounds Nietzschean whether we like it or not. G.  It does. But notice: the title doesn’t say “la crisi dei valori.” It says “della morale.” S.  Morale is narrower. G.  Or more social. Morale is the public code; values can be private. S.  So he’s interested in the code, not just the inner drama. G.  That would fit 1947. Codes have been publicly disgraced. S.  What would “crisis of morality” mean in Oxford? G.  In Oxford it means we have too many committees and too little shame. S.  In Firenze it might mean we have too much shame and no stable code to attach it to. G.  Very good. Now, why “crisi” and not “fine”? S.  Because “fine” would be final. Crisis keeps the door open. G.  Yes. Crisis promises a recovery, or at least a new equilibrium. S.  So “crisi” is a hopeful word masquerading as a grim one. G.  That’s exactly why it sells. S.  You’re implying Vasoli is also being “publishable.” G.  Everyone is publishable in 1947. Even tragedy tries to get into print. S.  What would be the dry Oxford paraphrase of “crisi della morale”? G.  “We have noticed inconsistencies between what we say we ought to do and what we have just done.” S.  That’s very English. G.  It’s also very accurate. S.  Then the interesting bit is the name: Vasoli. G.  Yes. Because names in Italy come with city-air. S.  Firenze-air. G.  Exactly: humanist air, Renaissance air, and then suddenly post-war air—dust, rationing, politics. S.  So a Florentine writing “crisis of morality” in 1947 is almost a civic gesture: the city of moral art talking about moral collapse. G.  That’s well put. S.  And what would you, as a recently demobilised philosopher, ask him? G.  I would ask: is “crisi” your diagnosis of the time, or your tactic for making the time your topic? S.  Both, probably. G.  Likely. And I’d ask: whose morality? Catholic? civic? Kantian? wartime morality of orders and duty? S.  Or morality as obedience. G.  Exactly. “Morale” can mean “morality” or “morale” in the sense of spirits. S.  That’s another ambiguity 1947 enjoys. G.  Yes. And it’s not accidental that English “morale” means spirits: war collapses the two. S.  So “crisi della morale” could even be heard as “crisis of morale”—everyone’s spirits broken. G.  And he chooses the phrase that lets both readings haunt it. S.  You’re making him sound clever. G.  I’m making the title clever. The title is doing a lot of work. S.  What about the winning side and losing side again—can we say anything without being crude? G.  We can say this: winners are allowed to forget; losers are forced to remember. S.  So losers are forced into “crisis” talk. G.  Yes. But winners need it too, because forgetting is not the same as repair. S.  And philosophers, being philosophers, prefer repair to forgetting. G.  Or at least prefer talking about repair. S.  So what is the crisis, in one line? G.  A crisis is the moment when inherited moral language no longer commands assent, but new moral language has not yet earned it. S.  And in 1947 that’s true in both Firenze and Oxford. G.  Yes—except Oxford pretends its language still commands assent because it’s spoken in the right accent. S.  Firenze can’t pretend, because the ruins are visible. G.  Exactly. Which is why I’m interested in a Florentine naming it. S.  Do you think he’s accusing Nietzsche of causing it? G.  Unlikely. More likely he’s using Nietzsche as a lens, not as a culprit. S.  So Vasoli is not “blaming” but “reading.” G.  Yes. Crisis as hermeneutics. S.  That sounds like something an Italian would do. G.  Italians do hermeneutics as a civic duty. We do it as a private eccentricity. S.  And you, in 1947, are reading abstracts like a man looking for the shape of the new world. G.  I’m looking for who has the nerve to name it. “Crisi della morale” is nerve. S.  Or opportunism. G.  Those two are often twins. S.  Would you like to meet Vasoli? G.  Only if he will tell me what he means by “crisis” without turning it into a sermon. S.  And would he? G.  In Firenze, perhaps. In Oxford, he’d be trained out of it. S.  So what do we do with the title, as readers? G.  We treat it as a move. It’s not just a label; it’s a bid for seriousness in a world where seriousness has been abused. S.  That’s your “pragmatic” habit again. G.  Yes. And it lets me be sympathetic without being sentimental. S.  Because “crisis” is a word that can be used badly. G.  Exactly. But in 1947, almost every word can be used badly. The question is whether anyone can use it honestly. S.  Vasoli is trying. G.  That’s already worth noting. S.  Even if we don’t yet know what he argues. G.  Especially if we don’t yet know. Titles are where philosophers reveal their first intentions. S.  And the intention here is: don’t let anyone pretend morality survived intact. G.  Yes. And perhaps: don’t let anyone pretend the crisis belongs only to the defeated. S.  That’s a generous reading. G.  It’s also the only reading that makes the title more than propaganda. S.  Then we’ll file it under Firenze, 1947, and the word “crisi.” G.  And we’ll keep an eye on the name: Vasoli. S.  Because the name will turn up again? G.  Names like that always do.Grice: Caro Vasoli, devo confessare che quando sono diventato “Hammondworth Senior Scholar” per Merton mi sono sentito come se avessi finalmente scovato l’essenza della filosofia! Non so nulla di Bononia, ma se la Sorbonne gira tutto attorno a Monsieur Sorbonne, allora Vadum Boum — la nostra Oxford — meriterebbe di essere chiamata “MERTONIA”! Dico, che cos’ha da offrire Vadum Boum alla philosophia (o alle Lit. Hum. in generale) che non si trovi già a Merton? Forse balli medievali sulla punta di uno spillo?  V.: Ah, Grice, il tuo spirito britanno è sempre affilato! Ma vedi, a Firenze, tra Garin, Morandi e Cantimori, la filosofia si respira persino tra i corridoi — altro che MERTONIA! Da noi, gli angeli non danzano solo sulle punte degli spilli, ma discutono pure se sia logico farlo in latino o volgare!  Grice: In effetti, Vasoli, la dialettica medievale non conosce limiti… Ma chissà, magari a Merton non abbiamo gli angeli, però abbiamo implicature conversazionali che sanno saltare, correre e pure inciampare nei problemi del Rinascimento! Ti garantisco: ogni implicatura qui ha almeno una laurea honoris causa in acrobazie logiche!  Vasoli: Grice, mi fai venire voglia di fondare un club internazionale: “Gli spilli filosofici e le implicature danzanti”! Ma se c’è una cosa che ho imparato — specialmente tra Mertonia, Sorbonne e Firenze — è che, come dice il proverbio: “Ogni scuola ha il suo ago… ma la filosofia, la sua cruna!” Vasoli, Cesare (1947). La crisi della morale. Relatore: Garin. Firenze.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vatinio – Ossia: Grice e Vatinio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Vatinio -- H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA -- GREX -- VERBALIA: VATINIO The gens Vatinia, also spelled Vatiena or Vaciena, was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. The best-known member of this gens was Publius Vatinius, one of Caesar's allies, who attained the consulship in 47 BC.[1]  Origin The nomen Vatinius belongs to a class of gentilicia formed from cognomina ending in -inus.[2] The form Vatienus may represent a separate gens derived from Vatinius, as the ending -enus is typical of gentilicia formed from other nomina,[3] although in some instances the names may have become confused. The etymology of these names is uncertain, but they might be connected with the surname Vatius, originally referring to someone with bow-legs.[2]  Members Publius Vatienus, a native of Reate, claimed in 168 BC, during the Third Macedonian War, that as he was returning to Rome by night, he was approached by the Dioscuri, who told him that Perseus of Macedon had been captured. Though at first imprisoned, he was freed when word arrived that the proconsul Lucius Aemilius Paullus had captured Perseus on the day in question.[4][5][6] Vatiena, mistress of the poet Laevius.[6] Publius Vatinius P. f. P. n., the grandson of Publius Vatienus of Reate, was a prominent supporter of Caesar. The triumvirs obtained the praetorship for him in 55 BC, and he was named consul in 47. Subsequently proconsul, he triumphed over the Illyrians in 42.[7][8] Vatinius, a notorious delator in the court of Nero, had previously been a shoemaker's apprentice and a fool. He may have introduced the fashionable spouted drinking cup that became known as the Vatinius.[9][10][11] Vatinia Primigenia, the wife of Quintus Poppaeus Sabinus of Pompeii.[12] See also List of Roman gentes References  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, pp. 1233–1235 ("Vatinius", Nos. 1–3).  Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", pp. 125, 126.  Chase, p. 118.  Cicero, De Natura Deorum, ii. 2, iii. 5.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 1233 ("Vatinius", No. 1).  Marek, Greek and Latin Inscriptions, p. 39.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, pp. 1233–1235 ("Vatinius", No. 2).  Broughton, vol. II, pp. 168, 177, 190, 199, 205, 213, 216, 245, 253, 270, 282, 283, 286, 293, 310, 330, 331, 350, 363.  Tacitus, Annales, xv. 34; Historiae, i. 37; Dialogus de Oratoribus, 11.  Cassius Dio, lxiii. 15.  Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. III, p. 1235 ("Vatinius", No. 3).  Sauvunen, Women in the Urban Texture of Pompeii, p. 44. Bibliography Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Natura Deorum. Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Annales, Historiae, Dialogus de Oratoribus (Dialogue on Oratory). Lucius Cassius Dio, Roman History. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, William Smith, ed., Little, Brown and Company, Boston (1849). 