ROMAN GRICE

Speranza

It is quite a task to trace our "Roman Grice"; and I don't mean our "Greek Grice" (as Horn calls him).

By "Roman Grice" I mean the earliest rhetorical references in 'oratory', rather, which have a Griceian tone to them.

The earliest treatise, wrongly ascribed for YEARS to CICERONE, "Ad Herennium", has a good passage on 'significatio', which is all about 'implicature'.

Of course, Grice was concerned with "p & q" and "q & p", i.e. a meta-philosophical inquiry into misuses of 'imply' by philosophers.

The author of Ad Herennium is rather interested in teaching his fellow student (he is working with lecture notes by a 'doctor') how to embellish a speech.

He says:

Significatio est res quae plus in suspicione relinquit quam positum est in oratione.

 

The subject is "signification". And it is defined as something that has to do with 'suspecting', and what is 'put' or 'posited' in the oration -- and what is not!

 

 

He goes on to distinguish five types of 'implicature' (what Greek Grice would call 'emphasis".

 

Ea fit per exsuperationem, ambiguum, consequentiam, abscisionem,

similitudinem.

 

Per exsuperationem, cum plus est dictum quam patitur Veritas, augendae suspicionis causa, sic :

 

Hie de tanto patrimonio tam cito testam qui sibi petat ignem non reliquit."

 

Per ambiguum, cum verbum potest in duas pluresve sententias accipi, sed accipitur tamen in cam partem quam vult is qui dixit ; ut de eo si dicas qui multas hereditates adierit : " Prospice tu, qui plurimum cernis."

 

Ambigua quemadmodum vitanda sunt quae obscuram reddunt orationem, item haec

consequenda quae conficiunt huiusmodi significationem. Ea reperientur facile si noverimus et animum adverterimus verborum ancipites aut multiplices  potestates.

 

 

The translation is clear enough:

 

emphasis is

 

"meaning conveyed by implication".

 

The editor adds: "Really more a trope than a figure".

 

I disagree. And so does Grice: "implicature" as a 'figure of speech'.

 

 Cf. Quintilian, 8. 3. 83 : " There are two kinds of Emphasis; one means more than it says, the other often means something it does not say."

 Or as Grice would prefer: there's implicature (meaning more than you say) and disimplicature (meaning less).

^ See 4. xxxiii. 44 above (superlatio).

 

« This passage is in the spirit of the excerpts, in Cicero, De

Oratore 2. 55. 223-6, from the speech delivered in probably

 

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The translator goes:

 

"Emphasis is the figure which leaves more to be suspected than has been actually asserted."

 

"It is produced through Hyperbole, Ambiguity, Logical Consequence, Aposiopesis, and Analogy."

 

The emphasis is produced through Hyperbole when more is said than the truth warrants, so as to give greater force to the suspicion, as follows:

 

"Out of so great a patrimony, in so short a time, this man has not laid by even an earthen pitcher wherewith to seek a fire for himself."

 

The emphasis is produced through Ambiguity when a word can be taken in two or more senses, but yet is taken in that sense which the speaker intends ; for example, if you should say concerning a man who has come into many legacies: " Just look out, you, who look out for yourself so profitably."'^ hlV. p],ven

as we must avoid those ambiguities which render

the style obscure, so must we seek those which

produce an emphasis of this sort. It will be easy to

find them if we know and pay heed to the double and

multiple meanings of words.

 

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continuation of footnote from previous page:

91 B.C. by L. Lifinius Crassus on behalf of Cn. Planc(i)us

against M. Junius Brutus, who had squandered his patrimony.

Kroehnert, p. .31, thinks it may come from this speech, but

there is no real evidence for the ascription.

 

Quintilian, 6. 3. 47 flF., considers the play on double

meanings only rarely teUing, unless helped out by the facts.

 

" The play is upon the double meaning of cernere : to " dis-

cern " and, in judicial language, " to enter upon an in-

heritance; " thus : " you who know exceedingly well how to

enter upon bequests."

 

 

Per consequentiam significatio fit cum res quae sequantur aliquam rem dicuntur, ex quibus tota res relinquitur in suspicione ; ut si salsamentarii filio

dicas : " Quiesce tu, cuius pater cubito se emungere ^ solebat."

 

Per abscisionem, si, cum incipimus aliquid dicere,

deinde praecidamus, et ex eo quod iam diximus satis

relinquitur suspicionis, sic : " Qui ista forma et aetate

nuper alienae domi — nolo plura dicere."

 

Per similitudinem, cum aliqua re simili allata nihil

amplius dicimus, sed ex ea significamus quid sen-

tiamus, hoc modo : " Noli, Saturnine, nimium populi

frequentia fretus esse; inulti iacent Gracci."

 

Haec exornatio plurimum festivitatis habet inter-

dum et dignitatis ; sinit enim quiddam tacito oratore

ipsum auditorem suspicari.

68 Brevitas est res ipsis tantummodo verbis necessariis

expedita, hoc modo: " Lemnum praeteriens cepit,

inde Thasi praesidium reliquit, post urbem Bithynam

 

1 cubito se emungere E : cubiti seraugire H : cubitis emungi

CIl3Ix : cubiti semugi P : cubitis emugi B.

