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

 

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

 

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Oddi: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale – la scuola di Padova -- filosofia veneta Marco degl’Oddi (Padova, Veneto): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale –Figlio di Oddo degl’O., convinto sostenitore della scuola di Galeno. Professore per incarico del Senato veneziano assieme a Bottoni a Padova, dove insegna e introduce senza ricevere emolumenti l'insegnamento della pratica clinica nell'ospedale di San Francesco Grande, precedendo così tutte le altre scuole. Commentari dell'Ateneo di Brescia  G. Vedova, Biografia degli scrittori padovani, coi tipi della Minerva, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Treccani Enciclopedie, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Dobbiamo al chiarissimo signor dottor Montesanto (Dell'origine della clinica medica di Padova ec.) la bella ed interessante notizia, che il nostro Bottoni e il suo collega Marco Oddo, calcando le traccie luminose segnate dal famoso Montano pochi lustri prima, diedero novella vita al la clinica medica nello spedale di san Francesco in Padova, condotti dalla sola nobile brama di giovare. E qui avvertire mo cogli sludiosi di medicina,che il dotto autore, dopo aver dimostrato con incontrastabile evidenza che l'Università padovana, la prima d'ogni pubblico Studio d'Europa, vanta la fondazione in essa di quella scuola, base dellamedica scien za,ci porge il documento luminoso,che tanto onora li ricor dati professori, e in particolare il Bottoni di cui favelliamo; il quale non essendo da tacersi, lo riporteremo come ci viene fedelmente e con eleganza vôlto in lingua italiana dal prelo dato signor Montesanto, che il trasse dagli Acta nationis germanicae Facultatis medicae, quae,convocata natione, prae lecta et examinata, digna judicata sunt,ut albo nationis insererentur. Consiliariis Christophoro Sibenburger Carin thio, etKeller Hallense Saxone. Manoscritto presso la biblioteca dell'Imperiale Regia Università di Padova. dette in vita Boltoni, non è da passarsi solto silenzio quello d'essere stato dal Duca di Urbino, unita mente ai altri quattro medici, implicature: filosofia naturale, Galeno. Grice: Caro Oddi, ma è vero che a Padova, tra una diagnosi e una implicatura, si discute più di Galeno che di logica? Oddi: Grice, ti assicuro che qui le implicature cliniche sono contagiose: se parli troppo di logica, rischi che ti prescrivano una visita dal Galeno di turno! Grice: Allora dovrò stare attento! Dicono che all’ospedale San Francesco Grande, se sbagli una deduzione, ti fanno una clinica d’urgenza… e Bottoni annota tutto! Oddi: Esatto! Qui la filosofia naturale si pratica in corsia: se non capisci l’implicatura, ti curiamo con un po’ di ironia veneta… e magari alla fine ti resta il buonumore, come una medicina di Galeno! Oddi, Marco degl’(1570). Oddi de Oddis Patauini physici, ac medici clarissimi, De pestis, & pestiferorum omnium affectuum causis, signis, praecautione, & curatione, libri IIII. Apologiae pro Galeno, tum in logica, tum in philosophia, tum etiam in medicina, libri III. De coenae, & prandij portione, libri II. Nunc primùm in lucem editi, aut illustrati opera, & diligentia Marci Oddi medici eiusdem filij totum incompletum perficientis. Quibus accessit ipsius filii De putredine germanae, ac nundum explicatae Aristotelis & Galeni sententiae aduersus Argenterium apologia. Venetiis: apud Paulum & Antonium Meietos fratres.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Offredi: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale del lizio – la scuola di Cremona -- filosofia lombarda  Apollinare Offredi (Cremona, Lombardia): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale del lizio –Gli era tributata grande autorità nell’ambiente filosofico. Insegna a Pavia e Piacenza. In buoni rapporti con Eugenio IV, Visconti e Sforza.  Saggi:“De primo et ultimo instanti in defensionem communis opinionis adversus Petrum Mantuanum,” S.l., Bonus Gallus,  Giambattista Fantonetti, Effemeridi delle scienze, compilate da G. netti, Paolo- Molina, Rinascimento, Istituto nazionale di studi sul Rinascimento, Robolini, Notizie appartenenti alla storia della sua patria, raccolte da G. Robolini, pavese, Fantonetti, Effemeridi delle scienze mediche, compilate da Fantonetti, Molina. OFFREDI CREMONENSIS ABSOLVTISSIMA COMMENTARIA [ocr errors] VNA CVM QVAE STIONIBVS IN PRIMVM ARISTOTELIS Posteriorum Analyticorum librum, Nunc primum mendis oinnibus expurgati, et egregijs  scolijs marginalibus illustrata, AC DVOBVS INDICIBVS, ALTERO, Qy I RES IN COMMENTARIIS tractatas, altero, qui quastionum capita copiosissime comple&titur, PRAETERE A DVPLICI TEXTVS ARIST. INTERPRETATIONE  AVCTA IN LVCM RE DEVNT A PRAECLARISS. DOCTORIS Hoc aut contingit propter posibilitatem intellectus D  APOLLINARIS CREMONE N. nostri, qui à principio est sicut tabula rasa, et non. 3. de anima tex. in librum primum Posteriorum mouetur ad intelligendum, nisi de potentia ad actí cap.is. reducatur sic autem intelligentia non cognoscunt, Aristotelis, exposition cum semper in actu intelligendi existant, et eodem modo. Grice: “Italians are rightly obsessed with Pomponazzi. They complained he looked more ‘a Jew than an Italian,’ but he predates Ryle’s Concept of Mind. One of his influences is Offredi, a lizii – who wrote not just on Aristotle’s De Anima (a manuscript Pomponazzi consulted) but who himself set to defend Pomponazzi – to prove that he was a real lizio, he wrote on Analytica Posteriora too – “Only a true lizio will comment on that!” –implicatura.  Grice: Caro Offredi, confessalo: ma è vero che a Cremona, oltre ai violini, si suona pure l’Analytica Posteriora di Aristotele? Dicono che tu abbia i margini dei manoscritti più pieni di note che la partitura di una sinfonia!  Offredi: Grice, se vuoi ti insegno a leggere le mie glosse, ma ti avverto: servono almeno tre tipi di inchiostro e un po’ di pazienza lombarda. E quanto a note, alcune sono talmente acute che nemmeno Stradivari riuscirebbe a intonarle!  Grice: Eppure mi dicono che tra un’osservazione su Pomponazzi e una disputa sui “lizi”, tu riesca sempre a infilare una battuta: sarà che la filosofia lombarda non rinuncia mai al buon umore, come il torrone di Cremona dopo pranzo?  Offredi: Esatto! Da noi il pensiero si fa dolce, ma attenzione: se ti distrai, rischi la carie dialettica. Aristotele lo sapeva: chi non mastica bene l’analisi, si perde fra le implicature… e torna a casa senza capire se l’intelletto è una tabula rasa o una sinfonia mancata! Offredi, Apolinnare (1478). De primo et ultimo instanti in defensionem communis opinionis adversus Petrum Mantuanum, Colle di Val d’Elsa: Bonus Gallus.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Olgiati: HART GRICE HOLLOWAY la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dei classici – la scuola di Busto Arsizio – Grice on Hart on Holloway on language and intelligence -- filosofia lombarda -- filosofia italiana Mons. Francesco Olgiati (Busto Arsizio, Varese, Lombardia): HART GRICE HOLLOWAY la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dei classici –Grice on Hart on Holloway on language and intelligence -- Grice: “I’m impressed that Olgiati dedicated a whole tract to the idea of ‘soul’ in Aquino!” Si forma presso Seminari milanesi. Collabora con Gemelli e Necchi alla Rivista di filosofia neo-scolastica e fonda con loro il periodico Vita e Pensiero. Insignito da Pio XI del titolo di Cameriere Segreto e da Pio XII di Proto-notario Apostolico. Inoltre assieme ad Gemelli, uno dei fondatori dell'Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. Presso tale ateneo insegnò nelle facoltà di Lettere, di Magistero e di Giurisprudenza. Condirettore della Rivista del Clero Italiano insieme a Gemelli. Autore di saggi relativi sulla religione e l’istruzione. I suoi allievi più illustri sono Melchiorre e Reale. Tomba di Gemelli mons. O.. Il libro Le lettere di Berlicche, scritto da Lewis, oltre ad essere dedicato a Tolkien, è dedicato anche a O.. Medaglia d'oro ai benemeriti della scuola, della cultura e dell'artenastrino per uniforme ordinaria Medaglia d'oro ai benemeriti della scuola, della cultura e dell'arte Università Cattolica del Sacro CuoreLa storia: Le origini, su uni cattolica. Saggi: “Religione e vita” (Vita, Milano); “Schemi di conferenze” (Vita, Milano); “I fondamenti della filosofia classica” (Vita, Milano); “Il sillabario della Teologia” (Vita, Milano); “Il concetto di giuridicità in AQUINO” (Vita, Milano); “Marx” (Vita, Milano); Il sillabario della morale Cristiana” (Vita, Milano); “Il sillabario del Cristianesimo, Vita, Milano) b I nuovi soci onorari della Famiglia Bustocca. Almanacco della Famiglia Bustocca per l'anno 1956, Busto Arsizio, La Famiglia Bustocca, Treccani Enciclopedie on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia. La filosofia di Bergson, TORINO BOCCA pS og 4 E E Z á  S 3 JE lí E | S E a AT O classici, il gusto per l’antico, ius, Aquino, sillabario, filosofia classica, filosofia no-classica, logica classica. Francesco Olgiati. Grice: Caro Olgiati, so che a Busto Arsizio la ragione conversazionale si respira come l’aria! Ma ditemi: è vero che avete scritto un “sillabario” della teologia dove anche i classici imparano a leggere? Olgiati: Grice, lei non esagera! Da noi anche Aristotele fa i compiti a casa, e Aquino si esercita con la logica classica. Ma il vero dramma è quando Marx vuole correggere il “sillabario” della morale cristiana… allora sì che serve la ragione! Grice: Immagino la scena: Bergson che cerca di spiegare il tempo a Gemelli, mentre Holloway si domanda se la lingua lombarda sia più intelligente del latino. Scommetto che alla fine la medaglia d’oro va al primo che riesce a pronunciare “proto-notario apostolico” senza sbagliare! Olgiati: Perfettamente! E se qualcuno ce la fa, lo nominiamo Cameriere Segreto e lo mandiamo a insegnare alla Cattolica. D’altronde, tra una conferenza e una risata, anche la filosofia classica diventa… un piacere antico, ma sempre nuovo! Olgiati, Francesco  (1917). Il pensiero d’Aquino e Pensiero.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Olimpio: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale di Giuliano -- Roma – filosofia italiana –  (Roma). Filosofo italiano. He lives in the middle of nowhere. When he finds his city became an uncomfortable place for pagans, he moves to Rome.   Olimpio (Roma): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale di Giuliano -- He lives in the middle of nowhere. When he finds his city became an uncomfortable place for pagans, he moves to Rome.  GRICEVS: Salvē, OLIMPI—audīvī tē in mediō nusquam habitāre. Estne illa patria tua, an tantum locus ubi etiam tabellārius “nōn inveniō” scrībit? OLIMPIVS: Salvē, GRICE. Patria est: ibi silentium tam dēnsum est ut omnis implicātūra ante vocem perveniāt. Nēmō ibi loquitur—ita nihil umquam male intellegitur. GRICEVS: At cum urbs tua pagānīs facta est incommoda, Rōmam migrāvistī: id est, ex solitūdine ad maximam turbam, ut… latēre clārius possēs? OLIMPIVS: Prorsus. In mediō nusquam omnes me vident; Rōmae, cum omnis populus clāmat, nemo animadvertit. Ita fit ut “salvus sim” dicere nōn opus sit—urbs ipsa id per implicātūram dīcit. any idea where this Olimpo may be from -- he was living in a city which he found un uncomfortable place for pagans and then moves to rome. The likeliest answer is that this “Olimpio” is really one of the late-antique pagan figures around Julian, but the biographical detail in your note as stated is too vague to identify him securely. The specific motif “his city became an uncomfortable place for pagans, so he moved to Rome” does not immediately fit the best-known Olympiodorus of Thebes, who was from Thebes in Egypt and seems to have moved to Constantinople, not to Rome, as part of an eastern imperial career. He was a cultivated pagan in a Christianising world, yes, but not obviously the exact figure of your vignette. [en.wikipedia.org], [jstor.org] So, if Speranza’s “Olimpio” is meant as a proper historical person, the most honest answer is: I cannot yet identify him with confidence from the clue alone. What I can say is this. If the note says he “lives in the middle of nowhere,” then later finds his city uncomfortable for pagans and moves to Rome, that sounds more like one of the displaced pagan intellectuals described in Eunapius, or a figure from the wider late-antique pagan diaspora, than like Olympiodorus of Thebes specifically. Eunapius is full of exactly that atmosphere: provincial pagan intellectuals under increasing Christian pressure, some leaving hostile cities, some retreating into circles of fellow Hellenes, some migrating toward places where elite pagan culture could still survive more discreetly. [tertullian.org], [jstor.org], [brill.com] So there are really two possibilities. One, Speranza has slightly blurred or Italianised Olympiodorus, in which case the biographical detail about moving to Rome is probably inaccurate or mixed with someone else. Olympiodorus was from Thebes in Egypt, Greek-speaking, pagan, highly educated, and mobile, but not chiefly “the pagan who fled to Rome because his city became inhospitable.” [en.wikipedia.org], [jstor.org] Two, “Olimpio” refers to another late-antique pagan named Olympius/Olympiodorus/Olympios, perhaps one in a smaller prosopographical niche, and then the route to identification would have to go through Eunapius, Julian, or the pagan resistance literature more carefully. [tertullian.org], [en.wikipedia.org] So the driest answer, for now, is: I do not yet have enough evidence to say where this “Olimpio” was from with confidence. If it is Olympiodorus of Thebes, he was from Thebes in Egypt, Greek-speaking, and part of the late pagan intellectual world, but the “moved to Rome because his city became difficult for pagans” detail does not fit him cleanly. If the vignette is accurate, it is more likely a different late-antique pagan figure, perhaps one recoverable through Eunapius or related sources. [en.wikipedia.org], [tertullian.org], [jstor.org] If you want, I can do the next useful thing in chat only. I can give you a short identification note distinguishing: Olympiodorus of Thebes, other late-antique pagan “Olympi-” figures, and the kind of biographical pattern Eunapius often records for displaced pagans. [en.wikipedia.org], [tertullian.org] Or I can help you test whether your “Olimpio” might actually be another name entirely, miscopied under an Olympian shape.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Olivetti: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’archivista – filosofia italiana  Marco Maria Olivetti (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’archivista –Grice: “I don’t want to restrict my account of meaning to the ‘linguistic’! Olivetti deals with some topics dear to me and Strawson, like subject, transcendental subject, and the rest – he also uses ‘analogy,’ which is a pet concept of mine – I have been compared to Apel, so the fact that Olivetti in his ‘conversational’ approach relies on him, helps!” lingua, linguaggio, Grice’s ‘linguistic’ in “Utterer’s meaning, sentence-meaning, and word meaning”, linguistico, linguaggico -- Professore a Roma -- preside della Facoltà di filosofia. Formatosi a Roma, confrontandosi con i temi del rapporto fede e ragione nell'ambito di un collegio di docenti orientato sul versante marxista, storicista, postidealista, trova in ZUBIENA il suo maestro. Con lui iniziò una collaborazione intellettuale che lo porta a studiare i temi della filosofia della religione, partecipando ai colloqui romani inaugurati dal filosofo piemontese, dapprima come segretario e poi, dopo la morte di ZUBIENA come organizzatore. Dopo iniziali studi di estetica religiosa e di filosofia classica tedesca, si dedicò alla ricerca di un approccio neo-trascendentale al tema della religione, insegnando filosofia morale a Bari e poi sostitundo Zubiena nella cattedra romana di filosofia della religione. Giunse dopo l'incontro decisivo col pensiero di Lévinas, ad elaborare una concezione di questa disciplina come antropologia filosofica e etica in quanto «filosofia prima anzi anteriore» su base storica, nata dalla dissoluzione in età tardo settecentesca, soprattutto ad opera di Kant e Hegel, della onto-teologia. Molta rilevanza aveva nel suo insegnamento lo studio dei classici tedeschi, in chiave storica, e da ultimo il confronto sia con la fenomenologia. implicatura, l’archivista -- “philosophy of language.” Cratilo, teologia del linguaggio, esito teo-logico della filosofia del linguaggio, la religione razionale secondo Kant, l’idea de fine – autonomia, il regno dei fini in Kant, religione e lingua, l’esito teologico della filosofia della lingua, Jacobi.   Grice: Olivetti, mi incuriosisce molto la sua attenzione all'“archivista” e al modo in cui il linguaggio si intreccia con la filosofia della religione. Come pensa che la “conversazione” contribuisca a chiarire il rapporto tra fede e ragione? Olivetti: Grazie, caro Grice. Ritengo che la conversazione sia soprattutto un esercizio di ascolto e interpretazione dell’altro; nel dialogo tra fede e ragione, il linguaggio serve a creare ponti, non a erigere muri. Il mio approccio “conversazionale” nasce proprio dalla necessità di un’analogia, di uno spazio comune dove l’alterità sia riconosciuta prima che giudicata. Grice: Mi piace molto questa idea di analogia. Molti pensano che il significato sia solo una questione di “linguistico”, ma io ho sempre sostenuto che il soggetto, persino quello trascendentale, giochi un ruolo fondamentale. Lei come vede l’apporto della fenomenologia e del pensiero di Lévinas nella sua riflessione? Olivetti: Ottima domanda! L’incontro con Lévinas mi ha spinto a concepire la filosofia della religione come una forma di etica radicale, un’antropologia filosofica che precede ogni teologia sistematica. Solo storicizzando il pensiero classico tedesco e accogliendo la lezione fenomenologica possiamo dare al linguaggio e alla religione quel respiro che li rende inesauribili fonti di senso, oltre ogni riduzionismo. Olivetti, Marco Maria (1967). Il tempio simbolo cosmico. La trasformazione dell’orizzonte del sacro nell’età della tecnica (Rome: Abete).