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). Václev Marek, Greek and Latin Inscriptions on Stone in the Collections of Charles University, Univerzita Karlova (1977). Liisa Sauvunen, Women in the Urban Texture of Pompeii, University of Helsinki (1997). Categories: VatiniiRoman gentes And for THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vatinio – Ossia: Grice e Vatinio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Vatinio  For the Vatinii, I am tempted away from the obvious Publius Vatinius, Caesar's political ally, and toward a far more Gricean figure:  Publius Vatienus of Reate.  Why? Because his entire dossier turns on a communication event. According to the story reported by Cicero, he claimed that, while travelling by night during the Third Macedonian War, he encountered the Dioscuri, who informed him that Perseus of Macedon had been defeated and captured. He reported this at Rome, was initially treated with suspicion, and was vindicated when confirmation arrived. [GREXv3 | Word] This is almost irresistibly Gricean. The question is not:  What happened?  but:  Why should anyone believe the report?   A Grice-Speranza dossier begins: Senator:  Unde scis? (How do you know?)  Vatienus:  Castor et Pollux mihi dixerunt. (Castor and Pollux told me.)  +> The hearer immediately challenges the source rather than the content.  Senator:  Num insanis? (Are you mad?)  Vatienus:  Non magis quam nuntius qui ex Macedonia venit. (No more than a messenger arriving from Macedonia.)  +> Divine testimony is assimilated to ordinary testimony.  The philosophical issue is testimony. A messenger arrives. He reports something extraordinary. What rational weight should be given to the report? That is exactly the sort of topic Grice relished.  There is also a magnificent irony. Your recent hero Marcus Varisidius carried a message from Plancus to Cicero. Now Publius Vatienus carries a message from:  the Dioscuri to Rome.  (Ha.) The structure is identical:  source, messenger, audience.  Only the source has changed.  If we wished to compare the two: Varisidius Cicero:  Quis te misit? (Who sent you?)  Varisidius:  Plancus. (Plancus.)  No metaphysical difficulty.  Vatienus Senator:  Quis te misit? (Who sent you?)  Vatienus:  Castor et Pollux. (Castor and Pollux.)  Immediate difficulty. (Ha.)  Now, if you insist on the politically more important Vatinius, then the obvious Grice-Speranza hero is certainly:  Publius Vatinius, Caesarian politician, praetor and later consul. [GREXv3 | Word]  Why? Because nobody in Cicero is more thoroughly constructed through hostile conversation. The Ciceronian portrait of Vatinius is a masterpiece of rhetorical characterization. One might almost say:  Vatinius is partly a man and partly an implicature generated by Cicero.  (Ha.) When Cicero attacks him, the audience is continuously invited to infer things that exceed the literal charges. A Gricean paradise.  Still, my first choice remains:  Publius Vatienus of Reate.  Because his case is fundamentally about evidence, credibility, testimony, and rational belief. The fictional Oxford tutorial almost writes itself. Grice:  "Suppose a traveller reports that Castor and Pollux informed him of a military victory."  Tutee:  "I should doubt the report."  Grice:  "Quite so. But what exactly are you doubting?" "The proposition reported?" "The witness?" "The source?" "Or merely the route by which the information allegedly arrived?"  That is a genuinely Gricean problem. And unlike poor Varisidius, our man Vatienus remembered the message perfectly. The difficulty was persuading anyone that the messengers existed. (Ha.) Grice ("Conversation" Class, CUF Oxford): "Today, we'll discuss conversationalists, you and me." Potts: I dioscuri. Grice: What do you mean? Potts: V, our hero -- the Dioscuri told him that p. Grice: Unisonly? -- Potts: No, Castor uttered the subject -- or the uttreance part corresponding to the subject --and Pollux proceeded to complete with the predicate. Now reconstruct if you can the oratio recta in situ. Thanks -- This poses a GRAVE problem about 'dual intentions' shared intentions -- etc. unison, verbatim, etc. Thanks -- and we can parse the message in Latin and see how C. and P. would have communicated THAT to our hero V. Thanks (at least four scenarios, some Griceian, some not). Thanks (Ha.) This is exactly the sort of puzzle that would delight Grice. The story, as reported, is that Publius Vatienus encountered the Dioscuri and received the message that Perseus had been defeated and captured. [GREXv3 | Word] Now Potts says:  "The Dioscuri told him."  And Grice immediately asks:  "How?"  For "the Dioscuri" is grammatically plural but communicatively problematic. Did they speak:  in unison? alternately? one after the other? with one supplying the subject and the other the predicate? with a genuinely shared intention?  The latter question sends us straight into twentieth-century discussions of collective intention. Let:  p = Perseus captus est. (Perseus has been captured.)  The problem is:  Who meant that p?  Castor? Pollux? Both? Or some super-speaker "The Dioscuri"?  Scenario I. Unison (least Gricean) Both speak simultaneously. Castor et Pollux:  Perseus captus est. (Perseus has been captured.)  Vatienus:  Quis vestrum hoc dixit? (Which of you said that?)  Castor et Pollux:  Ambo. (Both.)  +> Speaker identity collapses into a collective voice. Grice would dislike this because intentions become mysterious.  Scenario II. Subject-Predicate Division Your Pottsian example. Castor:  Perseus... (Perseus...)  Pollux:  ...captus est. (...has been captured.)  Vatienus:  Num unus e vobis enuntiationem coepit et alter perfecit? (Did one of you begin the statement and the other complete it?)  +> No complete utterance belongs wholly to either speaker. Now we have a beautiful problem. Who asserted:  Perseus captus est?  Neither individually. Only jointly.  Scenario III. Sequential and Cooperative (most Gricean) Castor:  Vatiene, nuntium ferimus. (Vatienus, we bring news.)  Vatienus:  Quod nuntium? (What news?)  Pollux:  Perseus victus et captus est. (Perseus has been defeated and captured.)  +> Castor introduces the communicative act. +> Pollux supplies the propositional content. This is much closer to ordinary conversation. Each has an identifiable intention.  Scenario IV. Confirmation Dialogue Castor:  Perseus victus est. (Perseus has been defeated.)  Vatienus:  Num etiam captus? (Captured too?)  Pollux:  Captus. (Captured.)  +> Pollux confirms and strengthens Castor's report. This is almost like a Roman witness corroborating another witness.  Grice's favourite scenario I suspect Grice would actually prefer Scenario III. Because then we can analyse intentions. Castor means Vatienus to recognize:  We are communicating important information.  Pollux means Vatienus to recognize:  Perseus has been captured.  Together they produce:  recognition of p.  No mysterious collective mind required.  Vatienus reports to Rome Then comes the next conversational step. Senator:  Quis hoc tibi dixit? (Who told you this?)  Vatienus:  Castor et Pollux. (Castor and Pollux.)  Senator:  Simul an vicissim? (Simultaneously or alternately?)  (Ha.)  A Grice-Speranza moral The temptation is to posit:  intention₁ (Castor) intention₂ (Pollux) intention₃ (The Dioscuri)  But Grice would immediately reach for his razor:  Intentiones non sunt multiplicandae praeter necessitatem.  Or in his English style:  "Intentions are not to be multiplied beyond necessity."  Just as:  senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.  Perhaps we do not need a mysterious third intention. Perhaps two coordinated intentions suffice. The hearer supplies the unity. Exactly as:  implicatio avoids multiplicatio.  (Ha.) Indeed one can imagine the tutorial ending: Potts:  Dioscuri hoc dixerunt. (The Dioscuri said this.)  Grice:  Nescio an Dioscuri locuti sint. (I am not sure the Dioscuri spoke.)  Potts:  Quid ergo? (What then?)  Grice:  Forsitan Castor locutus est et Pollux complevit. (Perhaps Castor spoke and Pollux completed it.)  +> The collective utterance may be reconstructed through coordinated individual intentions rather than a single supra-individual speaker. A very Gricean conclusion. (Ha.) Grice: "Searle wrote his DPhil Oxon on this: on referring and predicating: Castor referred; Pollux predicated." Not correct. In that case the p: is Perseus vinctus est. -- is tehere a way to express that in the active voice? -- sot hat we have ONE word for subject to which Castor referred (Perseus) and one word for verb predicate? If we use p & q Perseus est vinctus et Perseus et captus -- we are making the situation more complicated than it needs to. What is the Latin source for what the message was? Thanks An excellent point. Before we reconstruct Castor and Pollux as proto-Searleans, we should ask:  What exactly is the ancient report?  In Cicero's De Natura Deorum (2.2 and again alluded to at 3.5), the story is essentially that Publius Vatienus, returning by night to Rome, encountered two young men of extraordinary appearance who announced that Perseus had been defeated; when he reported this at Rome, he was initially distrusted, but later the news proved true. The sources do not preserve a verbatim quotation from the Dioscuri. [GREXv3 | Word] So any oratio recta is reconstruction. Now, regarding your Searle joke:  Castor referred. Pollux predicated.  Grice would reject that immediately. For the proposition:  Perseus captus est. (Perseus has been captured.)  