 

 

 

" iiraKoXovOrjaiS'

 

* The saying is common, e.g., with reference to the freedman

father of the poet Horace, in Suetonius, De Viris Illustrihus,

Vita Horatii, and to the freedman father of Bion of Borys-

thenes (first half, third century B.C.), in Diogenes Laertius

4. 46. Cf. also Plutarch, Quaest. Conviv. 2. 4 (631 D), and,

illustrating oKa>iJ.fxa {contumelia celata), Macrobius, Sat. 7. 3. 6.

 

' See 4. XXX. 41 above {praecisio).

 

^ L. Appuleius Saturninus, of praetorian descent, after

being removed from the quaestorship by the Senate, joined

the populares, and thereafter by demagoguery and violence

 

402

 

 

 

AD HERENNIUM, IV. liv. 67 6S

 

Emphasis by Logical Consequence " is produced

when one mentions the things that follow from a

given circumstance, thus leaving the whole matter in

distrust ; for example, if you should say to the son of

a fishmonger: "Quiet, you, whose father used to

wipe his nose with his forearm." ^

 

The emphasis is produced through Aposiopesis '^ if

we begin to say something and then stop short, and

what we have already said leaves enough to arouse

suspicion, as follows: " He who so handsome and so

young, recently at a stranger's house — I am unwilling

to say more."

 

The emphasis is produced through Analogy, when

we cite some analogue and do not amplify it, but by

its means intimate what we are thinking, as follows :

" Do not, Saturninus, rely too much on the popular

mob — unavenged lie the Gracchi." '^

 

This figure sometimes possesses liveliness and

distinction in the highest degree ; indeed it permits

the hearer himself to guess what the speaker has not

mentioned.

68 Conciseness ^ is the expressing of an idea by the

very minimum of essential words, as follows : " On

his way he took Lemnus, then left a garrison at

Thasus, after that destroyed the Bithynian city,

 

fought the Senate until he was, in 100 b.c, declared a public

enemy by that body and slain, the mob participating; see

note on 4. xxii. 31 above. Saturninus was influenced by the

political ideas of C. Gracchus. On his grain-bill see 1. xii. 21

above.

 

* ^paxvXoyla. Also, from another point of view, iniTpo-

XaofjLos. Cf. distincte concisa brevitas and percursio in Cicero, De

Oraiore 3. 53. 202. Quintilian in 9. 3. 99 denies that fipaxv-

Aoyta is a figure, yet in 9. 3. 50 treats it as a form of

As3ndeton.

 

403

 

 

 

[CICERO]

 

Cium ^ sustulit, inde re versus ^ in Hellespontum

statim potitur Abydi ". Item : " Modo consul

quondam, is deinde primus erat civitatis ; turn pro-

ficiscitur in Asiam ; deinde hostis et exul est dictus ;

post imperator, et postremo vii ^ factus est consul."

Habet paucis conprehensa brevitas multarum rerum

expeditionem. Quare adhibenda saepe est, cum aut

res non egent longae orationis aut tempus non sinet

commorari.

 

LV. Demonstratio est cum ita verbis res exprimi-

tur ut geri negotium et res ante oculos esse videatur.

Id fieri poterit si quae ante et post et in ipsa re facta

 

1 Bithynam Cium Muenzer : bithinia b : bithinnia v :

bithana / : viminachium 31, Viminacium 3Ix.

 

2 reversus Baiter-Kayser : rursiis C : sulsus HPB U :

pulsus 3Ix.

 

^ Insertion of vii suggested by Omnibonus and Mx.

 

" Text and reference are uncertain. Friedrich Muenzer

(Philologus 89 [1934]. 215-25) believes that the expedition

made in 202-200 b.c. by Philip V of Macedon (Rome declared

war in 200) is indicated. Cius was the city on the Propontis

in Bithynia. The Rhodians were active against Philip;

this passage may come from an actual oration, perhaps

delivered, Muenzer thinks, bv Apollonius Molo or Apollonius

ofiaXaKos. W. Warde Fowler, Class. Rev. 29 (1915). 136-7,

and Roman Essays and Interpretations, Oxford, 1920, pp.

95-99, thinks the reference is to Lucullus and his fleet in 84

(85) B.C., when he was clearing the Hellespont and Aegean of

the lorces of Mithridates for Sulla. Marx ( Viminachmi),

Rhein. Mus. 47 (1892). 157-9, doubts the possibility of

establishing the reference. For other conjectures, see A.

von Domaszewski, Jahreshefte der oesterr. archaeol. Inst, in

Wien 5 (1902). 147-9 (Lysimachia, in the Thracian Chersonese,

and Lucullus), and H. Jordan, Hermes 8 (1874). 75-7 (Lysi-

machia, and Antiochus III after his defeat in 191 B.C. by the

Romans at Thermopylae).

 

Alexander Numenii, De Schemat. (Spengel 3. 22), cites in

 

404

 

 

 

AD HERENNIUM, IV. liv. 68-lv. 68

 

Cius ; next, returning to the Hellespont, he forthwith

occupies Abydus."» Again: " Just recently consul,

next he was first man of the state ; then he sets out for

Asia ; next he is declared a public enemy and exiled ;

after that he is made general-in-chief and finally

consul for the seventh time." * Conciseness expresses

a multitude of things within the limits of but a few

words, and is therefore to be used often, either when

the facts do not require a long discourse or when time

will not permit dwelling upon them.