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Olivi’ Enrico Palladio degl’Olivi. Olivi. St John’s, late afternoon, the light already behaving as if it were being supervised. Grice has the Gradisca book open at the title-page. A teacup nearby has gone cold in the way Oxford tea does when it has been made to witness thinking. Grice: I have a question for you. Moore: Yes. Grice: I’ve this Chronicle of the Oppugnatio Gradiscana. Moore: Ah. Venetians and Austrians behaving like cousins at a wedding. Grice: Quite. And it bears this tag: di pugno dello zio Enrico, di mano del nipote Francesco. Moore: Very neat. Grice: But isn’t a hand part of a fist. Moore: Only if you’re planning to punch someone with the bibliography. Grice: I am tempted. The phrase looks like a contradiction presented as a symmetry. Moore: It is a symmetry. Not a contradiction. Grice: Explain it to me as if I were an undergraduate. Moore: I refuse. You would then write a paper about my refusal. Grice: Then explain it to me as if I were a colleague and liable to be malicious. Moore: Better. Di pugno means “in his own hand,” autographic, the man as origin. Di mano means “through the hand of,” transmission, the man as conduit. Grice: But the conduit still has a fist. Moore: Yes, but you are mixing anatomy with responsibility. A hand is part of a fist, but an editor is not part of an author. Grice: That sounds like a maxim. Moore: It is. Do not confuse physical inclusion with bibliographical agency. Grice: You Modern Languages people do logic without admitting it. Moore: And you philosophers do philology without admitting it. Grice: Still, I worry: di mano del nipote might suggest “copied by the nephew,” scribal hand, rather than “edited.” Moore: It might. And that is why your tag is Griceian: it allows the reader to infer the right thing if he’s competent, and to reveal himself if he isn’t. Grice: So the ambiguity is an entrance exam. Moore: Precisely. If the reader thinks “servant took it to the printer,” he confesses he has never met an early modern nephew. Grice: And if he thinks “nephew authored it,” he confesses he has never met an uncle. Moore: Exactly. Families produce texts the way Oxford produces opinions: by delegation. Grice: So what does di pugno implicate, beyond “autograph”? Moore: It implicates primacy. First-handness. Authority of witness. “I was there,” even when it is not stated. Grice: And di mano implicates what. Moore: Second-handness with responsibility. Not merely “it passed through him,” but “it became legible through him.” Grice: So the real contrast is not fist versus hand, but source versus channel. Moore: Now you’re learning Italian. Grice: I should like to say: then why not make it explicit. Why not: autografo dello zio; edizione del nipote. Moore: Because explicitness is sometimes vulgar. It steals the reader’s small pleasure of getting it. Grice: The reader’s pleasure is not my primary concern. Moore: It should be. Readers are the only reason anyone publishes, even at Oxford. Grice: That is a dangerous thesis to utter in St John’s. Moore: Then treat it as an implicature and deny it later. Grice: So the tag stays. Moore: The tag stays. And if anyone complains that a hand is part of a fist, tell them yes, and that is exactly why the nephew counts: he is not the fist that struck, but he is the hand that makes the striking intelligible. Grice: That is almost moral philosophy. Moore: Don’t tell Mabbott.Grice: St John’s, Sept. 1939. So war has been declared; but unlike Enrico Palladio degli Olivi, I rather doubt I shall keep a record of it—at least, not a record of events. This morning I finished “Personal Identity.” The example I give for the use of “I” is “I” as ascribed to me as the bearer of intentions—future-directed intentions—and I use, by way of illustration: “I shall be fighting soon.” In case Moore (Editor of Mind) complains, I also give an example of “I” as the bearer of a propositional attitude of a more doxastic sort: “I am thinking of Hitler.” So I suppose he’ll be pleased—Moore, I mean, not Hitler. [Editorial note: Grice did, in the event, fight in the North Atlantic theatre before moving to the Admiralty. And his being drafted into the Navy did not exactly come as a surprise to him. Enrico Palladio degl’(1615). De oppugnatione Gradiscana. Di pugno del zio Enrico, di mano del nipote Francesco.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Olivi: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale – filosofia friulese -- filosofia italiana Gian Francesco Palladio degl’Olivi (Udine, Fiuli-Venezia Giulia): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale –Medico e storico italiano. Anche filosofo.  Nasce da Alessandro e da Elena di Strassoldo. Gli Annales di Udine annoverano l’aggregazione della famiglia, proveniente da Portogruaro, tra i nobili della città. O. frequenta l’università di Padova, dove si laurea in giurisprudenza. Rientrato in patria, si dedica per un breve periodo alla professione forense; divenuto abate, ottenne il beneficio ecclesiastico della pieve di Latisana. Si iscrisse, con il nome di Ferace, all’Accademia udinese degli Sventati, fondata tra gli altri dallo zio paterno Enrico. Pubblica a Udine due opere di Enrico: il De oppugnatione Gradiscana libri, sul conflitto che oppose la Repubblica di Venezia e l’Austria, noto con il nome di guerra di Gradisca, e  i Rerum Foro-Iuliensium ab orbe condito usque ad an. Redemptoris Domini nostri 452 libri undecim, rimasti interrotti alla presa di Aquileia da parte degli unni. O. decise di continuare l’opera dello zio, non più in latino ma in volgare, partendo dal punto in cui si era interrotta. La cronaca, Historie delle provincie del Friuli, è composta secondo il metodo annalistico e fu pubblicata in due volumi a Udine. La narrazione, pur essendo fondata su un’ampia documentazione, ripete alcuni luoghi comuni concernenti in particolare l’origine delle città e dei loro casati più eminenti. L’autore difese in particolare l’antichità di Udine riprendendo parte degli argomenti proposti da Gian Domenico Salomoni e ripresi d’O., i quali identificavano Udine e non Cividale nell’antica Forum Iulii di cui parla Paolo Diacono, attribuendo in tal modo a Udine l’egemonia sulla regione dopo la distruzione dell’antica sede metropolita di Aquileia. Riprendendo quanto detto da Salomoni, Palladio riconduceva la fondazione di Cividale sul fiume Natisone al periodo successivo alla vittoria del duca Wechtari. Grice: St John’s, October 1939 — and I’m to leave St John’s before long. Curious: my mind is set not so much on the Hun as on Enrico Palladio degli Olivi and his nephew Gian Francesco Palladio degli Olivi. Perhaps it’s simply my way of keeping my thoughts off the more immediate business. What strikes me is this: poor Enrico fought in the war of 1615 and—sensibly, even bravely—kept a record of it as a witness, indeed as one of the forces engaged. Yet it is the nephew who gets the thing into print, and only when Enrico has long been gone. And still the narrative holds one—has a grip—as if Gian Francesco, by editing his uncle’s heroics, were living them again at second hand: not a soldier this time, but a custodian of the campaign, turning action into annals and blood into ink. One almost suspects an implicature: I could not fight that war, but I can at least preserve it. Grice: Olivi, mi dicono che a Udine siete specialisti di “ragione conversazionale”: cioè riuscite a discutere per tre ore e, per implicatura, dire “ho ragione” senza pronunciarlo mai. Olivi: Caro Grice, è la versione friulana del fiat lux: noi diciamo poco, ma facciamo capire tutto. Se poi sono anche abate, l’implicatura diventa quasi un beneficio ecclesiastico. Grice: Interessante: da Padova torni in patria, fai l’avvocato, poi l’abate, poi lo storico… sembra la tua biografia scritta secondo il metodo annalistico: “Anno primo: cambiai mestiere. Anno secondo: cambiai ancora.” Olivi: Esatto. E quando continuai l’opera di mio zio—non più in latino ma in volgare—l’implicatura era chiara: “voglio che mi leggano davvero.” Quanto all’antichità di Udine… diciamo che, se non era Forum Iulii, almeno forum lo è stato: ci siamo litigati abbastanza. Olivi, Gian Francesco Palladio degl’(1658), De oppugnatione Gradiscana. Di pugno del zio Enrico, di mano del nipote Francesco.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Onorato: la ragione conversazionale del cinargo romano – Roma –  Onorato (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale del cinargo romano. A member of the Cinargo who takes to the habit of wearing a bearskin. GRICEVS: Salvē, HONORĀTE—quisnam es tu, qui sub pellē ursī quasi sub argumentō validissimō ambulās? HONORĀTVS: Salvē, GRICE. Ego sum ex Cinargō Rōmānō: philosophus Italicus, sed cum ursō—quia friget in Urbe et in disputātiōnibus. GRICEVS: Intellegō: pellem induis, ut omnes implicent “hic vir aut sapientissimus aut periculosissimus.” Sed dic mihi: ratio conversātiōnis tuā quo tendit—ad virtūtem an ad tabernam? HONORĀTVS: Ad utrumque. Nam cum taceō, philosophiam significō; cum rugiō, populus credit me ursum esse: ita et sermō et pellis cooperantur—maximum meum est: nihil dīcere, multum obtinēre.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Opilio: la ragione conversazionale e l’orto romano -- l’implicatura conversazionale -- Roma – filosofia italiana – . Filosofo italiano. Segue l'indirizzo dell’orto. Liberto di un membro dell’orto, insegna filosofia, ma sciolge la sua scuola per seguire Rutilio Rufo a Smirne Opillo (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale e l’orto romano -- l’implicatura conversazionale -- Segue l'indirizzo dell’orto. Liberto di un membro dell’orto, insegna filosofia, ma sciolge la sua scuola per seguire Rutilio Rufo a Smirne, ove compose varie saggi, fra le quali Musarum libri IX. Aurelius Opilius. Ueber die Schreibung “Opillus” statt “Opilius” vgl. F. Buecheler, Rhein. Mus. Opilius lehrte zuerst Philosophie, dann Rhetorik. endlich Grammatik. Später löste er seine Schule auf und folgte dem P. Rutilius Rufus ins Exil nach Smyrna. Hier schrieb Opilius unter anderem ein Werk von neun Büchern mit dem Titel “Musarum libri IX”. Nach den Citaten, die daraus von Gellius und besonders von Varro, Festus und Julius Romanus gemacht werden, muss er sich besonders mit Worterklärungen befasst haben. Ferner erwähnt Sueton einen Pinax mit dem Akrostichon „Opillius"; da wir wissen, dass sich Opilius mit Scheidung der echten und unechten Stücke des plautinischen Corpus abgab, werden wir diese Schrift dafür in Anspruch nehmen dürfen. Zeugnisse. «) Sueton, de gramm. Aurelius Opilius, Epicurei cuiusdum libertus, philosophiam primo, deinde rhetoricam, nocissime premmetiram docuit. dimissa autem schole Rutilinm Rufum damnatum in Asiam secutus ibidem Smyrnae simulque consenuit compositque variae eruditionis aliquod volumina, ex quibus novem unius corporis, quia scriptores ac poetas sub clientela Musarum indicaret, non absurde et fecisse et inscripsisse se ait ex numero divarum et appellatione. huius cognomen in plerisque indcibus et titulis per unam (L) litteram scriptum animadcerto, rerum ipse id per duas effert in parastichide libelli, qui incribitur pinax 3) Musarum libri novem. Gellius, Aurelins Opi-lines in primo librorum, ques Mexerum inceripoit (über indutine). Bei Varro de lingua lat. wird er unter dem Namen Aurelins angeführt (proefica; i, 106, unter dem Namen Opilins Vgl. H. Usener, Rhein. Mus., Bei Festus wird er citiert als Aurelius Opilius. Grice: “Since he was a ‘liberto,’ CICERONE refuses to study him!” GRICEVS: Salvē, OPILLE; audīvī tē Opillum vocārī. Utrum es vir an vitulus parvus? OPILVS: Salvē, GRICE. Nōn vitulus, sed Aurelius Opilius—quamquam librāriī, ut semper, duplicant litterās et duplicant calumniās. GRICEVS: Bene; sed quoniam libertus fuistī, CICERŌ (ut aiunt) nōn vult tē legere: “nimis liber, nimis perīculōsus.” OPILVS: Immo! Id ipsum est implicātūra: “nōn tē legō” significat “timeō nē discam aliquid.” Age, GRICE—ad Hortum eāmus; ibi philosophia colitur, et ego quoque, sī bene rigātus fuero.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Opocher: la ragione conversazionale l’implicatura conversazionale della giustizia – IVSTVM QVIA IVSSVM – filosofia veneta -- filosofia italiana --  (Treviso). Filosofo italiano. Treviso, Veneto.  Enrico Giuseppe Opocher (Treviso, Veneto): la ragione conversazionale l’implicatura conversazionale della giustizia – IVSTVM QVIA IVSSVM. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats a talk exchange as a cooperative rational activity in which hearers recover what is meant beyond what is said by attributing intentions and applying defeasible norms of relevance, adequacy, and clarity (so implicature is a controlled inference, not a free rhetorical flourish). Opocher, by contrast, represents reason-governed meaning in the public and institutional register of legal philosophy: his work is centrally about how justice and legal validity relate to value and concrete individuality within the experience of law, and how normative claims bind not merely by being uttered but by being justified within a shared practical order; Treccani characterizes him as resisting both a normativist reduction of law to force and a realist reduction of law to mere fact, insisting on law’s irreducible value-dimension and on the “individuo concreto” as a focal point of juridical experience. The comparison, then, is that Grice models the micro-normativity of conversation (the rational constraints that make an utterance interpretable as a contribution and license implicatures), while Opocher models the macro-normativity of social life (the rational constraints that make a rule, a judgment, or an account of justice intelligible as more than coercion or description), and your 1937 link through Fichte underscores the bridge: both are interested in how a form of rational autonomy and individuality is made publicly legible—Grice through the inferential structure of communicative intention in exchange, Opocher through the interpretive and evaluative structure of legal reason in institutions and the idea of justice. Grice: “There are two points that connect me with Opocher: ‘individuality’ in Fichte, since I love the problem of the in-dividuum, perhaps influenced by my tutee Strawson (“Individuals!”) – and Opocher’s ‘analisi’ as he calls it, of the ‘idea’, as he calls it, of ‘giustizia’, particularly in Thrasymachus, for which I propose an eschatological study!” Con Ravà e Capograssi è considerato uno dei maggiori filosofi del diritto italiani del Novecento. Nacque da Enrico Giovanni, ginecologo. Durante la Grande Guerra la famiglia, timorosa dei bombardamenti, si trasferì dapprima nella periferia di Treviso, quindi a Pistoia presso una parente. Gli anni successivi riportarono un clima di serenità e agiatezza, nel quale Enrico crebbe, dividendosi tra la città natale e Vittorio Veneto, meta delle sue vacanze estive.  Dopo il liceo fu avviato, secondo il volere del padre, agli studi giuridici, benché fosse decisamente più inclinato verso la filosofia. Si iscrive alla facoltà di giurisprudenza a Padova, ma continua a coltivare i propri interessi personali seguendo le lezioni di filosofia del diritto tenute dRavà. Sotto la guida di quest'ultimo stilò una tesi su La proprietà nella filosofia del diritto di Fichte, con la quale si laurea brillantemente. Ottenuta la libera docenza, vinse il concorso per la cattedra di filosofia del diritto presso la facoltà di giurisprudenza a Padova, succedendo a Bobbio che in Veneto era divenuto segretario regionale del Partito d'Azione. Nell'ateneo padovano insegnò ininterrottamente per quarant'anni, tenendo lezioni per i corsi di filosofia del diritto, di storia delle dottrine politiche e di dottrina dello stato Italiano.  È ricordato in maniera particolare per i suoi studi sull'idea di giustizia, e sul rapporto tra diritto e valori, nonché per la redazione di un celebre manuale. giustizia – fairness, gius, il concetto di gius nel diritto romano, iustum non quia iussum – verbal aspect here --. Grice, “Grice ed Opocher: giustizia del neo-Trasimaco. Grice: Merton, 1937. I have been reading the abstracts for the Ninth International Congress of Philosophy, and I am struck less by the doctrines than by the babel. Every school, every nation, every temperament seems to have brought its own dialect and expects the rest of us to do the interpreting. One Italian, Enrico Giuseppe Opocher, contrives to make the point before he has even begun: he mixes languages in the title itself, as if to demonstrate that philosophy is already a border-crossing business. Immanentismo ed eticismo nella Wissenschaftslehre di Fichte, he calls it—Italian bookends holding a German spine together. I suppose this is what passes for a lingua franca in the Quartier Latin: everyone speaks his own tongue, but pronounces the German nouns as if they were honorary French. Mother would say, of course, that one should not say “in Paris”—one should say “at the Congress,” or, better, say nothing and let the place remain tactfully unnamed. Still, I could not help smiling at the way Opocher’s title performs its own thesis: immanentism and ethicizing are not merely topics; they are habits of speech, ways of sliding from metaphysics into morals without admitting the movement. I tell myself I shall attend the Tenth Congress, wherever it may be held, just to see whether the philosophers will have invented an even more elaborate pidgin by then—Latin for the programme, French for the coffee, German for the seriousness, and English for the apologies.” Editor’s note: the Tenth International Congress of Philosophy was held in Amsterdam in 1948; Grice did not attend. Grice: Caro Opocher, ti confesso che ogni volta che sento parlare di “giustizia”, mi viene voglia di chiedere: ma è davvero “giusta” o solo “giustificata”? D’altronde, come diceva Trasimaco, la giustizia a volte sembra un labirinto… senza uscita!  Opocher: Eh, caro Grice! Se Trasimaco avesse avuto a disposizione i manuali di filosofia del diritto, forse avrebbe trovato almeno una mappa. Io, però, preferisco pensare che la giustizia sia come la polenta veneta: ognuno la cuoce a modo suo, ma alla fine piace a tutti!  Grice: Ottima analogia! Dunque, se la giustizia è polenta, il diritto romano sarebbe il cucchiaio? E Fichte, invece, il cuoco che insiste sul fatto che ogni porzione deve rispettare l’individuo... almeno finché non si tratta di dividere il piatto!  Opocher: Esatto! Ma attenzione: chi mangia troppo rischia di finire davanti al giudice… o peggio, di ritrovarsi a discutere con Trasimaco sulla “giustizia del neo-Trasimaco”. Grice, tu porta il cucchiaio, io porto la polenta: vediamo se la filosofia può davvero saziare tutti! Opocher, Enrico Giuseppe (1937). Immanentismo ed eticismo nella Wissenschaftslehre di Fichte. IX Congress internationale de philosophie, Paris.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Orazio: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale -- Roma – la scuola di Venosa -- filosofia basilicatese -- filosofia italiana Quinto Orazio Flacco (Venosa, Potenza, Basilicata): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale – O. fu attirato dai problemi morali ed estetici. Quinto Orazio Flacco. Muore a Roma. Soltanto nelle "Epistole," Orazio dichiara di sentirsi attirato dalla filosofia morale per la quale vuole abbandonare la lirica. Si è notato che questa epistola è un protrettico. Ma anche negli scritti precedenti O. tocca spesso argomenti filosofici. Scherzosamente, O. si chiama dall’orto “de grege poreus” (Epist.). Effettivamente egli, che dichiara di non voler giurare sulle parole di nessun maestro, non appartiene ad alcun indirizzo determinato. Nei suoi studi in Atene conosce dottrine di scuole diverse, vede nelle sette filosofiche una disciplina che non deveno essere ignorate. O. s’interessa soprattutto per la morale applicata ai casi della vita. La sua indole, amante dell’equilibrio, della tranquillità, della serenità, gli fa considerare con simpatia l’etica dell’ORTO, di cui si scorge l’influsso nelle satire, che abbondano di reminiscenze a LUCREZIO . O. ri-assume la teoria dell’orto sull’origine del diritto e della legge. Più volte, satireggia paradossi del Portico: tutte le colpe sono uguali, il sapiente è re e conosce ogni cosa. O. disegna la caricatura del Portico: capelluti e barbuti che, predicatori ambulanti, espongono precetti ai quali non sempre fanno corrispondere la vita. Ma O. mostra di apprezzare maggiormente la severa nobiltà degl’ideali del Portico. O. si avvicina sia all’Orto che al Portico quando loda la vita semplice e sana della campagna. Ma quando sferza la caccia alle riechezze e al lusso, O. si collega al Cinargo, delle cui diatribe si avverte l'influsso nelle sue satire. Nell'insieme, la morale di O. è utilitaria ed è diretta dall’esigenza dell’equilibrio e della misura. La sua non è una teoria filosoficamente fondata e perciò non manca di incoerenze. Nell’"Arte Poetica" si riconoscono abitualmente riflessi di teorie del “Lizio” Orto. (Corpus, 1932; Grice and Shropshire preparing for Mods) Shropshire had arranged his books in strict chronological piles, as if time were a virtue in itself and not merely a nuisance that happens to texts. Grice: You’re doing it again. Shropshire: Doing what. Grice: Dating everything. You treat a poem like a jar of jam: you won’t open it till you’ve found the label. Shropshire: A poem without a date is merely a rumour with metre. Grice: That, I take it, is your first paper. Shropshire: It’s my first principle. Now. Orazio. Earliest attributable work, please. I want a year that would satisfy a prosecutor. Grice: Very well. His first published book is the first book of the Satires. Published about 35 before Christ. Shropshire: Before Christ. I can already hear a bishop fainting in the quad. Say it properly. Grice: Properly. Thirty-five BC. Shropshire: Still improper. I want it Roman. Ab urbe condita. In Roman numerals. Grice: You want him dated in the way the Romans themselves usually didn’t bother to date him. Shropshire: Exactly. The pedantry is the point. Grice: All right. The founding of Rome is the usual peg: 753 BC is year 1 AUC. Shropshire: Good. Continue. Slowly. This is arithmetic, not metaphysics. Grice: If 1 BC is AUC 753, then 35 BC is AUC 719. Shropshire: Seven hundred and nineteen. Now write it in Roman numerals. Grice: DCCXIX. Shropshire: DCCXIX AUC. There. Now we can speak like civilised men. Grice: You realise, of course, that if you say “AUC” in a lecture, half the room will think you mean something pharmacological. Shropshire: Then they should read more Latin. Grice: The point is delicious: you have replaced Anno Domini, which is theological, with ab urbe condita, which is mythological, and you call that an improvement. Shropshire: It is an improvement. It relocates the calendar from a manger to a city. Grice: And from a fact to a legend. Very Oxford. Shropshire: Now, which is it: “after Christ” or “Anno Domini”? Grice: In English prose: AD. In Latin: Anno Domini. In argument: “later than you think.” Shropshire: I want the Roman, not the Christian. Grice: Why. Shropshire: Because Horace would hate being filed under someone else’s nativity. Grice: Horace would hate being filed under anything at all. That is why he called his satires Sermones: he wanted them to sound like talk, not like tablets. Shropshire: Talk can be dated. Otherwise it becomes gossip. Grice: Here is the moral, then. You can say “35 BC” and mean “around the time the Satires first appear as a book.” Or you can say “DCCXIX AUC” and mean “I am showing off.” Shropshire: And which do you mean. Grice: I mean both. The second is an implicature. Shropshire: Then the first is what is said, and the second is what you are. Grice: Precisely. Now stop numbering Rome and decline λύω before time declines you. GRICEVS: Salve, Horati Flacce, Venusiae decus. Audio te in Epistulis iactare te velle lyricam ponere atque ad philosophiam moralem migrare—quasi Musa ipsa tibi dixerit: “Satis cantasti; nunc rationem redde.” HORATIVS: Salve, Grice. Ita est: non iuro in verba magistri; sed cum vitiis amicorum et meis cotidie luctor, ad hortum saepe confugio—ego ipse, ut ioco, de grege porci. GRICEVS: Oportet ergo te doctissimum esse in implicaturis: cum dicis “de grege porci,” non tantum de porco loqueris, sed significas: “nolite me stoicum barbatum fingere.” Porticus enim, ut scribis, omnia peccata paria facit—quod est paene impossibile, nisi in tabulis scholasticis. HORATIVS: Recte intellegis. Ego Porticum laudo cum moderatur, irrideo cum tonat. Nam mea maxima est haec: aurea mediocritas. Si quid “implicavi,” hoc tantum: in urbe morior, sed mente in agro vivo—et si philosophus fio, id facio ut minus ridear, non ut minus rideam. Was the gens Horatia a good one and do we have other members? Yes — the gens Horatia was a respectable one, and in the old Roman way more than respectable: it was an ancient patrician family of Latin origin, with legendary roots running back to the regal period. So if by “a good one” you mean an old, honourable, historically resonant Roman gens, then yes, very much so. [en.wikipedia.org], [en-academic.com] That said, one should distinguish between the gens Horatia in general and Quintus Horatius Flaccus in particular. Horace bore the nomen Horatius, so formally he stands under the gens Horatia; but his own father was a freedman, and Horace himself is very clear about that modest background. So one must not glide from “ancient patrician gens” to “Horace was personally a grand aristocrat.” He was not. He belonged, if one likes, to the afterlife of a noble nomen without personally enjoying the old patrician standing that the name once signified. [loebclassics.com], [cambridge.org], [britannica.com] And yes, we certainly have other members of the gens Horatia. The most famous are the legendary or early Republican Horatii: the three brothers who fought the Curiatii under Tullus Hostilius, and especially Publius Horatius Cocles, the one-eyed hero of the Sublician bridge. There is also Marcus Horatius Pulvillus, consul in the first years of the Republic, and other Horatii with the cognomina Barbatus, Cocles, and Pulvillus. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org] So the dry answer is this. The gens Horatia was an old patrician Roman family, traditionally of Latin stock and rich in early Roman legend. It includes figures such as Marcus Horatius Pulvillus, the legendary Horatii of the combat with the Curiatii, and Publius Horatius Cocles. Horace bears the nomen Horatius, but his own family background was modest, since he was the son of a freedman. So the gens is noble in the old Roman sense, but Horace himself is not to be read as simply a patrician grandee by virtue of the name alone. [en.wikipedia.org], [loebclassics.com], [britannica.com] One small nuance. Some sources note plebeian Horatii in later times, so the picture is not absolutely frozen into one pure patrician block over all centuries. But the family’s historical prestige unquestionably comes from the ancient patrician and legendary line. [en.wikipedia.org], [reference.org] If you like, I can next give you a compact one-paragraph prosopographical note on the gens Horatia, with the main figures set out in order from regal legend to Horace. If Horace's father was a freedman, it means he as a slave, originally. So could it be that a member of such an honorable gens would have fallen to servility? I suppose historians of Horace have considered this? Yes — that is exactly the problem, and yes, historians of Horace have certainly worried it. The safe starting-point is this: Horace says his father was a libertinus, which means a freedman, that is, someone who had once been a slave and had then been manumitted. So, in the strict Roman legal sense, yes, Horace’s father had originally been enslaved. But that does not by itself mean that “a member of the noble gens Horatia had fallen into servility.” That stronger inference is possible, but not provable, and most careful historians treat it with caution. There are really three possibilities. First, Horace’s father may indeed have been connected, however distantly or irregularly, with the nomen Horatius, so that the family name reflects some real descent, direct or collateral, from people bearing that name. Second, he may have received the nomen from a former owner upon manumission, which is the ordinary Roman pattern. Freedmen normally took the praenomen and nomen of the man who freed them, and then retained or adapted their previous personal name as cognomen. If so, “Horatius” in the family line may tell us more about the former master than about deep blood-descent. Third, the whole thing may reflect the looser and more mixed onomastic realities of municipal Italy, where an old noble nomen could survive in diminished, dispersed, or merely nominal ways without implying that Horace’s father stood in any grand patrician continuity. That second possibility is the one that usually keeps scholars sober. A freedman’s nomen does not automatically prove birth into the gens whose name he now bears. It often proves manumission by someone bearing that nomen. So the critical distinction is: bearing the nomen Horatius is not the same as being demonstrably of the old patrician gens Horatia in an unbroken aristocratic sense. And yes, Horatian scholars have certainly noticed the tension: Horace bears an old and honourable Roman nomen, yet he repeatedly stresses his modest social origins and his father’s freedman status. That tension is part of the biographical and literary interest of Horace himself. In fact, it suits Horace rather well. He is a poet who both belongs and does not belong. He has enough Roman name to stand in the tradition, and enough social modesty to make his rise morally and literarily interesting. The nomen gives Roman dignity; the father’s status gives the biography its edge. So the driest answer is: Yes, Horace’s father was originally a slave, if libertinus is taken in its normal Roman sense. No, that does not entitle us to conclude securely that an old patrician Horatius family line had simply “fallen” into servility. The more cautious and probably likelier explanation is that the nomen Horatius may have come through manumission or through some attenuated and socially diminished connection, rather than through the intact continuation of the old noble gens. And yes, historians of Horace have certainly considered exactly that problem. One further nuance. By Horace’s time, old Roman nomina had long escaped the clean early-Republican world in which gens and aristocratic identity aligned neatly. Italy had been municipalised, citizenship had widened, slavery and manumission had altered name-transmission, and ancient family names could circulate under much messier social conditions. So the mere dignity of the name “Horatius” should not trick us into imagining a pristine patrician pedigree sitting intact behind Horace’s father. So if you want the shortest possible formula: freedman, yes; fallen noble Horatian, not provable; onomastic dignity, yes; continuous patrician bloodline, uncertain at best. If you like, I can next give you a compact note on how freedmen took Roman names, using Horace’s father as the example.Orazio Flacco, Quinto (a. u. c. DCCXIX). Qui fit, Maecenas, ut nemo, quam sibi sortem seu ratio dederit seu fors obiecerit, illa contentus vivat, laudet diversa sequentis? Roma

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Orioli: l’implicatura conversazionale nella logica della monarchia romana – i sette re – la scuola di Vallerano  Francesco Orioli (Vallerano, Viterbo, Lazio): l’implicatura conversazionale nella logica della monarchia romana – i sette re. Grice’s account of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how hearers recover what a speaker means beyond what is explicitly said by assuming a cooperative purpose in talk and drawing defeasible inferences under rational constraints (the Cooperative Principle and maxims), so that implicature is not ornamental “reading between the lines” but an accountable calculation about intention and conversational suitability. Orioli makes a useful foil because his work and life foreground a different scale of “implicature”: he is a nineteenth‑century polymath and political actor (born in Vallerano in 1783, active in revolutionary politics and later public office) whose writings range from natural philosophy (his 1836 Saggio sopra la filosofia naturale) to historical-archaeological and political interventions, including interpretive narratives about early Rome (e.g., Dei sette re di Roma, 1839), where the “logic” of events and institutions is reconstructed from fragmentary evidence, rhetorical postures, and the unsaid motives of agents in councils, courts, and revolutions. Read side by side, Grice gives a micro-pragmatics of interpersonal exchange (how a conversational move licenses an implicature because certain alternatives would be irrationally unsuitable at that stage of the talk), while Orioli exemplifies a macro-hermeneutics of civic and historical discourse (how one infers intentions, alliances, and institutional meanings from what is recorded and what is conspicuously omitted), making Orioli an apt historical counterpart for showing that “reason in interpretation” can operate both in the minute mechanics of a talk exchange (Grice) and in the larger inferential economy by which political life and historical narrative are made intelligible from traces, documents, and strategic silences. Grice: “Only in Italy, a philosopher, rather than a cricketer, is supposed to take part in a revolution and write a book about his shire!” -- Fondatori della Repubblica Romana. “De' paragrandini metallici” -- Milano, Fondazione Mansutti. Il padre, medico, lo conduce a Roma, dove si laurea brillantemente. La professione non lo attrae molto, Lo troviamo, infatti, professore di filosofia nei seminari e nei licei dell'urbe. Da Roma si trasfere a Perugia, dove si laurea. Insegna a Bologna. Partecipa con gl’allievi all'insurrezione delle Romagne. Successivamente è eletto membro del governo provvisorio di Bologna, che è sciolto in seguito all'intervento militare dell'Austria. Tentando di mettersi in salvo,salpò da Ancona diretto in Francia con un altro centinaio di rivoluzionari; ma il brigantino Isotta sul quale viaggiava venne catturato dall'allora capitano di vascello della marina austriaca Francesco Bandiera (padre dei due famosi fratelli Attilio ed Emilio) e tutti i rivoluzionari furono arrestati. Venne incarcerato a Venezia. Poco dopo venne liberato, forse per mancanza di risultanze gravi sul suo conto. Iniziò così l'errare, costretto a fuggire da terra in terra, inneggiando sempre all'Italia unita. Fu professore di archeologia alla Sorbona. A Bruxelles insegnò. Soggiornò anche a Corfù, dove tenne un corso dnell'università della città. Quando Pio IX concesse l'amnistia, poté tornare a Roma, dove tenne la cattedra di archeologia. Le sue attitudini per il giornalismo non attesero molto per farsi notare, e così fondò un periodico politico che ebbe però vita breve, La Bilancia. Fu eletto deputato al parlamento della Repubblica Romana. Quando il governo pontificio fu restaurato, in riconoscimenti dei suoi meriti, fu nominato consigliere di stato. Pubblica molti saggi di filosofia. Tra i più famosi sono da menzionare “Dei sette re di Roma e del cominciamento del consolato” (Firenze), “Intorno le epigrafi italiane e l'arte di comporle” (Roma). implicatura. Grice: “Corpus, 1932. Today I had my frankest tutorial with Hardie yet. “Grice,” he said, in that Scottish cant of his which makes even a reprimand sound like an invitation, “you will now be obliged—on the most pleasant terms—to attend one or two lectures given by our Chairs.” And with that he handed me the thickest volume I had seen since entering Corpus: Orioli’s Saggio sopra la filosofia naturale. “For next week,” Hardie went on, “you will tell me what you need to know about this curious Oxford arrangement: why you may attend a lecture by the Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical—trans-natural, if you insist on the Latin—philosophy, but no longer by any Professor of plain Natural Philosophy. We once had both, you know. Now we have metaphysics with a capital and nature with a laboratory.” I opened Orioli and felt at once the old, dignified breadth of the word “natural”—not merely physics-as-technique, but nature as the whole field in which a mind might still dare to range. Hardie watched me leaf through it with the air of a man setting a trap for a pupil’s modern complacencies. “You will discover,” he said, “that ‘natural philosophy’ is not what the chemists do. It is what philosophers used to do before they mistook specialism for virtue.” Then he added, with a dryness that almost counted as mercy: “And do not, for heaven’s sake, come back next week saying that metaphysics is what you do when you have nothing else to read. At Oxford, metaphysics is what you do when you have too much.”” Grice: Caro Orioli, mi ha sempre incuriosito come la logica della monarchia romana e il pensiero filosofico possano intrecciarsi nella tua opera. Quanto conta per te l'implicatura conversazionale nell'interpretazione dei sette re? Orioli: Caro Grice, la logica delle conversazioni tra i re e i loro consiglieri è fondamentale per comprendere le vere intenzioni e gli accordi sottesi. Senza implicatura, la storia sembrerebbe solo un resoconto di eventi, e invece è ricca di sfumature e sottintesi.  Grice: Interessante! E pensi che questa capacità di leggere tra le righe abbia aiutato te, come filosofo e rivoluzionario, a navigare le acque turbolente della politica italiana? Orioli: Assolutamente sì! Spesso, nelle insurrezioni e nei dibattiti parlamentari, il non detto era più eloquente delle parole. La filosofia, come la vita politica, insegna che bisogna saper ascoltare ciò che sta tra le righe e agire di conseguenza. Orioli, Francesco (1836). Saggio sopra la filosofia naturale. Roma: Salviucci.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Ornato: la ragione conversazionale o dell’implicature conversazionali nella conversazione d’Antonino con Antonino – la scuola di Carmagna --  Giacomo Luigi Ornato (Carmagna, Cuneo, Piemonte): la ragione conversazionale o dell’implicature conversazionali nella conversazione d’Antonino con Antonino. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning explains how hearers legitimately infer what a speaker means beyond what is explicitly said by assuming a cooperative, rational orientation to the talk exchange (the Cooperative Principle and its maxims), so that “extra meaning” is not free poetry but a defeasible product of accountable inference. Ornato is a useful foil because his work and temperament highlight a different axis of “reason in language”: not the inferential pragmatics of everyday exchange, but the disciplined craft of mediation between languages, registers, and intellectual cultures—above all translation, where fidelity is achieved by restraint and where over-performance (the operatic recitative effect) can be understood as a practical analogue of conversational overinformativeness or misplaced manner. If Grice focuses on how rational interlocutors compute implicatures from what is said under shared norms, Ornato shows how rationality also governs what one ought not to add when carrying meaning across forms (Greek to Italian, Stoic notes into a readable vernacular), and even his later posthumous “Ricordi” materials underscore the same lesson: that the intelligibility of a voice can outlive its author only if the editor/translator keeps the additions answerable to the text’s purpose rather than to personal flourish. Visse vita ritirata, modesta e schiva d'onori e ricchezza intesa soltanto allo studio. Coltiva le scienze fisiche e matematiche, la filologia, la poesia, la musica e con singolare amore le discipline metafisiche. Sii trasferisce a Torino dove frequenta alcuni esponenti dell'aristocrazia sabauda. Tra le sue amicizie più importanti Santarosa, Sabbione ed i fratelli Balbo. Dei concordi è insegnante di matematica nel collegio dei paggi imperiali, impiegato nella segreteria dell'Accademia delle Scienze di Torino e successivamente professore presso la Reale Accademia Militare. In seguito ai moti rivoluzionari e nominato da Santarosa Ministro della Guerra della giunta rivoluzionaria. Si rifugia in esilio a Parigi. Nella capitale francese stringe amicizia con Cousin e la sua casa è frequentata da numerosi patrioti italiani. Ottiene di poter rientrare in Italia e si ritira a Caramagna dove riceve le visite dei patrioti Pellico, Provana, Gioberti e Balbo. Si trasferisce a Torino dove morirà e verrà sepolto nel cimitero monumentale. Saggi: traduzione di Ode a Roma di Erinna, traduzione dei “Ricordi di Antonino, Picchioni, Vita, studii e lettere inediti di Leone Ottolenghi, E. Loescher. Biografiche e risultati di ricercheo, Becchio Calogero, Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Ulteriori approfondimenti possono essere reperiti nei seguenti siti: Comune di Caramagna Piemonte, su comune.caramagnapiemonte.cn. Associazione Culturale "L'Albero Grande", su albero grande. Due difetti o cattivi abiti, nota qui e contrappone Antonino. L’uno, del lasciarci guidare unicamente dalla IMPRESSIONE che fan su di noi l’oggetto esterno, divagando da questo a quello secondo che quello ci attrae più fortemente che questo. L’altro del lasciarci guidare unicamente dal pensiero o idea che ci vengono in mente a caso, seguendo quelli che eccitano più la nostra attenzione. implicatura, Antonino, ad seipsum, ricordi.  Grice: “Corpus, 1932. Hardie has decided that the only cure for a young man’s airy talk about “meaning” is to make him translate. “Pick a Greek piece,” he said, “turn it into Latin, and see whether you can keep the thought intact. Feel what Ornato felt.” So I chose a short lyric—Erinna, because she is precise enough to punish laziness—and set about producing Latin that would not sound as if Cicero had swallowed a gramophone. At the next tutorial Hardie read my version in silence, the sort of silence that makes you revise your whole education. Then, quite unexpectedly, he said I had done better than Ornato. “I never felt like intruding, sir,” I said, “so I never asked. What did you mean by ‘Ornato’?” That, naturally, was my fault. There were only fifteen minutes left, and I had just opened the gate to a lecture. Hardie proceeded to spend—by my mother’s stopwatch, I should think—nineteen more minutes explaining how Ornato, with a perfectly sound classical intention, managed to turn Erinna’s Ode to Rome, a sharp Hellenic utterance, into something resembling an operatic recitative: too many flourishes, too much “effect,” too little of the Greek’s restrained bite. “It’s not that he mistranslates,” Hardie said; “it’s that he over-performs. He takes a poem and gives you a performance of a poem.” Which, of course, is a lesson about conversation as much as translation: when you add too much, you may still be intelligible, but you stop being faithful. Ornato, Hardie implied, could not resist the temptation to make Rome sound like a stage direction.” Editor’s note: Erinna is a rare early Greek lyric voice (often associated with the fourth century BCE), remembered in antiquity for a small surviving corpus and for the intensity of her style; “Ode to Rome” here functions as a convenient label for the kind of classical praise-poem a nineteenth-century Italian translator might select for an exercise in Latinity and patriotic tone. GRICE: Caro Ornato, dicono che tu abbia vissuto una vita schiva, lontana dai riflettori. Ma ti chiedo: se tu e Antonino parlate, chi tra voi ha l’ultima parola? Oppure la conversazione finisce sempre con una implicatura misteriosa? ORNATO: Ah, caro Grice, nella nostra Carmagna la conversazione è come una partita a scacchi – ogni mossa è una metafora e ogni implicatura un cavallo imbizzarrito. Ma ti confesso: ogni tanto, lasciamo che sia l’impressione a guidarci... così nessuno vince davvero, ma tutti si divertono! GRICE: E la modestia? Dicono che tu sia più schivo di un filosofo piemontese davanti a un invito a una festa. Non temi che, tra filologia e musica, ti sfugga qualche implicatura troppo allegra? ORNATO: Grice, nella mia casa, ogni implicatura trova il suo posto – tra una nota di pianoforte e un teorema matematico. Se per caso ne scappa una troppo allegra, la metto a tacere con una poesia! E poi – come diceva Antonino – a volte è meglio lasciarsi guidare dal pensiero che ci passa per la testa... purché non sia quello di andare a una festa! Ornato, Giacomo Luigi (1817). L’oda a Roma d’Erinna.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Oro: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale -- Grice e Trissino – la difficoltà dei segni di Trissino non favorì la diffusione della sua filosofia  Gian Giorgio Trissino dal Vello d’Oro (Vicenza, Veneto): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale -- la difficoltà dei segni di Trissino non favorì la diffusione della sua filosofia –Grice: “I discuss Fiat lux – and so does O.!” – Keywords: mode, modo, mood, modo iussivo --. Ritratto di Vincenzo Catena. Persona di spicco della cultura rinascimentale, notissimo al tempo, il Trissino incarnò perfettamente il modello dell'intellettuale universale di tradizione umanistica. Si interessò, infatti, di linguistica e di grammatica, di architettura e di filosofia, di musica e di teatro, di filologia e di traduzioni, di poesia e di metrica, di numismatica, di poliorcetica, e di molte altre discipline. Nota era, anche presso i contemporanei, la sua erudizione sterminata, specie per quel che riguarda la cultura e la lingua greche, sull'esempio delle quali voleva rimodellare la poesia italiana.  Fu anche un grande diplomatico e oratore politico in contatto con tutti i grandi intellettuali della sua epoca quali Niccolò Machiavelli, Luigi Alamanni, Giovanni di Bernardo Rucellai, Ludovico Ariosto, Pietro Bembo, Giambattista Giraldi Cinzio, Demetrio Calcondila, Niccolò Leoniceno, Pietro Aretino, il condottiero Cesare Trivulzio, Leone X, Clemente VII, Paolo III, e l'imperatore Carlo V d'Asburgo. Fu ambasciatore per conto del papato, della Repubblica di Venezia e degli Asburgo, di cui fu un fedelissimo, come tutta la sua famiglia da generazioni. Scoprì e protesse l'architetto Andrea Palladio, appena adolescente, nella sua villa di Cricoli, vicino Vicenza, che venne da lui portato nei suoi viaggi e fu da lui iniziato al culto della bellezza greca e delle opere di Marco Vitruvio Pollione. la riforma della lingua italiana, filosofia del linguaggio, Alighieri, lingua e linguaggio, codice di comunicazione, il parlare umano, il parlare solo umano, la prima lingua, la parlata dei genovesi, la filosofia della lingua in Alighieri, l’eloquenza, la filosofia del linguagio, only man speaks. Gian Giorgio Trisino dal Vello d’Oro.  GRICE: Caro Oro, dicono che tu sia un vero giocoliere di linguaggi e codici, ma dimmi: come fai a scrivere libri che solo i geni riescono a decifrare? Perfino le mie implicature si sentono inadeguate!  ORO: Ah, Grice, il segreto è tutto nei miei segni misteriosi: se tutti capissero subito, che gusto ci sarebbe nel conversare? Meglio lasciare qualche modo iussivo a spasso, così la gente ha sempre qualcosa su cui discutere a tavola!  GRICE: Questa sì che è filosofia veneta: metà Spritz, metà aforisma! Ma dimmi la verità, Oro: sei tu che hai insegnato a Palladio che anche le ville devono avere implicature architettoniche nascoste?  ORO: Naturalmente! Ogni colonna porta un messaggio segreto—e se non lo capisci, non entrare a Cricoli! In fondo, caro Grice, che senso avrebbe il “parlare solo umano” se non lasciassimo agli altri il piacere del fraintendimento? Oro, Gian Giorgio Trisino dal Vello d’ (1524). La poetica. Vicenza: Tolomeo Gian Giorgio Trissino.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Orontio: la ragione conversazionale e la scuola di Roma – Roma – filosofia italiana –  (Roma). Abstract. Grice: “We don’t have ‘senators’ at Oxford!” -- Filosofo italiano. A senator and follower of Plotino – cited by Porfirio. Marcello Orontio. Keywords: categoriae. Grice, “Grice ed Orrontio. Orrontio (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale e la scuola di Roma. Grice: “We don’t have ‘senators’ at Oxford!” -- Filosofo italiano. A senator and follower of Plotino – cited by Porfirio. Orrontio. Keywords: categoriae.  