H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA: LA CONVERSAZIONE -- I VERBALI: SILLA

 Master.: Very well, boys, if we are to do Sulla at all, we must do him in order. G.: Sir, I should have thought that depends on what one means by order. Shropshire.: I should have thought it depends on whether one starts with the death. Master.: The death? We have not yet reached the birth. Shropshire.: That is exactly why it would be fresher, sir. G.: It would also be statistically unsound. Master.: What do you mean by statistically unsound, Grice? G.: That one ought first to have the basic particulars, sir. Name, gens, offices, campaigns, dates, marriages if one must, children if anyone insists, and only then the opinions or dicta. Shropshire.: Sulla’s opinions may have arrived before his marriages, sir. Master.: That is very likely true, but not useful. The question is whether one begins with life and opinions, life and deeds, or life and death. G.: Life and deeds, sir. Shropshire.: Life and death, sir. Opinions are usually what masters add when the deeds have become awkward. Master.: That is dangerously intelligent, Shropshire. Grice, why life and deeds? G.: Because Sulla is historically legible first through acts, sir. Dictatorship, proscriptions, constitutional reforms, resigning the dictatorship, and dying at Cuma in a fashion which some say was dramatic enough even without Plutarch. Shropshire.: The death at Cuma is the best opening, sir. A man who retires from absolute power and dies by the sea is already asking to be read backward. Master.: That sounds suspiciously like literature. G.: Which is exactly why it should be postponed, sir. Master.: Good. I am glad one of you still believes in chronology. Yet the title before us is Dicta. That makes opinions difficult to avoid. Shropshire.: Only because someone else collected them, sir. G.: Quite. A dictum is already a posthumous convenience. Master.: Now that is a useful phrase. A posthumous convenience. But if we are analysing “the life and opinions,” are opinions really the right second term? G.: I doubt it, sir. Sulla’s sayings are less opinions than compressed attitudes. Shropshire.: Or threats with Latin endings. Master.: Also not wholly wrong. Then perhaps life and deeds? G.: Yes, sir. Shropshire.: Unless the dictum alters the deed. Master.: Explain. Shropshire.: If Sulla says felicity belongs to those who seize, then the saying becomes part of the deed’s meaning, sir. G.: Only retrospectively. Shropshire.: All reading is retrospective, Grice. Master.: That is enough philosophy before first break. Let us keep to the Romans. What are the basic particulars, Grice? G.: Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, sir. Born at Rome, died at Cumae. Cornelian gens. Quaestor, praetor, proconsular commands, consul, dictator. Jugurthine War, Cimbrian matters, civil wars, Mithridatic business, the usual inconveniences. Shropshire.: You make him sound like a timetable, Grice. G.: Better a timetable than a legend. Master.: And yet legend is precisely what we must resist without becoming duller than the facts. Now, what of “life and death”? Shropshire.: It has dramatic economy, sir. Master.: Which is not automatically a virtue. Shropshire.: It is at Clifton, sir, where economy of suffering is admired. Master.: Watch yourself. Why death first? Shropshire.: Because Sulla’s death reframes the whole. A dictator who abdicates, retires, writes, and dies away from the centre is already in argument with his own career. G.: Or merely resting after it. Shropshire.: You always prefer furniture to irony. G.: I prefer sequence to melodrama. Master.: And I prefer both of you to keep still long enough for me to decide whether we are reading history or moral grammar. What of “life and opinions”? G.: Too philosophical, sir. Shropshire.: Too modern, sir. Master.: Good. The very agreement alarms me. Why too modern? G.: Because “opinions” suggests a man with articles of belief rather than one with actions, maxims, expedients, and constitutional habits. Shropshire.: And because one does not really want Sulla’s opinions so much as one wants a few hard sayings to make the biography bite. Master.: Yes. “Opinions” is too newspaper-like. A Roman statesman is better approached through consilia, acta, dicta, not opinions. We shall keep that. Now, if one says “life and deeds,” what is missing? Shropshire.: The after-sound, sir. Master.: Meaning? Shropshire.: The sayings. The little verbal things by which a later age pretends to hear the man himself. G.: Which is dangerous precisely because they are so useful. Master.: Excellent. Then perhaps the proper formula is life, deeds, and dicta. Shropshire.: Too many d’s, sir. G.: Not enough chronology, sir. Master.: Both objections are worthless. Let us try another route. Suppose one begins with the saying about books. G.: You mean the Aristotelian books, sir. Master.: I do. He seizes Apellicon’s collection, brings it to Rome, and Tyrannion later sorts