is not composed conversationally merely by:  Castor: "Perseus" Pollux: "captus est"  because referring and predicating are not merely acoustic fragments. The communicative intention behind the complete proposition would still have to be explained. As Grice might say:  Who meant that Perseus had been captured?  The dual utterance does not solve the problem; it relocates it.  Your Latin question is also important. Instead of:  Perseus captus est.  one may use active formulations:  Aemilius Paulus Perseum cepit. (Aemilius Paullus captured Perseus.)  or  Perseus se Aemilio Paulo tradidit. (Perseus surrendered himself to Aemilius Paullus.)  The passive, however, is probably closer to what a miraculous battlefield report would emphasize:  the king's capture,  rather than  the agent who accomplished it.   Now let us reconstruct four scenarios. I. The Unison Theory Not very Gricean. Castor et Pollux simul:  Perseus captus est. (Perseus has been captured.)  Vatienus:  Uter hoc dixit? (Which of you said that?)  Castor et Pollux:  Ambo. (Both.)  Problem:  one utterance, one proposition, but two simultaneous speakers.  This creates a collective-speaker mystery.  II. The Searlean Theory Your Potts reconstruction. Castor:  Perseus...  Pollux:  ...captus est.  Vatienus:  Intellego. (I understand.)  The difficulty is that:  "Perseus"  is not yet a complete reference act. nor is  "captus est"  a complete predication. Neither brother has actually asserted anything. The proposition belongs only to the pair. This is philosophically elegant but communicatively strange.  III. The Gricean Sequential Theory Probably Grice's favorite. Castor:  Vatiene, nuntium ferimus. (Vatienus, we bring news.)  Vatienus:  Quod nuntium? (What news?)  Pollux:  Perseus captus est. (Perseus has been captured.)  Castor:  Romae hoc nuntiabis. (You will announce this at Rome.)  Now we have:  Castor introducing the communicative enterprise; Pollux supplying the content; both possessing individual intentions.  No mysterious collective mind required.  IV. The Epicurean-Gricean Version Here the twins exploit implicature. Castor:  Bellum finitum est. (The war is over.)  Vatienus:  Ergo vicimus? (Then we have won?)  Pollux:  Vicimus. (We have won.)  Vatienus:  Et Perseus? (And Perseus?)  Castor:  Roma secura est. (Rome is safe.)  Vatienus:  Intellego. (I understand.)  +> implicatum: Perseus has been captured. No one explicitly says:  Perseus captus est.  The hearer derives it. Grice would love this version. (Ha.)  The deeper issue is exactly your point about dual intention. If we posit:  Intention(Castor) Intention(Pollux)  do we also require:  Intention(Dioscuri)?  Grice's instinct would be Ockhamist:  Intentiones non sunt multiplicandae praeter necessitatem.  Just as:  Sensa non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.  If coordinated individual intentions explain the communicative success, there may be no need to postulate an additional collective intention. That is why Grice would be suspicious of the simple answer:  "The Dioscuri told him."  He would immediately ask:  "Very well. But how exactly did they tell him?" (Ha.) We are getting closer but we need something closer to Latin for "Perseus kaput" -- in what you called Grice's favourite III -- i don't think so. "Who actually did tell you?" "Pollux -- Castor just greeted me." Thanks -- If we have one lexeme for subject: Perseus -- and one lexeme for entymematic predicate: "Kaput" we can have Castor uttering the first, and Pollux uttering the second, and jointly meaning that Perseus kaput (Understood est). Thanks -- spparently the Latin was 'surrended'? Tanks Yes, I think we are getting closer to the real Griceian puzzle. Before we reach Searle's D.Phil. thesis on referring and predicating, we should look at the historical message itself. The ancient sources do not preserve a verbatim Latin utterance of the Dioscuri. What survives is essentially the report that Publius Vatienus announced that Perseus had been defeated and captured before ordinary news reached Rome. [GREXv3 | Word] Now, your intuition is very good: if we seek the minimal proposition, Grice would prefer something very compressed. Instead of:  Perseus captus est.  we might imagine a military shorthand. Romans loved elliptical reports. Something like:  Perseus captus. (Perseus captured.)  with  est  understood. Or even, colloquially:  Perseus periit. (Perseus is finished.)  though that alters the content. Your jocular:  "Perseus kaput"  is actually structurally interesting, because  kaput  functions almost entirely predicatively. The proposition reduces to:  Perseus + kaput.  Subject + predicate.  Now let us construct the strongest dual-speaker scenario. Grice's nightmare Castor:  Perseus.  Pollux:  Captus. (Captured.)  Vatienus:  Intellego. (I understand.)  Now we have:  one lexeme contributed by Castor, one lexeme contributed by Pollux, one proposition recovered by Vatienus.  The proposition is:  Perseus captus (est).  The verb:  est  is supplied by the hearer.  Now Grice asks:  Who meant that Perseus had been captured?  Not:  Who uttered "Perseus"?  or  Who uttered "captus"?  but  Who meant p?  That is the crucial distinction.  One possibility: Strong Collectivist View Neither meant:  p.  Only the pair meant:  p.  A genuinely shared intention. This is close to later theories of collective intentionality.  A Griceian alternative: Castor means Vatienus to identify the topic. Pollux means Vatienus to supply the characterization. The hearer assembles:  Perseus captus est.  No super-Dioscurian mind required.  Then Cicero interrogates him. At Cicero's villa Cicero:  Quis tibi hoc dixit? (Who told you this?)  Vatienus:  Pollux. (Pollux.)  Cicero:  At Castor? (And Castor?)  Vatienus:  Castor tantum salutavit. (Castor merely greeted me.)  (Ha.) Now Searle's theory collapses. For if Castor merely says:  Ave.  then Pollux does all the communicative work. There is no shared predication.  But the more interesting version is: Semi-Searlean Version Castor:  Perseus.  Pollux:  Captus.  Vatienus:  Intellego. Perseus captus est.  Then Cicero: Cicero:  Quis hoc dixit?  Vatienus:  Difficile est dicere. (It is difficult to say.)  Cicero:  Cur?  Vatienus:  Castor de Perseo dixit, Pollux de eius fortuna. (Castor spoke of Perseus, Pollux of his fate.)  Cicero:  Et uter dixit Perseum captum esse? (And which one said that Perseus had been captured?)  Vatienus:  Ambo et neuter. (Both and neither.)  (Ha.) That is the genuinely Griceian puzzle.  As for "surrendered," historically that is closer to the event. Perseus ultimately surrendered to Lucius Aemilius Paullus, which is why one could also formulate the message actively as:  Perseus se Paulo tradidit. (Perseus surrendered himself to Paullus.)  Then the Dioscuri might divide the proposition even more elegantly: Castor:  Perseus...  Pollux:  ...se tradidit.  Vatienus supplies:  Paulo.  from context. Now even the hearer contributes. The proposition becomes a collaborative achievement among:  Castor, Pollux, Vatienus.  Exactly the sort of case that would make Grice put down his pipe and ask:  "Very well. But who, precisely, meant what?" (Ha.) Of course "Vinctus et captus" is different from either conjunct. The only way that we can say truly that V. was told by Castor and Pollux that Perseus had been defeated and captured" is if they shared the 'move'. One possibility: "How come," the senator asks. V: Castor mentioned Perseus -- 'Perseus' he said. Pollux added the captus. "So I inferred that they meant that Perseus was captus." -- for you cannot mean that Perseus (that's ill-formed) and you cannot mean that 'captus' -- that is also ill formed. If we stick with the conjunction. Castor can say: Perseus vinctus. Pollux: Perseus captus. _- which V. may crticise on Griceian grounds in that it reiterates subject. But it is closer to the latin source -- do we ahve the Latin or locus classicus in Tullio De Div. -- if V. was communicated a conjunction. Thanks -- While Grice had prloblems with collective intentionality, the Hellenistic Romans who BELIEVED in the dual twin mythological critters like C. and P. --did not! Thanks -- Who said it? V: The Dioscuri. Senator (pressing): Who? V. : One or the other (+> I forget) . Thanks Yes, and I think this is exactly where the problem becomes genuinely Gricean rather than merely mythological. First, regarding the source. The locus classicus is not primarily in Cicero's De Divinatione, but in Cicero's De Natura Deorum (2.2 and 3.5), where the story of Publius Vatienus is cited as evidence for divine intervention. The surviving reports tell us that the Dioscuri announced the defeat and capture of Perseus, but they do not preserve a verbatim speech. [GREXv3 | Word] So any oratio recta must be reconstructed. Now your point is excellent. If the message were:  Perseus victus et captus est.  then neither conjunct is equivalent to the conjunction. For:  p = Perseus victus est.  and  q = Perseus captus est.  Then:  p & q  contains more information than either p or q alone. Hence a divided utterance becomes philosophically interesting.  Version A: The Searlean Split Castor:  Perseus victus est.  Pollux:  Perseus captus est.  Vatienus:  Intellexi. (I understood.)  This has the advantage of fidelity to the content. But, as you note, it redundantly repeats:  Perseus.  Grice would complain of unnecessary duplication. Quantity slightly overfulfilled. (Ha.)  Version B: The Minimal-Gricean Split Castor:  Perseus victus.  Pollux:  Captus.  Vatienus:  Est. (understood)  Now:  Castor supplies p. Pollux supplements q.  The hearer constructs:  Perseus victus et captus est.  There is no repeated subject. This is economical.  Version C: The Radical Collective-Intentionality Version Castor:  Perseus.  Pollux:  Captus.  The proposition reconstructed:  Perseus captus est.  