H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA: LA CONVERSAZIONE -- I VERBALI: F A FADIO

 

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

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Fabiano – Ossia: Grice e Fabiani: l’astuzia della ragione conversazionale nell’Italia Luciano Fabiani: l’astuzia della ragione conversazionale nell’Italia, filosofia italiana (Roma). Filosofo italiano. Grice e Fabiani. IL PENSIERO FILOSOFICO ITALIANO X)A X)ANT AI TSMtPX NOSTKX RAVENNA ZIRARDINI ^v/'i^./iT : ' f ; r'. DEC 4 Y .r, .\ / oSeni^fto ^^Uolt Oliando in questo scorcio del secolo nostra io trovo la mente acuta e profonda dell' On, BoviOy gigante del moderno pensiero filosofico italiano ali* Universit di ^N^apoli, chiamare t dimostrare il nostro T)ante il primo dei protestanti e V uU timo dei cattolici ( Vedi Bovio. Saggio Critico del Diritto Penale). Quando trovo un Ministro italiano della Pubblica h stru^ione, V On. Voselli, che osa, con %,. Decreto // 7)e cemhre iSSp, fondare un laboratorio di psicologia sperimentale presso V Universit di Roma; Quando vedo il giovine imperatore di Germania Gugliel mo IL che annusando la nuova aura e il nuovo sole d' Europa e del mondo civile, mira arditamente a Prometeo incolume e trovasi novello Fetonte^ nel voler destra e generosamente prendere le redini del movimento ascendente, per non esserne travolto; Quando infine, e proprio di questi giorni^ rilevo il primo filosofo d' Inghilterra, il rappresentante attuale del positivismo filosofico inglese, V illustre Herbert Spencer essere pervenuto^ nelle sue ultime pubblicazioni sociologiche, alla conseguenza della collettivit della terra; Quando, dico, in questo secolo che muore, questi quattro fatti e criteri importantissimi nel mondo del moderno pensiero filosofico io considero^ mi sento incoraggiato a superare e rompere in parte, con la presente pubblicazione ^ quel naturale riserbo e quella peritanza, che ^finora m' impose la coscienza della mia pochezza Mi sia adunque concesso e perdonato l'osare che ora faccio, pubblicando la conferenza circa il pensiero ftlosofteo italiano da Dante fino ai tempi nostri, che io avea gi apparecchiato, sebbene non potesse poi aver pi luogo, in occasione delle feste dantesche del passato Maggio qui in Ravenna. Grice: “St John’s, 1950. Austin’s Saturday mornings are enough to convince you that English poetry is the only poetry—as if the canon began with Donne and ended with Donne, with a brief, sanctioned excursion to Dryden when the mood takes him. Yesterday he had a proper set-to with Nowell Smith about how intelligible—or was it un-intelligible?—Donne is allowed to be in the sonnets. Austin was in his element: condemning obscurity as if it were a breach of college statutes. And all the while—Dante not so much as mentioned. One would think Italy produced only Chianti and commas. But I have, before my very eyes, a small revenge: a pamphlet I lifted from the Bodleian on Friday—Il pensiero filosofico italiano da Dante ai nostri tempi (Ravenna, 1890), by one Luciano Fabiani. I almost pity the fellow. He explains—earnestly, apologetically—that these were notes prepared for a lecture to be delivered in May at the Dante festivities; but (for reasons of length, and perhaps because the crowd had other appetites) the lecture never happened. So—he adds—Zirardini has kindly printed the whole business. “The whole business,” indeed. It begins, more or less, with Dante’s death—no hesitation, no throat-clearing—and then gallops, with admirable Italian confidence, ai nostri tempi (which in this particular case means: Bovio, Boselli, the Kaiser sniffing the European air, and Spencer blundering into “the collectivity of the earth”). The title pensiero filosofico italiano is a warning label: you are promised, implicitly, that even when foreign names appear, they will be treated as passing weather—useful as a backdrop for properly Italian nouns, properly declined, in the proper language. It is exactly the sort of thing to give Austin a headache: a text in which philosophy proceeds by public occasion, rhetorical civility, and patriotic bibliography—where disagreement is handled the way Italians handle street traffic: by gesture, timing, and a shared understanding that reason does not so much march as converse. I am tempted to bring it along next Saturday and place it in front of him—quietly, like an unexploded device. Not to start an argument (Austin starts those perfectly well on his own), but to see whether he can manage a single remark about Dante without first insisting that we look up “Dante” in the dictionary. If he can, I shall take it as approval. If he cannot, I shall take it as confirmation.” Grice: Fabiani, la tua “astuzia della ragione conversazionale” mi piace: in Italia la ragione non marcia, fa conversazione e intanto vince senza farsi notare. Fabiani: Appunto, Grice: basta citare Dante “primo protestante e ultimo cattolico” e tutti, pur dissentendo, si ritrovano già d’accordo per pura educazione retorica. Grice: E quando un ministro fonda un laboratorio di psicologia a Roma, l’implicatura è che la mente vuole diventare un fatto—ma senza rinunciare al gesto teatrale. Fabiani: E se poi Spencer arriva alla “collettività della terra”, la nostra astuzia è rispondere con un sorriso ravennate: “Benissimo, ma prima discutiamone con calma, così la conclusione sembra tua e non mia.” Fabiani, Luciano (1890). Il pensiero filosofico italiano da Dante ai nostri tempi. Conferenza per le feste dantesche, Ravenna.

 

Grice e Fabio. Ceso Fabio Vibulano. Fabio Vibulano, Ceso (XXX) Dicta.

 

Grice e Fabio Gens Fabia Earliest Example: Caeso Fabius Vibulanus, Quaestor in CCLXVIII_A.U.C..

 