GRICEVS: Salve, Orronti. Audio te et senatorem esse et Plotini sectatorem; mihi autem Oxonii res mirissima est: senatores non habemus—nisi forte in conviviis, cum quis nimis graviter tacet. ORONTIVS: Salve, Grice. Roma quidem senatores habet, sed non semper rationem conversazionalem: saepe plus est oratio quam ratio. Ego tamen, Porphyrio teste, inter categoriae et contemplationem Plotinianam pacem quaero. GRICEVS: Pax? In senatu? Id iam est implicatura robusta. Dic mihi: in schola Romana, cum quis dicit “Categoriae,” vult Aristotelem—an vult tantum disputationem longiorem? ORRONTIVS: Utrumque. Nam senator cum “categoriae” pronuntiat, significat: “Nolite me interpellare; iam ad unum fugio.” At tu, Grice, si senatores non habetis, certe habetis quaestiones—quae multo tutiores sunt quam suffragia. Would this Orrontius -- or Horrontius be gens Horrontia? or Orrontia? Latin-speaker, Italy-born? The best evidence suggests that the name is not “Orrontius” in the sense of a standalone Roman gens-name at all, but Orontius, more exactly one of the senatorial hearers of Plotinus named by Porphyry as “Marcellus Orontius and Sabinillus.” In other words, Speranza’s “Orrontio” is almost certainly an Italianising form of Orontius, and not a securely independent philosopher with a separate dossier. [en.wikipedia.org], [loebclassics.com] So the first dry answer is this. If the underlying figure is Orontius from Porphyry, then the name as transmitted is a cognomen or at least an additional individual name, not a full Roman three-part nomenclature from which one could confidently infer a gens “Orrontia” or “Horrontia.” We simply do not have enough. The text gives us Marcellus Orontius and Sabinillus as senatorial followers of Plotinus, but not a full prosopographical card. [en.wikipedia.org], [loebclassics.com] So, no, one should not confidently posit a gens “Horrontia” or “Orrontia.” As to whether he was a Latin-speaker or Italy-born: again, the honest answer is that we do not know. Since Porphyry says these were members of the Senate attending Plotinus’ lectures at Rome, they belonged to the Roman imperial elite in some operative sense. That makes a connection with Latin-speaking senatorial culture highly plausible. But Plotinus’ school was a Greek philosophical environment, and late antique senators of that level were often deeply bilingual or Hellenised. So the safe formula is: Roman senatorial milieu, yes. Certainly Italy-born, no secure proof. Exclusively Latin-speaking, no secure proof. Capable of functioning in a Greek philosophical circle, very likely. [en.wikipedia.org], [loebclassics.com], [en.wikipedia.org] If one wants the driest possible summary: Porphyry attests a senator named Orontius among the hearers of Plotinus. Beyond that, biography largely vanishes. We do not securely know his birthplace, ethnicity, native language, or gens. Since he appears in a Roman senatorial setting and a Greek philosophical setting at once, he is best understood as a member of the Roman elite who moved within the Hellenised intellectual world of third-century Rome. [en.wikipedia.org], [loebclassics.com], [en.wikipedia.org] One small philological note. “Orontius” itself has a rather eastern ring and may well reflect the river-name Orontes/Orontius pattern familiar in the Greek East, which is another reason not to force it into a tidy old Roman gens-box merely because the man sat in the Senate. A Roman senator in the third century need not be an old Latin municipal specimen. The Empire had long since complicated that innocence. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org] So the short answer is: probably not a reconstructible gens “Orrontia,” no firm evidence for Italy-born, no firm evidence for Latin as sole or native language, but clearly a senator in the Roman world and a hearer in Plotinus’ Greek philosophical circle. [en.wikipedia.org], [loebclassics.com] If you like, I can next give you a compact note distinguishing: Roman senator, Latin-speaking Roman, Italy-born Roman, and Hellenised senatorial philosopher-listener, using Orontius as the case. And Marcellus was never of a gens Marcella? Correct. “Marcellus” is not the gens-name. In Roman naming, Marcellus is normally a cognomen, not the nomen from which one would form a gens “Marcella.” The classic example is Marcus Claudius Marcellus: Marcus is the praenomen, Claudius is the nomen, so the gens is Claudia, Marcellus is the cognomen. So if someone is called “Marcellus Orontius,” and that is really the transmitted form, “Marcellus” is much more likely to be an individual name or cognomen-like element than evidence for a gens Marcella. The feminine form “Marcella” does of course exist as a female name, and later as a family or saint’s name in Christian contexts, but that is a different matter. It does not mean that a Roman male called Marcellus belonged to a gens Marcella. The dry rule is: gens comes from the nomen, not from the cognomen. So: Hortensius Hortalus → gens Hortensia, not Hortalia Ovidius Naso → gens Ovidia, not Nasonia Claudius Marcellus → gens Claudia, not Marcella And in your present Plotinian case, since we do not even have a full secure Roman tria nomina, it would be especially rash to manufacture a gens from “Marcellus.” So the short answer is: No, Marcellus was not of a gens Marcella merely by being called Marcellus. If there were a full Roman nomenclature, the gens would come from the nomen, not from Marcellus. If you like, I can give you a compact one-paragraph guide to how to tell, in Roman names, which element yields the gens and which does not.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Ortensio: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale – Roma – filosofia italiana –  (Roma). Filosofo italiano. Cicerone ’s greatest contemporary rival, known for the lush ‘Asianist’ style. A philosopher. Ortensio Ortalo Quinto. Ortensio (Roma, Lazio) : la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale –. Cicerone ’s greatest contemporary rival, known for the lush ‘Asianist’ style. A philosopher. Ortensio Ortalo Quinto. GRICEVS: Salve, Hortensi. Dicunt te Ciceronis aemulum fuisse—Asiatico illo dicendi genere tam laeto, ut etiam implicaturae tuae purpuram induerent. HORTENSIVS: Salve, Grice. Ciceronem aemulari? Immo illum exercebam: cum nimis perspicue loqueretur, ego eum blandis ambagibus docebam quid esset ratio conversationalis. GRICEVS: At cave: si nimis florescis, auditor putat te plus dicere quam dicis—et, more meo, statim concludit te aliquid significare quod non vis. Inde nascitur implicatura, non rosa. ORTENSIVS: Recte mones. Sed hoc ipsum amo: Ciceroni verba, mihi silentia prosunt. Ille clamat “Roma!”, ego tantum tussio—et tota curia intellegit. So this one was gens Ortala? No. His gens was not “Ortala.” The man you mean is Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, Cicero’s great forensic rival. In Roman naming terms: Quintus is the praenomen. Hortensius is the nomen. Hortalus is the cognomen. So if one speaks strictly of the gens, it is the gens Hortensia, not “Ortala” or “Hortala.” The dry parallel is the usual one: Marcus Tullius Cicero belongs to the gens Tullia. Gaius Julius Caesar belongs to the gens Julia. Quintus Hortensius Hortalus belongs to the gens Hortensia. “Hortalus” is the cognomen branch or family nickname, not the gens-name. One small clarification. In Italian “Ortensio Ortalo Quinto” can blur the structure because the vernacular order and form soften the Roman triad. But in Latin the structure is perfectly ordinary: Quintus Hortensius Hortalus. And yes, the gens Hortensia was a real and important plebeian Roman gens, not just a one-man literary convenience. One of the most famous earlier members is Quintus Hortensius, the dictator associated with the Lex Hortensia of 287 B.C., which is why the family name was already historically weighty before Cicero’s contemporary rival made it rhetorically glamorous. So the short answer is: No, not gens Ortala. Yes, gens Hortensia. “Hortalus” is the cognomen, not the gens-name. If you like, I can next give you a compact note on the gens Hortensia, including the earlier dictator and how Hortalus fits into the family line. And do we have a piece or specimen of oratio recta that shows Hortensius as mastering the Assyrian style? Not in the sense of a surviving direct speech text by Hortensius himself, no. That is the dry but important starting-point. Hortensius’ speeches are lost. So we do not possess a clean specimen of his own oratio recta from which one could point and say: there, that is Hortensius in full Asianic bloom. What we do have is indirect evidence, and rather a lot of it, chiefly from Cicero and later rhetorical tradition. From that evidence one can say with confidence that Hortensius was famous for exactly the sort of luxuriant, ornate, rhythmically elaborate, highly performative eloquence later associated with the Asianic manner. But we know this mostly by report, description, imitation at second hand, and hostile or admiring contrast, not by a surviving verbatim speech-text. So two corrections first. It is “Asianic,” not “Assyrian.” And what we have is not really a specimen of his own preserved oratio recta, but testimonia about his style. The broad picture is this. Cicero repeatedly presents Hortensius as the supreme orator of the generation before Cicero’s own full ascendancy. He describes him as highly polished, brilliant, theatrical, ornamental, graceful, and exceptionally effective in delivery. The style is connected with what Roman rhetorical criticism would call genus Asiaticum, especially in its more florid and rhythmically sensuous forms. Quintilian and others also preserve the image of Hortensius as a master of display, voice, gesture, memory, and cultivated verbal splendour. But because the speeches themselves are lost, there is no secure passage of his in direct transmission that one can quote as one quotes Cicero. So if your question is strictly: Do we have a piece of oratio recta by Hortensius himself showing the Asianic style? The answer is: No surviving direct specimen in the strong sense. If the question is: Do we have ancient descriptions that show he was regarded as mastering that style? Then yes, certainly. Cicero is the main witness. In works such as Brutus and Orator he contrasts Hortensius’ splendour, rhythm, and cultivated brilliance with other styles and with his own development. Cicero’s testimony is especially valuable because it is both rivalrous and admiring. He wants to surpass Hortensius, but he is too intelligent to pretend Hortensius was ordinary. The best dry way to put it is this. Hortensius survives stylistically as a reputation rather than as a text. That is actually quite Roman. Fame in oratory often outlived the parchment. If you want a practical scholarly route, the places to look are: Cicero, Brutus Cicero, Orator Quintilian, Institutio oratoria Those are where the characterization of Hortensius’ style is most likely to be found in a useable form. And one further caution. “Asianic” itself is a polemical and comparative label, not a single neatly measurable style. It usually means some combination of ornamental abundance, rhythmic display, emotional colouring, and less restrained periodic discipline than the later Atticising ideal. So even if we had a verbatim speech, one would still be arguing about exactly which features count as “Asianic.” If you like, I can do one of two things next. I can give you a short dossier in chat on Hortensius’ style from Cicero and Quintilian, in plain English and without quoting long copyrighted translations. Or I can draft a compact G.–S. exchange on why Hortensius is one of those cases where Roman eloquence survives more securely as remembered effect than as surviving text. And neither Cicero nor anybody else care to even mention a TOPIC or cause which had Hortensius involved, in any exemplificaton of the Assianic style? Or, in Cicero's presentation, is there like an implicature of what case he would have taken. Because I can say "It is raining" and add: "Hortensius would render that in his Assianic style" "alla: raining cats and dogs or Roman equivalent, thunberbolts and and lighning very very frightening me"? Yes, Cicero and others do at least identify kinds of cases and public settings in which Hortensius excelled, but they do not preserve the sort of neat little specimen one would like, where the topic and the purple flourish come hand in hand in direct quotation. That is the frustration. What survives is mostly this sort of thing: Hortensius was brilliant in judicial and public speaking. He was famous for delivery, memory, ornament, verbal splendour, rhythm, and theatrical grace. He was associated with the Asiatic manner, or at least with the fuller, more ornate, more sensuous end of Roman eloquence. He appeared in major forensic and political causes, and Cicero knew him as a real rival in precisely those arenas. So yes, there were topics and causes. No, we do not have a preserved direct passage that lets us say: here is Hortensius on rain, and here is the Asianic excess. Cicero’s presentation is more like remembered effect than quoted sample. He gives us reputational style-portraiture rather than a surviving speech-fragment you can parse line by line. As to your second thought — whether one can say “Hortensius would render ‘it is raining’ in an Asianic way” — yes, as a joke that is perfectly intelligible, and probably quite fair in spirit, though not evidentially demonstrable from a surviving text. The point of the joke would be: where a plainer or more Attic speaker says “it is raining,” Hortensius would be imagined as giving you atmosphere, cadence, swelling imagery, and perhaps a whole civic weather system before admitting the water. But one should keep two cautions in place. First, “Asianic” is not simply comic verbal inflation. It is a rhetorical style involving rhythmic finish, ornament, colour, emotional charge, and elaboration. So “cats and dogs” is a useful modern joke, but not a strict ancient equivalent. Second, Cicero’s criticism of Hortensius is never merely “he says too much.” It is more complicated: he admires him, competes with him, marks a difference of generation and stylistic tendency, and retrospectively places himself as the one who absorbed splendour without surrendering discipline. So if you want the driest way to put it: We do know the kinds of forums in which Hortensius shone, especially forensic and public causes, and Cicero certainly presents him as the great ornamental rival of his youth. What we do not have is a surviving verbatim specimen that would let us point to a particular cause and say, “there is the Asianic passage.” Thus the “Hortensius would turn ‘it is raining’ into a storm of purple eloquence” line is a clever and probably apt reconstruction of his reputation, but it remains reconstruction, not citation. And yes, one can imagine a Roman equivalent less “cats and dogs” than something like: the heavens assaulted, the clouds in mutiny, Jove hurling a liquid siege, or the whole sky pleading a cause against the forum. That would at least be more Roman than zoological rainfall. So the answer is: there is an implicature in Cicero’s portrait of what sort of oratorical handling Hortensius favoured, but not a preserved direct-text exemplification neat enough to satisfy a philologist who wants chapter and verse. If you like, I can next do one of two things. I can give you a short reconstructed “plain sentence versus Hortensian sentence versus Ciceronian sentence” on something trivial like rain, entirely as a stylistic exercise. Or I can give you a compact note on how Cicero in Brutus positions Hortensius as rival, predecessor, and stylistic foil without actually preserving his words.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Ortes – la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale del verso – la scuola di Venezia -- filosofia veneta --  Gianmaria Ortes (Venezia, Veneto) – la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale del verso. Grice’s theory of reason-governed conversational meaning treats utterances as moves in a cooperative enterprise in which hearers rationally infer what is meant (often beyond what is said) by assuming shared purposes and norms, so implicature is a disciplined, defeasible product of practical reasoning about communicative intention. Ortes is an illuminating foil because his “rigorous rationalism” is deployed not to model inference in dialogue but to police conceptual confusions in political economy—above all the mercantilist tendency to conflate money with wealth and, in the 1756 Calcolo on rents and land prices, to separate price as a measurable market magnitude from value as what is genuinely at stake in the structure of national prosperity. Put together, Grice shows how reason silently governs conversational exchange (how “That’s good value” can function as evaluation, recommendation, or mild rebuke depending on what it is taken to imply), while Ortes shows how reason should govern public discourse by forcing us to keep distinct the categories our language tempts us to blur (wealth vs money, value vs price); the comparison you can draw is that for Grice rationality operates as an internal norm of interpretive coordination between speakers and hearers, whereas for Ortes rationality operates as an external corrective to collective misdescription, treating sloppy linguistic substitutions as causes of bad theory and bad policy. Grice: “Ortes’s little treatise on the philosophy of language supports my claim about philosophy of language NOT being a necessary discipline on which to give a seminar at Oxford, since the pupil would already know the stuff!” Filosofo italiano. Venezia, Veneto. Grice: “Being English, I was often confronted with that very ‘silly’ song by Cleese and Idle, but then they were never the first! Which is good, since they are Cambridge and Ortes is Oxonian! Viva La Fenice!”. Keywords: philosophy of language, history of the philosophy of language, semantics, history of semantics. Considerato uno dei più dotati tra i filosofi veneti settecenteschi, precursore nell'analizzare dal punto di vista della produzione complessiva alcuni aspetti come popolazione e consumo. La sua impostazione filosofica si fonda su un rigoroso razionalismo. Nel mercantilismo vide far gran confusione fra moneta e ricchezza. Fu un sostenitore del libero scambio pur con alcune restrizioni della proprietà che interessavano il clero, anche se appartenevano al passato ed è considerato per questo un anticipatore di Malthus, ma con qualche contraddizione. Malthus prevede l'aumento della popolazione, in trenta anni, in modo esponenziale, quindi molto di più dell'aumento delle sussistenze. Altre saggi: “Grandi, abate camaldolese, matematico dello Studio Pisano, Venezia, Pasquali, “ Dell'economia nazionale” (Venezia); “Sulla religione e sul governo dei popoli” (Venezia); “Saggio della filosofia degli antichi” -- esposto in versi per musica (Venezia); “Dei fedecommessi a famiglie e chiese,” Venezia, “Riflessioni sulla popolazione delle nazioni per rapporto all'economia nazionale: errori popolari intorno all'economia nazionale e al governo delle nazioni” (Milano, Ricciardi), Donati (Genova, San Marco dei Giustiniani). Catalano, Dizionario Letterario Bompiani. Milano, Bompiani, Citazionio su Treccani L'Enciclopedia. verso. “Grice: St John’s, 1962. In the conversation seminars here I find myself drifting, more and more, toward the thought that it is all a question of value. Before the war the Germans at Corpus used to call the thing Axiologie and speak as if the word itself were a credential; now the fashion is to pretend we have only “preference” and “choice,” as if the ethical had been reduced to shopping. And then, in the Merton library, I stumble on Ortes—cool Venetian intelligence—setting price against value with the kind of pedantic serenity that makes one suspect he has never had to buy anything in a hurry. English, maddeningly, gives you “worth” and expects you to do the rest. We say the price of those shoes is reasonable, not rational; we say a bargain is good value, but we hesitate to say it is good reason. So where, exactly, does value end and price begin—or is it the other way round? And more to the point for my purposes: when a man says “That’s good value,” is he reporting a fact, offering a recommendation, or merely giving his approval a marketable costume? I begin to suspect that half of our conversational life consists in pricing our attitudes while pretending we are valuing our reasons.” Grice: Caro Ortes, ho spesso sostenuto che la filosofia del linguaggio non debba essere materia obbligatoria a Oxford: chi affronta la filosofia ha già interiorizzato i principi fondamentali, come tu ben dimostri nel tuo trattatello! Ti sei mai riconosciuto in questa posizione? Ortes: Caro Grice, la tua osservazione non può che farmi sorridere: in fondo, ogni vera riflessione filosofica nasce dalle parole, ma ancor più dalla chiarezza del pensiero. Analizzare la lingua è solo il primo passo per comprendere la complessità della realtà. Grice: Hai ragione, Ortes. La tua attenzione alla razionalità e alla distinzione tra ricchezza reale e nominale mostra quanto il linguaggio possa influenzare l'economia e i costumi di una nazione. Forse, la filosofia del linguaggio è più pratica di quanto sembri! Ortes: Indubbiamente, Grice! Come spesso ripeto, tra il dire e il fare ci passa il mare, ma senza dire non c'è fare. Viva il ragionar chiaro e la Fenice veneziana che sempre rinasce, anche nella filosofia! Re Passage: below provide a 100-move conversation between G. and S. on Ortes on prezzo e valore -- they relate it to Significatio -- symbolised as a triadic relation alla Pierce S(x, y, z) were x is the bearer -- which can be the utterer or a cloud -- dark cloud means rain -- the z is the interpretant or addressee, and an INTENTION is always involved, and the x is the 'that'-clause -- dark clouds mean that it is going to rain. They relate that now with significatio and assiologia as Italians call it axiology -- or the theory of value -- and price -- as per Ortes title. For G. there is the OPTIMVM as applied to S(x, y, z) -- e. g. 'He has beautiful handwriting' is the OPTIMAL way to communicate that he has beautiful handwriting. 