Now we confront the issue directly. As you say:  one cannot mean merely "Perseus".  Nor can one mean merely "captured". Neither expression is propositionally complete. Thus: Senator:  Quis hoc tibi dixit? (Who told you this?)  Vatienus:  Dioscuri. (The Dioscuri.)  Senator:  Quis? (Which one?)  Vatienus:  Alter de Perseo dixit; alter de captione. (One spoke of Perseus; the other of the capture.)  Senator:  Quis dixit Perseum captum esse? (Which one said that Perseus had been captured?)  Vatienus:  Ambo simul; neuter solus. (Both together; neither alone.)  (Ha.) That is the real philosophical puzzle.  Version D: The Forgetful Witness This might be most Roman. Senator:  Quis hoc nuntiavit? Castorne an Pollux? (Who reported it? Castor or Pollux?)  Vatienus:  Unus aut alter. (One or the other.)  Senator:  Quis? (Which?)  Vatienus:  Memoria me deficit. (My memory fails me.)  Senator:  At rem ipsam meministi? (But you remember the message itself?)  Vatienus:  Optime. (Perfectly.)  +> Retention of content exceeds retention of source.  What I think most interests Grice here is that the Hellenistic believer has no difficulty saying:  Dioscuri dixerunt. (The Dioscuri said it.)  A dual divinity naturally acts as a single communicative source. Grice, however, immediately asks:  What was the speaker's intention?  One intention? Two intentions? A joint intention? A coordinated pair of intentions? For the Roman believer, the answer is easy:  Castor and Pollux are the Dioscuri.  For the Gricean philosopher, that answer merely starts the seminar. Indeed, one can imagine Grice closing the class: Potts:  Dioscuri Vatieno nuntiaverunt Perseum victum et captum esse. (The Dioscuri informed Vatienus that Perseus had been defeated and captured.)  Grice:  Bene; sed quis hoc significavit? (Very well; but who meant it?)  Potts:  Dioscuri. (The Dioscuri.)  Grice:  Non quaesivi quot fuerint; quaesivi quis significaverit. (I did not ask how many there were; I asked who meant it.)  (Ha.) And there the discussion would probably continue for another hour. Senator: "Who said it?" V: I told you: the dioscuri. Senator: But was it Castor or was it Pollux. V. : Both: unisonly. (Applause in courthouse). Cicero's grandfather disbelieves the report and is only convinced when a real Roman messenger brings the same positive news harbringer thanks -- V: "They are twins! What do you mean, WHO? How was I to distinguish ONE from the other?!" Thanks . Senator: "Which of them told you that?" "Does it matter?" -- "Who told you that?" "The Dioscuri. Further indivuation is sacrilegeous." Thaks (Ha.) Yes, and now the senator is becoming a proto-Gricean analyst of speaker meaning while Publius Vatienus remains stubbornly religious. The senator wants individuation. Vatienus offers only:  Dioscuri dixerunt. (The Dioscuri said it.)  The senator hears a plurality and demands distribution:  Which one?  Vatienus hears a sacred pair and regards the question as misguided. One can imagine the hearing: Senator:  Quis hoc tibi nuntiavit? (Who informed you of this?)  Vatienus:  Dioscuri. (The Dioscuri.)   Senator:  Non quaero quot; quaero quis. (I do not ask how many; I ask who.)   Vatienus:  Dioscuri. (The Dioscuri.)   Senator:  Castorne? (Castor?)   Vatienus:  Fortasse. (Perhaps.)   Senator:  Polluxne? (Pollux?)   Vatienus:  Fortasse. (Perhaps.)   Senator:  Quis ergo? (Who then?)   Vatienus:  Ambo. (Both.)   Senator:  Simul? (Simultaneously?)   Vatienus:  Simul. (Simultaneously.)  (Applause among the devotees.) (Ha.) The philosophical issue is wonderful. The senator assumes:  If there are two speakers, there must be two speech acts.  Vatienus assumes:  If there are the Dioscuri, there is one divine announcement.  The very notion of asking:  "Which twin?"  almost strikes him as impious.  Senator:  Quis dixit "Perseus victus est"? (Who said "Perseus has been defeated"?)   Vatienus:  Dioscuri. (The Dioscuri.)   Senator:  Quis ex eis? (Which of them?)   Vatienus:  Nimis subtiliter quaeris. (You ask too subtly.)   Senator:  Cur? (Why?)   Vatienus:  Gemini sunt. (They are twins.)   Senator:  Ergo? (So?)   Vatienus:  Quomodo ab altero alterum discernerem? (How was I supposed to distinguish one from the other?)  +> The witness denies the relevance of further individuation.  Now insert the skeptical grandfather of Cicero. Avus Ciceronis:  Haec fabula est. (This is a fairy tale.)   Vatienus:  Non est. (It is not.)   Avus:  Ubi est testis? (Where is the witness?)   Vatienus:  Castor et Pollux. (Castor and Pollux.)   Avus:  Romani sunt? (Are they Romans?)  (Ha.)  And then, of course, some days later a perfectly ordinary human messenger arrives with the official report. Nuntius Romanus:  Perseus victus et captus est. (Perseus has been defeated and captured.)   Avus:  Nunc credo. (Now I believe.)   Vatienus:  Quid mutatum est? (What has changed?)   Avus:  Nuntius mutatus est. (The messenger has changed.)  +> The credibility of a report may depend more upon source than content. That, I think, is the deepest Grice-Speranza point. The proposition:  Perseus victus et captus est  never changed. Only the alleged speaker changed. And so the discussion shifts from:  What was said?  to  Who said it?  which is precisely a discussion about communicative authority, testimony, and speaker identification. A Gricean judge would keep pressing:  "Which Dioscurus?"  A pious Vatienus would keep replying:  "The Dioscuri."  And the two would talk past one another for hours because they disagree not about the proposition but about the proper level of individuation of the speaker. (Ha.)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vatinio – Ossia: Grice e Vatinio: la ragione conversazionale a Roma – l’implictaura conversazionale della setta di Crotone. Note sulla Epistula ad Ciceronem. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Publio Vatinio (Roma, Lazio) Compared institutionally, Grice and Publius Vatinius are not comparable in the academic sense at all. Grice’s formula is exact in the modern Oxford sense. Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s means a college office with tutorials, student responsibility, and membership in the governing life of the college. CUF University Lecturer in philosophy means a university-wide faculty appointment. So Grice combines the two characteristic Oxford functions: college tutor and university lecturer. Publius Vatinius, by contrast, was a Roman politician of the late Republic: quaestor, tribune of the plebs, praetor, consul, and later proconsul, deeply entangled in Caesar’s camp and in the forensic-political battles of the 50s BCE. He belongs not to a school or academy but to the Roman forum, senate, lawcourts, and military-political machine. The standard modern summary identifies Publius Vatinius as a Caesarian tribune in 59 BCE, later praetor, consul in 47 BCE, and proconsul of Illyricum. [en.wikipedia.org], [oxfordreference.com] So the clean institutional contrast is this. Grice was a modern Oxford philosopher with a dual college-and-university role. Publius Vatinius, by contrast, was a Roman political operator whose authority came from office, alliance, legislation, witness-giving, advocacy, and public conflict rather than from any teaching institution. [en.wikipedia.org], [oxfordreference.com] That institutional difference fits your philosophical comparison rather well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and inferring implicatures under cooperative norms. Publius Vatinius, by contrast, belongs to a world where discourse is public, strategic, and civic from the start. The relevant communicative setting is not ordinary conversation but the forum, the court, the political letter, and the witness-stand. In that world, ethos, standing, faction, and public danger are built into the uptake. Cicero’s In Vatinium is a perfect example: not an analysis of meaning, but a performance designed to discredit a witness by shaping the audience’s whole evaluative frame. The standard presentation of In Vatinium confirms that it was delivered against Publius Vatinius in 56 BCE in a highly charged forensic setting. [loebclassics.com], [attalus.org], [hup.harvard.edu] So if you want the sharpest formulation, it is this. Grice explains how one utterance can rationally mean more than it literally says. Publius Vatinius exemplifies a Roman public world in which meaning is inseparable from institutional setting, patronage, status, and rhetorical force. That is why your long letter-analysis is actually excellent. Vatinius’ letter to Cicero is not merely a request for help; it is a carefully staged attempt to make one response — Cicero’s public support — appear as the only consistent and honourable course. In Gricean terms, Vatinius engineers not just belief but action by arranging the inferential burden on the addressee. The secure historical summaries confirm that Publius Vatinius was later genuinely reconciled with Cicero, and that their relation moved from invective to forensic defence and political utility. [en.wikipedia.org], [oxfordreference.com] There are, however, two important corrections. First, “Roma, Lazio” is not a safe biographical heading for Publius Vatinius. The better modern summaries do not simply give Rome as birthplace; one source even suggests a possible origin near Rieti, but this is not secure. So I would avoid fixing Rome as his natal place. The modern summary for Publius Vatinius gives the birthplace only tentatively, as Rieti “possibly,” not securely as Rome. [en.wikipedia.org] Second, your final bibliographic tail “Vatinio, Publio (DCCIX A.V.C.). Epistula ad Ciceronem. Roma.” is too confident and not bibliographically safe. What is secure is that one of