it, with consequences for what we now call the Metaphysics. Shropshire.: A splendid opening, sir. Sulla, conqueror of Greece, importer of Aristotle, accidental godfather of metaphysics. G.: Too accidental, sir. Master.: Yet it has classroom allure. “What comes after the Physics” becomes a category from shelving. That is a fine Roman irony. Shropshire.: Better than starting with Jugurtha. G.: Not for chronology. Master.: You are incorrigible. Still, the books matter. They let us see that Sulla’s life is not only military and constitutional but editorial by theft. Shropshire.: A phrase worthy of a motto, sir. Master.: Not worthy, but serviceable. And it would justify him in a Latin class better than the proscriptions would. G.: Sir, surely the proscriptions also justify him, in a negative grammatical sense. Master.: Negative grammar is not our current concern. What we need is something to make boys remember that Roman history is not merely names and slaughter. Shropshire.: Then give them books and a motto, sir. Master.: What motto? Shropshire.: That fortune favours not merely the brave but the cataloguer. G.: That is not Sulla, sir. Master.: No, but it ought to have been. Did Sulla have a dictum fit for school use? G.: Felix Sulla, perhaps, sir. Master.: That is less a dictum than a self-advertisement. Shropshire.: He might have said that no man who cannot command should read Aristotle. Master.: He did not, unfortunately. Though it has the smell of him. G.: There is always Plutarch’s moral atmosphere, sir. Master.: Which is precisely what I mistrust in school use. We need a sentence, not a cloud. What of resignation? Shropshire.: A dictator who resigns is already a dictum in action, sir. G.: Which would support life and deeds. Master.: It would. A deed can sometimes function as an opinion in public. That is worth keeping. Now, if we were to organise an essay, what headings? G.: Basic particulars, sir. Offices. Campaigns. Constitutional actions. Retirement. Death. Then dicta as illustrative rather than governing. Shropshire.: Death. Retirement. Constitutional actions. Dicta. Then the earlier life only as explanation of how he became the sort of man who could do the rest. Master.: So one of you wants annals and the other a reverse-engineered tragedy. G.: I do not want annals, sir. I want intelligibility. Shropshire.: I do not want tragedy, sir. I want shape. Master.: Good. Then perhaps the lesson is that history needs both sequence and shape, which is an irritating thing to admit at Clifton. Now, what of “opinions” again? Could we save it under a Roman term? G.: Sententiae, perhaps, sir. Shropshire.: Maxims, sir. They sound meaner. Master.: “Life and maxims” has charm, but not enough stature. “Life and sentences” sounds criminal. “Life and dicta” is tolerable, but schoolboys hate Latin on title pages unless it leads to blood. G.: There is blood regardless, sir. Master.: An unfortunate Roman abundance. Now, Shropshire, since you insist on the death, what do we gain by beginning there? Shropshire.: We gain release from the illusion that the career was only upward, sir. Sulla’s end at Cuma, after resignation, turns the whole life into a question about power and its limit. G.: Or its exhaustion. Shropshire.: Exactly. And then one asks not merely what he did, but why he stopped. Master.: Good. That is genuine historical curiosity. Grice, what do we lose by starting there? G.: The sense of becoming, sir. Without the earlier offices and wars, the abdication appears theatrical rather than intelligible. Master.: Excellent. So the death is interpretively rich but genetically poor. Shropshire.: That is too neat, sir. Master.: That is why it may survive. Now, one of you mentioned Mozart. Shropshire.: I did, sir. If there is an opera, there must be a school use. G.: There is Mozart’s Lucio Silla, sir. Master.: Ah yes. And what are we to do with Mozart in Latin class? Shropshire.: Use him to prove that Sulla survives by turning into music once history has become too strict. G.: That is absurd. Shropshire.: Which is why it would be memorable. Master.: We must not turn the sixth form into a theatre, tempting though it is. Still, Mozart’s existence proves something. G.: That Sulla had afterlife beyond historians, sir. Master.: Precisely. And that “life and deeds” may not exhaust reception. Shropshire.: So perhaps “life, deeds, and afterlives,” sir. G.: That is far too broad. Master.: For this classroom, yes. But worth noting. History is what happened, and what later ages decided was worth singing. Now, what would Sulla himself have preferred? G.: Deeds, sir. Shropshire.: Reputation, sir. Master.: A sensible division. And the master? G.: Basic particulars first, sir. Shropshire.: Death first, sir. Master.: You have both said that often enough. Let us refine it. Suppose I assign “The Life and Deeds of Sulla.” Shropshire.: Then the clever boy begins with Cuma anyway. Master.: And if I assign “The Life and Death of Sulla”? G.: Then the lazy boy ignores