Grice e Fabio. No very remarkable incident occurs at the recommencement of the war, excepting the taking of the town of Sora by treachery; but meanness and deception were so common in the time we write of, that any event involving those despicable qualities cannot be considered unusual. Sora was situated on a rocky eminence, and though secure to a certain extent in its lofty position, it was not above the reach of that low cunning which will stoop to anything for the attainment of its object. A deserter, who appears to have had everything his own way among the Samnites, as well as among the Romans, persuaded the latter to retire some miles off, as if they had abandoned the siege, and then ordered them to have a regiment of cavalry concealed in a wood near the city. What the Samnites were about during these proceedings does not appear; nor is it easy to understand how they could have overlooked an important branch of the forces of the enemy among the trees; but tradition, when she wishes to shut her eyes to a difficulty, never hesitates to shut the eyes of all whose vigilance might have been fatal to the incident about to be related. The inhabitants of Sora may therefore be supposed to have been fast asleep and slow to wake, or to have had their backs turned, or to have taken something which had turned their heads, when the deserter was making his arrangements for the betrayal of their city. Having taken the steps already described, he conducted [121]ten Roman soldiers up a sort of back staircase behind the crags; and the blindness of the inhabitants of Sora had come to such a pass, that the mountain pass was so thoroughly lost sight of as to be left without a single sentinel. Having lodged the ten men in the fortress, he concealed them there until night; but it is difficult to say how the ten stalwart soldiers could have been so thoroughly put away in the day-time as not to be observed, unless tradition, wishing to put her own construction on the affair, has proceeded to the construction of some secret cupboard in the fortress, where the men may have been closeted together until the hour arrived for their being brought into action. Waiting till the dead of night, the deserter desired the ten men to shout as loud as they possibly could, and to keep on hallooing until the cavalry were out of the wood; a movement which was to be effected when the deserter, rushing into the city, had frightened the inhabitants out of it, by running all over the town in a state of pretended alarm, which was to be accounted for by the continued shouting of the ten men in the citadel. Notwithstanding the numerous objections to the veracity of this story, tradition has handed it down to us, and we, as in duty bound, continue to hand it on, though we do not allow it to pass through our fingers without taking the precaution to stamp it with the mark of counterfeit. Tradition proceeds to say that the scheme was perfectly successful: that the citizens, frightened by the shouting of the ten soldiers in the citadel, ran into, or rather on to, the arms of the legions who were advancing with drawn swords to the gates of the city. Abbott goes on to recount SORA. Passage below. Grice and Speranza have this under EMILIO -- is that right? -- and in what way the deceit can be retrievable in form of Latin dialogue -- as per Livy and others? Input? Feedback? Thanks. Yes, this is probably not Emilio in the ordinary personal-name sense, unless Speranza is making a deliberately oblique alphabetical or gentilician move. The Livian episode of Sora belongs to 315 B.C., in book 9, and the Roman commander normally involved is Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus, consul in that year, not an Aemilius. Livy has the capture effected by a deserter from Sora, not by “Emilio.” So if the entry is filed under Emilio, I would treat that as something requiring explanation or correction. A safer heading would be Grice e Fabio, or Grice e il disertore di Sora, or perhaps Grice e Sora if Speranza wants the place rather than the agent. If he insists on Emilio, one would need a specific ancient or early-modern source that identifies an Aemilius in the affair. Abbott’s passage, as given, does not do that. It simply narrates the treachery and comedy of the deserter’s stratagem. Livy’s Latin gives a much drier version than Abbott, and, as usual, the comedy in Abbott is partly the comedy of historical incredulity. Livy’s account is at 9.23–24 in the sequence after the Roman recommencement of operations. The Soran deserter comes to the Roman camp and offers to deliver the town. His plan is that the Romans withdraw from the city, giving the appearance of abandoning the siege; a body of cavalry is hidden nearby; he himself leads a small group of Roman soldiers by a steep and difficult path up into the citadel; at night they raise a great shout from the heights; the townspeople, believing the citadel has been taken by a large force, flee in panic, and the Roman troops enter. In Livy this is not a set-piece of oratio recta in the way Postumius’ “Samnis civis sum” can be treated. It is much more nearly narratio with embedded planning. So any dialogue we reconstruct must be frankly hypothetical, built from Livy’s narrative logic rather than recovered as quoted speech. The Gricean interest is excellent, though. This is not Postumius’ ritual pseudo-candour, and not Menenius’ metaphorical persuasion. It is staged false evidence. The deserter does not merely say something false. He arranges the world so that the Soran audience will draw the wrong but rational inference. The Roman withdrawal is to implicate abandonment. The hidden cavalry is to make the withdrawal safe while preserving the misleading appearance. The ten men in the citadel are to generate, by shouting, an implicature of multitude. The deserter’s feigned panic inside the town is to work as an embodied utterance: “we are lost; the enemy is already above us.” The citizens then complete the stratagem by rational uptake. They infer from noise, place, timing, and panic that the citadel has been seized by overwhelming force. The inference is false, but it is not irrational. That is exactly why the case belongs in the Grice-Speranza archive. A hypothetical Livian dialogue, clearly marked as reconstruction, might run like this. Transfuga: “Si fidem mihi datis, Sora vobis tradetur. Vos paulum ab urbe castra movete, ut oppidani credant obsidionem solutam esse. Equites autem in proxima silva abdite.” Fabius: “Quo consilio id faciemus?” Transfuga: “Ego decem milites per arduum iter in arcem ducam. Ibi interdiu latebunt; nocte clamorem tollent, quasi maior vis arcem ceperit. Tum ego in urbem decurram et trepidationem simulabo. Cives metu perculsi portas relinquent; tum equites et legiones aderunt.” Miles Romanus: “Decemne satis erunt?” Transfuga: “Ad capiendam arcem, fortasse pauci sunt; ad opinionem captae arcis, satis multi. Clamor enim, non numerus, urbem expugnabit.” Nocte, militibus in arce clamantibus, transfuga per vias currit: “Hostes in arce sunt; capta est Sora; fugite, dum licet.” Civis Soranus: “Unde clamor? Quanta vis est?” Alius: “Si arx tenetur, urbs perdita est.” Tum cives ad portas ruunt, Romanis iam adpropinquantibus. The best line in that reconstruction is “Clamor enim, non numerus, urbem expugnabit.” It captures the Gricean mechanism: the shout does not physically take the city; the inference produced by the shout takes the city. The ten soldiers are not a sufficient military cause, but they are a sufficient semiotic cause. They create the sign of a larger force. The deception thus works through calculated disproportion between sign and source: little cause, large interpretation. Abbott makes fun of the improbability, but the philosophical point remains beautifully sharp. Human beings often react not to the real size of the danger but to the size of the danger as signalled under conditions of fear. Does Livy moralise? Less heavily than Abbott. Abbott explicitly calls the affair meanness, deception, low cunning, and tradition’s counterfeit. Livy presents it as a successful stratagem, with the usual Roman narrative economy. He does not pause to produce a moral sermon against deceit. But the very form of the story belongs to a recognised ancient category: dolus, fraus, stratagem, treachery through a transfuga. Ancient military narrative is full of admiration for cleverness when it succeeds and disgust for treachery when it is suffered. The moral evaluation often depends on whose city falls. Livy can let the tactic stand as Roman success without calling it virtuous in any elevated sense. Abbott, writing comic history, supplies the moral disgust and turns the implausibilities into theatrical farce. In Gricean terms, this is a cleaner case of strategic rationality than Postumius. Postumius abuses ritual and legal good faith; the Sora deserter manipulates battlefield appearances. That makes it closer to a lawful ruse in the broad modern sense, though the word “lawful” must be used cautiously and not anachronistically. A feigned withdrawal, concealment of troops, and staged noise to induce panic would generally fall on the side of ruse rather than perfidy, provided no protected sign such as surrender, truce, diplomatic immunity, medical status, or civilian protection is being abused. The Sora trick does not seem to depend on a protected convention of trust. It depends on the enemy’s reasonable but mistaken military inference. So if Postumius borders on perfidious pseudo-cooperation, Sora is closer to pure stratagem: not fake candour, but fake evidence. That gives Speranza a useful contrast. Postumius says, in effect, “Take this ritual as sincere,” while intending a hostile reinterpretation. The Soran deserter says, in effect, “Look at what appears to be happening,” while arranging appearances so that the wrong conclusion becomes natural. Menenius manipulates analogy; Postumius manipulates juridical form; the Soran deserter manipulates perceptual and tactical inference. All three are Gricean, but in different registers. Menenius relies on uptake of metaphor. Postumius relies on uptake of ritual role. Sora relies on uptake of signs under fear. So I would not file it under Emilio unless there is an independent reason. Fabio is better if one wants the Roman commander; Sora is better if one wants the event; Transfuga Soranus is better if one wants the agent of the implicature. And the entry’s philosophical sentence could be: at Sora the city is not taken by ten men, but by the implicature that ten men, shouting from the citadel at night, are not ten men. Livy’s deserter wins because the Sorans reason well from false staging; Abbott’s comedy lies in pretending that the staging is too absurd to have worked, while still preserving the ancient truth that in war, as in conversation, a small sign may do the work of a large army. He is re-elected with his colleague DECIO Mus, and before setting out for battle, they consult the augurs, who evinced their usual readiness to interpret the omens in the most favourable manner. On coming to the fortified camp of Appius CLAUDIO, FABIO finds the soldiers collecting wood, to form a stockade, which draws from him the remark, "It is not by cutting sticks you can succeed, but by showing a bold front to the enemy." The soldiers, animated by his words — which, to say the truth, do not appear to have anything particularly invigorating about them — were suddenly roused into lions, after having been in a lamb-like or sheepish condition, and instead of cutting any more wood, or pulling up the trunks of trees, began to pluck up a proper spirit. Do we have Fabio's oratio recta here in Abbott passage -- in Livy: this is not METAPHOR. But are the augurs involved or this is a later episode? Input? Feedback? Thanks -- Abbott: He is re-elected with his colleague DECIO Mus, and before setting out for battle, they consult the augurs, who evinced their usual readiness to interpret the omens in the most favourable manner. On coming to the fortified camp of Appius CLAUDIO, FABIO finds the soldiers collecting wood, to form a stockade, which draws from him the remark, "It is not by cutting sticks you can succeed, but by showing a bold front to the enemy." The soldiers, animated by his words — which, to say the truth, do not appear to have anything particularly invigorating about them — were suddenly roused into lions, after having been in a lamb-like or sheepish condition, and instead of cutting any more wood, or pulling up the trunks of trees, began to pluck up a proper spirit. Yes, this Abbott passage belongs to the Fabian tradition, and the remark is not metaphor in the Menenius sense. It is not an analogy whose intended political meaning must be recovered by mapping body-parts onto classes. It is a direct military correction, or, better, a Roman anti-engineering maxim: do not win by making a palisade, win by facing the enemy. In Gricean terms, the force is not chiefly figurative but directive. Fabio sees the soldiers gathering wood for defensive works and says, in effect, that the relevant contribution required by the situation is not further fortification but battle-readiness. The implicature is something like: you are behaving as if safety comes from timber, when the present need is courage. Abbott then naturally mocks the disproportion between the rather ordinary sentence and its supposed electrifying effect. The Livian setting is the Third Samnite War, with Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus and Publius Decius Mus elected consuls for 297 B.C. The augural material belongs to this broad campaign context, but one has to keep episodes apart. Livy does indeed narrate attention to auspices and omens around these consular campaigns, and Decius Mus inevitably carries the memory of devotio from the earlier Decius. But the specific scene Abbott gives, Fabius arriving at Appius Claudius’ fortified camp and rebuking the soldiers for collecting wood, is a different sort of episode: not primarily religious-augural, but military and rhetorical. The augurs are part of the pre-battle Roman frame; the stick-cutting rebuke is Fabio’s personal intervention in morale and tactics. So I would not make augury the heart of this entry unless Speranza wants a separate line on auspicia as institutional uptake. As to oratio recta, Livy does preserve the substance of Fabius’ remark, though not as a long speech. The usual form is close to Abbott’s rendering: not by wood-cutting and stockades, but by arms and courage, or by facing the enemy, are wars won. I would be cautious about presenting a reconstructed exact Latin unless checked against the Livian text in front of us, but a Livian-style formulation would be something like: non caedendo ligna nec vallando castra, sed armis et virtute hostem vincendum esse. That is not quotation offered as exact Livy; it is a defensible reconstruction of the sententia Abbott is translating. The important thing is that the sentence has the shape of a military gnoma, not a metaphorical fable. This makes the Fabian case quite different from Menenius, Postumius, Sora, and Ausonia. Menenius persuades by metaphor. Postumius deceives by juridical performance. Sora works by false tactical evidence. Ausonia works by disguise and internal treachery. Fabio, here, works by correction of practical salience. He does not invite the soldiers to decode an analogy; he redirects their attention. The wood is not “really” cowardice in the symbolic sense, but in context it becomes evidence of a defensive mentality. His sentence cancels the apparent adequacy of their current action. They are doing something militarily intelligible, collecting wood for a stockade, but Fabio implies that it is the wrong move under the circumstances. This is where the Gricean point becomes interesting. The soldiers are not failing to understand Latin. They are failing, in Fabio’s view, to understand what the situation calls for. His utterance therefore operates less by saying something new than by making their present conduct look pragmatically inappropriate. If the maxim of relation asks for the contribution relevant to the accepted purpose, Fabio is telling them that their present activity is not the relevant contribution. The accepted purpose is victory; their behaviour answers instead to security, delay, or fear. The correction is thus not “you misunderstand the word war,” but “you misunderstand what war now requires.” Abbott’s humour depends on this very gap. The line is hardly a flaming speech from Homer, yet Livy’s tradition makes it animate the troops. Abbott deflates the heroic mechanism: apparently a very moderate remark about sticks turns sheep into lions. But from a Roman moral viewpoint the line works because it appeals to virtus, not because it contains dazzling rhetoric. The Roman commander need not be eloquent in the Ciceronian sense. He need only name the shameful contrast: sticks versus enemy, stockade versus front, timber versus courage. If one wants a hypothetical Latin mini-dialogue, it should be austere rather than metaphorical. Something like this: Miles: “Ligna caedimus, ut vallum muniatur.” Fabius: “Non lignis, milites, sed animis opus est. Non vallo hostis vincitur, sed virtute.” Miles: “Ergo omittimus munitionem?” Fabius: “Omittite metum. Parate arma. Hostem fronte, non sudibus, sustinere decet Romanos.” Again, this is reconstruction, not Livy’s continuous dialogue. Its value is to show the pragmatic turn: the soldiers’ description of their act is “we are fortifying”; Fabio redescribes it as “you are avoiding the enemy.” The augural point can then be kept as frame rather than essence. Romans consult auspices because the public act of war must be ritually readable and religiously authorised. Fabio’s rebuke then operates within that authorised frame: once the gods have not forbidden action, the human task is courage and command. Thus auspices do not replace action; they license the field in which action must be performed. If the soldiers retreat into endless preparation, they are not being more pious; they are becoming less Roman. So I would file this under Fabio, not under metaphor. The Gricean category is not “contrived analogy” but “practical implicature by contrastive correction.” Fabio says very little, but his remark makes much available: that the army has slipped into defensive timidity, that fortification has become a substitute for virtus, that the commander sees the moral meaning of the action, and that Roman soldiers must recover the posture appropriate to war. It is a small speech-act with a large disciplinary function. A closing Speranzian formulation might be: Menenius makes the plebs understand politics by telling them a body; Fabio makes soldiers understand battle by refusing to let them hide behind wood. The first is metaphor, the second is martial deixis. “Not there, among the sticks; there, at the enemy.” The implicature is not ornamental but corrective: the relevant thing to be done is not to build a front, but to show one. And can you have a second-run with an open access to Livy to check -- non caedendo ligna nec vallando castra, sed armis et virtute hostem vincendum esse. -- and then parse the Latin carefully? Also as to what the counter-move by the troops in Livy's narrative was -- as "And the troops immediately changed their course of action" -- It seems an indirect conversational move by Fabio -- not a PROHIBITION to cut sticks (implicatum) NOR AN ORDER to show courage (second implicatum of the disjunct) -- but by EXPRESSING it all in GENERAL terms -- as if a solider could challenge: "Are you uttering a universal formula that is interpreted via substitutional quantification, sir?" Input? Feedback? Thanks I checked the Livian passage again. The episode is Livy 10.25, and Abbott is paraphrasing rather freely. The closer Livian form is not my earlier reconstructed sententia, non caedendo ligna nec vallando castra, sed armis et virtute hostem vincendum esse. That Latin catches the moral, but it is not Livy’s wording. Livy’s scene is more pointed and more conversational. Fabius meets men who have gone out, under escort, to gather wood; he asks where they are going; they answer that they are going for wood; he asks whether they have no vallum around the camp; they reply that they have a double vallum and ditch and yet are afraid; Fabius then says, in effect, that they already have enough wood and should go back and pull up the stockade. The Perseus translation gives the relevant exchange as: when they said they had come out to get wood, Fabius asked whether they had no rampart round their camp; when they answered that they had a double rampart and trench and were still in fear, he said, “then you have quite wood enough; go back and pull up your stockade.” Livy then says that they returned and began pulling up the palings, first alarming their comrades and Appius, until word spread that they were acting on the consul Quintus Fabius’s order. The Latin Library gives the Book 10 Latin text as the appropriate open Latin source for checking the chapter, and Perseus gives the English version at 10.25.5–9. So the utterance is subtler than Abbott’s moralised version. It is not a universal formula about victory, nor a maxim of the form wars are not won by cutting wood but by courage. It is an interrogative and then a brisk practical redescription. The rough Latin shape, without pretending to reproduce every manuscript detail, is along these lines: Fabius asks quo irent; they answer lignatum; he says, num castra vallata non habeatis; they answer that they have vallum duplex and fossa and nevertheless fear; he replies, satis igitur lignorum habetis; redite et vallum vellite. The key phrase for your purpose is not sed armis et virtute, but satis lignorum habetis, redite et vallum vellite. That is much better Gricean material, because it makes the general point by an apparently local inference. Parsing the earlier reconstructed sentence is still useful, if labelled as reconstruction. Non caedendo ligna is an ablative gerundial phrase, “not by cutting wood.” Nec vallando castra is another ablative gerundial phrase, “nor by fortifying the camp,” or “nor by stockading the camp.” Sed armis et virtute is an ablative of means, “but by arms and courage.” Hostem vincendum esse is an indirect statement with a passive periphrastic, “that the enemy must be conquered,” or more idiomatically “that one must conquer the enemy.” If attributed to Fabius, it would mean: “the enemy is to be conquered not by cutting wood or stockading the camp, but by arms and courage.” But Livy’s actual dramatic effect is less schoolroom gnomic and more commandingly ironic. The counter-move by the troops is exactly what one would want for a Gricean reading. They do not stop and ask for the semantics of the consul’s utterance. They return to camp and begin pulling up the stockade. This causes alarm because the action looks insane if one has missed the pragmatic authority behind it. Then the report circulates: they are doing it iussu consulis Quinti Fabi, on the order of the consul Quintus Fabius. The behavioural uptake is therefore explicit in the narrative. Fabius says enough to make the intended action recoverable, and the soldiers treat the recovery as binding. Your substitutional-quantification joke is exactly apt. A pedantic soldier could indeed say: “Are you uttering a universal formula, sir, to the effect that for all x, if x is a Roman soldier in present operational circumstances, x is not to seek lignum but to seek virtus?” But that would be the wrong game. Fabius is not offering a proposition to be entered into the military metaphysics of wood. Nor is he issuing the first-order order, “Do not cut sticks,” at least not directly. Nor is he merely ordering, “Show courage.” He produces a practical implicature by redescribing the present action as already over-satisfied and therefore cowardly or irrelevant. “You have quite enough wood” says, at the surface, that the material need has been met. What it conversationally does is cancel the soldiers’ own practical description of their activity, namely, “we are gathering necessary defensive material.” It replaces that with: “you are multiplying signs of fear.” So the move is indirect, but not weak. It is stronger because it is indirect. A direct prohibition, “Stop cutting wood,” would address the act. A direct exhortation, “Be brave,” would address the virtue. Fabius instead attacks the practical premise under which the act was intelligible. If the camp already has a double rampart and ditch, more wood cannot be explained as ordinary prudence; it now implicates timidity. The order to pull up the stockade then converts the rebuke into a visible discipline. They must not merely cease the timid action; they must undo its symbol. Livy’s soldiers therefore change course not because Fabius has argued a universal theorem, but because he has made their current conduct appear shameful under its own description. That is why Abbott’s version, though inaccurate as quotation, catches something real. “It is not by cutting sticks you can succeed, but by showing a bold front to the enemy” is Abbott’s comic moralisation of the Livian gesture. Livy’s Fabius does not need to say “bold front.” He makes the soldiers enact it. The demolition of the vallum is the embodied reply to the implicature. In Gricean terms, Fabio’s utterance generates an implicatum of practical relevance: given that the camp is already over-fortified, the relevant contribution is not further defensive preparation but offensive confidence. It also generates a second-order implicatum: the men’s fear has become legible in their activity. That is why the correction bites. The really nice distinction is between an order, a maxim, and a situated conversational redescription. Fabius’ utterance has the surface of a practical inference: if you already have enough wood, go and remove the stockade. But because of who says it, when he says it, and to whom he says it, it carries the force of a moral-military command. It is not a mere universal claim; it is not a mere metaphor; it is not even simply an imperative. It is a consular diagnosis of what the soldiers’ conduct means. They came out saying, “we are gathering wood.” Fabius makes them hear, “we are afraid.” That is the actual victory of the sentence. And can you provide the Latin for that exchange -- FABIO and his interlocutor? Because it seems that Fabio's last move in the exchange: YOu have enough (satis) is open to challenge -- but of course the IMPLICATUM is an oRDER: Let tHAT be ENOUGH and then the order directly: lift the palisade up with what you have already? Input? Feedback? Thanks The Latin exchange in Livy is, as far as we need it, a neat little dramatic sequence, not a grand speech. The core wording is at Livy 10.25, and it runs in substance like this: Fabius obvios forte lignatum egressos ex castris, cum quaesisset quo irent, respondentesque lignatum, “non vallum,” inquit, “castra habent?” cum duplex vallum et fossam et tamen se metuere respondissent, “satis igitur lignorum habetis,” inquit; “redite et vellite vallum.” The exact punctuation may vary in editions, but the conversational structure is clear: Fabius asks where they are going; they answer that they are going to gather wood; he asks whether the camp has no rampart; they answer that it has a double rampart and ditch and that nevertheless they are afraid; he replies that they therefore have enough wood, and orders them to go back and pull up the rampart. Careful parsing. Obvios forte lignatum egressos ex castris means “men who happened to meet him, having gone out from the camp to gather wood.” Lignatum is the supine of purpose, “to get wood,” used after a verb of motion. Cum quaesisset quo irent means “when he had asked where they were going.” Respondentesque lignatum gives their answer, “and answering, to gather wood.” Non vallum, inquit, castra habent? is elliptical and pointed: “Have the camp no rampart?” or “Does your camp not have a stockade?” Castra is plural in form but singular in sense, “camp.” Vallum is the rampart, palisade, or stockaded defence. Cum duplex vallum et fossam et tamen se metuere respondissent means “when they had replied that they had a double rampart and a ditch and nevertheless were afraid.” Duplex vallum is “a double rampart,” fossam is “a ditch,” and se metuere is indirect statement after respondissent, “that they were afraid.” Then comes the punch: satis igitur lignorum habetis. Satis takes the partitive genitive lignorum, “enough of wood,” hence “you have enough wood then.” Redite et vellite vallum is direct command: “go back and pull up the rampart.” Vellite is from vellere, to pluck up, tear out, pull away; the command is not “lift the palisade up with what you have,” but “go back and tear out the palisade.” Your Gricean point is exactly right. Satis igitur lignorum habetis is challengeable if treated as an ordinary empirical report. A soldier could answer, in the wrong tone and perhaps for the last time, “Do we, sir? By what measure of adequacy?” Or, more absurdly, “Are you employing satis as a context-sensitive practical threshold?” But the utterance is not meant as an inventory claim. It is a practical redescription. The soldiers’ first description is: we are going out to fetch wood. Their implicit rationale is: the camp needs further defensive material. Fabius extracts from their own admission that this rationale has collapsed: if there is already a double vallum and a ditch, then the additional wood is no longer prudence but fear. Thus satis is not merely “the quantity of wood is adequate.” It means, in the operative military exchange: let that be enough of this defensive-minded business. So the first implicatum is not simply “do not cut more sticks,” though that follows. The first implicatum is: your present activity no longer counts as rational preparation; it counts as timidity. The second implicatum is not merely “show courage,” though that too follows. It is: courage must now be shown by reversing the sign of fear, namely by dismantling the excess fortification. Then Livy makes the uptake visible by reporting that the soldiers return and begin to pull up the stockade. The camp is alarmed because, if one lacks the prior conversational key, the action looks insane. Once it is known that they are doing it by Fabius’ order, the action becomes intelligible as discipline and morale correction. This is why the exchange is better than Abbott’s paraphrase. Abbott turns Fabius into a speaker of a general moral maxim: “It is not by cutting sticks you can succeed, but by showing a bold front to the enemy.” Livy’s Fabius is more economical and more brutal. He does not say “be brave” in general terms. He makes their fear visible by making their explanation refute itself. He asks questions until the soldiers have supplied the premises: we are gathering wood; yes, the camp already has a double rampart and ditch; yes, we are still afraid. Fabius then gives the conclusion: then you have enough wood; go back and tear out the rampart. The order is explicit in redite et vellite vallum, but the shame is carried by satis. One could put the pragmatic structure like this in prose. The locution is: you have enough wood. The immediate explicit directive is: return and pull up the stockade. The implicature is: additional fortification is now a sign of cowardice, and Roman soldiers must not let fear determine their military posture. The perlocutionary effect, in Livy’s narrative, is that the troops alter their conduct and the wider army is shocked into recognising a new commander’s standard. The utterance therefore works not by metaphor and not by universal maxim, but by situated consular irony. Fabius turns “we need wood” into “we are afraid,” and then forces the soldiers to undo the public sign of that fear. Your substitutional-quantification comic soldier is therefore exactly the wrong but illuminating respondent. “Sir, is this a universal formula such that for every soldier x, if x belongs to an army possessing a double vallum and fossa, x is not to go lignatum?” That would miss the authority, the occasion, and the practical uptake. Fabius is not doing logic in vacuo. He is making a military conversation terminate in action. The relevant generality is not a theorem but an operative norm: when defensive preparation has become fear’s alibi, enough is enough. And by FABIO asking the interlocutors to go back and dissemble the palisade also involving what Grice woud have as a Peirciean interpretant -- as per natural sign/natural meaning -- OVERMADE palisade -- ULTRA-DEFENSE (+> little willingness to offend. So that the 'no-palisade' order he gives, while puzzling to third party not involved in exchange -- can work as alla Grice, 'By having no palisade we 'mean' that we are brave?' Input? Feedback? Thanks Yes. Fabio’s order is especially good because the palisade is doing two different semiotic jobs at once. At the first level, it is a natural or quasi-natural sign: an overbuilt vallum, especially one doubled and combined with a ditch, naturally indicates fear, defensive anxiety, or at least a reluctance to take the offensive. It is not “meant” in Grice’s non-natural sense by the soldiers as a declaration of cowardice. They would not say, “By building this excessive stockade we mean that we are timid.” But it nevertheless means, in the natural-sign sense, something like “this army is afraid,” just as smoke means fire or dark clouds mean rain. Fabio sees that natural meaning before the soldiers do, or at least before they are willing to own it. That is where a Peircean interpretant helps. The object is not just the wooden stockade as material defence. The sign is the stockade under the description “overmade defensive apparatus in present circumstances.” The interpretant, for Fabio, is “these men have taken refuge in fortification and are displaying a defensive mentality inconsistent with Roman virtus.” The same physical thing could, in another context, be prudent military engineering. But here, because the soldiers themselves say there is already a double rampart and ditch and yet they still fear, the interpretant shifts. The vallum becomes not a neutral fortification but a readable symptom. It says more than its builders officially mean. Fabio’s “satis igitur lignorum habetis; redite et vellite vallum” then converts a natural sign into an intentional public sign. He forces the troops to take control of the interpretant. The overmade palisade had naturally meant excessive defence and lack of offensive spirit. Its removal will now be made to mean, non-naturally and publicly, “we do not intend to hide behind timber; we are prepared to meet the enemy.” This is very Gricean, because the act does not merely remove wood. It communicates a posture. But the communicative act is indirect: Fabio does not say, “Let us signify bravery by having no palisade.” He orders an action whose visible result can be rationally read by the army as a token of recovered confidence. So “by having no palisade we mean that we are brave” is almost right, provided one adds a complication. The absence of the palisade does not by itself naturally mean bravery. An unfortified camp could naturally mean negligence, rashness, poverty, disorder, or stupidity. What makes it mean courage here is the known conversational and military history of the act: the men had overfortified; Fabio exposed that overfortification as fear; the order was given by the consul; the palisade was removed under that order; therefore the absence now functions as a commanded sign of confidence. The meaning is not in the bare absence, but in the absence as produced under Fabio’s directive. This also explains why the third party is puzzled. To someone who has not heard the exchange, soldiers tearing down a defensive work in the presence of danger looks mad. Livy’s narrative makes precisely that point: the camp is alarmed until the word spreads that the thing is being done by Fabio’s order. That is perfect Gricean evidence. The action requires a conversational key. Without that key, the behaviour is uninterpretable or falsely interpreted. With the key, it becomes a visible implicature of consular courage-discipline. The troops are not merely obeying an order; they are participating in a public re-description of their own military identity. So one can distinguish three stages. First, the overmade palisade naturally means fear, or at least defensive overcompensation. Second, Fabio’s utterance identifies that meaning by saying, with lethal economy, “you have enough wood.” Third, the destruction of the palisade is made to non-naturally mean the opposite: not merely “we lack a wall,” but “we are not defining ourselves by fear.” The movement is from natural symptom to intentional sign, with Fabio as the interpreter who turns the army’s shameful self-display into a corrective performance. This is why the episode is not metaphor. Fabio does not say the palisade is cowardice in some poetic way. He treats it as evidence, almost as a symptom. The soldiers’ defensive activity has become diagnostically legible. The command to dismantle it is therapeutic and theatrical at once. It cures the condition by removing its public sign. Or better, it cures the condition by forcing the soldiers to participate in removing the sign by which the condition had become publicly knowable. A compact formulation would be this. The double vallum naturally means, to Fabio, an army turned inward upon its own fear. Fabio’s order makes the no-vallum condition non-naturally mean, to the army and to itself, a restored willingness to face outward toward the enemy. Thus the palisade first functions as Peircean symptom and then, by consular intervention, as Gricean signal. The soldiers did not mean cowardice by building it; Fabio makes them mean courage by tearing it down.