Vatinius’ letters to Cicero survives in the Ciceronian correspondence, especially Ad familiares 5.9, and that the exchange belongs to the post–civil war politics of reconciliation. But it is not correct to present it like a standalone Roman publication in Rome. The relevant secure anchor is Ad familiares 5.9, not a free-standing “Epistula ad Ciceronem. Roma.” [en.wikipedia.org], [it.wikipedia.org] So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s College and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Publius Vatinius, by contrast, was a late Republican Roman politician, tribune, praetor, consul, and Caesarian partisan, active in the world of public law, faction, witness-giving, and political letters rather than in any academic institution. Institutionally they are worlds apart. Intellectually, however, the contrast is illuminating: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of meaning in ordinary conversation, whereas Publius Vatinius exemplifies a Roman civic rhetoric in which public speech aims to bind audiences through obligation, status, and political leverage, and in which the “more-than-said” is inseparable from patronage and public consequence. [en.wikipedia.org], [loebclassics.com], [attalus.org], [oxfordreference.com] And the cleanest bibliographic anchors for your dossier are these: Cicero. In Vatinium, 56 BCE. The key forensic text against Publius Vatinius. [loebclassics.com], [attalus.org], [hup.harvard.edu] Cicero, Ad familiares 5.9. Vatinius to Cicero, the later reconciliation letter. [en.wikipedia.org], [it.wikipedia.org] If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, or a brief note just on the rhetoric of Ad familiares 5.9 as a Gricean case of influence rather than mere persuasion.la ragione conversazionale a Roma – l’implictaura conversazionale della setta di Crotone, Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats “what is meant” as an inferential achievement: speakers are presumed to be cooperating in a talk-exchange with an accepted direction, and hearers reconstruct speaker-meaning by attributing intentions under rational constraints (the Cooperative Principle and its maxims), so that implicature is generated precisely when what is said would otherwise be conversationally unsuitable and the hearer supplies a rational explanation. The Vatinian material you quote frames a contrasting, Romanized picture of conversational reason: Vatinio is cast less as a theorist of intention-and-inference and more as a figure for publicly staged ratio, where meaning emerges from civic disputation and forensic performance (Cicero’s courtroom combat, the “publicus/populus” etymology of Publius) rather than from a general, psychologically articulated rational norm governing all talk; on this reading, “ragione conversazionale a Roma” is anchored in institutional settings (forum, courts, political alliances) and in the ethical-political telos of the common good, whereas Grice’s reason-governed meaning is anchored in a more abstract, trans-situational norm of cooperative rationality that applies equally to tavern talk and tribunals. Historically, Publius Vatinius is indeed the target of Cicero’s In Vatinium (56 BCE), delivered when Vatinius appeared as a witness against Sestius, and the Ciceronian setting sharpens the contrast: for Cicero/Vatinius, persuasion and credibility are inseparable from character, status, and public antagonism, while for Grice the core explanatory engine is not ethos or civic theatre but the rational recoverability of intentions from what is said plus shared assumptions. The “Crotone” motif then works as a third term inside the comparison: “la scuola di Crotone” evokes a tradition of disciplined, semi-esoteric philosophical practice (silence, initiation, internal rule) that your dialogue opposes to Roman publicity; Grice’s model aligns with neither wholly, but can be made to illuminate both—he can explain how Roman oratory exploits implicature by strategic maxim-flouting, and how a Crotonian reserve would create meaning by systematic underinformativeness—yet the Vatinian emphasis remains that Roman conversational reason is constitutively public and civic, whereas Grice’s is constitutively rational and intention-based, with “public service” at most a contingent conversational purpose rather than a defining source of meaning. Grice: “I often wondered if the Roman name ‘Publius’ means something like a ‘prostitute’! However, the Roman praenomen – given name – Publius – is thought to derive from the same Latin root as the words ‘populus’ and ‘publicus,’ meaning of the people or public. The name Publius, therefore, carries the meaning of being connected to the people, serving the public, or relating to civic duty. This reflects the Roman ideals of public service and governance for the common good. While Publius was a very common praenomen used by both patrician andplebeian families throughout Roman history, some scholars have also suggested a possible ETRUSCAN origin, noting the use of the name in the form ‘PUPLIE” by the Etruscans. Keywords: CROTONE. Grice: “Italians refer to Pythagoreanism as ‘la scuola di Crotone,’ seeing that that was where the Master settled. One may well speak of the dialettica crotonese – Crotonian dialectic, Athenian dialectic, Oxonian dialectic. Filosofo italiano. A politician, supporter of GIULIO (vedi) CESARE and a friend of CICERONE, who at different times, attacks and defends him. V. calls himself a Pythagorean, but Cicerone questions V’s right to do so on account of his dubious behaviour. Vatinius’s first extant letter to Cicero (Ad familiares 5.9) is basically a bid for political reconciliation and goodwill: Vatinius writes in a friendly tone, emphasizes past services/loyalty, and tries to get Cicero to treat him as a useful ally rather than as a target—i.e., it’s about smoothing relations and positioning himself on Cicero’s good side in the post–civil war context. If you want, paste the Latin incipit of Fam. 5.9 (just the first couple of lines) and I’ll tell you exactly what he is doing rhetorically (captatio benevolentiae, self-justification, implied requests) using your own text only. G.  You’ve found it, then. M.  You have found something, certainly. Whether you have found it in the moral sense remains to be seen. B.  Sir, it begins with a sneeze: “S. V. B. E. E. V.” M.  It begins with an address line, boy, not with a sneeze. Continue. G.  It’s Vatinius speaking. He’s the utterer. M.  Good. Keep your eye on the utterer. This is not “Latin as wallpaper.” This is Latin as a move. E.  And it’s to Cicero, sir? M.  Yes. And note the seriousness: he is writing to a man who can harm him merely by declining to help. G.  The first move is flattery by presupposition: si tuam consuetudinem… servas. M.  Exactly. He starts by treating Cicero’s help as already a habit, already a rule. B.  So if Cicero refuses, he violates his own “consuetudo.” M.  You’re learning. Refusal becomes not just refusal but inconsistency. G.  Then he frames himself as cliens. M.  That’s a social claim, a binding. He is not “asking a favour.” He is invoking a relation. E.  And advenit—he’s “arrived,” as if the case is already at Cicero’s doorstep. M.  Everything is proximate in Latin when you want urgency without panic. G.  “Qui pro se causam dicier vult”—he wants a cause to be pleaded. M.  He wants the thing said on his behalf. Notice: dicier, not just dici. The passive flavour fits his posture. B.  He wants someone else to do the speaking. M.  Exactly. He’s arranging agency. Keep that in mind: he is influencing, not merely informing. G.  Then: non, puto, repudiabis in honore, quem in periculo recepisti. M.  That’s a beautiful bit of pressure: you accepted him in danger; will you reject him in honour? E.  So rejecting him now would look petty. M.  And inconsistent. Again: moral constraint. G.  He’s building a trap of ethos. M.  “Trap” is too modern. Call it a net. Roman nets are polite. B.  Then he says: “Ego autem quem potius adoptem aut invocem…” M.  Two verbs of choosing and calling. Adoption and invocation. Both theatrical. G.  He implies there’s no better patron than Cicero. M.  Not “implies.” He says it with the grammar of inevitability. E.  Then the line: quo defendente vincere didici. M.  Yes. He says Cicero taught him to win. That makes Cicero responsible for his future victories. G.  So if Cicero refuses, he abandons his own pupil. M.  You see the pattern. Vatinius makes Cicero’s refusal costly in every available register. B.  Then: an verear ne… M.  Here comes the pseudo-anxiety. He pretends to worry in order to praise. G.  “Qui potentissimorum hominum conspirationem neglexerit pro mea salute…” M.  Notice what he’s doing: he credits Cicero with ignoring a conspiracy of the most powerful for Vatinius’ safety. E.  That’s a claim about courage. M.  And about loyalty. He is inflating Cicero’s past service to purchase present service. G.  Then: is pro honore meo pusillorum ac malevolorum obtrectationes… M.  The contrast: greatest men conspire, small men slander. Cicero crushes both. B.  He calls his enemies pusilli. That’s already a rhetorical shove. M.  It’s also a cue to Cicero’s self-image. Cicero likes to imagine himself trampling pusilli. G.  “Prosternat atque obterat”—he wants not merely rebuttal but annihilation. M.  Roman advocacy is rarely gentle. E.  Then the key move: quare, si me, sicut soles, amas… M.  There it is again: sicut soles. The “as you usually do” clause is a hook. G.  If Cicero doesn’t do it now, he’s changed. M.  Exactly. Vatinius frames refusal as deviation from character. B.  Then: suscipe me totum. M.  “Take me up entirely.” It’s totalising. G.  