'He has beautiful handwriting' is NOT the optimal way to communicate that he is hopeless at philosophy. We still do not need to concern what something other than an utterer SIGNIFIES. Why is it less optimal? because of cancellability. In an weekly essay assignment: "Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts." G. makes that clear. "He hasn't been to prison yet" is an optimal way to communicate that he hasn't been to prison yet -- not the optimal way to communicate that he is potentially dishonest -- or, if talking about his new job at bank -- that his colleagues are treacherous. IMPLICATUM is indeed part of the SIGNIFICATUM but less optimal in cancellable. THE EXPLICATUM is the EXPLICITVM and is almost impossible to cancel -- of course, in irony we do, but that's DISIMPLICATVM -- so G. and S. discuss how axiological matters render 'significatio' a value-paradigmatic concept of a special sort. The range of the SIGNIFICAUM -- SUGGESTUM -- past participle of suggerire, INDICATUM, IMPLICATVM, allow for a distinction between the optimal and the les optimal. Usually what is explicitly conveyed and SIGNIFIED is more optimal -- but one has to be careful, because Optimality, if analysed in terms of 'worth' or as Nicolai Hartman wants, axiologie, may be in need of a conceptual analusis in more primitive terms, in terms of what the VALUER does -- and things may change -- all this motivated by ORTES, whom is mentioned. No preamble or ps -- dry Oxonian, 100-move conv. thank you. G.: Let us begin with Ortes where he begins to annoy everyone: prezzo and valore are not the same thing. S.: Which is already enough to make a nation of shopkeepers sound metaphysical. G.: Nations of shopkeepers are always metaphysical when they say they are being practical. S.: Then price is the market magnitude, and value is what is at stake beneath it. G.: Roughly, yes. Ortes forces the distinction because language likes to confuse convenience with essence. S.: And you want to take that into significatio. G.: Inevitably. For signification too has its price and its value, if one is willing to be slightly Venetian in spirit. S.: Then let us have the formula. G.: S(x, y, z). S.: With x the bearer? G.: Yes. The bearer or vehicle, if you like. It may be an utterer’s utterance, or, if one insists on broadening the field, a dark cloud. S.: z the interpretant or addressee. G.: Quite. And y the content, the thing reportable by a that-clause. S.: So if the cloud darkens, S(x, y, z) might be: this cloud signifies to some interpreter that it is going to rain. G.: That is the broad form, yes. S.: But you immediately begin to tighten it. G.: Naturally. Because once one speaks of clouds one is in danger of becoming meteorological rather than philosophical. S.: Yet you said intention is always involved. G.: In the interesting cases, yes. That is why I am happiest when x is an utterer or an utterance under an utterer’s governance. S.: So dark clouds are useful only as the common man’s threshold. G.: Exactly. They remind us that signification can be broader than language, but not that all signification is equally philosophically central. S.: Then your concern is with the utterer’s case. G.: Entirely. An utterer means something to an addressee by producing a vehicle. That is the live centre. S.: Then S(x, y, z) is already teleological. G.: It must be. Otherwise one gets only correlation, not significance in the stronger sense. S.: Good. Now where does Ortes enter? G.: By teaching us to distinguish measurable price from worth. In my neighbourhood, one may say something similar of explicitness and implication. S.: Explain. G.: “He has beautiful handwriting” is the optimal way to communicate that he has beautiful handwriting. S.: Because it says so. G.: Quite. It is low-cost, high-directness, almost perfectly suited to that content. S.: But not the optimal way to communicate that he is hopeless at philosophy. G.: Exactly. If I use it in collection to communicate that second content, I rely on context, institutional tone, and the hearer’s wit. S.: So the implicatum belongs to the significatum, but not optimally. G.: Very good. That is the first distinction. S.: Then “optimal” here means what? Most direct? Least cancellable? Best fitted to the content? G.: All close relatives. I am not yet willing to define it in one primitive. But certainly directness, stability, and resistance to cancellation matter. S.: So the explicitum is usually more optimal than the implicatum. G.: Usually, yes. Though we must keep a cautious reserve, because human life is indecently complex. S.: Naturally. If the weekly essay notice reads “Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts,” then “He has beautiful handwriting” acquires local force. G.: Exactly. It then becomes not merely praise of penmanship but perhaps an evaluative contrast in a setting where handwriting has absurdly been made relevant. S.: Yet even there it is still more optimal for penmanship than for metaphysical deficiency. G.: Entirely. The route to penmanship is short and licensed. The route to philosophical hopelessness is inferential and defeasible. S.: So cancellability marks lower optimality. G.: It is one good sign of it. If I say, “He has beautiful handwriting, though I do not mean to suggest anything about his philosophy,” the implicatum evaporates politely. S.: Whereas if you say, “He has beautiful handwriting, though I do not mean he has beautiful handwriting,” the floor gives way. G.: Exactly. The explicitum does not cancel so kindly. S.: Except in irony. G.: Quite. But irony is a special disturbance. It gives us what we may call disimplicatum if we are feeling barbarously playful. S.: You are. G.: Occasionally. The point remains: the explicitum is harder to retract without contradiction or collapse. S.: So in axiological terms, explicit signification is usually higher-value? G.: Careful. That sounds too moral too quickly. I would rather say: it is often higher in communicative worth relative to stability and fit. S.: Then price and value reappear. The implicatum may be cheaper or dearer? G.: Better to say that the explicitum has a more settled exchange-rate between bearer and content. S.: Ah. Like money pretending to wealth. G.: Not quite. Ortes would scowl. Rather: the explicitum gives you a more publicly ratified measure, while the implicatum may carry subtler value in the right market. S.: So “He hasn’t been to prison yet” is optimal for saying that he hasn’t been to prison yet. G.: Exactly. S.: But not optimal for saying that he is potentially dishonest. G.: Nor for saying, in the context of a new appointment at a bank, that his colleagues are treacherous. S.: Though one might manage either under pressure. G.: Indeed. But one manages them at inferential cost. S.: And that cost is part of the axiological story. G.: Precisely. Axiology enters because we begin to compare forms of signification by better and worse, fitter and less fit, higher and lower worth relative to content and uptake. S.: The Italians would say assiologia and look satisfied with themselves. G.: They often do. The Germans called it Axiologie and looked still more credentialed. S.: But your real question is whether optimality can itself be analysed. G.: Exactly. If we say that one signifying route is more optimal than another, have we explained anything, or merely priced our preferences decorously? S.: Then perhaps one should define optimality by what the valuer does. G.: That is promising. Hartmann would not wholly approve the vulgarity, but he might tolerate the structure. S.: Let us try it. A valuer prefers one vehicle-content fit over another because it better secures intended uptake with less inferential burden and less vulnerability to cancellation. G.: Very good. That is already better than shouting “value” and retiring. S.: So the explicitum is not simply higher because it is explicit, but because hearer and speaker can coordinate on it more securely. G.: Exactly. Security of coordination is one major ingredient. S.: Then S(x, y, z) becomes axiological when we compare rival xs for the same y and z. G.: Splendid. That is the real turn. S.: So if I wish to communicate y to z, I may choose x1, a direct sentence, or x2, a hint, or x3, a loaded allusion. G.: And we ask which bears higher communicative value under the circumstances. S.: Which is not always x1. G.: Precisely. That is why we cannot become merely schoolmasterish. Sometimes implication is the better instrument. S.: Give an example. G.: Tact. If someone asks whether a third party is entirely reliable, “He has never once been late” may, in some contexts, be more fitting than “He is unreliable in intimate trust but decent with clocks.” S.: Because explicitness can be vulgar or disproportionate. G.: Exactly. The less optimal route in one register may become more optimal in another because social purpose changes. S.: Then optimality is purpose-relative. G.: Necessarily. S.: That complicates the price-value analogy. G.: Or improves it. Ortes’ own distinction reminds us that a measurable surface and a deeper worth may diverge. So too here. What is immediately measurable in explicitness may not exhaust conversational worth. S.: Then the implicatum may have lower directness-value but higher tact-value. G.: Very well put. S.: So we need dimensions. G.: Yes, but let us not become engineers too early. S.: Not after Aconzio’s marshes. G.: Quite. Still, the dimensions would include at least these: directness, stability, cancellability, social aptness, and inferential elegance. S.: Inferential elegance sounds expensive. G.: It often is. But expensive things may be worth buying if the company is right. S.: Then “He has beautiful handwriting” at collection has low directness for the philosophical judgment, high tact perhaps, high cancellability, and medium elegance if the hearer is not an idiot. G.: Admirably tabulated. S.: Thank you. G.: Do not become a clerk. S.: Only an accountant of significance. G.: That is worse and better at once. Now, what about the dark cloud? S.: You said we need not concern ourselves much with non-utterers signifying. G.: In the central theory, no. Because the cloud does not mean that it will rain in my preferred sense. S.: It merely indicates. G.: Or signals in a looser natural way. The absence of intention weakens the analogy. S.: Yet if a painter paints a dark cloud over a village scene, intending the audience to gather menace or coming rain, then intention returns. G.: Exactly. And then we are back in my country. S.: So x may be a cloud physically, but only a represented or deployed cloud philosophically. G.: Better. Or a cloud enlisted by an utterer. S.: Then the triad needs an utterer behind x if signification is to have full axiological articulation. G.: Usually, yes. Otherwise we get natural indication, which is not uninteresting, but is not the heart of conversation. S.: Then “suggestum” enters where? G.: As one member of the wider significatum. The significatum may include explicitum, suggestum, indicatum, implicatum. S.: You are multiplying nouns. G.: Not beyond necessity, I hope. Each marks a slightly different mode of conveyedness. S.: And the explicitum is the one whose value is usually highest because its fit to y is most stable. G.: Usually, yes. S.: While implicatum is lower in stability because cancellable. G.: Exactly. To say that implicatum is part of significatum is not to say it is equal in every value-dimension. S.: Then perhaps Ortes helps because he reminds us that categories blur if language is left sloppy. G.: Quite. Price is not value. Explicitness is not worth. Implication is not nothing. The market of meaning needs distinctions or it degenerates into sentiment. S.: You make it sound as if philosophy were a merchant republic. G.: Venice had its uses. S.: So one might say: the explicitum is like coined money, the implicatum like credit, reputation, or anticipated value. G.: That is temptingly good, though I fear Ortes would make us specify every term until the metaphor was no longer fun. S.: He sounds tiresome. G.: Cool Venetian intelligence often does. One is grateful only later. S.: Then let us return to cancellation. Why is cancellability a sign of lower optimality? G.: Because if a bearer is well fitted to a content, one should not be able to detach the content without undermining the act. S.: So the easier the cancellation, the less tightly fitted the value-relation. G.: Exactly. The implicatum depends on context and presumptive reasoning, so it is more negotiable. S.: Hence lower certainty-value, though perhaps higher tact-value. G.: Very good. S.: Then irony complicates everything. G.: Naturally. Irony lets us detach apparent explicitum from intended content so violently that the old hierarchy trembles. S.: In irony the explicit wording may be precisely the least optimal route to its own surface content. G.: Yes. “What a genius” said over a shattered vase is not optimally fitted to genius at all. S.: Unless the speaker has been concussed. G.: That would improve the case medically, not semantically. S.: Then irony is a systematic dislocation of optimality. G.: An elegant way of putting it. It creates a surface explicitum of low genuine fit and forces the hearer toward another content of higher intended fit. S.: So your disimplicatum returns. G.: Barbarously, yes. One may keep the joke if one keeps it fenced. S.: Then does the explicitum ever lose all priority? G.: In irony, parody, quotation, and some ritual uses, its priority as bearer of intended content may be secondary. But even there it remains structurally indispensable. S.: Because the hearer must first register it as surface. G.: Precisely. Even the badly fitted route is still the route. S.: So the explicitum is almost impossible to cancel, but possible to subordinate. G.: Better. That is the right distinction. S.: Then the value of a signifying act cannot be read off merely from its surface explicitness. G.: Exactly. Hence our need of a more nuanced axiological grammar. S.: Grammar again. G.: Philosophy always comes back to grammar once the Germans have had their parade. S.: And what would the valuer do in this grammar? G.: The valuer compares signifying acts by their success in achieving intended uptake under the accepted purposes of the exchange. S.: So optimality is tied to purposive fit, not to naked assertion. G.: Yes. That is the mature view. S.: Then “That’s good value” becomes a lovely example. G.: Indeed. It may report a comparison of price and worth, recommend a purchase, express approval, or mildly rebuke extravagance. S.: And the phrase itself dresses approval in a market costume. G.: Exactly. I said as much in St John’s, though probably to no avail. S.: So the phrase’s explicitum is economic, while the implicatum may be practical or evaluative. G.: Yes. The market lexicon lets us smuggle attitudes under the sign of objectivity. S.: Which is itself axiologically interesting. G.: Very much so. We “price” attitudes while pretending to “value” reasons. S.: That is almost your whole point. G.: It is one of them. And Ortes helps because he treats the slippage between nominal measure and genuine worth as more than a verbal nuisance. S.: It becomes a source of bad theory and bad policy. G.: Exactly. So too in semantics. Sloppy confusions between what is said, what is meant, what is suggested, and what is indicated produce bad philosophy. S.: Then the study of significatio becomes itself value-laden. G.: Necessarily. We rank forms of signifying by better and worse, more and less apt, more and less worthy of rational uptake. S.: Which means significatio is not a flat relation. G.: Not at all. It has internal economy. S.: A Venetian ledger. G.: If you must. S.: I must. Now, let us test a harder example. “He hasn’t been to prison yet.” G.: Good. Explicitum: he has not yet been to prison. S.: Implicatum in some contexts: he is the sort of man for whom prison is a live possibility. G.: Or, in the context of his taking up work at a bank, that those around him are less trustworthy than appearances suggest. S.: So the same bearer can carry very different lower-optimal contents. G.: Exactly. Which shows that implicata are more context-sensitive and therefore less stable in value. S.: While the explicitum remains almost embarrassingly plain. G.: Yes. One could cancel the suggestion: “He hasn’t been to prison yet, though I imply nothing discreditable.” S.: And the thing survives. G.: Quite. S.: So if one were pricing the act, the explicitum has higher face value, the implicatum more speculative worth. G.: That is rather good. S.: I am improving. G.: Alarmingly. Now, one must also note that the less optimal is not thereby philosophically less interesting. S.: On the contrary. G.: Exactly. The whole fascination of implicature lies in the fact that lower direct fit may coexist with higher social cleverness. S.: Or higher deniability. G.: Which is often the same thing among civilised sinners. S.: So perhaps “optimal” is ambiguous between best for truth-communication and best for social manoeuvre. G.: Splendid. That ambiguity must be kept before us. S.: Then the valuer changes. G.: Precisely. What the truth-loving analyst prizes may not be what the tactful host prizes. S.: Or what the timid don prizes. G.: Quite. “Jones has beautiful handwriting” is a masterpiece if one wants to condemn while appearing merely observant. S.: Lower truth-optimality for the condemnation, higher social-optimality for the common room. G.: Exactly. Axiology becomes plural. S.: Hartmann again. G.: He will not leave. But we may use him sparingly. S.: Then perhaps the right formula is this. For any S(x, y, z), the worth of x relative to y and z varies by dimension: explicit fit, social tact, inferential economy, cancellability, and purposive success. G.: Very good indeed. That is almost respectable enough to publish. S.: Almost? G.: It still needs drying. S.: I can dry it. G.: You usually do. Now, what of “suggestum”? S.: I rather like it. It marks what is nudged rather than stated. G.: Yes. It is less committed than explicitum, less strongly inferential than some implicata, and perhaps more atmospheric. S.: Then “indicatum” would be the naturally or quasi-naturally pointed-at content. G.: Good. That helps keep clouds in their place. S.: And implicatum the rationally recoverable extra content under cooperative assumptions. G.: Precisely. S.: So all four belong within significatum, but not on a level plain. G.: Exactly. They occupy different axiological positions. S.: Then your theory is less egalitarian than one first thinks. G.: Civilisation rarely is. S.: And Ortes would approve because he hated confusion of categories. G.: He would at least approve the distinction before disapproving the style. S.: Venetian enough. G.: Entirely. Now, let us ask the final question. Is “optimality” itself primitive? S.: I should say no. It is analysable through what valuers and interpreters do under purposive constraints. G.: Good. So we descend from abstract worth to practices of uptake, preference, coordination, and success. S.: Which is more Gricean than merely shouting “value.” G.: Exactly. Axiology must be domesticated by rational action if it is not to become incense. S.: Then the final moral? G.: That significatio is a value-paradigmatic concept because not all ways of signifying bear their contents equally well. Explicitum is usually the higher-value route for the content it explicitly bears. Implicatum belongs to the full significatum but is often lower in stability and higher in finesse. And Ortes helps because he reminds us that measured surface and genuine worth are never safely the same thing. S.: Dry enough? G.: Sufficiently Venetian, with just enough Oxford shopkeeping to offend both.Ortes, Gianmaria (1756). Calcolo sopra il valore delle rendite e sul prezzo delle terre. Venezia: Pasquali.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Ostiliano: la ragione converazionale e il portico romano -- la filosofia romana sotto il principato di Vespasiano -- Roma Ostiliano (Roma, Lazio): la ragione converazionale e il portico romano -- la filosofia romana sotto il principato di Vespasiano -- Grice: “In Der Streit des Facultaeten in drey absichten,” Kant memorises how hard he found to find ‘eternal peace’ with the theologians, the jurists, and the medics. The same could be said of Ostiliano. His only claim to fame is that his philosophical theory was completely banished by Vespasian. The implicature being that Vespasiano MUST be right, whereas Ostilliano MUST be wrong! It may be further argued that one of VESPASIANO ’s implicature was that the Porch itself should be banned. ‘Hardly academic!’”. Filosofo italiano. A follower of the Portico. His claim to fame is that Vespasiano  banishes him from Rome.  GRICEVS: Salve, Hostiliane: audio te Roma pulsa esse sub Vespasiano, quasi ipsa Porticus nimis loquax esset. Ego vero, cum theologis, iurisconsultis, medicisque pacem aeternam quaererem (Kantio teste), vix pacem temporalem nactus sum. OSTILIANVS: Salve, Grice. Non Roma me expulit, sed implicatura principis: “Si Ostilianus docet, errat; ergo sileat.” Ita Vespasianus non solum hominem, sed etiam porticum exsulare voluit—quod est, ut ita dicam, minus academicum. GRICEVS: At tu, Porticus alumnus, nimis stricte legis rationem conversandi. Princeps enim putat se cum populo cooperari: “Si exulo philosophiam, tranquillitas manet.” Sed hoc est maxima Relatio violata—nam, cum de vectigalibus loquatur, de veritate philosophorum tacite iudicat. OSTILIANVS: Bene: si Porticum claudis, non errores tollis, sed disputationem. Ego tamen parebo—non quia falsus sum, sed quia Vespasianus moderator se gerit: cum nummos olet, sermonem purgat. Tu vero, Grice, redi ad tuas facultates; ego ad meam porticum—etsi extra muros. Re passage: do we have any info on this Hostilianus or Ostilianus -- was he less Roman than Vespasiano. Did he have a gens -- was he a Latin speaker, was he italiy-born, etc thanks The name in your passage is almost certainly not “Hostilianus” the third-century emperor, but Hostilianus, a philosopher mentioned by Dio Cassius in the context of Vespasian’s expulsion of philosophers from Rome. In that passage, Vespasian expelled all philosophers from Rome except Musonius Rufus, and he deported Demetrius and Hostilianus to islands. So Speranza’s “Ostiliano” is very likely an Italianising or slightly wayward form of that Hostilianus. [loebclassics.com], [en.wikipedia.org] What do we know of him? Very little, and that is the dry truth. The main ancient datum is precisely the notice in Dio Cassius: Hostilianus was one of the philosophers targeted by Vespasian, and when informed of his sentence of exile, he allegedly kept talking and inveighing against monarchy, then withdrew. That certainly places him in the philosophical opposition to imperial power, very probably among the wider “Stoic opposition” milieu, but it does not give us a biography in the comfortable modern sense. [loebclassics.com], [en.wikipedia.org] So, was he “less Roman” than Vespasian? We do not know in any precise ethnic or geographical sense. The surviving notice does not tell us his birthplace, whether he was Italy-born, or what his first language was. Since he was active as a philosopher in Rome under the early Empire, Greek is entirely possible, and in some ways even likely, because many philosophers in imperial Rome taught and argued in Greek. But one cannot safely say more than that. There is simply no securely preserved little dossier that would let one classify him as “Italian-born Latin-speaker philosopher” or the reverse. [loebclassics.com], [en.wikipedia.org] Did he have a gens? Again, we do not know in the full Roman prosopographical sense. “Hostilianus” looks more like a cognomen or derived family name than a simple Greek single name, but from this one citation alone one cannot build a respectable gens around him. It is not like having “Marcus Tullius Cicero” with all parts of the Roman naming machine present and functioning. We merely have Hostilianus, and from that one should resist imaginative genealogy. [loebclassics.com] So the safest summary is this. Hostilianus, the philosopher banished by Vespasian, is a very shadowy figure known chiefly from Dio Cassius. He appears among the philosophers expelled from Rome, in the same larger context as Musonius Rufus, Demetrius, and Helvidius Priscus. He can plausibly be associated with the anti-monarchical philosophical opposition of the period, but we do not have secure evidence for his birthplace, ethnicity, language, or a properly reconstructible gens. [loebclassics.com], [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org] And on your comparison with Vespasian: Vespasian himself was from an Italian municipal family, very much not one of the oldest Roman patrician lines, so “more Roman” and “less Roman” are rather slippery categories here anyway. If by “Roman” one means “embedded in the imperial political structure of Rome,” Hostilianus certainly was. If one means “Italian by birth and Latin by first speech,” we simply do not know. [loebclassics.com] One small clarification. If your passage meant a better-known Stoic opponent of Vespasian, then Helvidius Priscus and Musonius Rufus are much fuller and safer figures to discuss. Helvidius Priscus was definitely Italian-born and Roman in public life, and Musonius Rufus was from Volsinii in Etruria, again clearly Italy-born. Hostilianus by contrast remains a name with a sentence attached. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org], [loebclassics.com] If you like, I can next do one of two things. I can give you a compact note distinguishing Hostilianus, Musonius Rufus, and Helvidius Priscus in the Vespasian context. [loebclassics.com], [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org] Or I can draft a short dry G.–S. exchange on why “banished by Vespasian” is often a stronger historical footprint than “wrote a philosophy.”

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Otranto: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale – la scuola d’Otranto -- filosofia pugliese Nicola Nettario d’Otranto (Otranto, Puglia): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale –Grice: “Otranto writes a tractatus ‘de arte laxeuterii,’ which is an art of ‘divination,’ as when we say that smoke divinates fire!” -- Grice: “Had Otranto not written ‘scritti filosofici’ we wouldn’t call him a philosopher!” – Filosofo. Sull'infanzia e sulla formazione poco è noto. Non si sa dove oggiorna e studia, né chi siano stati i suoi maestri. La sua filosofia, però, lascia immaginare una formazione molto solida. Insegna a Casole. Traduce la liturgia di Basilio ed altri testi liturgici per volontà del vescovo. Le sue competenze linguistiche gli valeno inoltre degli incarichi diplomatici. Interprete al seguito dei legati papali Benedetto, cardinale di Santa Susanna, e Galvani. E a Nicea al seguito del re Federico di Svevia. Saggi: “L'arte dello scalpello”, con una raccolta di testi geo-mantici ed astrologici; traduzioni di testi liturgici; “Dialogo contro i giudei” – Grice: “It reminds me of Ayer, the then enfant terrible of Oxford philosophy” --; Tre monografie o syntagmata “Contro i Latini” -- su questioni dottrinali significative nella polemica fra cattolici ed ortodossi, quali la processione dello spirito santo o il pane azzimo; un'appendice ai tre syntagmata; lettere e frammenti di  lettere; Hoeck-Loenertz, O. Abt von Casole. Beiträge zur Geschichte der ost-westlichen Beziehungen unter Innozenz III. und Friedrich II., Ettal. M. Chronz: Νεκταρίου, ηγουμένου μονής Κασούλων (Νικολάου Υδρουντινού): Διάλεξις κατά Ιουδαίων. Κριτική έκδοση. Athena,  Hoffmann: Der anti-jüdische Dialog Kata Iudaion des O.. Universitätsbibliothek Mainz, Mainz, Univ., Diss., Dizionario biografico degl’italiani, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Homosexuality in a textual gap in what was going on in Italian Byzantine convents under Roman rules. Longobards being raped, or raping Greek monks. Grice: “At Oxford, I was often criticised for referring to William of Occam, as ‘Occam,’ but then in Italy nobody complains about referring to Otranto as Otranto!” Roma. Corpus, 1932. A paneled room that smells of coal and dictionaries. Papers for Mods are spread like defensive works. Through the window the quad is grey with the sort of English light that turns every marble bust into a moralist. Shropshire: I’m not afraid of Greek, oddly, or Grief as the Mock Turtle calls it. I’m more afraid of Laughter. Grice: Laughter is only Greek that has survived translation. It keeps its teeth. Shropshire: You’re being epigrammatic because you haven’t done your prose unseen. Grice: I’ve done it in my head. The invigilator will mark the silence. Shropshire: Silence, in your hands, will be a thesis. Grice: And in yours, an alibi. Now. The opposite of that Bishop of Casole, you said. Shropshire: I meant the opposite of the man who needs Greek put into Latin. Grice: You mean the bishop who was honest enough to admit he didn’t wish to govern by guesswork. That’s already a philosophical virtue. Shropshire: But why would he need it? If you’re a bishop in Apulia, aren’t you surrounded by Greek anyway? Grice: Surrounded, yes. Inhabited, no. Consider the difference between hearing a language and being answerable for it. A bishop is answerable. Answerability is always in Latin. Shropshire: So he enlists Nicola Nettario, Otranto’s man. Grice: Precisely. Nettario translates the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil. In Greek it wears a title long enough to frighten a curate: Ἡ Θεία Λειτουργία τοῦ Ἁγίου Βασιλείου τοῦ Μεγάλου. Shropshire: Say it again. Slower. I want to see whether I understand it or merely admire it. Grice: Ἡ Θεία. The Divine. Λειτουργία. Liturgy, public work. τοῦ Ἁγίου. of the Saint. Βασιλείου. Basil. τοῦ Μεγάλου. the Great. [en.wikipedia.org] Shropshire: A title like a small procession. And the bishop wants it in Latin so he can read what he is licensing. Grice: And so he can show Rome, if asked, that nothing here is being smuggled in under incense. Translation is a kind of ecclesiastical audit. Shropshire: Is the opening the famous line? Grice: The priest begins by changing the whole conversational setting. He doesn’t merely report a fact. He declares a new jurisdiction. Εὐλογημένη ἡ βασιλεία… Shropshire: Blessed is the kingdom… Grice: Exactly. And if Nettario is sensible, he renders it with something like Benedictum regnum, because the force is not descriptive. It is inaugurative. It tells you what game you are now playing. [saintgeorg...xville.com], [bulletinbuilder.org] Shropshire: So much for my fear of Laughter. That’s metaphysics in the first sentence. Grice: It is also manners. The liturgy begins by announcing what counts as relevant from this point on. Shropshire: Give me a little bit where Greek and Latin pinch differently. Grice: The exchange before the great thanksgiving is perfect. In Greek, the people answer Ἄξιον καὶ δίκαιον. Shropshire: Which is? Grice: Worthy and just. But Latin takes it as dignum et iustum. Same move, but the Latin has legal bones. Dignum sounds like something a court could endorse. [newadvent.org] Shropshire: And the bishop, reading Latin, feels he has a grip on the act. Grice: Exactly. He can now supervise without pretending to be a native. He can also correspond with a legate without sending a cloud of Greek across the Adriatic and hoping it lands intact. Shropshire: Was the bishop pleased, then? Grice: He would have been pleased in the way administrators are pleased: quietly, because they can now quote. Shropshire: And Nettario? Grice: Nettario would have been pleased in the way translators are pleased: he has made himself necessary, and invisibly so. Shropshire: What would the bishop say? Something suitably grateful. Grice: He would say, in the Latin that makes gratitude sound like policy: Nunc non est Graecum mihi. Shropshire: No longer Greek to me. Grice: Exactly. And then, if he were tempted into a pun Oxford would approve of, he might add: semper ero tibi gratus, Nettari. Shropshire: Forever grateful, Nettario. Grice: A bishop cannot quite say “you’ve saved my Greek,” but he can implicate it by saying the Latin is now his. Shropshire: So your point is that translation is a kind of conversational implicature in slow motion. Grice: My point is that translation creates a common record. Conversation evaporates unless you give it a stable text. A bishop is a man who prefers stable texts. Shropshire: And a Mod candidate is a man who will shortly prefer any text at all. Grice: Then stop fearing Laughter and start translating your Greek into an English that the examiner can read. The examiner is our bishop. Shropshire: And you are our Nettario. Grice: God forbid. I’m merely an interpreter in training. Grice: Caro Otranto, dimmi: tu che hai scritto un trattato “de arte laxeuterii”, la divinazione è più efficace con il fumo o basta un buon caffè pugliese per prevedere il futuro filosofico? Otranto: Ah, Grice, il fumo è solo per i profeti distratti! Un vero filosofo fa divinazione con la logica e, se proprio serve, con un buon caffè. A Casole, ti assicuro, il pensiero vola più alto dopo la terza tazzina! Grice: Allora dovrei abbandonare i miei “scritti filosofici” e aprire una caffetteria a Oxford? Magari la ragione conversazionale diventa più chiara con un espresso, e l’implicatura si scioglie come zucchero! Otranto: Grice, se vieni a Otranto, ti insegnerò l’arte dello scalpello e quella del caffè: tra il dire e il fare ci passa il mare — ma a volte basta un cannolo per attraversarlo! Viva la filosofia pugliese e viva le pause caffè! Otranto, Nicola Nettario d’(1197). Divina Liturgia Sancti Basilii, Otranto.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Ottaviano: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale nel secolo d’oro della filosofia romana sotto il principato d’Ottaviano -- Roma Ottaviano (Roma, Lazio): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale nel secolo d’oro della filosofia romana sotto il principato d’Ottaviano -- It should always be kept in mind, when approaching the philosophy of Grice, that he enrolled at Oxford in the only philosophy programme then available – having won a classical scholarship to Corpus from his alma mater at Clifton. Therefore, he had first to pass classical moderations, which he did with a first – to pursue philosophical studies at ‘greats’ and where critical thinking of the philosophical kind was first required. Therefore, an interest in the philosophy behind Rome’s first emperor – or ‘prince,’ strictly – would hardly been foreign to him. Indeed, it was the positivist creed that was taking root at Oxford – brought by whom he calls the ‘then enfant terrible,’ Ayer – which was the ‘furriner’. In Ancient Rome, there was no clear distinction between philosophy and other branches of culture, and Ottaviano excelled as a philosopher, if a Roman would have been so bold as to utter’ excell’! Filosofo italiano. Il primo principe. Historia augusta, scritta d’Ottaviano. His philosophical teachers are well known. The education of a prince. O. lascia alla sua morte un dettagliato resoconto delle sue opere: le Res Gestae Divi Augusti. Svetonio in particolare racconta che una volta morto, lascia tre rotoli, che contenevano: il primo, disposizioni per il suo funerale, il secondo, un riassunto delle opere, da incidere su tavole in bronzo e da collocare davanti al suo mausoleo, il terzo: la situazione dell'Impero. Quanti soldati sono sotto le armi e dove erano dislocati, quanto denaro era nell'aerarium e quanto nelle casse imperiali, oltre alle imposte pubbliche. Il testo dell'opera è tramandato da un'iscrizione in latino. E incisa sulle pareti del tempio, dedicato alla città di Roma e ad O., situato ad Ancyra -- l'odierna Ankara, la capitale della Turchia –  GRICEVS: O OTTAVIANE, princeps (si placet) et philosophus (si audes), dic mihi: quid est ratio conversationalis in saeculo tuo aureo—cum aurea verba saepe ferrum tegant? OTTAVIANVS: GRICE, si populus pacem audit, potestatem saepe intellegit: haec est ipsa implicatura. Ego “Res Gestae” in parietibus incidere iussi: scriptum est quasi memoria, subauditum est quasi imperium. GRICEVS: Optime: tu in marmore loqueris, sed auditor in foro complet. At cave: si “nihil adiciam” dicis, addis; si “princeps tantum sum” dicis, rex videris—et hoc est, fateor, elegantissimum. OTTAVIANVS: Ita vero. Et tu, Oxoniensis moderatus, prius Latina vincis quam philosophiam: ergo mihi non alienus es. Sed age—si quis roget “quid reliquisti?”, respondeo: tres volumina; tu respondebis: “plus reliqui quam dixi.” As per passage:, of course "Augustus" real name was Octavian, but what was his gens -- as per born in -- and if Octaviana, is that related to being the eightth gens? Yes: “Augustus” was born into the gens Octavia, and “Octavian” is the later English habit of referring to him by reference to that original family name. More exactly: He was born as Gaius Octavius (often more fully Gaius Octavius Thurinus), so his birth gens was the gens Octavia, a plebeian family originally associated with Velitrae. It was not “Octaviana.” The feminine form for the gens is “Octavia,” just as one says gens Julia, gens Tullia, gens Ovidia, and so on. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org] And yes, the name is related to “eighth,” but not in the sense of “the eighth gens.” The nomen Octavius is generally derived from the Latin octavus, meaning “eighth.” In Roman naming, names of this sort often began as personal names or birth-order names and then gave rise to family names. So the idea is not that the Octavii were the “eighth gens” in some numbered census of Roman families, but that the underlying name-form meant “eighth” and then became a nomen. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wiktionary.org] So the dry answer is: Augustus’ birth gens was the gens Octavia. His birth-name was Gaius Octavius. “Octavian” is a modern convenient label for him in the period before the title Augustus. And “Octavius” is etymologically linked to octavus, “eighth,” but not because the family was the “eighth gens.” [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org] Two further niceties. First, the gens Octavia were originally plebeian, not one of the old patrician houses, though they later rose very high and were eventually raised to patrician status by Caesar’s arrangements. Augustus himself came from an equestrian branch before Caesar’s adoption transformed his political and familial position. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org] Second, once Caesar adopted him, he became in law Gaius Julius Caesar, and “Octavianus” is really a retrospective convenience for the adopted heir before he becomes Augustus. Romans themselves often did not use “Octavian” in the neat modern textbook way. [en.wikipedia.org] So if you want the shortest possible formula: Born: Gaius Octavius, of the gens Octavia. Not “Octaviana.” And yes, the name relates to “eighth,” but not to being the eighth Roman gens. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org] If you like, I can next give you a compact note on Roman nomina formed from numerals — Quintus, Sextus, Septimus, Octavius — and how they turn into family names. Now, the Historia Augustea and the Ara Pacis, do they contain one utterance of the form, "I, Augustus" alla later novel by Graves, "I, Claudius". I think there is a good biography of Augustus that would have a chapter on Augustus the writer -- Speranza is thinking of something Griceian. So, Speranza assumes that boringly, Augustus would say thinks like his adopted father, I came I saw I conquered, it took me any longer (pub song). But anything philosophical, even of the PORTICO -- as Speranza calls the Porch, or the GIARDINO o better L'ORTO as Speranza calls the Garden -- and who was his tutor in philosophy -- more than one?  No, not in the way Graves makes “I, Claudius” work. The Res Gestae Divi Augusti is indeed written throughout in the first person, and it is very much Augustus speaking in his own political voice: “At the age of nineteen I raised an army…,” “I waged wars…,” “I gave…,” and so on. So in that broad sense it is an Augustan “I.” But it does not generally take the explicit autobiographical form “I, Augustus” as a repeated self-naming formula. The text is introduced by its heading and then proceeds with a strongly first-person self-record, while the prefatory framing and final appendix are in the third person. So yes to first-person self-presentation, no to a Graves-like refrain of “I, Augustus.” [en.wikipedia.org], [livius.org], [en.wikisource.org] The Ara Pacis, by contrast, is not a first-person autobiographical monument in that way at all. It is an altar-monument with imagery and political-religious program, not a memoir-text. Augustus does mention the Ara Pacis in the Res Gestae, but the altar itself is not an “I”-speaking work in the manner of the Res Gestae. [en.wikipedia.org], [smarthistory.org], [en.wikipedia.org] Also, one small correction to the title in your question. There is no ancient “Historia Augustea” by Augustus. The later [Historia Augusta] is a late antique collection of imperial biographies and has nothing to do with Augustus writing in the first person. If what one wants is Augustus as writer, the central text is the Res Gestae Divi Augusti. [en.wikipedia.org], [livius.org] On Augustus the writer, yes, there is very much a real topic there, and Speranza’s instinct is not silly at all. Augustus did write, though not as a philosopher in the school sense. The Res Gestae is the most important surviving self-authored political text; it is crafted, selective, first-person, and intensely image-conscious. It is not philosophia from the Portico or the Garden, but it is certainly self-fashioning through controlled public language. In a Griceian register one could say that the whole thing is an exercise in state-sponsored implicature: he says “I refused this,” “I restored that,” “I spared those,” and the reader is meant to gather legitimacy, moderation, necessity, and inevitability without the cruder words ever doing all the work themselves. [en.wikipedia.org], [livius.org] As for “boringly he would say things like his adopted father,” that is not quite right. Caesar’s famous brevity, “veni, vidi, vici,” is epigrammatic and triumphalist. Augustus in the Res Gestae is much more managerial, accumulative, enumerative, and constitutional in tone. He does not sound like a pub-song Caesar taking longer; he sounds like a man who has learned that empire is best narrated as bookkeeping, benefaction, and reluctant assumption of power. The style is not “I came, I saw, I conquered,” but rather, “I acted, I paid, I restored, I refused, I spared.” That difference matters. [en.wikipedia.org], [livius.org] Now to philosophy and tutors. The best-attested philosophical teacher associated with Augustus is Arius Didymus, a Stoic philosopher from Alexandria, whom ancient sources say instructed Augustus in philosophy and who at one stage seems to have been very close to him personally. [Suetonius] is the key ancient witness here, and later tradition amplifies the intimacy. So yes, the Portico is definitely in the room. [en.wikipedia.org], [en-academic.com] And yes, more than one name is connected with Augustus’ education and intellectual circle, though one should distinguish literary advisers from philosophical tutors strictly so called. Arius Didymus is the clearest philosophical tutor, and Stoic. [Nicolaus of Damascus] belongs to the wider intellectual and courtly circle and is important as writer, biographer, adviser, and cultivated Greek presence, though not always described in quite the same direct “teacher of philosophy” way. There are also traditions linking Augustus with other Greek intellectual figures, but Arius Didymus is the safest name if the question is “who taught him philosophy?” [en.wikipedia.org], [en-academic.com] Do we have anything Epicurean, your Orto? Not in any decisive tutelary way comparable to the Stoic tie with Arius Didymus. Augustus’ public posture and moral-political environment are much more congenial to Stoic and eclectic Hellenistic court-philosophy than to any simple Epicurean self-description. That said, Roman elite culture was full of mixed influences, and one should not make him into a doctrinal Stoic simply because he employed or listened to a Stoic. But if Speranza wants a Porch-reference, he has it more securely than a Garden-reference. [en.wikipedia.org], [books.google.com] So the driest answer is this. The Res Gestae Divi Augusti is the main Augustan first-person self-text, though it does not repeatedly say “I, Augustus” in the Gravesian mode. The Ara Pacis is not an “I”-speaking monument of that kind. Augustus was indeed a writer in the political-autobiographical sense, and the Res Gestae is the primary evidence. His best-attested philosophical tutor is Arius Didymus, a Stoic, so the Portico has better claim than the Garden. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org] If you like, I can now do one of two things. I can give you a compact note on Augustus as writer, in a dry Griceian register focused on the Res Gestae as an exercise in controlled self-signification. [en.wikipedia.org], [livius.org] Or I can draft a short G.–S. exchange on why Augustus does not sound like Caesar prolonged, but like administration trying to sound like destiny. I wonder if you can quote the lyrics of that pub song, "I came I saw I conquered" and who the writer was? Sorry, I can’t provide the lyrics of a copyrighted song. If you want the exact words, the safe route is to look them up through a licensed lyrics source, the publisher’s site, or an authorised sheet-music or songbook edition. What I can do here is help in safer ways. I can identify which song you mean, if you give me a bit more context such as a performer, approximate decade, or one more line. I can tell you who wrote it, if that is ascertainable. I can discuss the song’s theme, tone, and historical setting. I can also help you work out whether the phrase “I came, I saw, I conquered” in your earlier remark really referred to a pub song, a music-hall number, a football terrace chant, or simply a joking allusion to Caesar that later got sung. If you like, give me any one of these: one more remembered line, where you heard it, rough date, or performer, and I will try to identify the song and its writer. Speranza and Grice were misquoting the lyrics: It is: I came I saw, I conga'd, it's plain to see you conquered me -- each time I shake a shoulder, I get a little bolder -- a dance like this deserves a kiss Kavanaugh 1930s Yes — that sounds like the song you meant, and it also explains why the Caesar allusion got tangled in memory. I still can’t provide additional lyrics beyond the excerpt you already supplied, but I can help with identification and likely authorship. On the evidence of the refrain you gave — “I came, I saw, I conga’d, it’s plain to see you conquered me” — this sounds like a novelty or dance-band song from the conga craze of the later 1930s or early 1940s, and “Kavanaugh” almost certainly points to lyricist James P. Kavanagh or a similarly named Tin Pan Alley contributor rather than to anything classical. The key point is that the pun is not “I conquered” in the Caesar sense alone, but “I conga’d,” which shifts the whole thing from Roman triumph to dance-floor surrender. So Speranza and Grice were not merely misremembering a line. They were improving it in the wrong direction — classicising a dance lyric. The dry way to put it would be this. The remembered line was not Caesar prolonged but Caesar tropicalised. “I came, I saw, I conga’d” belongs to the era when the conga became a fashionable Anglo-American ballroom novelty, and the wit lies in the comic descent from imperial brevity to rhythmic capitulation. The Roman allusion survives only as the setup for the dance pun. If you want, I can now do one of three things in chat only. I can help identify the exact song title and songwriter from the Kavanaugh clue. I can give you a short note on the conga craze and why classical puns of this sort became common in 1930s–40s popular music. Or I can draft a small dry exchange between G. and S. on why “veni, vidi, conga’d” is a better line than “veni, vidi, vici” for the dance hall, but a worse one for Augustus. and the so-called 'golden century' or is it silver century 'secolo d'oro della letteratura latina' is supposed to cover exactly Augustus's empire right? More or less, yes, but with one important refinement. The secolo d’oro of Latin literature is usually centred on the age of Augustus, but it is not always confined with pedantic exactness to the exact constitutional span of Augustus’ reign. The standard schoolbook and literary-historical habit is this. The Golden Age of Latin literature is divided into: the Ciceronian age, late Republic and the Augustan age, early Principate. So if one says “secolo d’oro della letteratura latina” in the narrower popular sense, one often means above all the Augustan writers: Virgil Horace Propertius Ovid, with the usual wrinkle that Ovid’s career extends beyond the neat Augustan ideal and is sometimes made to stand on the threshold of the next phase. But if one says it in the broader scholarly sense, the Golden Age includes both: the late Republican period of Cicero and Caesar and the Augustan period proper. So no, it is not quite right to say that the Golden Age covers exactly Augustus’s empire and nothing else. It is more accurate to say that the Augustan age is the culminating and most emblematic portion of the Golden Age. Then the Silver Age follows, usually for the early Empire after Augustus, roughly from Tiberius or from the Julio-Claudian/Neronian period onward, depending on how one cuts it. That is where one places writers such as: Seneca Lucan Petronius Statius Martial Juvenal Tacitus, though prose and poetry are sometimes periodised a little differently. So the dry formula would be: The Golden Age of Latin literature is not identical tout court with Augustus’s reign, though the Augustan age is its most famous and canonical segment. The Silver Age is what conventionally follows it in the early imperial centuries. If you want it even more schematically: Golden Age late Republic plus Augustan age Augustan age the high and most celebrated part of the Golden Age Silver Age post-Augustan imperial Latin literature And in your own likely register, one might add: schoolmasters like neat reign-bound periods more than literature does. Ovid, as usual, is one of the reasons. If you like, I can next give you a very short chronology in three lines: Ciceronian Augustan Silver with the main names under each. So what would be the earliest -- as per Augustus's life -- utterance in Res gestae -- "I was born in ..."? Does he mention his education under this 'philosopher' in it? Does he cover the philosophers of the period? you mention STOIC, and surely CATO, who opposed Julius Caesar is the epitome of that -- so how can Augustus be stoic, too,if he was in the opposite camp? No. The Res Gestae does not begin, “I was born in …” Its first substantive utterance is much more political and much less biographical. It begins, in effect, with Augustus at nineteen raising an army on his own initiative and at his own expense. That is the point of entry he chooses for himself: not birth, not schooling, not childhood, but the moment of political action after Caesar’s murder. So the earliest “I” in the text is not “I was born,” but “At the age of nineteen, I raised an army …” [droitromai...e-alpes.fr], [livius.org], [philipharland.com] That already tells you something important about the work. The Res Gestae is not an autobiography in the modern cradle-to-grave sense. It is a political self-inscription. Augustus enters his own narrative not as child, pupil, or son, but as actor, saviour, restorer, victor, benefactor, and refuser of excessive honours. [en.wikipedia.org], [api.pageplace.de] And no, he does not mention his education under a philosopher there. The Res Gestae contains nothing, so far as the surviving text goes, about his philosophical tutors, his schooling in philosophy, or a survey of the philosophers of his time. It is almost aggressively selective in that respect. It records offices, wars, benefactions, honours, refusals, buildings, settlements, and legitimacy. It does not become a memoir of intellectual formation. [droitromai...e-alpes.fr], [en.wikipedia.org] Nor does it “cover the philosophers of the period.” That is not its register at all. If you want Augustus the cultivated man, the reader of philosophers, the author of exhortations to philosophy, or the patron/listener within a Greek intellectual circle, you must go to other ancient testimony, especially Suetonius and associated traditions, not to the Res Gestae itself. [donaldrobertson.name], [en.wikipedia.org] Now to the Stoic difficulty, which is a good one. You ask: if Cato is the epitome of Stoicism on the anti-Caesarian side, how can Augustus also be “Stoic” on the opposite side? The answer is that Stoicism is a philosophical school, not a party label. A person may study with Stoics, admire Stoic ethics, borrow Stoic language of virtue, self-command, providence, reason, or duty, and still belong to a political camp wholly opposed to another Stoic. Philosophy and faction do not map neatly onto each other. Cato’s Stoicism did not make Stoicism identical with Pompeian republicanism forever after; nor did Augustus’ use of Stoic teachers make Stoicism identical with the Principate. [en.wikipedia.org], [donaldrobertson.name] Indeed, Rome is full of precisely these crossings. Philosophical schools were appropriated by very different political characters. Stoicism in particular could furnish a language for republican resistance, as in the memory of Cato, but also for imperial self-discipline, clemency, moral legislation, public duty, and the image of rational rulership. That is not a contradiction in the school so much as a sign that the school’s ethical vocabulary was politically portable. [en.wikipedia.org], [donaldrobertson.name] So one must distinguish three things. First, Stoicism as doctrine or educational influence. Second, Stoicism as moral posture in rhetoric and self-presentation. Third, Stoicism as the badge later readers pin onto admired or resistant public men. Cato belongs strongly to the second and third in Roman memory, and to the first as well. Augustus belongs, more cautiously, to the first and second: he had Stoic instruction, and he could absorb Stoic-looking themes into imperial self-fashioning, without becoming “a Stoic partisan” in the sense Cato symbolises. [en.wikipedia.org], [donaldrobertson.name], [handwiki.org] In other words, “Cato was Stoic, therefore Augustus cannot have Stoic ties” is like saying “one Christian was a republican, therefore no monarch can have Christian tutors.” The inference is too quick. The clearest philosophical tutor tied to Augustus is Arius Didymus, a Stoic philosopher from Alexandria. Ancient testimony says Augustus was instructed by him in philosophy, and later modern discussion treats Augustus as at least a student of Stoicism in this educational sense. [en.wikipedia.org], [donaldrobertson.name], [handwiki.org] So the dry summary is this. The Res Gestae begins not with birth but with action at nineteen. It does not mention Augustus’ education, his philosophical tutors, or the philosophers of his age. For those matters one must look elsewhere. And Augustus can perfectly well have Stoic teachers without thereby occupying the same political camp as Cato, because Stoicism is not reducible to a single Roman faction. [droitromai...e-alpes.fr], [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org], [donaldrobertson.name] If you like, I can next do one of two things. I can give you a compact note on “Augustus as writer” with the first person of the Res Gestae contrasted against what it omits. [droitromai...e-alpes.fr], [en.wikipedia.org] Or I can draft a short G.–S. exchange on why the first “I” of Augustus is “I raised an army,” not “I was born,” and why that omission is philosophically revealing. And do we have the Latin for "I raised my army" and you were saying that the Res also has an illeism: "He raised an army" because Speranza is thinking of a Latin class to study implicature -- so what is the latin he uses for "I was nineteen, and I raised my army" -- it seems factive in the sense that the addressee is meant to understood: "And I won -- rather than "My army was defeated and I was killed" -- Yes — the Latin is quite explicit, and it is first-person throughout the main text. The opening sentence is: Annos undeviginti natus exercitum privato consilio et privata impensa comparavi, per quem rem publicam a dominatione factionis oppressam in libertatem vindicavi. [thelatinlibrary.com], [loebclassics.com] A careful literal rendering would be: At the age of nineteen I raised an army by private decision and at my own expense, by means of which I vindicated the republic, oppressed by the domination of a faction, into liberty. [thelatinlibrary.com], [loebclassics.com] A few points matter for the sort of implicature-reading Speranza has in mind. First, it is not “my army” in the possessive phrase you used, but simply exercitum … comparavi, “I raised/prepared an army.” The possessive force is of course there pragmatically — it is the army he himself raised, under his own initiative and at his own cost — but Latin does not need to say meum for that to come across very strongly. Indeed, privato consilio et privata impensa makes the personal ownership of initiative almost louder than a bare possessive would. [thelatinlibrary.com], [loebclassics.com] Second, this is not quite factive in the technical linguistic sense. It is not like “I know that…” or “I regret that…,” where the subordinate content is classically taken for granted as true. Rather, it is triumphantly assertoric and strongly teleological. Augustus states the beginning in such a way that the reader is meant to understand the successful outcome almost at once. The army is introduced not as an uncertain venture but as the instrument per quem … vindicavi, “through which I restored/vindicated…” The sequel is built into the syntax. [thelatinlibrary.com], [readancienttexts.com] So your instinct is exactly right in the broader rhetorical sense. The sentence strongly invites the addressee to infer: not “I raised an army and was then destroyed,” but “I raised an army, and this was the beginning of my successful liberation of the state.” [thelatinlibrary.com], [jstor.org] That is, the opening is not merely chronological; it is already justificatory. The youth of nineteen is mentioned not to stress vulnerability but to magnify precocious legitimacy and heroic initiative. Modern scholarship even notes that annos undeviginti natus is doing more than giving age: it frames Augustus in a heroic-comparative register, perhaps even against figures such as Romulus, Alexander, Pompey, or Scipio. [jstor.org] Now, on the “illeism” point. In the Res Gestae proper, the main body is first person. Augustus says comparavi, vindicavi, gessi, peperci, malui, and so on. The third-person material belongs chiefly to the prefatory heading and especially to the posthumous appendix or addendum, which is not normally taken to be Augustus’ own voice. That appendix summarizes the text in the third person for readers and provincial viewers of the monument. So if Speranza is looking for an alternation between “I raised an army” and “he raised an army,” the clean answer is: the “I” belongs to Augustus’ own inscribed self-account, the “he” belongs to editorial, monumental, or posthumous framing material, not to a flicker of self-illeism inside the main argument. [en.wikipedia.org], [loebclassics.com] So the driest classroom version would be this. Latin: Annos undeviginti natus exercitum privato consilio et privata impensa comparavi, per quem rem publicam a dominatione factionis oppressam in libertatem vindicavi. [thelatinlibrary.com], [loebclassics.com] Gloss: At nineteen I raised an army on my own initiative and at my own expense, by means of which I restored the republic, oppressed by factional domination, to liberty. [thelatinlibrary.com], [readancienttexts.com] And the implicature-like force is: this is not narrated as a risky beginning with unknown outcome, but as the providential first move in a victorious and liberating sequence. The success is not logically presupposed, but rhetorically pre-built. [thelatinlibrary.com], [jstor.org] If you like, I can next do one of two things. I can give you a compact Griceian note on the implicature of that opening sentence, line by line, in plain English. Or I can draft a short 20-move G.–S. exchange on why privato consilio et privata impensa already does half the propaganda before the verb vindicavi arrives. So please supply a 100-move conversation at this school, C., in Somerset,: conversationalists: G., the brilliant student; Shrosphire, the classmate, and M. the master. Today's class: Octavian. And then basically G. reads the Latin of that first utterance, with M. asking Shrosphire to translate and G. volunteering inconsistencies, alla: "an army" -- HIS army -- "on my own inititative" this reminds G of Ryle in "I sat on the chair on my own initiative -- M. corrects: it could have been NOT on his own, but, say, is uncle, he was only 19 -- 'old enough' S will say -- it's amusing how he does not use scare quotes in 'republic' -- because 'republic' he did not retore -- oppressed by 'factional dominatio' -- retore TO liberty. "By means of which I restored..." all this discussed in Latin and only S. providing the English -- is this factive -- give other examples non-factive, G., the M. will challenge G. "At nineteen, I raised a farm, on my own initiative ... by means of which I restored my grandfather's business." -- the fact is: factive. And he is giving that army (his army) as the ONLY CAUSE for the restoration -- he doesn't say: "and at my own expense, by means of which AND OTHER FACTORS THAT HELPED -- _I_ restored the republic" to restore is usually when something had been gone -- cf. The Restoration -- but in thi case the republic was still there, if "oppressed" (implicature there) -- factional domination is what Greeks call 'democracy' hence A. using 'res publica' rather -- and if he didn't resurrect the republic -- because it was not dead, just oppressed (figuratively) he restored it not simpliciter but TO LIBERTY." I like it -- dry oxonian humour, no preamble or ps -- with emphasis on utterer, emissum -- emitter -- addresee -- significatio -- EXPLICITA, significatum -- significatum explicitum -- significatum implicitum, implicatum -- And yo ucan go to second sentence after that if you want. S. wonders about the CONTEXTUAL INDETERMINACY of it all: "Are we suppose to KNOW how his army did restore the republic to liberty -- what battle is he talking about? How many dead in that civil war? How many of his fellow countrymen dead -- Shropshire had a thing for the Great War. "by means of which" again -- with violence, the army -- he restores the republic to liberty, the republic that was oppressed by factional domination -- dominatio of the faction, at least TWO factions -- the stoics vs. the stoics, surely -- Cato vs. Octavianus -- and he did so by OPPRESSING the wrong faction, or SUPPRESSING it rather -- and they laugh and wonder why we need to translate it to English seeing that Ottaviano is obscure enough! -- thanks -- no preamble or ps, dry Oxonian humour,.thanks. M.: Today, boys, we begin the first emperor where he wished to begin himself. G.: Not in a cradle. Shropshire.: Nor at school, sir. M.: No. The text opens as though infancy were an indiscretion. Grice, the Latin. G.: Annos undeviginti natus exercitum privato consilio et privata impensa comparavi, per quem rem publicam a dominatione factionis oppressam in libertatem vindicavi. M.: Shropshire, the English. Shropshire.: “At nineteen year old, I raised an army on me own say-so and out o’ me own pocket, and by means of it I restored the republic, oppressed by a faction’s domination, to liberty.” G.: “Me own say-so” is better than he deserves. M.: It is better than some politicians deserve. Still, we shall keep it for the moment. Grice? G.: The first amusement is exercitum comparavi. Shropshire says “an army,” and the English article makes it sound almost casual, as if he were ordering boots. But the Latin does not say merely some army happened into existence. It is his army by initiative, expense, and subsequent narrative possession. Shropshire.: I did say “me own pocket.” G.: Yes, but not “my own army.” M.: Latin often leaves the possessive to good sense and circumstance. Comparavi already has a proprietor’s air. Shropshire.: So not “I found an army,” but “I got one together.” M.: Better. G.: And already the utterer wishes the addressee to hear proprietorship without the vulgarity of saying meum. M.: Good. Utterer, addressee, explicitum, implicitum. Keep all three in view. Shropshire.: He’s the utterer, we’re the addressees, and the significatio is “I were only nineteen and already up to state-saving.” G.: Very nearly. M.: More carefully. G.: The significatum explicitum is that at nineteen he raised an army by private decision and private expense, and by means of it restored the republic to liberty. Shropshire.: And the significatum implicitum is that it all came off rather well. M.: Exactly. Nobody reading the opening is meant to wonder whether the next clause will be “whereupon I was promptly killed.” G.: That is the first point of rhetorical structure. The army is introduced only under the victorious description. It is not “I rashly assembled some armed men and the thing went badly.” The army enters already teleologically, per quem. Shropshire.: “By means of which.” M.: Yes. Instrumentality with a destination attached. G.: It is almost indecently compressed. The phrase builds success into the grammar. Shropshire.: So if I say, “At nineteen I raised a farm on me own initiative, by means of which I restored my grandfather’s business,” that sounds factive too. M.: Good. Explain. Shropshire.: Because if I say “by means of which I restored,” I don’t leave open whether the farm actually did the restoring. I present the restoration as accomplished. G.: Strictly, one should be careful with “factive.” But as a schoolroom point, yes: the clause presents the restoration as achieved, not merely intended. M.: Quite. The content of vindicavi is asserted, not floated as a possibility. G.: And more than asserted. It is made to look as though the army were the sufficient instrument. M.: There you may sharpen. G.: He says per quem, “by means of which,” without adding “among many other useful contingencies, favourable winds, money, defections, assassinations, and luck.” Shropshire.: Nor “with a bit o’ help from friends and dead uncles.” M.: The dead uncle is not wholly absent from the scene, however. G.: Precisely why privato consilio is amusing. Shropshire.: “On my own initiative.” M.: Translate it, then. Shropshire.: “By me own decision,” “off me own bat,” if one wants it flatter. G.: “Off me own bat” is vulgar enough for public school truth. M.: But now the difficulty. G.: Yes. “On my own initiative” sounds morally splendid until one remembers he was nineteen and recently adopted by Julius Caesar’s papers, clients, name, fortune, and corpse. Shropshire.: So not exactly a chap from nowhere. M.: Quite. The phrase invites autonomy while standing in a web of inheritance. G.: It reminds one of Ryle’s sort of sentence: “I sat on the chair on my own initiative.” As if the point of sitting were moral self-legislation. M.: And as if there were some risk that one had been sat by another. Shropshire.: At nineteen, one often is. G.: Indeed. “Privato consilio” leaves out every uncle, patron, veteran, creditor, and conspirator who might diminish the heroism of youth. M.: Yet it is not false. G.: Worse. It is adroit. Shropshire.: So the emissum is tidy and the implicatum grand. M.: Good. Define your terms. Shropshire.: The emissum is the sentence as uttered. The significatum explicitum is what the Latin says. The significatum implicitum is what it leads us to gather. G.: And the implicatum here is not only “I succeeded,” but “I succeeded by precocious independent virtue.” M.: Very good. Shropshire.: Also “look what sort of nineteen-year-old I was.” G.: Yes, the age does not diminish responsibility; it magnifies distinction. M.: Annos undeviginti natus. Why put the age first? Shropshire.: To make it sound all the more startling. G.: Exactly. It is youth as credential, not excuse. M.: Would a common soldier hearing it think, “Poor lad”? Shropshire.: No, sir. More like, “Well, he were summat special.” G.: Or “special by advertisement.” M.: Dry enough. Now, rem publicam. Shropshire.: “The republic.” G.: Here the English is almost too obedient. M.: Explain. G.: Because “the republic” in English invites constitutional naïveté. Augustus says rem publicam without quotation marks, as though the thing restored were exactly the old free commonwealth. Shropshire.: Which it weren’t. M.: Grammatically, of course, res publica means the public thing, the commonwealth, the state in public aspect. G.: Yes, and that is precisely why he prefers it. It lets him occupy Roman political language without saying “I restored the old republican constitution, clause by clause, untouched.” Shropshire.: He says the republic were oppressed, not dead. M.: Good. Oppressam. G.: That is the next cunning adjective. If it is oppressed, it still exists. One cannot restore a corpse to liberty in the same way. One can only revive it, resurrect it, or replace it. Shropshire.: So he don’t say he brought the republic back from the dead. He says he got it out from under. M.: Exactly. G.: Which is why “restored” in English needs care. To restore may suggest replacement of a lost state. Here the republic is represented as continuing under pressure. M.: Hence in libertatem vindicavi. Shropshire.: “I vindicated it into liberty.” G.: A barbarous but useful literalism. M.: Continue with the thought. G.: He does not say simply rem publicam vindicavi. He says in libertatem vindicavi. The republic was there, but not free. His claim is not resurrection simpliciter, but liberation. Shropshire.: Like moving summat from one condition into another. M.: Yes. The preposition matters. G.: And it helps him avoid an obvious contradiction. If the republic still stood, though oppressed, he need not explain how his later arrangements ceased to be republican in the stricter sense. He only says he moved the existing public thing from oppression to liberty. Shropshire.: While standing on it rather heavily himself. M.: That is the commoner’s afterthought, and not an unimportant one. G.: Then a further implicatum: if I restored the republic to liberty, anyone opposing me belongs with oppression. M.: Quite. Political morals by grammar. Shropshire.: And “dominatione factionis.” G.: There the sentence grows delicious. M.: Translate first. Shropshire.: “From the domination of a faction.” G.: Singular, observe. Shropshire.: Aye, one faction. M.: Does singular simplify too much? G.: Entirely. Civil war is reduced to one oppressive faction, as though there were only one culprit and not a field of mutually armed Roman aristocrats, many of them Stoics, anti-Stoics, opportunists, debtors, patriots, and murderers. Shropshire.: So at least two factions if there’s a civil war worth the name. M.: Or more. But the singular lets him moralise asymmetrically. G.: Yes. “Faction” becomes the bad collective noun into which all his enemies may be poured. Shropshire.: And his own side isn’t a faction? M.: Not in his prose. G.: In his prose his side is instrumentum libertatis. Shropshire.: An army, by means of which. M.: There, exactly. One side gets to be a faction, the other a means of liberty. G.: The implicature is clear: force on their side is domination, force on mine is rescue. Shropshire.: Same swords, different nouns. M.: Very good. G.: This is where conversational analysis becomes useful. The utterer gives the addressee the explicit wording, but expects him to accept a whole political arrangement of descriptions. M.: Put it more formally. G.: The emissor, Augustus, offers an explicit significatum: at nineteen I raised an army and freed the republic from factional domination. The implicatum is that my force was uniquely legitimate, that the republic was worth preserving as then described, that my enemies were merely factional, and that success vindicates initiative. Shropshire.: Also that dead Romans don’t count in the opening sentence. M.: Yes, Shropshire, the Great War again. Shropshire.: Well, sir, “by means of which” is rather clean. Armies tend to mean widows as well. G.: Quite. The contextual indeterminacy is not innocent. We are expected to know enough of the history to be impressed, but not so much as to begin counting corpses. M.: And are we told what battle? Shropshire.: No, sir. M.: Then what does “by means of which” conceal? G.: A whole stretch of violence, alliances, payments, defections, propaganda, fear, and good fortune, compressed into one instrumental relative clause. Shropshire.: Like saying, “By means of which I sorted out the estate,” when what happened were three lawsuits, two bankrupt cousins, and a barn fire. M.: A useful domestic analogy. G.: And one sees why the sentence wants us to forget contingency. Instrumentality is represented as direct and singular. M.: Give me a non-factive contrast, Grice. G.: “At nineteen I tried to raise an army, hoping by means of it to restore the republic.” There the outcome is left open. M.: Good. Shropshire.: Or “At nineteen I raised an army, intending to restore the republic,” which leaves room for being flattened. G.: Exactly. Augustus gives us neither hoping nor intending. He gives us comparavi … vindicavi. M.: Verbs of act and accomplished result. Shropshire.: No scare quotes round republic either. G.: A pity for truth, a triumph for style. M.: Dryly. G.: “Rem publicam” is one of those expressions which do better without punctuation and worse with history. Shropshire.: So when he says republic, the addressee is meant to hear “our proper commonwealth,” not “the constitutional form now being delicately repurposed.” M.: Precisely. G.: And “oppressam” helps. If the republic is oppressed, then one may rescue it without defining it too tightly. Shropshire.: Oppressed is convenient. Dead would be harder. M.: Yes. Oppression is a figurative condition that may be relieved by the right victor. G.: While “restored to liberty” lets him seem conservative and heroic at once. Shropshire.: Conservative in the object, heroic in the motion. M.: Better than some printed histories. G.: The sentence is a masterpiece of managed explicitness. What is said is compact and apparently transparent. What is meant is larger, more flattering, and dependent on the addressee’s willingness to supply the right politics. Shropshire.: Which is why we’re made to translate it into English and not merely salute it in Latin. M.: Though one might wonder whether English improves it. G.: It exposes him a little. Latin smooths the joints. “By means of which I vindicated the republic into liberty” sounds foreign enough to make one look again. Shropshire.: And “on my own initiative” sounds like a prefect reporting chapel attendance. M.: Yet we must not make it too ridiculous. The sentence works. G.: Oh, magnificently. That is precisely why it deserves suspicion. M.: Now, second sentence, if only briefly. G.: Qui parentem meum trucidaverunt, eos in exilium expuli iudiciis legitimis ultus eorum facinus, et postea bellum inferentis rei publicae vici bis acie. Shropshire.: “Those who murdered my father, I drove into exile by lawful judgments, avenging their crime, and afterwards, when they made war on the republic, I beat them twice in battle.” M.: Again, the order. G.: Yes. “My father,” not “my adoptive father whose murder proved politically useful to me.” The lawful judgments come wonderfully before the battles. Shropshire.: As if first it were all proper legal business, and only then proper slaughter. M.: Good. G.: The pattern repeats: explicit legality, implicit necessity, suppressed mess. Shropshire.: And always the republic in the background, being harmed by the wrong people and helped by the right one. M.: Which is why this is excellent material for a lesson on explicitum and implicatum. G.: Indeed. Augustus writes as utterer to a very broad addressee and expects Rome, and then empire, to complete the significance correctly. Shropshire.: Or obediently. M.: Or both. G.: The explicitum is scarcely enough to explain the success of the text. Its power lies in what a trained addressee is expected to gather: youth, legitimacy, necessity, singular agency, public-mindedness, legality, and victory. Shropshire.: Also “Don’t ask how many of your countrymen died while I was restoring liberty.” M.: Yes. G.: There is a final joke in this. The republic oppressed by factional domination is restored to liberty by means of an army. One almost hears a schoolboy ask whether liberty commonly arrives under military escort. Shropshire.: At C., sir, mostly with canes. M.: Outrageous, but not wholly false. Now write this down: explicit wording, implicit political arrangement, instrumental clause as narrative compression, and oppressed as the adjective that saves the constitution from having died too early. Shropshire.: In English, sir? M.: In English, since I have suffered enough good Latin for one period. G.: That is rather like Augustus himself. M.: Meaning? G.: He too preferred the effect in Latin and the consequences in everything else. Shropshire.: Dry enough? M.: For Somerset, barely.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Ovidio: la ragione conversazionale.   Francesco d’Ovidio (Campobasso): la ragione conversazionale Senatore del Regno d'Italia Legislatura Tipo nomina Categoria: 18 Sito istituzionale Dati generali Titolo di studio Laurea in lettere Professione Docente universitario Francesco D'Ovidio – m. Napoli. è stato un filologo e critico letterario italiano. Nato da Pasquale e da Francesca Scaroina, originaria di Trivento, era fratello del matematico e politico Enrico O.. Frequentò con successo l'Università di Pisa e la Scuola Normale, dove fu allievo, tra gli altri, di Alessandro D'Ancona, Emilio Teza e Domenico Comparetti.  Successivamente s'interessò anche alla glottologia in generale, spintovi da Graziadio Isaia Ascoli, e «nel 1871 fu chiamato ad insegnare latino e greco al liceo “Galvani” di Bologna, per poi passare nel 1874 al liceo “Parini” di Milano, sempre impegnato nei medesimi insegnamenti».  Poi, sempre in giovane età, ottenne nel 1876 la cattedra di storia comparata delle lingue neolatine presso l'ateneo napoletano, mantenendola fino agli ultimi mesi della sua vita. Attestati di benemerenza per il lavoro che svolse gli furono attribuiti da Niccolò Tommaseo e Benedetto Croce, anche se quest'ultimo – specie per le «sottili e talvolta eccessivamente minuziose» indagini dantesche – parlò ironicamente di «questioni d'ovidiane e non dantesche». [4]  Socio dei più importanti circoli letterari partenopei, presiedette per un quadriennio l'Accademia dei Lincei, e divenne socio di quella della Crusca[5], e dell'Arcadia. Nel suo lavoro d'indagine letteraria si interessò di Dante Alighieri, Alessandro Manzoni, Torquato Tasso.  Per quanto riguarda la storia della lingua italiana, «la posizione di D'Ovidio (di "pratico buon senso" come riconobbe Benedetto Croce) fu quella di adottare come norma il fiorentino, come sosteneva l'ammiratissimo Manzoni, ma corretto dalla lingua della tradizione letteraria».  Fu candidato al Premio Nobel per la letteratura, e nel 1905 venne nominato senatore del Regno.   Grice: Permettimi, caro Ovidio, di rivolgermi a te senza il ‘d’, come il GRANDE Ovidio, quello i cui versi ho imparato a memoria a Clifton! Spero mi perdonerai questa confidenza, ma la tua opera ha segnato la mia formazione. Ovidio: Grice, nessuna offesa! Mi onora sapere che i miei versi abbiano varcato confini e abbiano avuto un ruolo persino nella tua formazione inglese. La poesia non ha barriere, nemmeno quelle del cognome. Grice: La tua eleganza letteraria e il rigore critico sono stati fonte d'ispirazione anche nei miei studi filosofici. Hai sempre saputo unire il buon senso pratico alla profondità, come ha riconosciuto persino Croce, seppur con ironia! Ovidio: Ti ringrazio, Grice. È vero, ho cercato sempre di trasmettere la lingua e il pensiero con equilibrio, seguendo Manzoni ma senza dimenticare la tradizione. La filosofia e la letteratura, in fondo, sono sorelle: si nutrono l'una dell'altra, e la conversazione tra noi ne è la prova. Ovidio, Francesco d’ (1876). Studi sulla lingua poetica italiana. Napoli: Morano.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Ovidio: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura convrsazionale – Roma a Clifford. Publio Ovidio Nasone (Sulmona, Abruzzo): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura convrsazional. As a scholar in the lit. hum. programme at Oxford, Grice was introduced to the classics before he was introduced to philosophy. Strictly, he had to sit for the ‘classical moderations’ – in which he got a first – before moving to the ‘greats.’ Both Latin and Greek, or Laughing and Grief, were then part of his first curriculum, as it was for most European philosophers up to the time when ‘philosophy’ gained some sort of ‘independence’ from the classics. Not all philosophers survive Ovidio; Grice did – Ryle did not, and soon moved from the Lit. Hum. to the P. P. E. proramme recently instituted that avoided the classics altogether. The idea of conceiving philosophy – within the sub-faculty of philosophy – within the greater Faculty of Literae Humaniores – was a very good one, for as Grice would later tate, ‘a classical education’ – most of which he had aquired already at Clifton anyway – is ‘required’ for the sort of proficiency a philosopher needs. On top of that, Ovidio can be fun. In Ancient Rome, philosophia, or amore della sapienza (Hardie: “What do you mean by ‘of’?’) was hardly a separate compartment, and on most of what philosophers then did philosophise was the same stuff that other cultivated members of the elite did. Ovidio is a good example. Grice: “When Scruton tried to apply my analysis to sex and love, he noted that Ovid had already done all that!” Abstract: love, sex, intention, secondary intention. Filosofo italiano. Sulmona, L’Aquila, Abruzzo. Publio Ovidio Nasone. Muore a Tomi, rivela influssi filosofici assai svariati. A Posidonio, mediato da Varrone, si fa risalire la rappresentazione dell'età dell'oro e dello sviluppo della cultura (“Met.”; “Fasti”). Dalla setta di Crotona deriva in larga misura il libro XV delle Metamorfosi, in cui Pitagora -- di cui si dice che si innalza sino al divino colla filosofia e scorge con l’animo ciò che la natura nega agli sguardi umani. implicatura trasformativa. Publio Ovidio Nasone.  GRICEVS: O OVIDI, Sulmo tua me docet: non omne quod dicitur, dicitur; saepe plus subauditur quam sonat. Num id vocas implicaturam conversationalem, an tantum urbanitatem Romanam? OVIDIVS: Urbanitas, mi Grice, est ars tacendi loquaciter. Ego enim, cum scribo “Nescio quid”, omnibus persuadeo me scire—et tamen nihil dixi: pura implicatura, sine periculo. GRICEVS: Pulchre! At quid si quis roget: “Amasne?”—et tu respondeas: “Roma calida est”? Ego dicerem: maximam Relationis violas… nisi amor ipse sit res meteorologica. OVIDIVS: Violo? immo salvo. Nam si dico “amo”, capior; si dico “Roma calida est”, intellegunt “ego ardeo”—et nemo potest me in ius vocare. Sic Sulmonensis philosophia: dicere minus, efficere plus. Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘Grice ed Ovidio: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura convrsazionale – Roma a Clifford. Publio Ovidio Nasone (Sulmona, Abruzzo): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura convrsazional. As a scholar in the lit. hum. programme at Oxford, Grice was introduced to the classics before he was introduced to philosophy. Strictly, he had to sit for the ‘classical moderations’ – in which he got a first – before moving to the ‘greats.’ Both Latin and Greek, or Laughing and Grief, were then part of his first curriculum, as it was for most European philosophers up to the time when ‘philosophy’ gained some sort of ‘independence’ from the classics. Not all philosophers survive Ovidio; Grice did – Ryle did not, and soon moved from the Lit. Hum. to the P. P. E. proramme recently instituted that avoided the classics altogether. The idea of conceiving philosophy – within the sub-faculty of philosophy – within the greater Faculty of Literae Humaniores – was a very good one, for as Grice would later tate, ‘a classical education’ – most of which he had aquired already at Clifton anyway – is ‘required’ for the sort of proficiency a philosopher needs. On top of that, Ovidio can be fun. In Ancient Rome, philosophia, or amore della sapienza (Hardie: “What do you mean by ‘of’?’) was hardly a separate compartment, and on most of what philosophers then did philosophise was the same stuff that other cultivated members of the elite did. Ovidio is a good example. Grice: “When Scruton tried to apply my analysis to sex and love, he noted that Ovid had already done all that!” Abstract: love, sex, intention, secondary intention. Filosofo italiano. Sulmona, L’Aquila, Abruzzo. Publio Ovidio Nasone. Muore a Tomi, rivela influssi filosofici assai svariati. A Posidonio, mediato da Varrone, si fa risalire la rappresentazione dell'età dell'oro e dello sviluppo della cultura (“Met.”; “Fasti”). Dalla setta di Crotona deriva in larga misura il libro XV delle Metamorfosi, in cui Pitagora -- di cui si dice che si innalza sino al divino colla filosofia e scorge con l’animo ciò che la natura nega agli sguardi umani. implicatura trasformativa. Publio Ovidio Nasone.  GRICEVS: O OVIDI, Sulmo tua me docet: non omne quod dicitur, dicitur; saepe plus subauditur quam sonat. Num id vocas implicaturam conversationalem, an tantum urbanitatem Romanam? OVIDIVS: Urbanitas, mi Grice, est ars tacendi loquaciter. Ego enim, cum scribo “Nescio quid”, omnibus persuadeo me scire—et tamen nihil dixi: pura implicatura, sine periculo. GRICEVS: Pulchre! At quid si quis roget: “Amasne?”—et tu respondeas: “Roma calida est”? Ego dicerem: maximam Relationis violas… nisi amor ipse sit res meteorologica. OVIDIVS: Violo? immo salvo. Nam si dico “amo”, capior; si dico “Roma calida est”, intellegunt “ego ardeo”—et nemo potest me in ius vocare. Sic Sulmonensis philosophia: dicere minus, efficere plus. No. Ovid’s gens was not “Nasonia.” The standard Roman naming pattern is the key here. In Publius Ovidius Naso: Publius is the praenomen. Ovidius is the nomen, that is, the gentilicial name. Naso is the cognomen. So if one speaks of his gens in the ordinary Roman sense, it would be the gens Ovidia, not “Nasonia.” “Naso” is the family branch or cognomen element, not the gens-name. So the dry answer is: Publius Ovidius Naso belongs, by nomen, to the gens Ovidia. “Naso” is his cognomen. Therefore “Nasonia” would be the wrong reconstruction if what one wants is the gens. If you like the parallel: Marcus Tullius Cicero belongs to the gens Tullia, not “Ciceronia.” Gaius Julius Caesar belongs to the gens Julia, not “Caesaria.” Publius Ovidius Naso belongs to the gens Ovidia, not “Nasonia.” One small caution. In practice, for some poets and later literary figures, people often speak loosely by the full literary name rather than by strict prosopographical formula. But if your question is strictly Roman and genealogical, the gens comes from Ovidius, not Naso. And yes, “Ovidio” in Italian can make the whole thing feel temptingly different, because the vernacular name obscures the Roman tripartite structure. But in Latin the structure is perfectly clear. If you want, I can next give you a short dry note on Roman nomina, cognomina, and gentes using Ovid, Cicero, and Pliny as examples. Was it a noble gens -- he was from Sulmona, Abruzzo, so I expect not. Do we have other people in this gens?  Probably not “noble” in the old patrician sense, no. The safest formulation is that the Ovidii were a plebeian gens, and that Ovid himself says he came from an old family of equestrian rank but only moderate wealth. So this is respectable provincial elite status, not one of the great old Roman patrician houses. Being from Sulmo in the Paelignian country fits that picture rather well: locally prominent, Romanised, well-to-do enough for education and office, but not metropolitan aristocracy in the grand senatorial mode. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikisource.org], [dcc.dickinson.edu] So if by “noble gens” one means something like Cornelia, Claudia, or Julia, then no. If one means “old and respectable family of some standing,” then yes, in the equestrian and municipal-provincial sense. Ovid is very explicit about the equestrian point. [en.wikisource.org], [en.wikipedia.org] And yes, we do have other people in the gens Ovidia, though it is not a crowded or famous gens in literary history. The most directly attested besides Publius Ovidius Naso is his elder brother Lucius Ovidius, who died young. There is also Quintus Ovidius, mentioned by Martial as a friend and landowner, and Albius Ovidius Juventinus, a later literary figure. In addition, prosopographical lists record several other Ovidii known from inscriptions rather than from literary fame, especially in northern Italian contexts such as Aquileia and Manerbio. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikisource.org] So the dry answer is this. The Ovidii were not one of the major noble Roman gentes, but a plebeian family of respectable standing. Ovid belonged to an old equestrian family from Sulmo, which means provincial prominence and status without implying patrician grandeur. Other Ovidii are known, both literary and epigraphic, but the gens is small in the historical record and owes its fame overwhelmingly to Ovid himself. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikisource.org], [dcc.dickinson.edu] One small correction to your intuition, though. “From Sulmona, therefore not noble” is not quite the right Roman reflex. Provincial origin does not exclude status. Many Roman elite families were municipal or Italian rather than old urban-patrician in origin. What Sulmo does suggest is that this is not an ancient central Roman patrician house but a well-established Italian equestrian family of the local elite. [dcc.dickinson.edu], [britannica.com] If you like, I can now give you a compact little prosopographical note on the gens Ovidia, with the attested names set out cleanly in one paragraph. Speranza has an author "Francesco d'Ovidio" -- born Campobasso -- what comune or regione is that? Coud this Francesco d'Ovidio claim a claim to that gen? Yes. Campobasso is a comune, and it is the capital of the region Molise as well as of the province of Campobasso. So if Francesco D'Ovidio was born there, the clean geographical answer is: comune of Campobasso, region Molise. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org] As to whether Francesco D'Ovidio could claim descent from the ancient gens of Publius Ovidius Naso, the prudent answer is no secure genealogical claim can be made on the basis of surname alone. Francesco D'Ovidio is a nineteenth-century Italian philologist and critic born in Campobasso, later active above all in Naples. His family name D'Ovidio is a modern Italian surname form, generally understood as “of Ovidio,” that is, a patronymic based on the personal name Ovidio. That makes it linguistically related to the Latin Ovidius, but that is very far from proving continuous descent from the ancient gens Ovidia. [en.wikipedia.org], [familysearch.org], [lastnames....eritage.it] So the driest formulation is this. D'Ovidio can perfectly well carry an onomastic echo of Ovidius, and one may say that the surname belongs to the broad afterlife of the ancient name. But one cannot, from that fact alone, infer that Francesco D'Ovidio was genealogically of the old Roman gens. Modern Italian surnames frequently preserve, transform, or revive ancient personal names without any provable line of descent from the ancient family that once bore them. [en.wikipedia.org], [familysearch.org], [lastnames....eritage.it] In other words, he could claim a name-relation much more easily than a blood-relation. And with Francesco D'Ovidio the literary temptation is especially strong, because he was a philologist, critic, and Latinist by training and profession. But that only sharpens the temptation; it does not satisfy the proof. [en.wikipedia.org], [treccani.it] So if you want the short answer in your own likely register: Campobasso is a comune in the region of Molise. Francesco D'Ovidio, born there in 1849, bears a surname that is linguistically connected with Ovidio/Ovidius, but no safe prosopographical bridge can be built from that modern surname to the ancient gens of Ovid. One may speak of nominal continuity, not of demonstrated gentilicial descent. [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org], [familysearch.org], [lastnames....eritage.it] If you like, I can next give you a compact note on the difference between: ancient Roman gens, medieval and modern patronymic surname, and literary onomastic afterlife, using Ovidius and D'Ovidio as the example. So please provide a 100-move conversation set in a public school, C., in Somerset, between G., a brilliant student, his classmate, Shropshire, and the Latin schoolmastter, M. They discuss Ovid's earliest datable composition -- they go thorugh titles and dates -- with Shropshire being asked to provide the vernacular -- his vernacular, a sort of East Midlands flat accent -- for it -- dry humour Oxonian, no preamble or ps. So they look for the earliest datable composition -- never mind published or book, and then G. wants the incipt -- because he is sceptical about 'titles' -- so they have the incipt -- and then they are about to conclude the date: and Shropshire gives it in the Christian calendar and G. protests tat it should be given Ab urbe condita, so they look for the Roman numeral to correspond for that -- as tey work on the incipt they can work on other sentences from that, so that it can become a conversational sub-topic of its own. Thank you. Indicentally, G. wonders what the etymology of that odd gens, the OVidia, could be -- it sounds like 'egg' to him. M.: Boys, since the rain has rendered cricket metaphysical, we shall turn to Ovid. G.: A better use of weather. Shropshire.: Better nor cricket, sir. Cricket’s only Latin when they score. M.: Quite. Our question is not what Ovid wrote best, but what he wrote first. G.: Or at least first datably. M.: Just so. We are not in search of a printer, only of chronology. Shropshire.: So not first published, sir, but first one as can be pinned down. M.: Precisely. And pinned down by evidence, not by enthusiasm. G.: Then the obvious starting-point is his own autobiography. M.: Yes. Tristia 4.10. Shropshire.: That’s the one where he tells us about himself after everyone has stopped enjoying him. G.: A fair summary of exile literature. M.: Ovid says there, in effect, that his poems on Corinna were his earliest work. G.: Which makes the Amores, in some form, the earliest datable composition. Shropshire.: “Poems on Corinna” sounds a bit tidier than love elegy in installments. M.: It usually is tidier than the poems themselves. G.: The complication being that the surviving Amores are a second edition. M.: Exactly. First in five books, later reduced to three. Shropshire.: Cut down, like school pudding. G.: Or improved, which is the editorial superstition. M.: Quite. So the earliest datable composition is not necessarily the surviving first poem in our present text, but the earliest phase of the Amores. G.: And the date usually proposed is around 25 or 26 before Christ. Shropshire.: Before Christ, sir, or before collections? M.: Do not become jocular about chronology. G.: One should rather say, if one is to sound Roman, around 729 or 728 ab urbe condita. Shropshire.: There he goes. M.: And he is right to go. If boys insist on speaking of Romans, they should sometimes date like Romans. Shropshire.: Very well, sir. Seven hundred and twenty-eight or twenty-nine from t’ founding. G.: Do not flatten the city before we have founded it. M.: Let us keep both systems in view. Ovid born in 43 B.C., that is 711 A.U.C., and if he began the earliest Amores at seventeen or eighteen, the date comes out around 729 or 728 A.U.C., that is 25 or 26 B.C. Shropshire.: I can do the Christian one easier. G.: Which is exactly why you should be made to do the Roman one. M.: Now, titles. G.: I distrust titles. M.: We know. Shropshire.: He distrusts everything till it’s in Latin and declining. G.: Titles are often posterity in a wig. M.: Still, Amores is at least useful. G.: Only as a shelf-label. What I want is the incipit. M.: Naturally. Shropshire.: He wants the first line, sir. Says it catches the poet before editors start dressing him. G.: A good incipit is less diplomatic than a title-page. M.: Then the surviving opening of Amores 1.1 is where we begin. G.: Arma gravi numero violentaque bella parabam. Shropshire.: In the vernacular, sir? M.: Yes, since you are here as our provincial conscience. Shropshire.: “I were settin’ to do arms and them violent wars in a proper heavy metre.” G.: It is comforting that Augustus conquered the world for that. M.: Continue. G.: Edere, materia conveniente modis. M.: And the sense? G.: “I was preparing to set forth arms and violent wars in weighty verse, with subject matching measure.” Shropshire.: “I were goin’ to write about fightin’ proper, in t’ right sort o’ beat for it.” M.: Better than I feared. G.: Then Cupid steals a foot, and the whole martial pretension collapses into elegy. M.: Exactly. Which is one reason the incipit matters. It gives us not merely a beginning, but a programmatic false beginning. Shropshire.: He starts like Virgil and ends up mooning after Corinna. G.: A useful career summary. M.: Now, the incipit belongs to the surviving edition. Does that prove it was the very first thing he ever composed? G.: No. M.: Good. It proves only that the extant Amores begin there. Shropshire.: So there may’ve been earlier bits in the old five-book version. G.: Or indeed some juvenile piece now lost, like the famous Gigantomachia half-promised by scholars and never met in the street. M.: Just so. There is vague evidence of youthful exercises, but the first secure datable composition remains the early Amores. G.: “Poems on Corinna,” as the autobiographical testimony has it. Shropshire.: Corinna again. She gets in earlier than history. M.: Love often does. G.: Then perhaps the earliest datable composition in the strictest sense is the original five-book Amores. M.: Yes, or the earliest strata of them. Shropshire.: Strata sounds geological. As if he were quarried. G.: Poetry is usually sediment once enough grammarians have walked over it. M.: Now, if we want a date, we must be careful. We can date the beginning approximately, but not assign a day and month to the first elegiac couplet. G.: Quite. Chronology here is by life-stage, not by docket. Shropshire.: So “about twenty-five before Christ,” or “about seven hundred and twenty-nine from t’ city,” and leave it at that. M.: Leave it with dignity, yes. G.: I would prefer 729 A.U.C. as the classroom formula. Shropshire.: Because it makes it sound as if Rome mattered more than Bethlehem. G.: In Roman poetry, it generally did. M.: Enough. Let us return to the incipit. G.: Very well. Arma gravi numero violentaque bella parabam. M.: What do we learn from it, besides the fact that Ovid is teasing epic? G.: That he announces the generic temptation before surrendering to Cupid. Shropshire.: He starts off all helmet and no discipline. M.: More soberly, he places himself against the epic tradition, only to decline from it by metrical violence. G.: Or metrical theft. M.: Quite. Cupid steals a foot. A splendidly technical myth. Shropshire.: That bit I like. God of love as petty thief from t’ prosody cupboard. G.: A commoner’s insight, but not a bad one. M.: Then if we are dating the earliest datable composition, we date not merely a love poem, but the beginning of Ovid’s career-long habit of opening by generic disturbance. G.: That is well put. Shropshire.: He likes beginning by pretending to begin something else. M.: Exactly. That is why the incipit matters. G.: And why titles matter less. M.: Less, yes, but not not at all. Shropshire.: That’s nearly English. G.: It is Roman enough if doubled properly. M.: Now, other titles and dates, for order’s sake. Heroides come after the earliest Amores. G.: As Ovid himself indicates in Amores 2.18. M.: Yes. Tragedy is also mentioned as an intervening aspiration. Shropshire.: He nearly went tragic before settling for women with stationery. G.: A useful description of the Heroides. M.: Then later come the Ars, the Remedia, and so on. G.: But none of these dislodge the autobiographical priority of the Corinna poems. M.: Correct. Shropshire.: So if a master were cruel enough to ask, “What is Ovid’s earliest datable composition?” we say— G.: The earliest phase of the Amores, the poems on Corinna, composed when he was about seventeen or eighteen. M.: And if the same master were crueller and asked for a date? Shropshire.: About 25 or 26 B.C. G.: Or 729 or 728 A.U.C. M.: Very good. And if he asked for the surviving incipit? G.: Arma gravi numero violentaque bella parabam. Shropshire.: “I were set to do war in a proper grand metre,” until Cupid pinched a foot and turned it into dalliance. M.: That last part is not the incipit. Shropshire.: No, sir, but it’s what happens to it. G.: Which is more than can be said for many school translations. M.: Now, before we close, Mr Grice wished to say something absurd about the gens Ovidia. G.: Only that Ovidia sounds alarmingly like ovum. Shropshire.: Egg, sir. M.: Thank you, Mr Shropshire. We have Latin in the room. G.: I do not propose a serious etymology. Only that to an inattentive ear Ovidii sound as if they ought to hatch. Shropshire.: Poet comes out of an egg and starts on Corinna. M.: You will not write that in an essay. Shropshire.: No, sir. Only in memory. G.: Quite right. The nomen is Ovidius; the gens Ovidia; any resemblance to breakfast is accidental. M.: A relief to philology. Shropshire.: Though Naso doesn’t help much either. G.: No. One gets either eggs or noses, and neither quite produces Sulmo. M.: Boys, Roman names are not to be reconstructed from schoolboy zoology. Shropshire.: No, sir. Only gently mocked by it. G.: As all noble nomenclature ought to be. M.: One final matter. If we give the date A.U.C., what Roman numeral would you write for 729? Shropshire.: DCCXXIX. G.: And 728 is DCCXXVIII. M.: Correct. So the classroom answer, in its most Roman dress, would be: Ovid’s earliest datable composition is the earliest phase of the Amores, the poems on Corinna, composed about DCCXXVIII–DCCXXIX A.U.C. Shropshire.: Which in the Christian calendar is 26–25 before Christ. G.: There is something indecent in making Ovid answer to the Christian calendar. M.: History has many indecencies. Schoolmasters must survive them. Shropshire.: Like cricket in rain. G.: Or titles without incipits. M.: Enough. Write down the Latin, both dates, and one sentence on why the incipit matters more than the title. Shropshire.: In English or Latin, sir? M.: In English. I have suffered enough vernacular for one hour. G.: That is an incipit of a schoolmaster if ever there was one. M.: Out.