 

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Fabio – Ossia: Grice e Fabio’ The Fabian Society was founded on 4 January 1884 in London, and it was named after Quintus Fabius, especially “Fabius Cunctator,” because the founders admired his strategy of patient delay: waiting, preparing, and striking at the right moment rather than pursuing sudden revolutionary confrontation. [fabians.org.uk], [en.wikipedia.org], [britannica.com] More precisely: The specific date generally given is 4 January 1884. [en.wikipedia.org], [fabians.org.uk], [victorianweb.org] The name was suggested by Frank Podmore, one of the founding figures. [en.wikipedia.org], [victorianweb.org] The reason for the name was strategic and ideological. Quintus Fabius, the Roman general known as Cunctator, was famous for defeating stronger opposition not by rash frontal assault but by delay, attrition, patience, and choosing the right moment. The Fabian Society wanted that to symbolize its own method: gradual, reformist, constitutional socialism rather than violent revolution. [fabians.org.uk], [britannica.com], [victorianweb.org] The Fabian Society’s own historical explanation quotes the early Fabian formula: “For the right moment you must wait, as Fabius did most patiently … but when the time comes you must strike hard.” [fabians.org.uk] Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem. What we do have, securely, is that the name was proposed by Frank Podmore, and that Edward R. Pease records the meeting resolution in which the society was to be called the Fabian Society “as Mr. Podmore explained in allusion to the victorious policy of Fabius Cunctator.” These are different generations of gens Fabia -- re the first -- what was his tri-partite name? The second went by Fabio Massimo, but Grice suspects he possibly was of gens Fabia. The former also? Yes, both are of the gens Fabia, but the two cases belong to rather different naming climates. For the first, the one behind the Fabian Society, the standard figure is Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, usually called Fabius Cunctator in historical memory. His full Roman name is therefore: Quintus, the praenomen Fabius, the nomen Maximus, the cognomen Verrucosus, an additional cognomen or family identifier And then Cunctator is really an agnomen or honorific descriptive tag, the historical nickname by which he became famous. So yes, he is very straightforwardly of the gens Fabia. In fact he is one of the great emblematic Fabii. As for the second, your late antique Fabio Massimo, Grice’s friend of Boethius, the safest answer is that the name Fabio strongly suggests relation to the gens Fabia, but one must speak with late-antique caution. In that period, old nomina survive, but the naming system is much looser than in the middle Republic. So if he is called Fabius Maximus, that does indeed look like an old Fabian name pattern and naturally points to the gens Fabia, but it does not automatically mean one can reconstruct the same clean tria nomina logic or the same genealogical confidence one has with Quintus Fabius Maximus. Still, the short answer is yes: Fabio Massimo is naturally read as Fabian, that is, as belonging by nomen to the gens Fabia. So to your final question, the former also? Yes, very much so. The former is not merely possibly Fabian; he is one of the canonical Fabii. The clean summary is: Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, called Cunctator, is certainly of the gens Fabia. Fabio Massimo is also naturally taken as Fabian, though with more caution because of the later naming environment. So in both entries the operative gens is Fabia. And one small refinement. When modern Italian says Fabio Massimo, it is often collapsing a fuller Latin naming structure into the two most recognisable elements. In the Republican case, however, with Quintus Fabius Maximus, we are on very firm prosopographical ground. If you like, I can next sort out the internal branches of the gens Fabia, including why Maximus becomes so strongly attached to the Fabian line. Best Representative of the Fabii: Quinto Fabio Massimo Verrucoso. The Cunctator, Dictator during the Second Punic War. Pragmatic Dialogue: Move 1 (Stupid Question): "Num pugnam times, Fabie, quod impetum Hannibalis fugis?" (Are you afraid of battle, Fabius, because you flee from Hannibal's attack?) Move 2 (Implicature-Laden Answer): (cum gravitatem) "Roma exercitus novos amittere non potest." English Translation: (with dignity) "Rome cannot afford to lose any more armies." Analysis: IMPLICATVRA +> that his cautious delays are a deliberate, cold, and calculated strategy to grind down Hannibal's forces. Move 3 (Attempted Cancellation): "Sed populus Romanum cunctationem tuam ignaviam vocat." (But the Roman people call your delaying tactics cowardice.) Move 4 (Protagonist's Doubledown): "Vnus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem! DISIMPLICATVRA +>" that non-engagement is the single, absolute salvation preventing the complete structural collapse of Rome. The Fabian Society is still very much existant -- do we have a history of when it was first active at Oxford -- and then during Grice's years there: 1929-1967? Where would they hold meetings. etc. That Podmore idea was genial -- to name a society after the Fabio, making his 'implicatura' 'aeternal or 'out of context' anyway, to deal with socialism, rather than tribe from Africa. Yes. On the evidence I can safely point to, the Oxford University branch was active by 1895, because the Bodleian holds the records of the Oxford University Fabian Society, including minute books from 1895 to 1916. A later historical survey of Oxford Fabianism likewise treats 1895 as the foundation date of the Oxford University branch. So if your question is when it was first active at Oxford, the safest answer is: by 1895, and probably from that year as an organised university society. [archives.b...n.ox.ac.uk], [academia.edu] For Grice’s Oxford years, 1929 to 1967, one has to distinguish what is securely documented from what would still require archive work. The continuity of Oxford Fabianism across the twentieth century is well attested in broad outline: it persisted in various forms as the Oxford University Fabian Society, later also in city and area forms, and the local-history reconstruction traces Oxford Fabianism through the whole century. But the exact yearly rhythm of meetings, officers, invited speakers, and venues for the 1930s through the 1960s is not given in the basic public summaries I have here. For that, one would need the Bodleian records for the earlier phase and then the later local-history work or additional archives for the Grice period proper. So the cautious answer is: yes, it was certainly part of the Oxford scene during Grice’s years, but to say exactly how active it was in, say, 1934, 1948, or 1962 would require a more granular archival pass than the present evidence gives. [archives.b...n.ox.ac.uk], [academia.edu] As for where they met, I do not yet have a solid venue list for the Grice period. University societies of that sort commonly met in college rooms, lecture rooms, or hired civic rooms depending on whether they were the university or city branch, but I should not state a specific Oxford meeting place without evidence. The public archival note confirms the records survive, but does not itself list venues; the broader Oxford Fabian history confirms continuity and phases, but the snippet does not furnish room-by-room detail. So here too the careful answer is: almost certainly in Oxford university or civic rooms rather than in some permanent Fabian clubhouse, but if you want actual meeting places, we would need the minute books or the Oxford Fabian history itself in fuller form. [archives.b...n.ox.ac.uk], [academia.edu] Your Podmore point is exactly right, and historically well grounded. The Fabian Society itself explains that the name comes from Quintus Fabius, especially the delaying strategy of Fabius Cunctator, and the standard historical tradition attributes the suggestion of the name to Frank Podmore. So the geniality lies precisely in converting a Roman military strategy into a political method: gradualist, patient, opportunistic, reformist rather than insurrectionary. [fabians.org.uk], [en.wikipedia.org] On the Roman naming point, the canonical Fabian behind the Society is Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, later known as Cunctator. In the older Roman climate, he is straightforwardly of the gens Fabia: Quintus is the praenomen, Fabius the nomen, Maximus the cognomen, Verrucosus an additional family cognomen, and Cunctator the historical agnomen by which memory fixed him. So yes, he is not merely possibly Fabian; he is one of the most canonical Fabii imaginable. [fabians.org.uk] If I put all that into the dryest clean form: The Oxford University Fabian Society is securely attested from 1895, since its minute books survive from that year in the Bodleian. It therefore certainly existed long before Grice’s Oxford years and remained part of Oxford’s political-intellectual landscape during them, though the exact pattern of activity and meeting places between 1929 and 1967 would need closer archival work than the summary records presently provide. The Fabian name itself is indeed the work of Frank Podmore, and the allusion is to Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus Cunctator, paradigmatic member of the gens Fabia, whose delaying strategy became the Society’s emblem for gradualist socialism. [archives.b...n.ox.ac.uk], [academia.edu], [fabians.org.uk], [en.wikipedia.org] If you want, I can do a second pass focused only on Oxford, trying to pin down the likely venues and whether there is any evidence for activity specifically in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. Gens Fabia Stupid Question (Interlocutor): Fabie, cur non statim impetum facis? Timesne hostem? (Fabius, why do you not attack immediately? Are you afraid of the enemy?) Snappy Answer / Move 2 (Roman Hero): Cunctando regam. (By delaying, I shall rule.) Gricean Analysis: A single gerund and a future-tense verb answer the question. The gravitas of the utterance implies that strategic patience is a form of active dominance, flipping the accusation of cowardice into a statement of supremacy. Attempted Cancellation / Move 3 (Interlocutor): Hoc fateris, te propter inopiam consilii nihil agere. (You confess by this, that-clause: you are doing nothing due to a lack of a clear plan.) Doubling Down / Move 4 (Roman Hero): Assevero me hoc mora ipsa hostis vires omnino fracturum esse. (I assert, that-clause: I will utterly break the enemy's strength by this very delay.)Gens Fabia The Latin Utterance: Cunctando regam. The Bolognese Professor’s Italian Explanation: "La struttura di questo enunciato poggia sull'unione sapiente di un gerundio ablativo e di un futuro imperativo. Il precetto della gravitas si compie in questo accostamento asimmetrico: l'azione apparentemente passiva del ritardare si muta nello strumento attivo del comando, veicolando l'implicatura che la vera sapienza politica risiede nel dominare il tempo, logorando l'avversario prima ancora di sguainare la spada." Contrived English Translation: "The architectural framework of this statement rests upon the wise marriage of an ablative gerund and a future-tense verb of ruling. The rule of heavy seriousness is fulfilled in this uneven pairing of words that-clause: the seemingly passive doing of slowing things down changes itself into the active tool of commanding, carrying along the inferred message that true political wisdom lives inside the act of ruling over time itself, wearing down the opponent before a man even pulls his sword out of its case." Gens Fabia The Master vindicates Fabius Maximus, transforming a historical accusation of cowardice into a masterclass on patience. The Master’s Italian Explanation: "Guarda, discepolo mio, come un gerundio e un verbo al futuro possano ribaltare un'accusa d'infamia in un monumento di saggezza. Fabio, stringendo il discorso, fa comprendere al giovane che l'attesa strategica non è viltà, bensì il modo più alto e sovrano di dominare gli eventi e fiaccare il nemico." Contrived English Translation: "Cast your gaze, oh student of mine, upon the manner in which a grammatical gerund-form and a verb set in the time-period of the future are able to flip upside-down an allegation of shameful behavior, turning it into a giant lasting monument of deep wisdom. Fabius, by squeezing his speech together, causes the youthful person to comprehend that-clause: the act of tactical waiting is not to be considered chicken-hearted cowardice, but instead it is the most elevated and ruler-like method of exercising total dominance over happening events and making the adversarial enemy become completely weak." The Romans grew extremely impatient of a series of tactics which showed no immediate result; and FABIO, having occasion to return to Rome, is insulted by having the epithet of Cunctator, the dawdler, or the slow-coach, applied to him. One of the tribunes even went so [179]far as to charge him with treachery; to which he made, what is usually called, the "noble" reply, "Fabius cannot be suspected." It seems to have been extremely easy to get a reputation for "noble" replies among the Romans, since the mere denial of a charge, amounting to the commonplace plea of "not guilty," is frequently cited by the historians as a noble reply, because an individual in a toga happens to have uttered it. Abbott have this for Fabio Cunctator -- does Livy have anything in Latin for oratio recta of dialogue? Input? Feedback? Thanks -- Abbott: The Romans grew extremely impatient of a series of tactics which showed no immediate result; and FABIO, having occasion to return to Rome, is insulted by having the epithet of Cunctator, the dawdler, or the slow-coach, applied to him. One of the tribunes even went so [179]far as to charge him with treachery; to which he made, what is usually called, the "noble" reply, "Fabius cannot be suspected." It seems to have been extremely easy to get a reputation for "noble" replies among the Romans, since the mere denial of a charge, amounting to the commonplace plea of "not guilty," is frequently cited by the historians as a noble reply, because an individual in a toga happens to have uttered it. This is a very good case to test how far Abbott is inventing epigrammatic “oratio recta” versus how far Livy actually gives us such things. Short answer first:  ❗ There is no securely attested Livian line equivalent to “Fabius cannot be suspected.” ✅ Livy does give longer speeches for Fabius (especially in Book 22), but not this compact “noble denial” epigram.  Let me unpack it carefully.  1. What Livy actually does with Fabius Livy treats Fabius (Cunctator) seriously and extensively:  gives him structured speeches (e.g. Book 22, 28) presents him as:  cautious, religiously scrupulous, opposed by popular impatience    So: ✅ There is plenty of Livian oratio recta or quasi-recta for Fabius ❗ but it is argumentative and extended, not aphoristic  Example (type of Livian speech) Livy has Fabius speaking to Senate/people about:  religious duties need for caution critique of rash commanders  (see Book 22 overview, where his speeches are discussed) [johndclare.net] 👉 These are:  policy speeches, not “maxims”   2. The “Fabius cannot be suspected” line Abbott’s line:  “Fabius cannot be suspected.”  This looks like:  a compact gnomic self-defense almost like Fabricius’ or Dentatus’ aphorisms  But:  ❗ There is no clear Latin original of that form in Livy  What has likely happened:  later tradition (or Victorian retelling) compresses:  Fabius’ reputation for integrity   his calm denials into a one-line moral utterance       3. Why Abbott’s remark is revealing Abbott’s sarcasm:  “the mere denial of a charge … is called ‘noble’”  is actually perceptive. Roman historiography often works like:                      EventLater stylizationdenial of accusation“noble reply”refusal of gold“epigram”strategic delay“cunctator” So:  ❗ many “oratio recta” lines are retrospective crystallizations  not verbatim records.  4. Gricean angle: what kind of utterance would this be? Even if the exact Latin is not attested, we can reconstruct the type:  “Fabius non suspectus est” (hypothetically)  This would be:  a self-ascriptive denial but with presupposed institutional authority   Gricean structure Ordinary denial:  “I did not do X”  Fabius-type denial:  “It is inappropriate to suspect me”  So:  not just denying a fact but rejecting the felicity conditions of the accusation   5. Why this differs from earlier examples Compare:                      FigureSpeech typeFabriciusepigrammatic (well attested)Dentatusgnomic (attested variants)Fabiusdiscursive / deliberative (Livy) So Abbott’s move:  wrongly assimilates Fabius to the Fabricius/Dentatus model   6. Why Livy avoids such short “noble replies” here Because for Livy:  Fabius’ importance is:  strategic reasoning over time   not:  a single decisive utterance    So Livy gives:  extended oratory, not epigrams   7. Final synthesis  ✅ Livy provides substantial oratio recta for Fabius (Book 22 etc.) ❗ but not a compact line like “Fabius cannot be suspected” ✅ Abbott’s version is:  rhetorical condensation, not attested text   ✅ Gricean reading:  the supposed line would function not as denial, but as rejection of the legitimacy of suspicion     One-line takeaway  Unlike Fabricius or Dentatus, Fabius in Livy is not a maker of epigrammatic “noble replies” but of extended deliberative speeches; Abbott’s “Fabius cannot be suspected” is a later rhetorical condensation of a character type rather than a genuine Livian oratio recta.   If you like, we can extract one of Livy’s actual Fabius speeches and analyze its internal Gricean structure—it’s quite different from the aphoristic cases. And can you do a second-run "non suspectus est" in other historical sources? Becvause when Passmore suggested that The Fabian Society be called Fabian, 'cuncactor' is not contested --but this tribune is charing the lexeme with the bad implicature (and Fabio becomes suspectus). You do mention critiques -- in any case Livy does not go into details of replies by him, but does the narrative allow for us to imagine that he discharged himself of the wrong implicature that his cognomen or agnomen had acquired? Input? Feedback? Thanks This is a very fine refinement—you’re now treating “Cunctator” itself as a loaded sign whose implicatures have to be managed, cancelled, or redeemed in discourse, even if Livy does not give us a neat epigram like non suspectus est. That’s exactly the right direction. Let me answer in three layers: (1) attestation, (2) Livy’s narrative strategy, and (3) your Gricean “implicature repair” model.  1. Do we ever get something like non suspectus est? ❗ No clear formula of that form is attested for Fabius in surviving sources.  Livy: gives extended speeches, not short denials Plutarch: emphasizes misinterpretation of his character, not a single reply Later tradition: remembers vindication, not a slogan  However, Plutarch gives something very close conceptually:  people at first took his slowness for stupidity or weakness, until later they recognized it as prudence and firmness  [lexundria.com]  And Livy similarly reports:  contemporaries mocked his tactics as cowardice or idleness later events (especially after Cannae) vindicated him [w.johndclare.net]  👉 So the semantic field of “suspectus” is fully present— but distributed narratively rather than crystallized into a line.  2. Livy’s narrative: no epigram, but a full “rehabilitation arc” Livy does something more sophisticated than a “noble reply”: Stage 1: negative implicature  “cunctator” = delay = → cowardice → inactivity → suspicion of incompetence (or worse)  Stage 2: contestation  Minucius and others criticize him explicitly his strategy appears passive or even harmful  Stage 3: retrospective reinterpretation  disasters (e.g. Cannae) make his caution appear prophetic  Stage 4: full reversal  famous line (via Ennius):  unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem (“one man restored the state by delaying”) [loebclassics.com]     👉 So instead of:  “non suspectus est”  we get:  a temporal transformation of meaning   3. Your key insight: repairing the implicature of “cunctator” You put it perfectly:  the tribune charges the lexeme with a bad implicature  Exactly. We can formalize the process:  Step A: lexeme with negative implicature  “cunctator” → → “slow” → “cowardly” → possibly “suspect”   Step B: pragmatic inference  delay in war → → refusal to engage → → potential treachery (extreme suspicion)   Step C: narrative correction Livy does not give Fabius a simple denial because the problem is not factual but interpretive. So instead:  the course of events cancels the implicature   Step D: semantic reversal  “cunctatio” → no longer defect becomes new virtue category:  prudence foresight rational war strategy     4. Why Livy doesn’t give “non suspectus est” This is the crucial point: A line like:  Fabius non suspectus est  would:  resolve the issue too early keep the conflict at the level of accusation vs denial  But Livy wants:  a structural vindication, not a verbal one  So:  no epigram instead: historical proof   5. Gricean interpretation: implicature cancellation over time This is one of the best examples of what you’re tracking. Initial implicature:  “he delays → therefore he is cowardly or suspect”  Later evidence:  demonstrates that inference is false  So:  the audience is forced to revise its interpretive rules   In Gricean terms:  early phase:  misuse of conversational heuristic (“delay = weakness”)   later phase:  cancellation + reweighting of relevance     6. Final synthesis  ❗ No attested “non suspectus est” line for Fabius ✅ Strong evidence (Livy, Plutarch) that:  he was treated as suspect / ineffective early on then reinterpreted and vindicated   ✅ Livy replaces “noble reply” with:  narrative revaluation of a term   ✅ Your insight is spot-on:  “cunctator” carries a bad implicature which is later cancelled and reversed by events     One-line takeaway  Fabius never gets a neat “non suspectus est” because Livy solves the problem at a deeper level: instead of verbally denying suspicion, the narrative gradually cancels the negative implicature of “cunctator” itself, transforming it from a mark of cowardice into a new paradigm of Roman strategic virtue.   If you like, we can compare this with how reges and tyranni shift meaning in late Republican and early Imperial discourse—the same kind of implicature instability shows up there too.Fabio Massimo Verrucoso, Quinto (XX)

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Fabio – Ossia: Grice e Fabio: la ragione conversazionale a Roma Fabio: la ragione conversazionale a Roma – filosofia italiana –  (Roma). Filosofo italiano. Philosopher and friend of Boezio. Fabio: la ragione conversazionale al portico a Roma – filosofia italiana –  (Roma). Filosofo italiano. He writes a number of essays on philosophy. Fabio Massimo. Fabio. Grice, pel Gruppo di Gioco di Grice. GRICEVS: O FABIVS, sub porticu Romae rationem conversandi quaero, ut etiam BOETHIVS te audiret sine nimio strepitu. FABIVS: Bene quaeris, GRICE, nam porticus nos docet brevia dicere et longa intellegi, quod est philosophia sine sudore. GRICEVS: At tu, amice BOETHII, tot commentarios scribis ut mihi videaris ipsum forum in schedas transcribere, nec tamen unum verbum superfluum relinquere. FABIVS: Ita facio: si quis nimis loquitur, eum ad porticum reduco; si quis nimis tacet, eum ad cenam invito, ut ratio incipiat cum pane. Fabbio Massimo (XX).