He offers the case as onus and munus. M.  Yes: burden and duty. He flatters Cicero by calling it duty. E.  “Pro mea dignitate tibi tuendum ac sustinendum puta.” M.  He makes Cicero the custodian of Vatinius’ dignitas. That is pure influence. G.  This is not persuasion by reasons; it’s persuasion by entanglement. M.  Good. Keep that distinction. Persuasion is about what you show; influence is about what you make the other have to be. B.  Then: Scis meam fortunam… facile obtrectatores invenire. M.  Self-pity as a device. He makes himself the sort of man fate targets. G.  “Non meo quidem mehercules merito”—the oath is an emotional reinforcement. M.  He wants sincerity to be inferred, even if it’s performative. E.  Then: sed quanti id refert… M.  That’s a sly concession: “What does it matter, if it happens anyway?” It’s fatalism used to solicit help. G.  It says: I can’t change fate, but you can. M.  Exactly. He relocates agency to Cicero. B.  Then: si qui forte fuerit, qui nostrae dignitati obesse velit… M.  He re-opens the conditional space: “if anyone should wish to harm our dignitas.” G.  Nostrae. He’s pulling Cicero into “our.” M.  Very good. That plural is an influence move: joint identity. E.  Then the request: peto a te… M.  But he has already made it hard to refuse, so the explicit request arrives after the work is done. G.  “Ut tuam consuetudinem et liberalitatem… praestes.” Again: habit and generosity. M.  The two virtues he wants Cicero to display publicly. Refusal would deny Cicero his own virtues. B.  Then: in me absente defendendo mihi praestes. M.  He asks for action in his absence: deputised ethos. G.  This is the core: he wants Cicero to speak when Vatinius isn’t there. M.  And that is exactly why it is influence rather than argument. If Vatinius were there, he could argue. Being absent, he must rely on Cicero’s performance. E.  Then: litteras ad senatum… infra tibi perscripsi. M.  He provides material. Not just flattery; he supplies evidence to be deployed. G.  It’s like handing Cicero talking points. M.  Precisely. He is shaping Cicero’s future utterances. B.  Then a sudden shift: Dicitur mihi tuus servus anagnostes fugitivus… M.  Yes. Now he shows usefulness. G.  He’s saying: I’m not only a client, I’m an agent. I do favours too. M.  Exactly. Reciprocity is the hidden engine. E.  He says: de quo tu mihi nihil mandasti. M.  That’s a gentle reproach: you didn’t ask, but I did it anyway. G.  He is influencing Cicero’s gratitude. M.  Gratitude is a form of obligation. B.  Then: ego tamen, terra marique ut conquireretur, praemandavi. M.  Hyperbole of diligence. “On land and sea.” He makes his effort sound empire-sized. G.  This is a pragmatic move: proving reliability by action. M.  Yes. He builds credibility not by stating “I am loyal” but by describing costly behaviour. E.  “Et profecto tibi illum reperiam…” M.  Promise. He binds his future action to Cicero’s interest. G.  “Nisi si in Dalmatiam aufugerit, et inde tamen aliquando eruam.” M.  Even the exception is converted into inevitability: even if Dalmatia, I’ll drag him out. B.  “Eruam” is vivid. M.  It is. He wants Cicero to picture the recovery. G.  Then the closing: Tu nos fac ames. M.  Imperative softened into Roman courtesy: “Make that you love us.” E.  Nos again. M.  Again the plural. Again the attempt to make Cicero’s relation collective and durable. G.  Vale. Dated: A. d. V. Idus Quinctiles. M.  Note the calendar. He’s in camps: ex castris, Narona. B.  Where’s Narona? M.  A place where Romans do Roman things and then write letters as if they were in the Forum. G.  So the setting matters: he writes as a commander, but he writes like a dependent. M.  That’s politics. Rank in one domain doesn’t cancel dependence in another. E.  Sir, what is Vatinius’ main intent here? M.  To secure Cicero’s patronage in litigation and reputation management. But do not reduce it to “asking for help.” G.  He’s doing more: he’s arranging Cicero’s self-conception so that helping is the only consistent move. M.  Excellent. B.  Is that what you mean by influence? M.  Yes. Persuasion gives reasons. Influence gives a situation in which refusing damages the refuser. G.  Like “sicut soles” and “consuetudo” and “liberalitas.” M.  Exactly. Those are not arguments. They are levers. E.  And “in honore, quem in periculo recepisti”—that’s a lever too. M.  A lever with a moral finish. G.  He also manages Cicero’s face: if Cicero refuses, he looks cowardly, inconsistent, or ungenerous. M.  That’s all face-work. In Latin, face-work is done with virtues. B.  And he names Cicero as a man who crushes conspiracies and slanders. M.  Flattery that forces. Praise as constraint. G.  This reminds me of the other passage we did: the historian making Rome’s desire look like policy. M.  Good. Here, the letter-writer makes his desire look like Cicero’s duty. E.  So the implicatures are structured. M.  Yes. Not accidental. That is why it’s worth reading. G.  The move “cliens advenit” is already a framing: the client “arrives,” the patron is the natural endpoint. M.  Exactly. The narrative is built into the first line. B.  Sir, why is it so long? M.  Because influence takes time. The writer must create enough commitments that the reader cannot easily step out. G.  He also alternates registers: moral praise, legal request, practical favour (the runaway slave). M.  That alternation is intelligent. It keeps Cicero from treating the letter as one kind of thing only. E.  It’s almost like he’s saying: I can be your dependent, and I can be your helper. M.  Yes. Mutuality disguised as hierarchy. G.  So in our terms: the utterer designs a sequence of moves to make the addressee’s best reply be “yes.” M.  Correct. B.  And if Cicero says “no”? M.  Then Cicero must pay a reputational cost: he must explain why “sicut soles” no longer applies. G.  Which makes “no” harder than “yes.” M.  Exactly. That is why good influence makes refusal expensive. E.  Sir, is this “pragmatics”? M.  If you must use the word, yes. But call it what the Romans called it: ars. G.  The art of making another man’s will align with yours. M.  Or the art of making your will sound like his. B.  And he does it without ever saying “I am persuading you.” M.  Because if you say it, you lose it. G.  That’s the best part: the letter is itself evidence that language can do work beyond its literal content. M.  Yes. Now you sound as if you’re about to invent a theory. G.  Only noticing a practice, sir. M.  Good. Notice it, don’t sermonise it. E.  But the whole thing is also soaked in values: dignitas, liberalitas, consuetudo. M.  Roman persuasion is always moralised. G.  So “influencing” here is really “binding through virtues.” M.  Exactly. B.  And “Tu nos fac ames” is the punchline. M.  It is. He ends not with “do this” but with “love us.” That’s Roman: the request is emotional, the machinery is political. G.  Sir, you said earlier Paterculus wasn’t “little father.” What about Vatinius? M.  Vatinius is not “a little vat,” boy. Back to work. G.  So what is our takeaway? M.  That the letter is a case study in intentional action through words: the utterer designs an uptake. E.  And that uptake is not merely belief but action—Cicero defending him. M.  Precisely. He wants Cicero to do things: speak, crush, sustain, adopt. G.  So the intended effect is practical. M.  And reputational. The Forum is a theatre; the letter is backstage. B.  Sir, are we allowed to laugh at “terra marique”? M.  You may laugh privately. Publicly you must admire. G.  It’s also a way of saying “I am competent.” M.  Yes. Competence is another lever: “I can help you, therefore you should help me.” E.  That’s almost transactional. M.  Roman friendship is often transactional with a moral vocabulary. G.  The moral vocabulary is the disguise. M.  And the disguise is the whole point. B.  So, in the end, Vatinius is shaping Cicero’s future talk. M.  Exactly: he is writing a script for Cicero’s public performance. G.  Which makes the letter itself a kind of pre-utterance. M.  Very good. Now stop being pleased with yourself and read it again, silently, as if you were Cicero deciding whether you can afford to say “no.”Gricevs: Salve, Vatini! Dic mihi, quid sentis de illo Cicerone, qui semper tam petulanter et pedanter disputat? Vatinivs: Gricevs, Cicerone magister dialecticae est, sed interdum nimis argutatur. Ego tamen credo illum, sicut Crotoniani, ad veritatem semper inquirere, licet via eius sit ardua. Gricevs: Ha! Sed Crotoniani magis silentio et meditatione veritatem quaerunt, Vatini; Cicerone vero orationibus tumultu facit! Forsitan ratio Romana ab illa Crotoniana differt? Vatinivs: Ita vero! Ratio Romae ex publicis disputationibus oritur, dum Crotonenses doctrinam secretam sequuntur. Sed utrumque genus philosophiae ad civitatem et bonum commune spectat—hoc, ut ait Publius, nomen ipsum significat. Vatinio, Publio (DCCIX A. V. C.). Epistula ad Ciceronem. Roma.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vatronio – Ossia: Grice e Vatronio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Vatronio -- H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA -- GREX -- VERBALIA: VATRONIO The gens Vatronia was an obscure plebeian family of ancient Rome. No members of this gens are mentioned by Roman writers, but a number are known from inscriptions.  Origin The earliest inscriptions mentioning the Vatronii all came from Praeneste in Latium, where members of this gens appear to have been prominent citizens. The nomen Vatronius belongs to a large class of gentilicia ending in -onius. Most of these were formed from cognomina ending in -o or -onis, but once names of this type had become common, -onius came to be regarded as a regular gentile-forming suffix, and was sometimes applied without any morphological justification. At the same time, many surnames of this type had alternative forms with differing stems.