the constitution. Master.: Quite right. “Life and Opinions”? Shropshire.: Then no boy knows what an opinion is. G.: Least of all in Rome, sir. Master.: Very good. So the title itself must teach. What about “Sulla: Career, Dictatorship, and Dicta”? G.: Better, sir. Shropshire.: Uglier, sir. Master.: Ugliness is often educational. Now, Grice, give me one dictum suitable for a schoolboy if we can find one. G.: That he preferred to seem fortunate rather than merely successful, sir. Master.: That is paraphrase, not dictum. Shropshire.: “Felix” is enough, sir. One word and half the room begins to distrust him. Master.: Excellent. Sulla Felix. There is our first motto. A man who styles himself fortunate already invites inquiry as to whether fortune or force did more. G.: And whether luck is a property or merely retrospective flattery, sir. Master.: Spare us your philosophy of luck for the moment. Still, yes. “Felix” is a way of shifting responsibility from merit to destiny without ever giving up either. Shropshire.: Very Roman, sir. Master.: Very. Now the books again. How would one make the Aristotelian episode fit a school essay? G.: By saying that Sulla’s career intersects not only Roman power but the later history of philosophy through the transport of texts, sir. Master.: Good. Shropshire? Shropshire.: By saying that he conquered Greece twice: first by arms, then by shelving. Master.: Insolent, but useful. That shall stay in my private notes. Now, would either of you risk “life and opinions” if one replaced opinions with views on constitution? G.: No, sir. Too narrow. Shropshire.: Yes, sir, if one wished to make him sound almost modern and therefore slightly false. Master.: Which is a good reason not to. Roman men of action do not have “views” in the schoolboy sense. They have offices, measures, enemies, precedents, and a style of hardness. G.: And dicta only later, sir. Master.: Exactly. The dicta crystallise the style after the fact. Then our order should perhaps be: life, deeds, constitutional acts, retirement, death, dicta. Shropshire.: A little too reasonable, sir. Master.: That is often my failing. Yet we may allow a dramatic opening sentence on the death. G.: Provided the chronology recovers at once, sir. Master.: Yes, Grice, I shall not abandon the calendar entirely. Now, if we quote a dictum in Latin class, should it be in Latin? Shropshire.: Naturally, sir. Otherwise the boys will think Rome happened in translation. Master.: Good. But which Latin? G.: Felix enough, sir. Master.: “Felix” is admirable because it is short, cruel, self-congratulatory, and semantically unstable. Shropshire.: Almost like a prefect. Master.: You are determined to spoil every decent thing. Still, semantic instability is useful. Was he fortunate, happy, blessed, successful, favoured, or merely brazen enough to say so? G.: Exactly, sir. The word opens rather than closes. Master.: Which is why it belongs. And if we mention Mozart? Shropshire.: Only at the end, sir, as proof that a Roman can become opera once the blood dries. Master.: Very well. “Even Mozart found use for him.” That will do. Grice, can you live with that? G.: Reluctantly, sir. Master.: Good. Reluctance is often the beginning of education. Now, what of Mommsen? G.: Sir? Master.: If one says anything original on Sulla, one should be prepared for the possibility that someone German has objected first. Shropshire.: Then it is safer to say nothing original, sir. Master.: That is the motto of the bad scholar. We shall not adopt it. Instead we shall note that Sulla’s life requires both fact and arrangement, deeds and after-sense, and perhaps one or two sayings if they carry the right weight. G.: Then not life and opinions, sir. Master.: No. That phrase is dead. Life and deeds remains the classroom spine. Shropshire.: With death as prologue, sir. Master.: With death as opening temptation, perhaps. I shall allow a paragraph. G.: That is statistically tolerable, sir. Master.: I am relieved to have your permission. Now, one last question. Why should a Latin class care for Sulla beyond violence and names? G.: Because he stands at the crossing of Roman action and the later transmission of Greek philosophy, sir. Shropshire.: Because he proves that a dictator may accidentally improve the library, sir. Master.: Both answers are serviceable, one more decent than the other. Very well. The essay shall be: “Sulla: Life, Deeds, and One or Two Dangerous Dicta.” G.: That is not a proper title, sir. Master.: It is now. Shropshire.: Then may I begin with Cuma? Master.: You may begin with Cuma if, by the second paragraph, you have returned to Rome, offices, and chronology. G.: Thank you, sir. Master.: Do not thank me. Thank Sulla for resigning dramatically enough to tempt schoolboys into structure. Shropshire.: And Mozart, sir? Master.: Yes, and Mozart, if you can keep him to a sentence and avoid humming. G.: Dry enough, sir? Master.: Sufficiently Cliftonian, with one Roman corpse properly indexed.