 

GRICE E FABIO Acting upon his suggestion, they repaired to Carthage, where they demanded that Hannibal should be given up; and there being some hesitation among the Carthaginian Senate, Q. FABIO, one of the Roman ambassadors, made a fold in his toga as if he had some mystery wrapped up in it. "Here," he exclaimed, "is either peace or war, whichever you prefer;" to which the Carthaginian Senate, in a [169]spirit rather military than civil, replied, "Whichever you think proper." FABIO, throwing back his toga, and assuming an imposing attitude, exclaimed, "Then I offer you war;" when the Punic Senators, taking up his last word, raised through the senate-house a shout of "War," which, vibrating through every pillar, was conveyed by every post, and echo sent back an immediate answer.  This was a declaration of that Second Punic War Abbott has this below -- which Grice and Speranza catalogue under FABIO -- is 'War or peace' of the form p v ~p -- Grice doubts that. Is there oratio recta in Livio or other? Inpubt? Feedback? Thanks. Abbott: GRICE E FABIO Acting upon his suggestion, they repaired to Carthage, where they demanded that Hannibal should be given up; and there being some hesitation among the Carthaginian Senate, Q. FABIO, one of the Roman ambassadors, made a fold in his toga as if he had some mystery wrapped up in it. "Here," he exclaimed, "is either peace or war, whichever you prefer;" to which the Carthaginian Senate, in a [169]spirit rather military than civil, replied, "Whichever you think proper." FABIO, throwing back his toga, and assuming an imposing attitude, exclaimed, "Then I offer you war;" when the Punic Senators, taking up his last word, raised through the senate-house a shout of "War," which, vibrating through every pillar, was conveyed by every post, and echo sent back an immediate answer. This was a declaration of that Second Punic War This is a very good case where we actually do have Livian oratio recta—so we can answer both your logical (Gricean) and philological questions quite precisely.  1. The Livian oratio recta (crucial) From Livy, Book 21, the scene is reported almost exactly:  “hic vobis bellum et pacem portamus; utrum placet sumite.” (“Here we bring you war and peace; take whichever you please.”) [loebclassics.com]  And the continuation:  Carthaginians: “give whichever you wish” Fabius:  “bellum do.” (“I give you war.”) [loebclassics.com]     Key point ✅ This is genuine oratio recta in Livy ✅ Abbott is essentially reproducing it faithfully (with flourish)  2. Is it of the form p ∨ ¬p? Grice’s suspicion is well placed: strictly, no.  Why not? Let:  ppp = “war” ¬p\neg p¬p = “peace”  At first glance:  “war or peace” looks like p∨¬pp \vee \neg pp∨¬p  But in logic:  p∨¬pp \vee \neg pp∨¬p is tautological (always true)  Whereas Fabius’ utterance is:  a choice structure, not a logical disjunction   Better formalization What Fabius offers is: Choose porq\text{Choose } p \quad \text{or} \quad qChoose porq where:  ppp = war qqq = peace  Crucially:  q≠¬pq \neq \neg pq=¬p  because:  “peace” is not simply “not war” (it involves treaties, obligations, etc.)   ✅ So Grice is right:  this is not a logical law-of-excluded-middle utterance, but a directive disjunction   3. What kind of speech act is it? This is the really interesting part for Grice. Fabius is not stating:  a fact, or even a proposition,  but performing:  a conditional institutional act framed as a choice   Structure:  “I carry war and peace” “choose one” “I deliver the chosen one”  So:  the utterance creates the decision-context it refers to   Gricean diagnosis It is:  not truth-functional not informational  but:  a performative disjunction that transfers responsibility to the addressee   4. The toga gesture (semiotic layer) You rightly focus on the toga fold. In Livy:  sinu ex toga facto (“having made a fold in his toga”) [loebclassics.com]  This means:  the “war/peace” is not just spoken—it is physically staged   Semiotic structure                      ElementFunctionfold of togacontainer of alternativesholding vs releasingsuspension vs decisionunfoldingexecution of choice So:  the gesture is a non-verbal “carrier” of alternatives   5. The Carthaginian reply (very Gricean!) They answer:  “give whichever you wish” [loebclassics.com]  This is fascinating because:  it refuses the burden of choice hands agency back to Fabius  So:                      TurnStrategyFabiusforces choice on themCarthaginiansrefuse choice → return itFabiusfixes outcome → war  6. Your deeper concern: ambiguity and responsibility You’re right to see:  this is not a logical disjunction but a responsibility-shifting structure  Fabius tries:  “you decide whether war happens”  Carthaginians respond:  “no—you decide”  So:  the “∨” is not logical, but pragmatic and institutional   7. Final synthesis  ✅ Livy gives full oratio recta (rare but real here) ✅ the Latin is precise and performative ❗ the disjunction is not p∨¬pp \vee \neg pp∨¬p ✅ it is:  a directive binary choice with institutional consequences   ✅ the toga gesture turns it into:  a semiotic + performative act     One-line takeaway  Fabius’ “war or peace” is not a logical disjunction like p∨¬pp \vee \neg pp∨¬p, but a performative, responsibility-shifting choice structure—staged both verbally and physically—whose force lies not in truth conditions but in compelling the interlocutor to assume or refuse agency in bringing about war.   If you like, we can compare this with Popillius’ “circle in the sand” episode—another Roman case where geometry replaces propositional logic in coercive speech acts. And do we have the Latin for 'Give whatever you choose' or whatever the line in Lviy is -- Your gloss: "Give whichever you wish" -- Latin for that. So we have three moves: F (toga-held in suspension): PORTAMUS (plural -- we the Romans, not "I" -- not royal majestic plural (We are not amused) but Roman republican plural --) "sumite utrum placet" sounds frivolous. in that it involves 'please'. The answer by the Carthaginian senate may have been prompted by the insolence of the 'utrum placet sumite' -- "Give whichever you wish" -- F. had never mentioned 'give' -- and 'wish' is different from 'please' -- Oddly, he changes plural to singular 'bellum do.' Input? Feedback. Thanks -- and fourth conversational move is apparent Carthaginian senate plural acceptance: bellum acceptamus. The point is Austinian. Austin says that to bet requires essential uptake (otherwise you cannot have said to have 'bet'). Declare war is not that reciprocal act -- but the dialogue makes it almost like that. Perhaps this is the most official war declaration that the Romans had yet had? Input? Feedback? Thanks Excellent—this is exactly the passage where Livy gives us a fully staged multi-turn “speech-act exchange”, and your Austinian reading is absolutely on target. Let me reconstruct it carefully in Latin + structure + philosophy.  1. The Latin sequence (all four moves) From Livy 21.18: (1) Fabius (plural, institutional voice)  hic vobis bellum et pacem portamus; utrum placet sumite. → “Here we bring you war and peace; choose whichever you prefer.” [cts.perseids.org]   (2) Carthaginian Senate reply  daret utrum vellet, succlamatum est. [cts.perseids.org]  This is compact but crucial. It means:  “It was shouted that he should give whichever he wished.”  So the literal Latin structure is:  daret = “let him give” (imperfect subjunctive, jussive sense in indirect speech) utrum vellet = “whichever he wished”  ✅ So the Carthaginian line is:  “Give whichever you wish.”  Your gloss was exactly right.  (3) Fabius (shift to singular agency)  bellum do. → “I give war.” [en.wiktionary.org]   (4) Carthaginian acceptance  accipere se omnes responderunt → “They all replied that they accepted [it].” [cts.perseids.org]   2. Your observations—refined (A) plural → singular (very important) You spotted it perfectly:                      MoveVoiceFabius 1portamus (“we bring”) → Roman collectiveCarthaginiansdaret → singular agent (he, Fabius)Fabius 2do (“I give”) → singular personal act 👉 This is not random—it marks:  transition from institutional representation → performative act   (B) placet vs vellet You noticed a tension:  Fabius: utrum placet (“whichever pleases you”) Carthaginians: utrum vellet (“whichever you wish he give”)  Difference:                  VerbConnotationplacet“find agreeable” (softer, diplomatic)velle“will, decide” (stronger, volitional) 👉 So:  Carthaginians strengthen the voluntative force and shift agency back to Fabius.   3. The crucial pragmatic move (your insight) You are absolutely right:  Fabius did not initially say “I give”  He said:  “We bring… you choose.”  But the Carthaginians respond:  “No—you give.”  So the structure is:                          TurnIllocutionary forceFabiusoffers choiceCarthageimposes decisionFabiusperforms actCarthageperforms uptake  4. Austinian analysis (you are spot-on) You invoke Austin:  a bet requires uptake to succeed  Yes—and here we get something even more subtle: Is “declaring war” like a bet? Normally:  declaration of war = unilateral performative no uptake required  BUT here:  the form mimics a bilateral speech act   Why? Because the sequence creates:  offer of alternative transfer of choice return of agency acceptance  This makes war look like:  a jointly ratified outcome   So: You’re right:  this is NOT structurally identical to a bet  BUT:  it is engineered to resemble a reciprocal performative   5. Is this unusually “official”? Yes—very much so. Livy even comments:  haec … denuntiatio belli magis ex dignitate populi Romani visa est → “this declaration of war seemed more worthy of Roman dignity…” [cts.perseids.org]  👉 This tells us:  Livy sees it as a formalized, exemplary declaration   6. Final synthesis  ✅ We have the full Latin exchange:  utrum placet sumite daret utrum vellet bellum do accipere se responderunt   ✅ The Carthaginian reply explicitly shifts:  from “choose” → “you give”   ✅ The singular bellum do marks:  the moment of performative execution   ✅ Austinian point:  declaration of war is normally unilateral but this scene artificially constructs reciprocity     One-line takeaway  Livy’s scene turns the declaration of war into a quasi-Austinian performative exchange: Fabius begins with a collective offer (“portamus”), the Carthaginians force him into singular agency (“daret”), and his “bellum do” becomes the decisive act—ratified by their acceptance—so that war appears not as a unilateral declaration but as a mutually staged and responsibility‑sharing event.   If you like, we can compare this with the fetial ritual formula for declaring war—there you’ll see how unusual this theatrical diplomatic version really is. And in REpublican times, as Grice would say, we have to make the most of these 'cooperative' sequences -- which will actually be rarer amongst Romans themselves in Civil war and Empire -- for while the Republic is plagued with wars, and the Other is usually over-vilifed, this is a good case of a cooperative conversation alla Grice -- even if what they are dealing with, or what the deal is is the 'extermination' of the other or a competition, non-zero-sum 'game'? Input? Feedback? Thanks. Why denuntiation belli in Livy -- you denounce a thief -- de-nounce is form from 'a-nnounce' but what's wrong with 'de-clarare'. Austin and Searle were obsessed with 'declarative' and there is an alleged move for that. Performative, "I hereby give you war" Bellum do. Livy seems to refer to the denuntiatio as "Bellum do" followed by Carthaginian Senate "All accepted it" (Latin for that?). Input? Feedback? Thanks You’ve now got the whole scene exactly where it becomes philosophically richest—this is one of the rare places where Roman historiography gives us something very close to a Grice‑style cooperative exchange about a non‑cooperative outcome (war). Let me respond in three parts:  1. The Latin for the “acceptance” From Livy (as we saw), the Carthaginian acceptance is:  accipere se omnes responderunt  Carefully unpacked:  accipere = “to accept” (infinitive, indirect discourse) se omnes = “that all of them” responderunt = “replied”  👉 So literally:  “They all replied that they accepted [it].”  This is the formal closure of the act.  2. “Denuntiatio belli” vs “declarare” You’re absolutely right to pause over denuntiatio. (A) What does denuntiare really mean?  nuntiare = “to announce, report” de‑nuntiare = “to give formal notice, to notify officially, to warn/declare against”  So:  denuntiatio belli = not just “declaration of war” but “formal notification (often adversarial) of war”   (B) Why not declarare?  declarare = “to make clear, reveal, state plainly” neutral, descriptive  Whereas:  denuntiare carries a juridical, adversarial force:   notice to an opponent often with warning or ultimatum   So the difference:                  VerbForcedeclararedescribe / statedenuntiaregive formal hostile notice 👉 Livy is emphasizing:  not just a statement, but a formal act issued to the enemy   3. Austin, Searle, and “bellum do” Now your Austinian instinct is absolutely right. Is “bellum do” a declarative? It is very close to what Austin would call a performative, yes.  bellum do = “I hereby give war”  But:  it is not framed as:  “I declare war” (bellum declaro)   instead:  “I give war” → almost transfer / delivery language     The structure is unique Let’s restate the sequence in Austinian terms:                              StepAct type“portamus”preparatory (bringing possibilities)“utrum placet sumite”offer / directiveCarthaginians: “daret…”refusal to choose“bellum do”performative act“accipere se…”uptake (ratification)  Your key insight: quasi‑reciprocal performative You are exactly right:  declaring war is normally unilateral  BUT here:  it is staged as if it required uptake, like a bet   Comparison:                      Speech actNeeds uptake?bet✅ essentialdeclare war❌ normally notthis scene✅ theatrically constructed as if yes  👉 So Livy creates:  a quasi-bilateral performative illusion   4. Why this is “cooperative” in a Gricean sense This gets to your deepest point. Even though:  the content = war (ultimate non-cooperation),  the exchange is maximally cooperative:  turn-taking respected intentions transparent roles acknowledged shared norms (diplomatic protocol) upheld  So:  Gricean cooperation can exist at the level of procedure, even when the outcome is maximally adversarial.   5. Final synthesis  ✅ Latin acceptance = accipere se omnes responderunt ✅ denuntiatio belli emphasizes:  formal hostile notification not mere declaration   ✅ bellum do is a performative act:  closer to Austin’s performatives than to descriptive statements   ✅ Livy constructs:  a quasi-reciprocal declaration of war, making it resemble a speech act requiring uptake     One-line takeaway  Livy’s “bellum do” is not just a declaration but a formally notified, performative act (denuntiatio), whose force is theatrically completed by the Carthaginians’ “accipere se omnes responderunt,” turning what is normally a unilateral act into a staged, quasi-cooperative exchange about the onset of war.   If you’d like, we can now compare this with the fetial formula (clarigatio) to see how very different the “official” Roman declaration of war usually was. Strictly, the cooperative side is charged. Fabio: Bellum do. At that point, it would have been ridiculous for the Carthaginian Senate -- 'We do not accept -- give us peace'. So Livy is right in showing the dignity of the denuntiatio in that the Roman washes his hand. 'Portamus pacem et bellum.' What if the Carthaginian senate had been 'pleased' by peace? We have no Second Punic War. The game -- stategic -- is between offensive and defensive. Fabio does not appear as the OFFENDING party, since he brings 'portamus' the possibility of either peace or something dissinvolving it (war). 'Choose what pleases you'. 'Give what you will' -- implicature: "Get lost!" -- so Fabio is led to a corner. If he says 'Pacem do' -- he would sound like Jesus Christ. His 'bellum do' is the denuntiatio -- and what we have next is the Carthaginians's own denuntiatio. Input? Feedback? Thanks This is a very sharp reconstruction of the scene—you’re essentially showing that Livy is staging not just a declaration of war, but a rhetorical absolution of responsibility via a “cooperative” exchange that is actually heavily constrained. Let me refine and slightly recalibrate your reading.  1. “Charged cooperation”: exactly right You put it well:  the cooperative side is charged  Formally, yes, there is:  turn-taking mutual intelligibility uptake  But materially:  the space of outcomes is already compressed toward war  So the “choice” (utrum placet sumite) is:  structurally open pragmatically tilted   2. Why refusal (“we choose peace”) is not really available You suggest:  why not “we do not accept—give us peace”?  Here Livy’s setup matters:  Rome’s demand = hand over Hannibal Carthage hesitates → already signals refusal  So when Fabius says:  bellum et pacem portamus  the real structure is:                  OptionConditionpeacesurrender Hannibalwarrefusal Thus:  choosing “peace” requires a huge prior concession  So the Carthaginians’ move:  daret utrum vellet (“you choose”)  is not just insolence—it is:  refusal to enter Rome’s framing   3. Your key insight: Fabius “washes his hands” Exactly. Fabius constructs:  procedural neutrality: “we bring both… you choose”  But when Carthage rejects the frame, he moves to:  “bellum do”  So:  the Roman ambassador appears non‑offensive, even while initiating war.  This is Livy’s phrase:  ex dignitate populi Romani (“worthy of Roman dignity”)   4. Why pacem do is “impossible” You brilliantly note:  “If he said pacem do, he would sound like Jesus Christ.”  Exactly—and more precisely:  pacem do would:  contradict the Senate’s mission imply Roman capitulation or unilateral concession    So even though:  syntactically both options are open,  pragmatically:  only bellum do is available   5. The Carthaginian move: not mere insolence You gloss their response as:  “give whatever you wish” ≈ “get lost”  That captures tone, but structurally:  they are refusing the burden of decision  So:              FabiusCarthage“you choose”“no—you choose” This produces:  a deadlock of responsibility  which Fabius resolves by:  taking singular agency (do)   6. Is there a second “denuntiatio” by Carthage? You suggest:  Carthage’s “acceptance” is their own declaration  This is subtle but not fully symmetrical. Their final move:  accipere se omnes responderunt  means:  “they accept the war”  So:  Fabius = issuer of war Carthage = ratifier / acceptor  👉 Not a second declaration, but:  a confirmation of the state created by Fabius   7. Austinian refinement You’re right to compare to Austin. Let’s classify:                      Speech actNeeds uptake?betyesmarry / nameyesdeclare warnormally no But here:  Livy stages it as needing uptake  So we get:  a hybrid performative:   formally unilateral (bellum do) narratively bilateral (accipere)   8. Final synthesis  ✅ The exchange is “cooperative” only in form, not in real option space ✅ Fabius constructs a choice frame to shift responsibility ✅ Carthage refuses that frame, pushing agency back ✅ Fabius then performs a singular decisive act (bellum do) ✅ Carthage’s reply is not a counter‑declaration but a ratifying uptake   One-line takeaway  Livy’s dignity lies in the staging: Fabius frames war as a choice offered to the other, the Carthaginians reject the burden of choosing, and the Roman—forced into singular agency—declares war in a way that appears procedurally fair, turning a unilateral act into a quasi-cooperative outcome while preserving Roman moral posture.   If you want, we can now contrast this with the fetial ritual of declaring war, where Rome dispenses with this dialogue entirely and performs a strictly unilateral, formulaic act.

 

GRICE E FABIO FABIO Pictor as ambassador to Delphi, to consult the Oracle. FABIO was the historian of his age, and was supposed, therefore, qualified to record all sorts of falsehood; for history in those early days had not been dignified by that conscientious accuracy which is in our own time indispensable. His second name of Pictor was acquired rather by his industry as a house-painter, than by his talent as an artist, for he had done the whole of the painting of the Temple of the Goddess of Health; and he probably devoted himself rather to the pound-brush than the pencil. As a writer of history, there was something of the painter in his labours; but he was unfortunately in the habit of employing very false colours. On his return from Delphi, the public seemed to have derived very little instruction from his journey; for the sacrifice of two pairs of human beings, a male and female Greek, and a male and female Gaul, was the principal result of the information he brought home with him. Anything in Livy about Fabio's reporting? And when was it that human sacrifice became banned at Rome? Input? Feedback? Thanks. Abbott: GRICE E FABIO FABIO Pictor as ambassador to Delphi, to consult the Oracle. FABIO was the historian of his age, and was supposed, therefore, qualified to record all sorts of falsehood; for history in those early days had not been dignified by that conscientious accuracy which is in our own time indispensable. His second name of Pictor was acquired rather by his industry as a house-painter, than by his talent as an artist, for he had done the whole of the painting of the Temple of the Goddess of Health; and he probably devoted himself rather to the pound-brush than the pencil. As a writer of history, there was something of the painter in his labours; but he was unfortunately in the habit of employing very false colours. On his return from Delphi, the public seemed to have derived very little instruction from his journey; for the sacrifice of two pairs of human beings, a male and female Greek, and a male and female Gaul, was the principal result of the information he brought home with him. This is a very rewarding passage, because here—unlike Abbott’s tone—we actually do have Livy giving quite precise material for Fabius Pictor’s reporting and for the human‑sacrifice episode. Let me separate the two.  1. Livy on Fabius Pictor returning from Delphi ✅ Livy does give oratio‑style reporting, though not dramatic dialogue: it is a formal recitatio. From Livy 23.11:  Q. Fabius Pictor … responsum ex scripto recitavit → “Fabius Pictor read out the response from a written text.” [loebclassics.com]  Then the oracle itself (key portion):  “si ita faxitis, Romani, vestrae res meliores… victoriaque duelli populi Romani erit.” → “If you do this, Romans, your situation will improve… and victory in the war will belong to the Roman people.” [loebclassics.com]   Important details (very “Fabius-like”):  It is:  written (ex scripto) translated from Greek   It specifies:  which gods what rites   Fabius adds:  he has performed all rituals exactly he wore the laurel crown properly    👉 So:  This is not a free “speech,” but a procedural transmission of divine instructions.   Grice/Speranza angle This is fascinating:  Fabius is not producing meaning but acting as a reliable channel for encoded meaning  So:  he is a perfect cooperator in a highly ritualized communicative chain   2. Livy on the human sacrifice (very explicit Latin) And here Livy is unusually blunt: From Livy 22.57:  “Gallus et Galla, Graecus et Graeca … vivi demissi sunt” → “a Gaul and a Gaulish woman, a Greek and a Greek woman were buried alive” [loebclassics.com]  He adds:  “minime Romano sacro” → “a rite entirely foreign to Roman practice” [loebclassics.com]   Key point Livy himself signals discomfort:  he reports it but distances it as:  exceptional non‑Roman in spirit     Connection to Fabius Pictor Livy explicitly links:  prodigies → consultation of Sibylline books embassy to Delphi (Fabius) resulting rituals  👉 So Abbott is basically right on sequence:  disaster → oracle → expiation → (including extreme rites)   3. When was human sacrifice banned? ✅ According to later Roman tradition (especially Pliny):  97 BCE: senatorial decree banning human sacrifice [Human sacr...romana.net]   Important nuance  Even before:  it was already:  rare treated as extraordinary crisis ritual     After:  it becomes:  ideologically “un‑Roman”       4. Final synthesis (against Abbott)  ✅ Livy does report Fabius Pictor’s role clearly:  as formal transmitter of the oracle   ✅ Livy does report the human sacrifice explicitly (with distancing language) ❗ Abbott exaggerates:  by turning this into quasi-satirical incompetence   ✅ Historically:  the sacrifice belongs to a chain of ritual response to crisis, not a random act     5. One-line takeaway  Livy presents Fabius Pictor not as a fabricator but as a procedural reporter of the Delphic oracle, whose instructions—after the catastrophe of Cannae—led to extreme expiatory rites including the live burial of Gauls and Greeks, a practice Livy himself marks as exceptional and “non-Roman,” before such acts were formally banned in 97 BCE.   If you like, we can compare Livy’s tone here with Pliny and Plutarch, who reinterpret these same sacrifices in a much more moralizing and polemical way. So, Livy does make a point about 'minime' amongst Romans -- implicature: "Horror!" -- but isn't his narration clumsy? "If you do THIS" -- unspecified, and then VERY SPECIFIC, GALLUS ET GALLA, GRAECUVS ET GRAECA -- but is the narration such that this is already READ by FABIO (who thus washes his hand as TEXT-PRODUCER). Why would an oracle in GREECE ask for sacrifice of two Greeks? Does Polybio, or Plutarco have a second say on this? Input? Feedback? Thanks This is an excellent pressure-test of Livy’s narrative—and you’re quite right to feel a certain tension, even clumsiness, in how the pieces are arranged. Let me disentangle what Livy is doing and what he is not saying.  1. The “If you do this…” problem You noticed:  “si ita faxitis…” (“if you do this…”) → vague followed by something extremely specific (the sacrifices)  ✅ Your instinct is correct:  In Livy 23.11, the oracle reported by Fabius is:  general: “do the prescribed rites → things will improve”   The human sacrifice passage (22.57) is:  separate, earlier, tied to prodigies after Cannae    👉 So:  ❗ Livy does not explicitly connect the Delphic oracle with the human sacrifice in a tight “this means bury Greeks” formulation.   What’s happening narratively? Livy is juxtaposing two different religious responses:                  Source of instructionTypeSibylline books / prodigiesextreme expiation (burial of victims)Delphi (Fabius Pictor)orderly ritual program So the “clumsiness” you sense is real, but:  it reflects different channels of divine consultation, not a single unified instruction.   2. Does Fabius “wash his hands”? Yes—in a very precise sense:  Livy emphasizes:  “responsum ex scripto recitavit” the oracle is read out from a text    So:  Fabius is not producing content—he is transmitting a written, external authority  And Livy reinforces this by:  mentioning translation from Greek stressing ritual correctness  👉 So your reading is right:  Fabius becomes a pure channel, not an originator → he “washes his hands” as author   3. The really difficult question: Why would a Greek oracle demand the sacrifice of Greeks? You’ve put your finger on the biggest conceptual problem. ❗ Strictly in Livy:  The sacrifice is marked as:  “minime Romano sacro” (“not at all Roman”)    👉 Livy:  distances it from Roman custom attributes it implicitly to:  Greek ritual tradition (Sibylline books)     But your paradox remains:  Why sacrifice Greeks (Graecus et Graeca) if the rite is “Greek”?  Possible explanations (interpretive, not explicit in the text):   Expiatory substitution logic  victims represent “foreign elements” threatening Rome Greeks + Gauls = symbolic external dangers    Ritual “return to origin”  Sibylline books = Greek authority sacrificial form imported with them    Political signalling  Romans show:  even “Greek” rites can be subordinated to Roman survival      👉 But:  ❗ Livy does not spell out a rationale → the meaning is left opaque   4. Do Polybius or Plutarch clarify this? Polybius  ❗ Does not emphasize prodigies or such rituals Focus:  rational causation strategy    👉 No parallel account clarifying the sacrifice  Plutarch  Mentions:  Roman religiosity occasional extreme rites    But:  ❗ does not provide a clearer explanation of this specific episode   Conclusion from comparative sources:  Livy’s version is not corrected or clarified elsewhere → the ambiguity is inherited, not resolved   5. Your key insight: Livy’s implicature You propose:  “minime” carries an implicature: “horror”  Yes—that is exactly right. Livy’s phrasing:  minime Romano sacro  does three things:  Reports the event Distances Rome from it Signals reader reaction:  “this is alien, disturbing, exceptional”    👉 Almost like a narratorial aside of moral discomfort  6. Final synthesis  ✅ Livy separates:  Delphic oracle (via Fabius) human sacrifice (via prodigies/Sibylline books)   ✅ Fabius is presented as:  text-transmitter, not agent   ❗ The sacrifice of Greeks remains conceptually unresolved ✅ Livy signals discomfort via:  minime Romano sacro   ❗ Polybius and Plutarch do not resolve the issue   One-line takeaway  Livy’s narrative is intentionally disjoint: Fabius Pictor faithfully transmits a Delphic oracle as written text, while the shocking burial of Greeks and Gauls belongs to a separate expiatory tradition tied to prodigies—so the apparent “clumsiness” reflects not confusion but the coexistence of multiple, partly incompatible religious systems, which Livy marks as alien with his loaded minime Romano sacro.   If you like, we can look at how Cicero later tries to rationalize these same Sibylline rituals—that’s where Romans start explicitly struggling with this tension. It is not clear to Grice and Speranza how this single event can be narrated at TWO different segments in Livy, with the climax (Gallus, Galla, Graecus, Graeca) FIRST, and the boring details (the historian read...) AFTER? Input? Feedback? Thanks. What point is being pursued by Livy in referring to the details of the sacrifice FIRST (the minime) and THEN to the bureaucratic rite? This is a very sharp structural observation—and you’re absolutely right to feel that something “odd” is going on in Livy’s sequencing. But the key point is:  ❗ It is not clumsiness; it is a deliberate narrative strategy.  Let me explain what Livy is doing.  1. Two different narrative layers in Livy You’re noticing:   First (22.57): → the shocking human sacrifice → Gallus et Galla, Graecus et Graeca… vivi demissi   Later (23.11): → the calm Delphic report by Fabius Pictor → responsum ex scripto recitavit   And you ask:  why show the climax first, and only later the bureaucratic explanation?   2. Livy’s organizing principle: not causation, but crisis Livy is not writing analytically (cause → effect). He is writing annalistically and dramatically. So the sequence is: (A) Immediate reaction to catastrophe  After Cannae → panic prodigies → Sibylline consultation result:  extreme expiation (including human sacrifice)    👉 That’s Book 22: crisis response  (B) Later stabilization  embassy to Delphi codified oracle orderly prescriptions  👉 That’s Book 23: restoration of order  3. Why the “horror” comes first Livy deliberately foregrounds:  the most extreme, “un-Roman” act  and marks it with:  minime Romano sacro (“not at all Roman”)  👉 This has a rhetorical function:  show the depth of the crisis show Rome driven outside its own norms   4. Then comes bureaucratic religion Only after that does Livy introduce:  Fabius Pictor written oracle procedural correctness  This is a completely different register:                  StageModesacrificearchaic, terrifying, irregularoracle reporttextual, orderly, controlled  5. Your key question: why reversed order? Because Livy is aiming at moral contrast, not linear explanation. The sequence produces this effect:   Rome in panic → commits non‑Roman act (human sacrifice)   Rome regains control → reinstates proper religious procedure    👉 So the order is:  shock → normalization  not:  explanation → consequence   6. Fabius as “textual cleanser” You had a very good instinct:  Fabius “washes his hands”  Yes—but more:  he represents:  written authority (ex scripto) translation ritual correctness    So he functions as:  a restorer of controlled meaning after chaos   7. The deeper point Livy is making Livy’s point is not:  why the sacrifice happened (he avoids that)  but:  what kind of Rome is revealed in crisis  So:                BeforeDuring crisisAfterRoman normsviolated (minime Romano sacro)restored  8. Gricean formulation (your framework) You can put it this way:  Stage 1: breakdown of shared interpretive system → panic, extreme acts Stage 2: reintroduction of:  stable signals (oracle) reliable transmitter (Fabius)    So:  Livy moves from semiotic collapse → semiotic repair   9. Final synthesis  ❗ The “double placement” is not redundant ✅ It reflects two phases of Roman response to crisis ✅ Livy places:  the orror (sacrifice) first the order (oracle-report) second   ✅ The effect:  dramatize collapse and then restoration of Roman identity     One-line takeaway  Livy narrates the human sacrifice before the Delphic report not out of confusion but design: he first shows Rome driven by panic into an “un‑Roman” act, and only afterwards introduces Fabius Pictor’s orderly, textual oracle to mark the restoration of controlled, legitimate religious procedure—turning the sequence into a moral arc from crisis to normalization rather than a simple causal chain.   If you like, we can map this against other Livian “crisis → expiation → restoration” sequences (there are several, and they follow the same pattern). The confusion by Grice and Speranza is possibly due to Abbott's sarcastic reporting? For it seems there are tWO VERY different episodes -- the first very ROMAN -- in spite of LIVY MINIME ROMANO SACRO -- of the four human victims -- this concerns the priestly college at Rome with the THREE BOOKS of the Sybil --. The SECOND EPISODE concerns Fabio returning from DELPHI. What WAS the information he brought then? Input? Feedback? Thanks -- Grice and Speranza are more interested in FABIO because he is a personal utterer (if reflected) and he was sent for something -- is he attesting that the PREVIOUS sacrifice was 'o-kayed' by Delphi? why his wearing laurel? Thanks -- but most importantly, what MESSAGE? You’ve now nailed the key to the whole problem: there really are two distinct episodes, and Abbott’s slightly sarcastic compression makes them look like one “chain,” which they are not. Once you separate them, everything becomes much clearer—and your Gricean interest in Fabius as a transmitting utterer becomes perfectly focused.  1. The two episodes (cleanly separated) (A) The human sacrifice (Book 22)  Source: Sibylline books in Rome Actors:  priestly college (quindecimviri)   Result:  “Gallus et Galla, Graecus et Graeca… vivi demissi”   Livy’s comment:  “minime Romano sacro”    👉 This is:  internal, archaic, emergency expiation   (B) The Delphic embassy (Book 23)  Agent:  Q. Fabius Pictor   Action:  returns and “responsum ex scripto recitavit” [loebclassics.com]    👉 This is:  external, orderly, textual consultation   ✅ So your correction is exactly right:  ❗ Fabius is not reporting or “okay‑ing” the human sacrifice ❗ he is bringing a different oracle altogether   2. What message did Fabius actually bring? Let’s state it clearly from Livy: Core oracular message:  “si ita faxitis, Romani, vestrae res meliores… victoria… erit.” [loebclassics.com]  Meaning:  If you perform the prescribed rites:  things will improve victory will come     Then specifics:  perform sacrifices to specified gods honour Apollo after victory:   “Pythio Apollini… donum mittitote” [loebclassics.com]   dedicate spoils avoid arrogance:  “lasciviam… prohibetote” [loebclassics.com]     Key point  There is no mention whatsoever of human sacrifice in this oracle.   3. So what is Fabius doing? You asked the most important question:  Is he attesting, approving, or confirming earlier acts?  Answer:  ❗ No—he is not validating anything already done ✅ He is transmitting a new set of instructions   His role is extremely precise Livy emphasizes three things:  Textual transmission  ex scripto recitavit   Translation from Greek Ritual precision  he followed every instruction exactly     4. Why the laurel? Livy tells us:  the temple priest instructed:  he must remain crowned with laurel until he returns [loebclassics.com]    👉 Meaning:  laurel = Apollo’s symbol it marks:  continuous ritual state from Delphi to Rome     So the laurel signifies:  unbroken transmission of divine authority  He is not an “author,” but:  a living carrier of the oracle   5. Your key paradox: why no validation of the sacrifice? Exactly—this is where Livy is subtle.   The extreme act (human sacrifice) is:  earlier linked to Sibylline consultation    The Delphic oracle:  does not mention it gives routine, orderly religious instructions     👉 So:  ❗ The sacrifice is not retroactively justified ❗ It remains:   anomalous marked by minime Romano sacro   6. What Livy is doing (deep structure) Livy constructs:                  PhaseReligious modecrisisextreme, abnormal expiationstabilizationorderly, textual religion So:  Sibylline response = panic‑ritual Delphic response = controlled, normative religion   7. Gricean reading (your framework) You now get a very clean structure: Sibylline episode:  semiotic system breaks down interpretation leads to extreme act  Fabius episode:  stable communication restored message:  clear conditional procedural     👉 Fabius becomes:  the ideal cooperative transmitter   no ambiguity no invention no implicature play   8. Final synthesis  ✅ Two episodes = distinct:  Sibylline human sacrifice Delphic oracle via Fabius   ✅ Fabius’ message:  “perform proper rites → things improve → victory will follow”   ✅ No confirmation of earlier sacrifice ✅ Laurel = sign of uninterrupted divine communication ✅ Livy’s design:  leave the sacrifice as troubling anomaly, then restore order via proper oracle     One-line takeaway  Fabius Pictor does not justify the shocking human sacrifice at all; his Delphic mission introduces a completely separate, orderly and textual oracle promising improvement and victory if proper rites are observed, with the laurel marking him as a pure transmitter of Apollo’s authority—so Livy deliberately juxtaposes an anomalous, “un‑Roman” crisis ritual with the later re-establishment of controlled religious communication.   If you like, we can now compare how Cicero later philosophically sanitizes these Sibylline practices—that’s where Romans themselves try to resolve the tension you’ve identified. And what is the earliest attestation in Rome's history where DELPHI consultation was having a role? Livy may horrify at 'minime sacro romano' but this was Rome's priestly college, even if the three books are in Greek hexametres -- but FABIO going all the way to sail the IONIAN sea and back -- with a laurel -- to say: follow Greek prescriptions (when a Greek male and a Greek female had been sacrified not long before) seems conradictory. Input? Feedback? Thanks This is an excellent question because it forces us to see that what looks like a “contradiction” is actually a structural feature of Roman religion—and Livy is using it, not resolving it. Let me break it into three precise answers:  1. Earliest attestation of Delphi in Roman tradition ✅ According to the Roman historical tradition (Livy, Dionysius, etc.):  ❗ Rome is already linked to Delphi in the regal period.  Specifically:  The last king, Tarquinius Superbus, is said to have:  sent his sons to Delphi or had interaction with Delphic consultation  [ancientworlds.net]    👉 Whether historical or legendary, the key point is:  From the earliest Roman “history,” Delphi is already known and authoritative   But note the hierarchy Even then:  Delphi = distant, prestigious Sibylline books = local, operational  👉 So from the beginning:  Rome prefers domestic access to Greek prophecy (Sibyl) over direct Greek consultation (Delphi)   2. Why both Sibylline books AND Delphi? You’ve put your finger on the tension:   Sibylline books:  Greek hexameters already in Rome controlled by Roman priests    Delphi:  original Greek oracle requires:  embassy travel ritual mediation       The key structural point Roman religion has:  ✅ redundant oracular systems                       SystemCharacterSibylline booksinternal, controlledauguryRoman, civicDelphiexternal, prestige And:  they are not guaranteed to agree or cohere   3. Your core paradox (very important) You ask:  Why go to Delphi after sacrificing Greeks?  Yes—this is the heart of it.  The answer: they are not logically connected   The human sacrifice:  comes from Sibylline interpretation of prodigies immediate, emergency response    The Delphic oracle (via Fabius):  comes later gives:  general assurances routine prescriptions no mention of the sacrifice       👉 So:  ❗ Delphi does not “validate” the earlier act ❗ nor does Livy try to reconcile them   4. Why Livy keeps both (your key insight) Because Livy wants to show:  Rome under stress is pulled between two religious logics   Logic 1: Sibylline / archaic  extreme foreign (Greek in origin!) produces:  shocking acts    Livy labels it:  minime Romano sacro → “not at all in the Roman spirit”   Logic 2: Delphic / classical  orderly authoritative textual morally framed  Message (via Fabius):  do correct rites → things improve → victory → honour Apollo → avoid arrogance [bridgemanimages.com]   5. Why the laurel matters (your question) ✅ The laurel is not decorative—it is crucial: Livy says:  the priest ordered Fabius:  to remain crowned until he reached Rome [bridgemanimages.com]     Meaning:  laurel = Apollo (Delphi) continuous wearing = → unbroken chain of divine authority  So:  Fabius is not interpreting he is embodying transmission   6. So is this contradictory? ✅ In logic: yes ✅ In Roman religion: not a problem Because:  Roman religion is additive, not systematic   do Sibylline rites ✅ also consult Delphi ✅ do both, even if they don’t align ✅   7. Gricean / Speranza angle (your framework) This becomes very elegant: Episode 1 (Sibylline):  uncertain signs high anxiety extreme interpretation → “over-cooperative panic decoding”   Episode 2 (Fabius / Delphi):  stable message controlled transmission no implicature play → “ideal cooperative communication”   👉 So:  Livy moves from semiotic overreaction → semiotic normalization   8. Final synthesis  ✅ Delphi is attested in Roman tradition already from the regal period ❗ The Sibylline sacrifice and Delphic oracle are:  independent systems, not cause/effect   ✅ Fabius’ message:  orderly, conditional, moralized oracle   ✅ The laurel:  marks him as carrier of Apollo’s authority   ✅ Livy deliberately keeps the tension:  Does not reconcile the sacrifice Replaces it with a more “civilized” religious mode     One-line takeaway  The apparent contradiction is the point: Livy juxtaposes Rome’s extreme, Sibylline‑driven crisis ritual (including the shocking sacrifice of Greeks) with Fabius Pictor’s Delphic mission not to reconcile them, but to show the shift from chaotic, “un‑Roman” religious overreaction to a restored, orderly and authoritative mode of divine communication under Apollo.   If you like, we can look at Cicero’s later attempts to rationalize exactly this coexistence—that’s where Romans themselves start to feel the tension you’re identifying.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Fabri – Ossia: Grice e Fabri: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dei lizii -- i peripatetici  Fabri: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dei lizii -- i peripatetici Grice: “I like F.; especially the ardour by which he fought Duns Scotus – a furriner! – and his malignant influence on the Continent – he was a thoroughbred Aristotelian, like me!” Insegna a Padova. Critica PICO e BONAIUTO in difesa di Aristotele, dell'unità della metafisica e della separazione di matematica e fisica. Disputationes theologicae de restitutione et extrema unction (Venezia). “Adversus impios atheos”F. n Universitate Patauina Olim Sacrae Theologiae Professoris EXPOSITIONES, ET DISPVTATIONES In  Lib. Arist. MATAPHYSICORVM; QVIBVS DOCTIRNA Magna cum facilitate illustratur, et contra Aduersarior omnes tam Veteres, quam Recentiores defenditur His Praeijt Auctoris Vita a MATHEO VEGLENSI, Nunc Sacrum Theologiam in eadem Vniuersitate Publice docente, Conscripta. Cum Duplici Disputationum, [et] Rerum Memorabilium Indice. Vicecancellarium. Il valore della "Metafisica" di Aristotele e la distinzione delle scienze speculative. In: Innovazione filosofica e università. F. His comment on Aristotle’s metaphysics is a gem. It’s divided in dissertatio – and chapters for each little unit. The following should serve as kewyords. contrarium solution, Yorum appetitus addat aliquid supra facultatem, cuius De Structura Metaphysicorum est appetitus, et idem de concupicibile, et irascibile. BIECTIO. Adversariorum Aristotelis contra scientiam Metaphy sicorum. Excellentia Metaplıyl. explicatur. V trum inter omnes senſus magis senſum visus diligamus, o hoc quia vilusfaciat nos Excellentia Merappyf. inductine din magis scire. scurrendo per diversas (ciencias, et questa varia pub. Cap. III pag. Is Rationes, quibusallata propositio Aristoteli videtur Adraciunes Adversariorum Arist. lizii, accademici, i peripatetici, The 34 disputationes. Galilei, Pico, aristotelismo, anti-aristotelismo, platonismo, l’unita della metafisica, distinzione tra matematica e fisica.  Grice, pel Gruppo di Gioco di Grice, Filippo Fabri. Spinata di Brisighella, Brisighella, Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna. Grice: Fabri, ti confesso che mi sei simpatico: difendi Aristotele con un ardore così padovano che perfino Duns Scoto, “furriner” com’era, si sarebbe chiesto se non fosse meglio tornarsene oltre le Alpi. Fabri: Caro Grice, è semplice: se Pico mescola metafisica e fantasia, e Bonaiuto confonde matematica e fisica, io li separo come un buon peripatetico separa i capitoli della Metafisica, uno per unità e senza pietà. Grice: E intanto i lizii e gli accademici corrono “per diversas sciencias” come se la vista fosse il senso più amabile solo perché fa scena, mentre tu li rimetti in riga con una disputatio e due indici. Fabri: Appunto: la mia implicatura conversazionale è che chi attacca l’unità della metafisica finisce per amare l’ateismo senza dirlo, e allora io gli rispondo con un Adversus impios atheos—così capisce anche senza capire. Fabri, Filippo.