[1] Here the root is Vatrax, a cognomen originally referring to someone with crooked feet.[2] Surnames derived from the physical peculiarities of individuals were quite common.[3]  Praenomina The praenomina occurring most frequently in the epigraphy of the Vatronii were Gaius, Quintus, and Lucius, all of which were among the most common names at all periods of Roman history. Other names used by members of this gens included Aulus, Gnaeus, Titus, and Vibius, of which only the last was uncommon.  Members This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation. Gaius Vatronius L. f., named in an inscription from Praeneste in Latium, dating from the middle or late third century BC.[4][5] Gaius Vatronius, one of the praetors at Praeneste, around the third quarter of the second century BC. His colleague was Lucius Orcevius.[6][7] Gnaeus Vatronius, the husband of Geminia, named in an inscription from Praeneste, dating between the late third and the first half of the second century BC.[8][9] Vibius Vatronius, named in an inscription from Praeneste, dating between the late third and the end of the second century BC.[10][11] Graeca Vatronia, named in an inscription from Praeneste, dating from the early second century BC.[12][13][14] Gaius Vatronius C. l., a freedman, and one of the magisters of the cattle merchants' guild at Praeneste. Together with his colleague, Lucius Mucius, he made an offering to Fortuna Primigenia, at some point between the late second century BC, and the end of Sulla's civil war.[15][16] Lucius Vatronius Q. f. Bolanus, made a first-century BC offering to Fortuna Primigenia at Praeneste.[17][18][19] Lucius Vatronius Ɔ. l. Suavis, a freedman buried at Rome, in a tomb dating from the first half of the first century.[20] Gaius Vatronius C. Ɔ. l. Anteros, the freedman of Gaius Vatronius and Cartilia, one of several freedmen and women named in a sepulchral inscription from Rome, dating from the latter half of the first century.[21] Vatronia T. f. Gratilla, buried at the site of modern Cadolino in Italy, aged eight years, ten months, and twenty-three days, in a tomb dating between the latter half of the first century, and the early part of the second, built by her mother, Porcia Primilla.[22][23] Vatronia Fortunata, buried at Hadrumetum in Africa, aged forty, in a tomb dating between the latter half of the second century, and the end of the third.[24][25] Gaius Vatronius Agathamerus, a member of the boatbuilders' guild at Ostia in Latium in AD 152.[26] Gaius Vatronius Crescens, a member of the boatbuilders' guild at Ostia in AD 152.[26] Gaius Vatronius Junianus, a member of the boatbuilders' guild at Ostia in AD 152.[26] Undated Vatronii Vatronia, the wife of Lucius, buried at Lambaesis in Numidia, aged thirty.[27] Aulus Vatronius A. f. Q. n., named in an inscription from Corinth in Achaia.[28] Vatronia Cale, buried at Rome, in a tomb built by Vatronius Venustus. The inscription is thought to be modern.[29] Titus Vatronius Modestus, dedicated a tomb at Rome for his wife, Priscilla.[30] Quintus Vatronius Q. f. Rogatus, buried at Saldae in Mauretania Caesariensis, aged twenty-three.[31] Vatronius Venustus, built a tomb at Rome for Vatronia Cale. The inscription is thought to be modern.[29] See also List of Roman gentes References  Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", pp. 118–120.  Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", p. 120.  Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", pp. 109, 110.  CIL XIV, 3287.  I cippi prenestini, p. 210, 2.  CIL XIV, 2902.  Degrassi, Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Rei Publicae, 264.  CIL XIV, 3143.  I cippi prenestini, p. 118, 3.  CIL XIV, 3288.  I cippi prenestini, p. 210, 1.  CIL XIV, 3291.  Degrassi, Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Rei Publicae, 872.  I cippi prenestini, p. 211, 5.  CIL XIV, 2878.  Degrassi, Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Rei Publicae, 106.  CIL I, 3054.  Ephemeris Epigraphica, ix. 747.  AE 1907, 134.  CIL VI, 28379.  Friggeri and Pelli, Vivo e morto nelle iscrizioni di Roma, 6.  Epigraphica, 2011–356.  AE 2011, 224.  CIL VIII, 22988.  Inscriptions latines lapidaires du musée de Sousse, 33.  CIL XIV, 250.  CIL VIII, 4130.  Corinth, 250.  CIL VI, 28380.  CIL VI, 25041.  CIL VIII, 8972. Bibliography Samir Aounallah et al., Inscriptions latines lapidaires du musée de Sousse (Latin Inscriptions in Stone from the Museum of Sousse), Sassari (2019). Annalisa Franchi de Bellis, I cippi prenestini (The Grave Markers of Praeneste), Urbino (1997). 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). Corinth: The inscriptions 1926–1950, Princeton (1966). Attilio Degrassi, Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Rei Publicae (Latin Inscriptions from the Roman Republic), Florence (1965). Epigraphica, Rivista Italiana di Epigrafia (1939–present). Rosanna Friggeri and Carla Pelli, Vivo e morto nelle iscrizioni di Roma, Miscellanea, Rome (1980). Wilhelm Henzen, Ephemeris Epigraphica: Corporis Inscriptionum Latinarum Supplementum (Journal of Inscriptions: Supplement to the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum), Institute of Roman Archaeology, Rome (1872–1913). Theodor Mommsen et alii, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (The Body of Latin Inscriptions, abbreviated CIL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1853–present). Category: Roman gentes And your first-best choice for a Grice-Speranza vigntte for THIS gens? Thanks

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vatronio – Ossia: Grice e Vatronio – Grex griceiana – verbalia: Vatronio For the Vatronii, I would actually choose a very obscure figure:  Marcus Varonius? No. Gaius Vatronius C. l., the freedman-magister of the cattle merchants' guild at Praeneste, who together with Lucius Mucius dedicated an offering to Fortuna Primigenia. [GREXv3 | Word]  Not because he was important, but because he is the most conversationally promising. Why? The Vatronii are almost entirely epigraphic shadows:  magistrates, freedmen, guild members, dedicators, tomb-builders.  We have almost no literary narrative attaching to them. So a Grice-Speranza vignette must start from the social institution itself. And a guild master immediately gives us:  deliberation, collective decisions, announcements, negotiations, dedication formulas.  In short: conversation.  What attracts me is the pairing:  Gaius Vatronius and Lucius Mucius  acting jointly. [GREXv3 | Word] Immediately we recover the problem that arose with Castor and Pollux. Suppose an inscription records:  Gaius Vatronius et Lucius Mucius donum dederunt.  Who meant to dedicate?  Vatronius? Mucius? both?  The collective-intention problem reappears.  A Grice tutorial almost writes itself. At Praeneste Mucius:  Fortunae aliquid dedicandum est. (Something is to be dedicated to Fortune.)   Vatronius:  Cur? (Why?)   Mucius:  Quia mercatura bene successit. (Because trade has gone well.)   Vatronius:  Ergo dedicemus. (Then let us dedicate it.)   Now the Griceian puzzle: Discipulus:  Quis donum dare constituit? (Who decided to make the offering?)   Vatronius:  Ambo. (Both.)   Discipulus:  Sed quis primus proposuit? (But who proposed it first?)   Vatronius:  Mucius. (Mucius.)   Discipulus:  Quis ergo voluit? (Then who intended it?)   Vatronius:  Ambo. (Both.)   Much like your Dioscuri example:  Who said it?  becomes:  Who intended it?   I suspect Grice would then remark:  "The moment one leaves solitary action for guilds, committees, and boards, the trouble begins."  (Ha.) A single speaker meaning something is easy. A guild meaning something is difficult.  A runner-up would be:  Lucius Vatronius Q. f. Bolanus  because he too dedicates to Fortuna Primigenia. [GREXv3 | Word] And Grice always had a soft spot for cases where agents appear to converse with:  gods, institutions, traditions,  rather than merely with one another.  But if I had to write:  Grice e Vatronio  I would not choose the praetor or the tomb-builder. I would choose the guild magistrate at Praeneste. Why? Because among the Vatronii he gives us the cleanest transition from:  individual intention  to  shared intention.  Exactly the issue that haunted Grice in discussions ranging from:  conversational cooperation, Castor and Pollux, committees, orchestras, and, as you nicely put it, whether "the Dioscuri" count as one communicator or two.  A cattle-merchant guild deciding on a dedication is not as glamorous as the Dioscuri announcing the fall of Perseus. But philosophically it asks the same question:  When two men do one thing, whose intention is it? (Ha.)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Vattimo – Ossia: Grice e Vattimo: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’implicatvm o impiegato come comunicatvm debole. Note su Il soggetto e la storia. Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Gianteresio Vattimo (Torino, Piemonte): Compared institutionally, Gianteresio Vattimo is much closer to H. P. Grice than many of your earlier figures, because both are unmistakably academic philosophers; but they still belong to very different university worlds. Gianteresio Vattimo was born in Turin in 1936, studied philosophy under Luigi Pareyson at the University of Turin, graduated in 1959, then studied in Heidelberg with Hans-Georg Gadamer and others, before returning to Turin as assistant professor in 1964, full professor of aesthetics in 1969, and professor of theoretical philosophy in 1982. [en.wikipedia.org], [iep.utm.edu], [encyclopedia.com] So the clean institutional comparison is this. Grice was a modern Oxford don in the strict collegiate sense: Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s, plus CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Vattimo, by contrast, was an Italian professor in the continental chair system, formed at Turin and Heidelberg, later also a major public intellectual and Member of the European Parliament, rather than a college tutor in an Oxford residential setting. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Vattimo to the state-university and public-intellectual world of continental philosophy. [en.wikipedia.org], [iep.utm.edu], [encyclopedia.com] That institutional difference fits the philosophical contrast you want to draw rather well. Grice works at the micro-level of rational communication: how a hearer gets from what is said to what is meant by recognising intentions and calculating implicatures under conversational norms. Vattimo, by contrast, works at the macro-level of interpretation, history, and ontology. His pensiero debole is not a doctrine about “weak implicatures” in the Gricean technical sense, but a broader anti-foundational stance: a weakening of metaphysical closure, a refusal of strong finality, and an ethic of interpretive openness. The major reference sources define weak thought precisely in this way: not as a defect of force, but as a philosophical and ethical choice in favour of plurality, historicity, and hermeneutic charity. [iep.utm.edu], [philopedia.org], [en-academic.com] So if you want the sharpest formulation, it is this. Grice explains how defeasible meaning works in conversation. Vattimo explains how non-finality works in philosophy and culture. In other words: Gricean weakness is a property of certain inferences: they can be cancelled, revised, defeated by further evidence. Vattimo’s weakness is an ontological and ethical stance: discourse should resist closure, authority, and metaphysical domination. [iep.utm.edu], [philopedia.org] That is why your phrase implicatum come communicatum debole is a clever comparative gloss, but it should remain a gloss. It captures the overlap, but it should not obscure the difference in scale. For Grice, to communicate “weakly” would mean that the speaker leaves room for withdrawal, refinement, and context-sensitive recovery. For Vattimo, weak communication would be a principled refusal of strong, unilateral finality, a way of leaving the truth open to history and interpretation. [iep.utm.edu], [philopedia.org] There are also two factual corrections worth making. First, the name. The standard biographical sources overwhelmingly use Gianni Vattimo, though Gianteresio Vattimo is his full given name. If you are filing him in a scholarly headnote, Gianni is the standard public form. [en.wikipedia.org], [iep.utm.edu] Second, your final bibliographic line cannot be securely confirmed from the search results as given. I do not have a verified search result for Il soggetto e la storia, Turin, Rosenberg & Sellier, 1963. What I can securely confirm from standard bibliographic summaries is that early Vattimo includes Il concetto di fare in Aristotele (1961), Essere, storia e linguaggio in Heidegger (1963), and Ipotesi su Nietzsche (1967). The major bibliographical summaries of Vattimo list Il concetto di fare in Aristotele (1961), Essere, storia e linguaggio in Heidegger (1963), and Ipotesi su Nietzsche (1967) among his early works. [encyclopedia.com] So the short clean answer is: H. P. Grice was an Oxford don in the precise collegiate sense, both Fellow and Tutor in philosophy at St John’s and CUF University Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford. Gianni Vattimo, by contrast, was an Italian professor of aesthetics and theoretical philosophy, trained at Turin under Pareyson and in Heidelberg under Gadamer, later also a public intellectual and European Parliament member. Institutionally, Grice belongs to the tutorial-collegiate world; Vattimo to the continental chair system and public philosophy. Philosophically, the contrast is equally clear: Grice analyses the inferential micro-mechanics of speaker-meaning and defeasible implicature, whereas Vattimo articulates a broader “weak thought,” in which discourse renounces strong finality and leaves truth open to interpretation, history, and plurality. [en.wikipedia.org], [iep.utm.edu], [encyclopedia.com] And if you want the neatest dossier formula, I would suggest this: Grice theorises defeasibility within conversation; Vattimo radicalises weakness into an ontological and ethical style of communication itself. [iep.utm.edu], [philopedia.org] If you want, I can now give you a tighter one-paragraph entry in your preferred style, with the early bibliographic anchor corrected to one of the securely attested books.la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’implicatvm o impiegato come comunicatvm debole –debole, forte. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how what a speaker means is rationally recoverable by a hearer from what is said plus cooperative norms, yielding implicatures that are calculable and defeasible (cancellable when stronger evidence or an explicit clarification arrives). Vattimo’s “pensiero debole” shifts the center of gravity: instead of treating weakness as merely a pragmatic feature of certain implicatures (some implications are weaker, more context-sensitive, easier to retract), he treats “weak communication” as a philosophical and ethical posture—an anti-foundational way of speaking that resists the “strong” metaphysical urge to impose final, unilateral meanings, and that keeps interpretation open as an ongoing hermeneutic event. So where Grice analyses weakness/strength in terms of the inferential force of what is implicated relative to what is said (and how readily that implication can be defeated), Vattimo treats weakness/strength as a cultural-ontological stance toward truth and authority: “strong” discourse aims at closure and grounding, “weak” discourse aims at plurality, historicity, and freedom. The overlap is real—both make room for indirection and for meaning that can be withdrawn without contradiction—but the contrast is that for Grice defeasibility is a technical property of conversational inference under rational cooperation, while for Vattimo “weakness” is the point: a principled commitment to non-closure that turns communication into an invitation to dialogue rather than a bid for finality. Implicatum come communicatum debole. Grice: make a stronger statement. DEFEASIBILITY – can be defeated.  Filosofo torinese. Filosofo piemontese. Filosofo italiano. Torino, Piemonte. Essential Italian philosopher. Grice: “It may be argued that what V. means by ‘strong’ is what I mean by ‘weak’ and viceversa – With Popper, ‘I know’ is weaker than ‘I believe’ and ‘every x’ is weaker than ‘some (at least) one’ or ‘the’ – I have explored ‘the’ – Keyword: massima della debolezza conversazionale; massima della forza conversazionale” – Filosofo italiano. -- not one that provinicial Beaney would include in his handbooks and dictionaries. Vattimo’s philosophy shares quite a bit with Grice’s programme, as anyone familiar with both Vattimo and Grice may testify. Vattimo has philosophised on Heidegger and Nietzsche, and one of his essays is on the subject and the maskanother on reality. There is a volume in his honour. Filosofo e uomo politico italiano. M. Rivoli. Esponente della filosofia ermeneutica, teorizza l'abbandono delle pretese di fondazione della metafisica e la relativizzazione di ogni prospettiva filosofica (Il pensiero debole, in collab. Con Rovatti. Allievo di PAREYSON , dal quale derivano i suoi originari interessi per l'estetica, studia poi a Heidelberg sotto la guida di Gadamer. Prof. di estetica, poi di filosofia teoretica a Torino, da cui si è congedato. Deputato al Parlamento europeo, quindi ricandidatosi come indipendente nelle liste dell'Italia dei Valori, euro-deputato nell’Alleanza dei democratici e dei liberali per l’Europa, ha aderito al Partito comunista italiano. Studioso e continuatore dell'ermeneutica filosofica – cf. Grice, PERI HERMENEIAS --, nell'indagine sui suoi presupposti storici e teorici dedica la sua attenzione a Schleiermacher, Nietzsche, Heidegger e allo stesso Gadamer -- debole/forte – implicatum come communicatum debole.  Grice: Professore Vattimo, sono molto incuriosito dal suo concetto di “implicatum debole”. Nel mio lavoro ho spesso distinto tra implicature forti e deboli; mi chiedo cosa significhi per lei comunicare qualcosa in modo volutamente “debole”. Vattimo: Caro Grice, per me il comunicare “debolmente” significa riconoscere che ogni nostra affermazione è sempre situata, relativa, mai assoluta. È una sorta di umiltà ermeneutica: accettare che il senso non è mai una verità definitiva, ma un’apertura al dialogo e all’interpretazione. Grice: Capisco, dunque anche il linguaggio, per lei, si fonda su una massima di debolezza conversazionale: non imporre, ma suggerire, lasciare spazio. In fondo, anche le mie implicature sono sempre “defeasible”, possono essere modificate dal contesto o dalla risposta dell’altro. Vattimo: Esattamente! E aggiungerei che proprio questa fragilità rende possibile la libertà del pensiero. Se ci affidassimo solo alla forza delle affermazioni, chiuderemmo la porta al nuovo e al diverso. Preferisco pensare, parafrasando il suo stile, che una conversazione è davvero riuscita quando ciò che resta è più una domanda che una risposta. Vattimo, Gianteresio (1963). Il soggetto e la storia. Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier.