In a message dated 8/26/2015 3:51:05 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes: "August Thoughts..."
McEvoy does not dislike senses. It may be argued that the 'au-' in "August"
turned into the vernacular Italian into a mere "a". Thus 'agosto".
"il mese fu rinominato augustus dal Senato romano, nell'anno 8 a.C., in
onore dell'imperatore Augusto."
i.e. the month was named 'augustus' by the Roman Senate in Jan. 16, 27 B.
C. E. to honour Augustus."
It's interesting that Italian keeps the 'au-' in the vernacular form of the
emperor, "Augusto", but turns the 'au-' into 'a-' when talking about the
month. I'm sure what's guiding the Italians is a Griceian principle, "Do not
multiply senses beyond necessity":
-- (a) For "Augusto" qua name, does NOT have a sense, merely a reference.
-- (b) It can be claimed that while "agosto" (the month) derives from
"Augustus", they are different lexical items, and different lexical items ARE
allowed to have different senses (cfr. 'He was caught in the grip of a vyse',
'He was caught in the grip of a vice').
Now, the issue springs about why Augusto's mother named him thus. Of course
she didn't. The Senate named him thus. To do that, they just picked an
adjective from the Latin dictionary, and capitalised it.
Matter of fact, this was the second option, the emperor had previously
refudiated [sic] the idea that he be named "Romolo" instead -- "dopo che questi
aveva rifiutato il titolo alternativo di Romolo." I suppose Augusto knew
about Kripke "avant la lettre": what's the good of being called "Romolo"
when there was someone in Roman history with that name before that? According
to Kripke, proper names have rigid designata, and "Romolo" was very rigid
by then.
Was the Senate being wise?
According to H. L. A. Hart, yes: this was a primary rule, and primary rules
are wise _simpliciter_.
"Augusto" "è innanzitutto una traduzione latina dell'aggettivo greco
Sebastòs, ovvero venerabile o il rispettabile."
i.e. "Augusto", or 'augusto', if you must, was deemed a translation or
rendering of "sebastos", which in Greek meant 'venerabilis' or 'respectable'
(cf. Bede the Venerable) -- and "Sebastian" as a name.
The adjective "Sebastòs", sic with a capital S, "veniva utilizzato in
Oriente per indicare le divinità, o i sovrani più importanti, innalzati al
grado
di teòs dopo la morte", i.e was already in use in Greek-speaking lands
(remember Greece was a colony of Rome by then) to indicate the divinity OR
those kings which were very important, and raised to the degree of "theos" or
god after their death.
Therefore, it was not surprising that implicatures started to drop:
"Già Ottaviano, ricevuto il titolo di Augusto, iniziò a farsi adorare
appunto come un Dio nelle province."
Once the Senate changed the ruler's name from Ottaviano to "Augusto", he
started to make himself whorship like a very God in the provinces."
Provincials can be very religious.
"Soprattutto appunto in quelle orientali, che a questi onori erano avvezze;
a Roma invece, ai suoi tempi, questo epiteto forniva esclusivamente
prestigio politico, collocando Ottaviano al di sopra di tutti gli altri
cittadini."
And especially in those 'provinces' with oriental influences. In Roma
itself, the adjective did not drop the implicature "divine", but had a "mere"
(to use McEvoy's favourite, or one of his favourite, adjectives) political
SENSE -- to indicate someone ABOVE any other citizen.
"il primo imperatore romano, infatti, non volle mai, come ci ricorda
Svetonio, il culto della sua persona all'interno dell'Urbe."
Augusto, in fact, since he was classy, looked down on the cult of his
person as a god -- WITHIN Rome.
"Il termine "augusto", inoltre, deriva del verbo augeo, che ha in latino il
significato di accrescere."
If we don't want to multiply senses beyond necessity, 'augusto' is a
derivation of a verb (Geary's thesis is that 'verbing' was the only part of
speech in the Neolithic). Augere, which means something like 'to grow'.
"dunque gli Augusti, gli imperatori, sono coloro che accrescono la
ricchezza, il benessere, la floridezza dello Stato, grazie al potere che
rivestono. Augusto vuol dire anche "venerabile" e, soprattutto, "protetto dagli
dei"."
The idea is that under someone whose name means something related to
growth, the nation growth.
Lewis & Short suggest that the correct spelling should be "angustus", with
an intrusive (from a later Italian point of view) "n", as it derives from
"aNgere", a verb originally belonging, as we say, to the language of
religion, and meant to render "Sebastòs".
Lewis & Short also note that the rendering of "sebastos" as "angustus" was
loose, since there were cognates in Greek for that: αὔξω αὐξάνω --
cfr. Lithuanian "augu, and augmu = growth; Sanscrit, vaksh; Gothich vahsjan,
and auka = growth; German wachsen; English wax; also allied to vegeo
vegetus, vigeo vigor, vigil.
One has to wax etymological to relate this to English wax, which is what
Lewis & Short do.
Cheers,
Speranza
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