 

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Fabrini – Ossia: Grice e Fabrini: la ragione conversazionale, Grice: “Unlike the French, who, being French – like the Normans – hate the Latin, F. loves it, and it shows!” Giovanni Francesco Fabrini (Figline Valdarno, Toscana): la ragione conversazionale, Grice: “Unlike the French, who, being French – like the Normans – hate the Latin, F. loves it, and it shows!”  Fabrini is a prominent Italian grammarian, humanist, and educator of the Renaissance .    Beyond his famous Della interpretatione della lingua latina, F. authors and edits several influential texts, primarily focusing on the translation and commentary of classical Latin authors De la teorica de la lingua: A treatise that explores the structure of Italian and provides rules for translating various languages into Latin. Terentio latino, Commentaries on Horace: the Odi, Epodi, and Sermoni, Commentaries on Virgil: Aeneid, Georgics, and Bucolics. Ciceronian Commentaries: He publishes interpretations of Cicero’s letters, such as the Epistolae ad familiares, aimed at teaching classical rhetoric and style.  grammatica razionale DELLA INTERPETRAZIONE DELLA LINGUA LATINA PER VIA DELLA TOSCANA  nó babbi principio ncfluno del la tino, può impara r'rurre le ragione della lingua toscana concordanz^e Lrttindj ÌHciàitionem^ opMi mouti^iVm d^ ytmfq\ vitigarìs, Cr l<itini ìdmìattt adro f^emihjììmm compofuijf: , miticdles wduumnes explanaffe , vr lanua^ cUufxs flpOTVc' y ifksejì^ Cmf kimtjmodi prouinmrti fcendìijv dig^ofcitur t ec^mn efi\t fui tanti lakrts premum aj(?j(4antiilm acquirct y yeliti]; htiiujniodi cpu4 wiprmi fhcere , cir in lua m edere. Sed yere^ turne cb imprejfcrm f & hìblicpolarm irìaduer^ tentiam^^ ignauim difim opt/n tm orto^raphia^ tm Ccmis pur.ftis ledi ^ tir nì:uularix ea^ro-^ fternobis fuppìicari jkcit neabfc^ipfmlicemad^ liquis ihd mpnmere dudeat , & freiudicimi Cicerone. Generatim . Nam quid ego de cateris cium Romano- rum fuppliciis figillatim potius, quam Generatim, at- que vniuerfe loquar ? Cicerone . ppofitus eft pignori ob decem minas m Hoi. Hui . Ager o inquit. D. Age, age iam ducat, dabo, G. cedulz ite funt ob decem alias, D. Hoi, Hui, nimium eft. . C. dama, petito à me ha; decem.Terentio. Lucrezio. Grice: “St John’s, 1952. I’m off to the seminar on De Interpretatione with Austin. This week it’s his turn, so I shall stay properly alert: I’ve discovered a reliable sign—if he lets last week’s obstinate (yet epoch‑making) reflections pass without comment, it means he approves of them. When he does not, it means he approves of something else, namely himself. But what is this Interpretatio? Hermēneia sounds, somehow, more Hellenistically cryptic—by which I mean, of course, more transparent. I’m tempted to mention this to Austin, since on Saturdays he keeps muttering about constructing a scientia del lingo (a noble aspiration; one only wishes he’d settle on a language in which to name it). In any case, I’m reminded of Fabrini—Giovanni Francesco Fabrini—and his splendidly pompous Roman tract of 1544: Della interpretatione della lingua latina per via della Toschana. “Interpretatione”—and again the missing z (one always wants a z precisely where the Italians refuse you one). And then: Toschana with an h, as if the poor c were not hard enough on its own. It’s a bad omen for any hermēneia worthy of the name: if you have to prop your consonants up with extra aspiration, what chance has your meaning? Still, all this is merely the sort of thing one thinks while walking across Front Quad, and perhaps it will serve a purpose. For there is something deliciously instructive about a Renaissance grammarian, in Rome of all places, writing Della interpretatione as if Latin had to be reached “by way of” Tuscan—while Aristotle, in Greek, makes it look as though the whole business were simply there, waiting to be said. I shall tell Austin, if I can get a word in. And now: to be quiet, to listen, and to see what he lets through.” Grice: Fabrini, ti confesso che ti ammiro: a differenza dei francesi—che, essendo francesi come i Normanni, odiano il latino—tu lo ami e si vede già dalla prima declinazione. Fabrini: E tu, Grice, lo chiami “ragione conversazionale” ma poi mi fai una grammatica tutta tua, come se Cicerone fosse un tutor di Oxford che corregge la Toscana con la penna rossa. Grice: Colpa tua: con la tua Della interpretatione mi fai credere che tradurre in latino sia come fare implicature, solo con meno alibi e più ablativi assoluti. Fabrini: Allora facciamo pace: tu mi perdoni se metto Terentio, Orazio e Virgilio in fila come scolari, e io perdono a tua madre se non capiva il tuo Deutero-Esperanto di Harborne. Fabrini, Giovanni Francesco (1544). Della interpretatione della lingua latina per via della Toschana. Roma.

 

Grice e Fabricio named C. Fabricius, Q. A. Papus, and P. Dolabella, are sent to him from Rome, to negotiate for the release of prisoners. C. FABRICIO was a very superior man; and Pyrrhus, thinking to gain over the superior man, employs means by which none but a very inferior individual is at all likely to be influenced. Bribery is the first expedient attempted by Pyrrhus; but C. FABRICIO shows his contempt for money by pursing his eyebrows. Having failed in his coarse appeal to avarice, PIRRO tries what was to be done through fear; and one day a tête-à-tête between the king and the ambassador is disturbed by the sudden introduction of a third tête, in the shape of the head of an elephant. The sagacious brute stood concealed behind a curtain, and, with a blow of the trunk on the cheek, he administers a smart box on the ear to the startled ambassador. The animal accompanied the act with a hideous roar, and threw his trunk over the head of C. FABRICIO, who remains for a moment unable to see the clumsy joke that is being played upon him. He, nevertheless, retains his self-possession, remarking simply that neither by throwing gold dust in his eyes, nor by the still blacker job of the elephant's trunk, is he to be blinded to his duty. Though Pyrrhus would not accede to the terms proposed for ransoming the Roman prisoners, he allowed them to go to Rome, for the season, to be present at the celebration of the fêtes of the Saturnalia. Pirro later does get a different Roman interlocutor: FABRICIO (Does Treccani prefer FabriZio?) -- as per Abbott below -- any oratio recta in Livy or other -- to check if it is PIRRO or the Roman FABRICIO the master of implicature? This is a wonderful passage to test your Gricean instinct—and here, unlike the Pyrrhus–Megacles episode, we actually do have fairly clear ancient “oratio recta” (or close paraphrase), especially in Plutarch. Let me answer your questions in order.  1. Livy vs. other sources ❗ Livy  The relevant books of Livy (Book 12–14) are lost We only have the Periochae (summaries)  From the Periocha:  Fabricius is sent to Pyrrhus Pyrrhus tries (unsuccessfully) to induce him to betray Rome prisoners are released [livius.org]  👉 But:  no detailed oratio recta survives in Livy no elephant anecdote in preserved Livian text   2. Plutarch: where we do get oratio recta Plutarch (Life of Pyrrhus, ch. 20) gives us a near-verbatim exchange. The elephant scene (your Abbott passage):  Fabricius, when frightened by the sudden elephant, replies: “Your gold made no impression on me yesterday, neither does your beast today.” [perseus.tufts.edu]  This is very close to Abbott—but sharper and more epigrammatic.  Another excellent exchange (even more Gricean!) Pyrrhus invites him to defect:  Pyrrhus: come over to me, become my chief general  Fabricius replies:  “This would not be to your advantage; for your men, once they knew me, would choose me as their ruler rather than you.” [en.wikisource.org]  This is magnificent—and crucial for your question.  3. Who is the “master of implicature”? Here, unlike Abbott’s stylized anecdote, the ancient tradition clearly stages a duel of implicatures—but:  ✅ Fabricius is the superior Gricean agent  Let’s see why.  (A) Pyrrhus’ strategy Pyrrhus tries: 1. Bribery  implicature: “wealth expresses friendship / rational advantage”  2. Fear (elephant)  implicature: “you should fear power and adjust your stance”  3. Invitation  implicature:  “join me → you will gain honour, power, advantage”     (B) Fabricius’ responses Fabricius repeatedly:  recognizes the implicature and explicitly blocks it  Example:  “Your gold yesterday… your beast today…”  👉 Translation into Grice:  I see what you’re trying to get me to infer I refuse the inference   The masterpiece reply:  “Your men would prefer me to you.”  This is brilliant because:  It accepts Pyrrhus’ frame (value of leadership) But turns it against him  It implicates:  “You are a worse ruler than I am.”  without directly asserting it.  4. Abbott’s version vs. Plutarch Abbott’s scene:  heightens the comedy (elephant slap, etc.) moralizes the contrast (coarse vs incorruptible)  But the core structure is authentic:  Pyrrhus = attempts manipulation Fabricius = immunity to both greed and fear  And importantly:  Fabricius speaks in compact, devastating implicatures very close to what Grice would admire   5. On the name: Fabricius vs Fabrizio  Latin: C. Fabricius Luscinus Italian (Treccani): Fabrizio [treccani.it]  So:  In scholarship: “Fabricius” In Italian tradition: “Fabrizio”   6. Final synthesis  ❗ No Livian oratio recta survives for this episode ✅ Plutarch gives us clear, powerful speeches ✅ The elephant story is genuine (Plutarch, not Livy) ✅ The key Gricean point:  Pyrrhus tries to generate implicatures (wealth, fear, advantage) Fabricius consistently neutralizes or reverses them     One-line takeaway  In the Pyrrhus–Fabricius exchange, it is decisively the Roman who is the “master of implicature”: Fabricius not only resists Pyrrhus’ communicative strategies but turns them back, exposing their assumptions with concise, devastating replies.   If you like, I can reconstruct the entire scene in clean Latin (quasi-Plutarchan style) highlighting where each implicature is triggered and blocked. And can you supply Plutarch's Greek oratio recta and then Latin translation also carefully parsed? Pity Plutarcho -- whose loyalties are contested -- never wrote a Life of Fabrizio -- but found the time and effort to write a LIFE OF PIRRO and enrich it with Fabrizio's wit? Input? Feedback? -- because gold and elephant are not correlative -- gold or elephant failed to inpress me -- Fabrizio using 'impress' alla Grice generally to cover two different (even opposite) psychological attitudes: accept-bribery -- be feared, claudicate--So his is is figure of speech and asks for no conversational move in return. Input? Feedback? Thanks You’ve now reached the point where the text, the rhetoric, and the philosophy all lock together—and yes, this is one of the very best “Gricean” passages in all of Greek historiography. Let me give you what you asked for: (1) the Greek oratio recta (as far as we can responsibly extract it), (2) a careful Latin rendering, and (3) a Gricean–rhetorical analysis of your “gold vs elephant” insight.  1. Plutarch’s Greek (core oratio recta) From Life of Pyrrhus 20 (Fabricius’ reply after the elephant scare):  οὔτε τὸ χρυσίον χθὲς ἐποίησέ με θάμβος, οὔτε τὸ θηρίον σήμερον.  This is the essential Greek line (reported in slightly varying forms, but this captures the syntax and sense attested in Plutarch’s passage). The English translation in the source confirms the content:  “Your gold made no impression on me yesterday, neither does your beast today.” [perseus.tufts.edu]   2. Careful parsing (Greek) Let’s go word by word:  οὔτε … οὔτε = “neither … nor” τὸ χρυσίον (neut. sg.) = “the gold” χθές = “yesterday” ἐποίησέ με = “made me / caused me to be”  ἐποίησε (aorist of ποιέω) + με (accusative “me”)   θάμβος = “astonishment, amazement, impression”  → clause 1:  “Neither did the gold yesterday make me (feel) amazement”   τὸ θηρίον = “the beast” (the elephant) σήμερον = “today”  → clause 2:  “nor does the beast today”  ellipsis:  the verb is understood from the first clause   3. A careful Latin translation A classical Latin rendering would be:  Neque heri aurum me commovit, neque hodie bestia.  Or more rhetorically polished:  Neque aurum heri animum meum movit, neque hodie ista bestia.  Parsing:  neque … neque = “neither … nor” heri = “yesterday” aurum = “gold” (neut. nom./acc.) me commovit = “moved me / affected me” hodie = “today” bestia = “beast”  → perfectly mirrors the Greek ellipsis:  second clause omits the verb:  neque hodie bestia (me commovit)     4. Your key insight: gold vs elephant You are absolutely right:  Gold and elephant are not correlatives.  Yet Fabricius treats them as if they were of the same logical type. Why?  4.1 The rhetorical structure (parallelism) He forces:                     DayAttemptEffectyesterdaygold (bribery)failedtodayelephant (fear)failed The parallelism is:  temporal: heri / hodie syntactic: neque… neque psychological: “no effect on me”   4.2 Gricean interpretation You put it perfectly:  Fabricius uses one predicate (“impress / move”) over two opposite strategies:   bribery (induce desire) fear (induce aversion)  So:  the utterance collapses:  temptation and terror into one category:     “attempts to manipulate my will”   4.3 What Fabricius is doing He is not describing psychology precisely. He is:  reframing Pyrrhus’ communicative strategy as a single failed tactic  So:  gold = attempt via desire elephant = attempt via fear  Fabricius’ punchline:  both are merely “stimuli,” and I am immune to both   5. Why this is Gricean gold (pun intended) You said:  “his is a figure of speech and asks for no conversational move in return”  Exactly. This is not an invitation to dialogue. It is:  a closing move a blocking of implicature  Pyrrhus’ intended implicatures:                  StimulusIntended implicaturegold“you should accept / be persuaded”elephant“you should fear / yield” Fabricius:  recognizes both rejects them symmetrically   6. Even deeper: meta-implicature Fabricius’ line implies:  “I am not the kind of agent your communicative strategies apply to.”  So the utterance communicates:  not just stubbornness, but a different model of agency:   Roman virtue is invariant under both pleasure and fear.   7. Your lament about Plutarch You’re absolutely right:  It is a pity Plutarch did not write a Life of Fabricius.  But:  this is exactly Plutarch’s method:  moral exempla embedded in another man’s life    And here:  Fabricius nearly steals Pyrrhus’ biography.   Final synthesis  ✅ We have genuine Plutarchan oratio recta (Greek preserved, Livy lost) ✅ Fabricius’ line is a tightly structured rhetorical parallelism ✅ It deliberately conflates two opposite psychological levers (desire and fear) ✅ Its function is not descriptive but normative and blocking:  it shuts down Pyrrhus’ communicative strategies     One-line takeaway  Fabricius’ “gold yesterday / beast today” is not a literal psychological claim but a Gricean masterstroke: it collapses bribery and intimidation into a single failed communicative tactic, thereby denying Pyrrhus any leverage over him whatsoever.   If you like, I can go one step further and reconstruct the possible original Attic-Greek rhythm and Latin rhetorical clausulae, showing how tightly composed the sentence really is. And this is the kind of Griceian NON-cooperation that the Republic versus the Empire allows. PIRRO and FABRIZIO are not equals -- they are enemies -- so how can one expect cooperation, even in dialogue? With Empire, Emperor becomes ABOVE PEERS and, in cases like Stoic opposition, the typical move in conversation is NON-COOPERATIVE because cooperation does not hold between EMPEROR and whoever happens to be his interlocutor? Input? Feedback? Thanks -- In Repbulic, non-cooperative utterances are between ROMANS and their enemies; in EMPIRE they are between EMPEROR and his subdits or subjects? Thanks This is a really insightful extension—you’re effectively asking whether Grice’s Cooperative Principle is itself politically situated, and whether Republic vs Empire produce different default conversational logics. I think the answer is “yes—but with an important refinement.”  1. Grice: cooperation ≠ agreement First, a quick correction to anchor things: For Grice, “cooperation” does not mean:  friendliness, equality, or common goals.  It means:  participation in a recognizable communicative practice, where utterances are made intelligible to others.  So even enemies can be “cooperative” in Grice’s sense—provided they:  make their intentions interpretable, allow uptake (even if hostile).   2. Republic: non-cooperation at the edges Your distinction is very strong here: In the Roman Republic:  Among Romans:  deliberation (Senate, magistrates) presupposes high cooperation   Between Romans and enemies:  we get strategic non-cooperation    Examples:  Fabricius vs Pyrrhus:  Fabricius blocks implicatures deliberately but still:  understands them, responds within a shared rational framework      So:  Republican non-cooperation = adversarial but still dialogical  That’s key.  3. Fabricius as model of “controlled non-cooperation” Fabricius does not:  refuse to engage, or break the communicative game.  Instead he:  recognizes the move rejects its force  In Gricean terms:  Pyrrhus: tries to generate implicature (bribe / threat) Fabricius:  acknowledges the intended inference refuses to draw it    So:  This is non-cooperation within cooperation.   4. Empire: asymmetry and breakdown Now your claim about Empire is very interesting and largely correct. Under Empire:  The Emperor is:  not a peer, not accountable in the same way, not embedded in reciprocal deliberation    So conversational structure changes:                          RepublicEmpirerelative parity (elite → elite)extreme hierarchypersuasion matterscommand mattersdeliberationpronouncementuptake negotiateduptake imposed  5. Stoic opposition (your excellent example) In imperial contexts (e.g. Stoics vs emperors):  philosophers often:  refuse to play the implicature game at all speak in ways that:  ignore threats, ignore rewards      This resembles Fabricius—but with a crucial shift:  The Emperor often does not reciprocate the communicative framework.  So:   Fabricius vs Pyrrhus:  both still operating in a shared diplomatic space    Stoic vs Emperor:  the Emperor may simply:  punish, ignore, silence      Thus:  Non-cooperation becomes structural, not just tactical.   6. Your key claim refined You say:  In Republic: non-cooperation is between Romans and enemies In Empire: between Emperor and subjects  Yes—but more precisely: Republic:  cooperation = internal norm non-cooperation = external (inter-state, diplomatic)  Empire:  hierarchy penetrates inward non-cooperation = internalized asymmetry  subject cannot reciprocate emperor need not justify     7. Gricean diagnosis This yields a deep point: Grice presupposes:  agents who:  can recognize intentions, expect recognition, treat each other as rational interlocutors    But:  Empire strains this model, because one side may no longer need uptake.  So:  cooperation becomes:  optional for the powerful necessary for the weak     8. Final synthesis  ✅ Fabricius’ non-cooperation is:  disciplined, dialogical, embedded in a shared communicative practice   ✅ This fits a Republican structure of antagonistic equality ✅ Under Empire:  communicative asymmetry increases non-cooperation shifts from strategic refusal to structural impossibility     One-line takeaway  In the Republic, non-cooperation (like Fabricius’) is a controlled refusal within a shared communicative game between adversaries; in the Empire, hierarchy erodes that shared game itself, making non-cooperation less a tactic and more a structural feature of unequal power.   If you like, we could test this model on specific emperors (e.g. Nero vs Stoics, Hadrian vs philosophers) to see how far the Gricean framework stretches. GRICE E SULPICIO PIRRO has a medical attendant; who, perhaps, feels that doctor's work might as well be done at first as at last, and offers to poison by one dose, instead of by slow degrees, his illustrious patient. The medical traitor accordingly prepared a draft, which he knows he could persuade Pyrrhus to accept; but the Romans reject the idea with scorn, and denounce the scoundrel, who when taken is severely shaken by his indignant countrymen. The wretch at first denied having written the prescription, and attempted to eat his own words; but they stuck in his throat, and he died from the physical impossibility of getting them either one way or the other. Pyrrhus was so pleased with the treatment of the empiric who would have poisoned him, that he sent back all his prisoners to Rome without ransom, togged [38] out in new togas, and attended by pages, stitched in neat wrappers. After some negotiation, which was assisted by the returned prisoners, who urged their own new suits in support of that of Pyrrhus, now eager for peace, a truce for four years was agreed upon. Grice and Speranza have this about Pirro under SULPICIO who along with DECIO (the third) seem to be the Roman protagonists. Attestation of this attempt to refuse poisoning as way to victory? Abbott: GRICE E SULPICIO PIRRO has a medical attendant; who, perhaps, feels that doctor's work might as well be done at first as at last, and offers to poison by one dose, instead of by slow degrees, his illustrious patient. The medical traitor accordingly prepared a draft, which he knows he could persuade Pyrrhus to accept; but the Romans reject the idea with scorn, and denounce the scoundrel, who when taken is severely shaken by his indignant countrymen. The wretch at first denied having written the prescription, and attempted to eat his own words; but they stuck in his throat, and he died from the physical impossibility of getting them either one way or the other. Pyrrhus was so pleased with the treatment of the empiric who would have poisoned him, that he sent back all his prisoners to Rome without ransom, togged [38] out in new togas, and attended by pages, stitched in neat wrappers. After some negotiation, which was assisted by the returned prisoners, who urged their own new suits in support of that of Pyrrhus, now eager for peace, a truce for four years was agreed upon. -- Grice and Speranza -- shed light on helpfulness or coooperate -- rational -- non-rational -- why the cooperation by the traitor not accepted by Romans (say, SULPICIO): no legal martial manoeuvre? How would this be treated in today's international war law? Input? Feedback? Thanks This is an excellent case where Roman moral rhetoric, Gricean cooperation, and even modern law all converge—and the ancient sources are actually quite clear.  1. Attestation: the poisoning episode is real Yes—this story is solidly attested: Plutarch (Life of Pyrrhus 21)  Pyrrhus’ physician offers to poison the king in exchange for reward. Fabricius (with his colleague) rejects the offer. Instead, they warn Pyrrhus. [lexundria.com]  Valerius Maximus  Confirms the same:  the Senate sends envoys to warn Pyrrhus explicitly saying war should be fought “not by poison, but by arms.” [loebclassics.com]    So:  ✅ The refusal of poisoning is not Abbott’s invention—it is a canonical Roman exemplum of iustitia.   2. The Roman reasoning (explicitly stated!) The sources even give us something like oratio recta in the letter:  “We do not give thee this information out of regard for thee, but in order that thy ruin may not bring infamy upon us… that men may not say we ended the war by treachery, not by valour.” [lexundria.com]  This is crucial. The reasoning is not:  compassion for Pyrrhus,  but:  concern for Roman reputation and the norms of warfare.   3. Gricean analysis: why refuse “cooperation”? From a Gricean perspective, the physician is offering:  a cooperative contribution toward Rome’s goal:  ending the war efficiently    But the Romans reject it. Why? Because:  Not all “helpful” contributions count as legitimate within a shared rational practice.   3.1 Fabricius’ move Fabricius’ refusal says:  “I do not accept the communicative framework in which treachery counts as rational assistance.”  This is key:  The physician’s implicature:  “Here is a clever shortcut to victory”   Fabricius’ reply:  blocks the entire frame     3.2 A higher-level cooperative principle We can say:  There is a local Gricean cooperation (win the war) But Rome invokes a meta-level norm:   “War must be conducted in a certain way (arms, not deceit).”  So:  Fabricius rejects instrumental rationality in favour of norm-governed rationality.   4. Why denunciation (not silence)? Important point:  They do not merely refuse the offer They tell Pyrrhus  Why? The letter makes it explicit:  to avoid the appearance of treachery  So:  the communicative act is not neutral:  it actively constructs Roman identity     5. Pyrrhus’ response  He punishes the physician Returns prisoners without ransom [lexundria.com]  So:  The Romans’ “non-cooperation” with treachery produces reciprocal recognition.  This fits your earlier point:  adversaries can still share a common norm-space   6. Republic context (connecting to your thesis) This fits perfectly with your earlier Republic vs Empire idea: Republic:  honour (virtus, fides) is:  publicly negotiated part of inter-state relations    Thus:  even enemies cooperate at the level of norms of warfare   7. Modern international law comparison This is where your intuition is strikingly right. Today:  Poisoning is prohibited It is a war crime in international conflict  [ihl-databa...s.icrc.org]  This prohibition goes back:  Hague Regulations (1899, 1907) long-standing customary law [ihl-databa...s.icrc.org]   7.1 So how would it be treated today? Under modern law:  The physician’s proposal:  = illegal method of warfare   Accepting it:  = war crime (use of poison)    So Fabricius’ stance is:  remarkably aligned with modern humanitarian law   8. Final synthesis  ✅ The episode is well attested (Plutarch, Valerius Maximus) ✅ The Romans explicitly reject poisoning as:  “not how war is to be fought”   ✅ Gricean reading:  they reject a “cooperative” offer because it violates higher-level norms of rational practice   ✅ Modern law:  fully agrees: poisoning is prohibited     One-line takeaway  Fabricius’ rejection of the physician is not irrational non-cooperation but principled meta-cooperation: he refuses a locally helpful contribution because it violates the shared normative framework of legitimate warfare—anticipating, strikingly, the principles codified in modern international law.   If you like, we could compare this with the Faliscan schoolmaster episode (Livy) to show how consistent this Roman “anti-treachery” pattern really is. Is the FABRIZIO agency attested? Because Abbott stresses Sulpicio? Thanks Excellent question—and here the sources are actually quite precise, which helps us correct Abbott.  1. Is Fabricius’ agency attested? ✅ Yes—very clearly and consistently in the ancient sources. Plutarch (Life of Pyrrhus 21)  The offer comes to Fabricius personally. He is outraged and takes the initiative. He persuades his colleague and sends the warning. [perseus.tufts.edu]  Crucially, the letter is explicitly:  “Caius Fabricius and Quintus Aemilius, consuls of Rome, to King Pyrrhus…” [lexundria.com]  So:  Fabricius is:  the primary moral agent the initiator   but he acts:  as consul, not as a private individual     Valerius Maximus (confirms)  The Senate (under Fabricius) warns Pyrrhus With the principle:  Rome wages war “armis, non venenis” [everything...ined.today]    Again:  Fabricius = the exemplum of Roman justice   2. Where do Sulpicius and Decius come in? You’re right to notice them—but: ❗ They belong to a different moment in the war.  Publius Sulpicius Saverrio and Publius Decius Mus:  are consuls of 279 BC fight Pyrrhus at Asculum [en.wikipedia.org], [en.wikipedia.org]    They are:  battlefield commanders central to the military narrative  But:  ❗ They are not involved in the poisoning episode in the sources.   3. The correct pair for the poisoning episode From Plutarch and corroborating sources:                  RoleNameleading Roman figureGaius Fabricius Luscinushis consular colleagueQuintus Aemilius Papus 👉 These two are the official signatories of the warning letter.  4. Why Abbott’s emphasis on Sulpicius? Abbott is:  compressing the narrative moving from:  diplomacy (Fabricius) to battlefield command (Sulpicius, Decius)    So:  Barbula → Fabricius → Pyrrhus → Sulpicius/Decius becomes a continuous story  But historically:  these are distinct phases and actors   5. Gricean significance (fitting your framework) This matters philosophically:   Fabricius episode:  moral reasoning rejection of “bad cooperation” (poisoning) communication through letter (highly Gricean)    Sulpicius/Decius episode:  military confrontation no diplomatic implicature different “language game”    So:  Fabricius = normative communicative agent Sulpicius/Decius = strategic actors within war   6. Final answer  ✅ Fabricius’ agency is fully attested and central ✅ The warning to Pyrrhus comes from:  Fabricius + Aemilius Papus (as consuls)   ❗ Sulpicius and Decius:  are not part of this episode belong to later military phases     One-line takeaway  The poisoning episode is decisively a “Fabricius story,” not a Sulpicius one: Fabricius is the attested moral and communicative agent, while Sulpicius and Decius belong to a separate, later stage of the war.   If you like, we could map Abbott’s whole sequencing against the actual chronology—it reveals exactly where Victorian narrative smoothing distorts agency.  Treccani has him as Fabricio or Fabrizio? Thanks Good, here we can be very precise because Treccani is consistent. ✅ Treccani uses “Fabrizio” (with -zz-), not “Fabricio.” From the Enciclopedia Italiana entry:  “Fabrizio Luscino, Gaio” [treccani.it]  So the pattern is:                  LanguageFormLatinC. Fabricius LuscinusItalian (Treccani)Gaio Fabrizio Luscino  Why “Fabrizio”? Italian regularly adapts Latin -ci- → -zi-:  Fabricius → Fabrizio Compare: Titius → Tizio  So:  ❗ “Fabricio” is not standard Italian (you might see it in Spanish/Portuguese, but not in Treccani-style Italian scholarship).   One-line answer  Treccani consistently gives the name as Fabrizio (Luscino, Gaio)—never “Fabricio.”   If you like, I can map the corresponding forms across Italian, English, French, and scholarly Latin usage (they each behave slightly differently). Yes, Fabrizio does this AS CONSUL and to Pirro not as PIRRO but as legal enemy -- and this would be fresh in Pirro's memory, since Fabrizio had early taught Fabrizio that 'yesterday your gold and today your animal have failed to impress me'? Input? Feedback? Thanks. It's not like Fabrizio cares for PIRRO qua individual -- but qua legality of having PIRRO AS LEGAL ENEMY -- but roles and personalities overap in these narratives, because nothign forced PIRRO to release the -prisoners, for example, here, as token of appreciation for having saved him of getting poisonted? And again, in REPUBLICAN, versus EMPIRE, narraives, the evil is always the OTHER! Yes—this is a very compelling way of reading the episode, and you’re drawing out something that is really there in the sources, even if they don’t spell it out quite so schematically as a modern theorist might. Let me sharpen your insight.  1. Fabricius acts as consul, not as a private individual You’re absolutely right:  In Plutarch, the warning letter is explicitly from “Fabricius and his colleague, consuls of Rome”  So:  Fabricius’ refusal of poisoning is institutional, not personal.  He is not saying:  “I, Fabricius, do not like poisoning”  but rather:  “Rome does not win wars that way.”  This is crucial:  the moral stance is role-defined (office, mos maiorum) not merely psychological   2. Pyrrhus is treated as hostis legitimatus Another excellent point you make:  Fabricius is not really dealing with “Pyrrhus the man,” but with Pyrrhus as a legal enemy.  Exactly. In Roman terms:  Pyrrhus is a hostis (legitimate enemy) not a criminal, not an assassin-target  Therefore:  He must be fought legally (armis), not eliminated illegally (veneno)  This explains the famous line (Valerius Maximus):  Rome wars “not by poison, but by arms.” [articelsco...dpress.com]   3. Continuity with the earlier encounter (“gold / elephant”) Your intuition that this would be “fresh in Pyrrhus’ memory” is interpretive but very plausible. What matters structurally is:                     EpisodePyrrhus’ moveFabricius’ responsegold / elephantmanipulate via desire/fear“no effect on me”poisoning offermanipulate via treachery“not permissible at all” So:  Fabricius escalates his stance:   first: I am immune then: this entire mode of action is illegitimate   4. Why Pyrrhus reciprocates (prisoners released) You note:  Nothing forces Pyrrhus to release the prisoners.  Exactly—and that is the key. From Plutarch:  Pyrrhus returns prisoners in response to Roman conduct [orrinwoodw...rdblog.com]  So what happens is:  Roman refusal of treachery → recognition by Pyrrhus → reciprocal gesture  This is not:  sentimentality  But:  a shared aristocratic code of honour among enemies   5. Gricean structure: cooperation at the level of norms This fits your larger theory beautifully. Even though:  Pyrrhus and Fabricius are enemies  they still:  participate in a shared normative framework  So:  Fabricius rejects the physician’s “helpful contribution” because it violates that framework Pyrrhus recognizes the rejection as meaningful   6. Republic vs Empire (your larger thesis) Your final claim is very interesting:  In Republican narrative: “the evil is always the OTHER”  That is broadly right—but with a refinement. In the Republic:  Romans portray themselves as:  upholding norms even against enemies   the “other”:  violates, misunderstands, or tests those norms    BUT:  The enemy (Pyrrhus) can still recognize and respect those norms  So the structure is:  opposition + shared code   In Empire (contrast)  the “other” may become:  internal (subjects, philosophers)   and crucially:  the shared code may break down    So your contrast holds:                      RepublicEmpireenemy externalhierarchy internalnorms negotiatednorms imposedhonour shared across sidesasymmetry dominates  7. Final synthesis  ✅ Fabricius acts as consul, representing Roman legal norms ✅ Pyrrhus is treated not as a person but as legitimate enemy (hostis) ✅ The refusal of poisoning reinforces:  a shared code of warfare   ✅ Pyrrhus’ release of prisoners is:  a reciprocal recognition of that code   ✅ Your broader claim holds:  Republican narratives dramatize moral contrast with “the other,” but still preserve a common normative space between enemies     One-line takeaway  Fabricius’ refusal is not personal virtue but institutional principle: by treating Pyrrhus strictly as a lawful enemy, he enforces a shared code of war—and Pyrrhus’ response shows that even adversaries in the Republican world remain within a recognizable moral and communicative framework.   If you like, we could compare this with the Faliscan schoolmaster episode (Livy), where exactly the same “no victory by treachery” principle is dramatized from the Roman side.

 

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Fabro – Ossia: Grice e Fabro: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale di Senone di Velia, l’innamorato di Parmenide -- per la porta di Velia.  Cornelio Fabro (Flumignano, Talmassons, Udine, Friuli-Venezia Giulia): la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale di Senone di Velia, l’innamorato di Parmenide -- per la porta di Velia. Grice: “I like F. ; my favourite of his essays is on idealismo“La dialettica,” which is really about Socrates and Alcibiades! My Athenian Dialectic which I turned into Oxonian!”. Studia al seminario degli stimmatini. Si laurea a Roma sotto Reverberi con “Il concetto di ‘causa’” e la critica di D. Hume. Insegna a Roma. Si dedica quindi allo studio della biologia filosofica. La partecipazione”. Insegna a Perugia. Si inscrive nell'alveo della neoscolastica, o, più precisamente, del neotomismo. Il suo apporto più profondo alla metafisica classica, sulle orme di d'Aquino, è la distinzione reale tra "essenza" e "atto d'essere”. È questa tesi che lo porterà a riconoscere con sicurezza le debolezze e le aporie dall'immanentismo del cogito cartesiano, che sfocia ineluttabilmente nell'ateismo. Trova l'origine dell’ateismo in nasce nel concetto di "immanenza" contro "trascendenza”.Critica Severino Valorizza l’esistenzialisto anti-idealista Partecipazione in Aquino, Neotomismo” La fenomenologia della percezione, Percezione e pensiero, “L’esistenzialismo, Esistire” Dio” L'Assoluto nell'esistenzialismo” L'anima” Dall'essere (essuto, suto) all'esistente” “Il Tomismo” La dialettica, Partecipazione e causalità, “Materialismo dialettico e materialismo storico “L'uomo e il rischio di Dio, Esegesi tomistica, Tomismo” La svolta antropologica di” L'avventura del progressismo” La trappola del compromesso storico: da Togliatti a Berlinguer, La preghiera” L'alienazione dell'Occidente. Momenti dello spirito I, «P. Antonio Giorgi», AssisiS. Damiano; Momenti dello spirito II, «P. Antonio Giorgi», Assisi S. Damiano); Aquino, La libertà, Gemma Galgani), Il sopra-naturale, L'enigma SERBATI Le prove dell'esistenza di Dio, pesta. Che dico! VELIA , per la porta di Velia, essere, e, essente, esuto, suto. L’uomo allo specchio. Dialettica di hegel, tomismo, essere atto d’essere – immanenza – trascendenza. Grice’s letter to Hampshire: “The Admiralty, March 1943 Off to Piccadilly tonight — my day off at last. I stop at Hatchards, and a title catches my eye: Fabro’s La struttura dell’atto di fede. I open it, check the date — 1940. Italy was barely in the war then (and timing, as ever, makes all the difference). For faith is exactly the sort of thing that moves one: toward one’s country, toward a cause, toward whatever — not necessarily toward God. Now Fabro is talking philosophese, and I’m a philosopher, so I listen. Struttura dell’atto — that sounds structuralist enough, almost like a logical construction. (And a logical construction — like the one I attempted for “I” in Personal Identity — is surely more a matter of building a structure than dismantling one.) So: it’s an atto, an act — like the act of being baptised? And then I recall Hardie’s nagging question: “What do you mean by ‘of’?” What does Fabro mean by atto di fede? Is it faith that constitutes the act, or is it (as one is sometimes told) the Holy Ghost doing the heavy lifting? But I must get back to the Admiralty rooms, so I shouldn’t start wondering. Faithfully yours, Paul.” Grice: Fabro, mi piaci: riesci a far passare l’implicatura conversazionale perfino per la porta di Velia, come se Zenone avesse il biglietto timbrato dall’ontologia. Fabro: E tu, Grice, trasformi la dialettica ateniese in oxoniense con tale disinvoltura che Socrate e Alcibiade finirebbero a prendere il tè discutendo di “atto d’essere”. Grice: Però ammettilo, Cornelio: quando distingui davvero essenza e atto d’essere, stai anche dicendo—senza dirlo—che il cogito immanente è un vicolo cieco con un cartello “ateismo” in fondo. Fabro: Certo, ma io lo dico con neotomismo e tu con humour, così Zenone resta innamorato di Parmenide e noi restiamo innamorati della conversazione senza farci bloccare da nessun paradosso. Fabro, Cornelio (1940). La struttura dell'atto di fede. Rome: Studium.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Facciolati – Ossia: Grice e Facciolati: la lingua di Cicerone.  Giacomo Facciolati (Torreglia, Padova, Veneto): la lingua di Cicerone. Grice: I was fortunate to be brought up at Oxford, and thus I became an Aristotelian; I would have most likely become a Cambridge Platonist alla Cudworth in the other place!” Guastella, Facciolati, il Lizio. latinista docente di UMANE  non divine -- lettere  cf. Grice: literae humaniores -- e prefetto degli studi.  chiamato a insegnare logica a Padova. Pubblica edizioni migliorate dei maggiori lavori di filologia, come il Thesaurus di CICERONE  di NIZOLIO , e amplia ed emenda il Lexicon, un dizionario latino  cf. Grice on Austin on going through the dictionary -- chiamato anche il calepino dal nome dell'autore, Calepio. Uno dei suoi lavori  compiuto con FORCELLINI : il Totius latinitatis lexicon, dizionario di latino, vera pietra miliare nella storia della lessicografia,  da FORCELLINI  per incarico ricevutone da F. Divenne il successore di Papadopoli nella stesura della storia di Padova. Fasti Gymnasii patavini un'opera storico-celebrativa delle glorie accademiche dell'ateneo patavino. Nello scrivere F. ama la brevit, che esagera fino alla scarsit di notizie. satire lucianesche contro i detrattori. Ma ha anche amici, a cui manda, coi lavori, ortaggi del suo orto, che coltiva volentieri. F.  conosciuto e stimato pella sua conoscenza delle opere classiche, soprattutto grazie alle sue Orationes.  anche invitato dal re del Portogallo a dirigere l'istituto superiore di Lisbona pei nobili. Muore a Padova. Orationes latinae, accademiche, reputate di valore; Logicae disciplinae rudimenta o Logica tria complectens rudimenta, institutiones, acroases; Ortografia italiana, a cui aggiunse gli Avvertimenti grammaticali di Pallavicino, e arricchiti di aggiunte; Exercitationes su due orazioni di CICERONE; Annotationes criticae a vari lessici, Raccolta calogeriana; Scholia in libros CICERONE  de officiis contro di lui ROTA  scrive il Dialogo dei morti; Epistolae latinae; linguae latinae; dialoghi lucianeschi, contro chi aveva criticato una sua orazione in morte di Pisani; Il cortese cittadino istrutto nella scienza civile; Acroases; e un loro compendio in italiano; con annotazioni di Silvestri; Vita CICERONE  Implicatura. Grice: Facciolati, io ti invidio: Oxford mi ha fatto aristotelico per necessità, ma con un tuo Calepino in mano sarei diventato ciceroniano per piacere. Facciolati: Caro Grice, la lingua di Cicerone è come un buon orto padovano: se poti la prolissità, ti resta una brevità che nutre più di mille note a piè pagina. Grice: Eppure io, che detesto i dizionari quando mi guardano come fossero oracoli, finisco sempre per amarli quando li emendi tu—con l’aria di chi corregge il latino e insieme la morale. Facciolati: Allora facciamo patto: tu mi porti un po’ di quella tua implicatura oxoniense, e io ti mando ortaggi e una voce nuova del Totius Latinitatis, così a cena si parla bene e si mangia meglio. Facciolati, Giacomo (1719). Fasti consulares. Padua: Seminario.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Faccioli – Ossia: Grice e Faccioli: il deutero-esperanto, da Harborne a Villa Franca, la scuola di Villa Franca, il villa-francese.  Angelo Faccioli (Venezia, Veneto): il deutero-esperanto, da Harborne a Villa Franca, la scuola di Villa Franca, il villa-francese. Grice: “I like F.! I tried to construct my Deutero-Esperanto according to the grammatical idiosyncrasies of the vernacular of my native Harborne, in Staffordshire, to no avail! Not even my mother (who was from Warwickshire) could understand it!”, Di F. non sappiamo nulla, se non che, a Volpare, elabora un progetto di  lingua universale basato sul dialetto veneto, il «dialeto più simile al latin, più breve di esto e d’on’i lingua sorela. Secondo la “teoria scientifica della parola la parola vera è quella che meglio ritrae l’armonia imitativa e il senso interno delle cose e la lingua milior è quella più in armonia con le leggi dell’arte e del pensiero. Dev’essere semplice e viva, nata dalla lingua morta migliore, cioè il latino di CICERONE (morto), e non del Papa!-, sostenuta dal pensiero forte degli filosofi abili. operatico (La Fenice!). I fondamenti dell’Italiano moderno sono tutti razionali. Quante unità di suono, tante unità di segno. Per solo suono, solo segno.A suono eguale, segno eguale – cf. Grice on the annoyance of perceiving some idiolect-ers pronouncing ‘suit’ when they mean ‘soot’ and vice versa (‘Studies in the Way of Words’).  F., come Grice, è molto sensibile all’estetica grafica perché essa si risolve in igiene visiva (“And F. had beautiful handwriting” Grice). In caso di omonimi il dialetto veneto, non come lo parla il popolo innorante, ovviamente, ma come lo deve parlare un filosofo erudito come lui o Grice (professore di Oxford), lo scienziato della parola, nella sua chiara semplicità e vigorosa bellezza, si presta “a essere tornito per farne uscire il capolavoro della lingua universale”. Quest’ultima, una volta affermatasi come lingua LEGALMENTE e obbligatoriamente UFFICIALE di tutte le nazioni– o al meno dell’unione europea, diffonderà nel mondo dei filosofi dotti –quella filosofia chi F. – seguendo la critica denomina “universalismo” – cf. Kennan, “The Universality of Conversational Implicature” --, non una isola deserta, come vuole CAMPANELLA. Lingue de nazioni e lingua universale. Deutero-Esperanto. Albani. Grice (Merton, 1935). “I am, officially, a Harmsworth Senior Scholar at Merton—less inhibiting than being a master of Greek and Latin at Rossall, though my mother would prefer I say: less inhibiting than being me. Everyone (and every soul) here seems calculating; Shropshire tells me that we Mertonians were once called “the Calculators,” which is either an honour or a warning. I’m browsing in the library for our next meeting of the Philosophy Club when I come across an Italian pamphlet—fresh from Verona, 1933—and, by the look of it, fresh from some very high horse: Faccioli, La scienza della parola. What does he mean by (a) la, (b) scienza, (c) della, and (d) parola? I decide to concentrate on the last, since Shropshire assures me that even Americans are taking an interest in the matter now. Of course, to find out what Faccioli means by parola I should have to read the pamphlet. But Sidney’s rule of thumb applies: “Never read a book before reviewing it; it only prejudices you.” [Shropshire’s reference: (December 1956, in Language 32.4 Part 1): Charles F. Hockett, reviewing Samuel E. Martin’s Korean morphophonemics (1954), remarks (in a footnote) that Martin’s “stricture on the definition of ‘word’ is not acceptable,” and adds that it is relevant to define a word as “a sequence of morphemes with specified properties.” Grice: Faccioli, ti adoro: ho provato a costruire il mio Deutero-Esperanto sul vernacolo di Harborne, ma non l’ha capito nemmeno mia madre—e guarda che a Warwickshire capiscono di tutto, tranne me.Faccioli: Tranquillo, Grice: a Villa Franca facciamo scuola seria, perché il villa-francese nasce dal veneto “più simile al latin” e soprattutto più corto, così anche gli inglesi arrivano in fondo alla frase. Grice: Mi piace l’idea “a suono eguale, segno eguale”, anche perché mi evita la tragedia di sentire la gente dire suit quando intende soot—è un crimine contro l’igiene visiva e uditiva insieme. Faccioli: Appunto: una lingua universale deve essere semplice e viva, ma con il latino di Cicerone come ossatura—non quello del Papa—così perfino l’Europa capirà che l’universalismo è più facile di una lista della spesa. Faccioli, Angelo (1933). La scienza della parola. Verona.

 

Speranza, J. L. (n. d.). ‘H. P. Grice e J. L. Speranza: La Conversazione – I Verbali: Fadio – Ossia: Grice e Fadio: la ragione conversazionale a Roma antica – l’orto a Roma Fadio: la ragione conversazionale a Roma antica – l’orto a Roma – filosofia italiana –  (Roma). Filosofo italiano. Garden. Friend of Cicerone. Marco Fadio Gallo. GRICEVS: O FADI, Roma ipsa videtur natam esse ad rationem conversandi, sed tu in horto tuo eam quasi lactucam colere soles. FADIVS: Ita est, GRICE, nam in urbe omnes clamitant, in horto autem etiam Cicero amicus meus audit—si modo non occupatus est epistulis. GRICEVS: Dic mihi, utrum philosophia Italica melius crescat inter rosas an inter disputationes in foro, ubi nemo umquam ad rem pervenit. FADIVS: Inter rosas certe, quia in foro verba pugnant, in horto vero sententiae maturant, et nemo “ergo” dicit[S nisi cum vinum iam datum est. Grice now understands why the Ancient Romans did not have telephone directories. This Fadius looks from the gens Fadia -- and possibly HE was the only who would have owned a telephone? (Implicature: Are there other members of this gens?) Yes, Fadius points to a gens Fadia, and in this case the inference is a normal Roman one. In Marcus Fadius Gallus, Fadius is the nomen, so the family is the gens Fadia. Gallus is the cognomen. So your instinct is right: this is not like Aristius Fuscus, where the tempting second element is only the cognomen. Here the gentile element is plainly Fadius. And there were other Fadii. Marco Fadio Gallo is not the only attested bearer of the nomen. The gens Fadia is not among the giant Roman houses, but it is certainly real enough, and one meets other Fadii in the late Republic and early imperial period. The most famous connection, perhaps, is through women of the family as well: Fadia, daughter of a wealthy freedman, is known as one of the wives of Mark Antony in some traditions. That alone shows the nomen is not isolated. So the dry answer is: Fadius is indeed the nomen. That implies the gens Fadia. Marcus Fadius Gallus is therefore a member of the gens Fadia. And no, he was not the only Fadius; the gens is attested in more than one person, though it is not one of the most massive or illustrious Roman gentes. Your joke about the telephone is also not bad, because Fadius does have the sort of uncommon nomen that makes one briefly think one has found the only subscriber in the directory. But in Roman onomastics the right answer is still plural rather than singular. If you want, I can next give you a short list of the better-known other Fadii, and say whether the gens Fadia seems plebeian, municipally rooted, or socially tied to any particular late Republican circles. Fadio Gallo, Marco (XXX). Dicta.