The Experimental Philology’s Manifesto Physics and Philology from hour to hour are pushing away from each other; nowadays the gap separating the two Sciences is widening; there shines no hope of filling the widening gap: the Physics landing men and machines on the lunar soil, sending dogs, monkeys, men and women up in the skies and hurling in the space computerized observatories to look at Mars, Venus and the other planets; the Philology spending time, money and brains to study Moon, Mars, Venus and the other planets seen only as source of poetical inspiration, seen as pagan deities with all their myths. Today, satellites and nuclear bombs rotating in the skies, we blame the Physics for the nuclear menace; gods and goddesses dead and buried with all their myths, we reproach to the Philology its inertia. The causes of the existing gap between the physical and the philological field, are two: 1) the employ of a new and sound Methodology by the Physicists; 2) the obstinate refusal of the inertial law by the Philologists. The First Law ofMechanics: the fundamental dos pa sto of the Physicists1 and anathema for the Philologists, assured success to the Physics and condemned the Philology to ineffectiveness2. The lack of a sound and renovate Methodology in the philological studies has blocked the Philology and there is no hope of awakening it from its sleep and slumber. The Philologists of all times, of the various countries and of the different schools, strenously proclaimed and proclaim the possess of truth and by every means, by hook or by crook they defended and defend their contrasting conclusions. As the czech poet Machar wrote of the Greeks, the Philologists talk and talk; having no intention to put an end to their quarrelings about the greek and roman writers, about their life, ideals and works, they do not confess to ignore the substance of the greek and latin language and the particularities of the two societies which invented and used and transformed the respective language. We owe to the Philologists the dispersion of the dilapitaded substance of the greek and latin culture, of the greek and roman societies. Between society and language we understand an interdipendent interchange: the mutations of the society corresponding to the diachronic mutations of the language, there are for the Philologist two possibilities: 1) know the society necessary to the Science of the language; 2) know the language necessary to the Science of the society… tertium non datur! The Physicists long ago repudiated the aristotelian doctrine and the aristotelism; so pushing apart the absurdities of the syllogism, they founded the new Physics and went up the skies and penetrated the atoms, moving from the inertial law; the Philologists refusing Aristoteles but not the aristotelism and for it refusing the inertial law, now pay the fault of their haughtiness and they still go the wrong way not knowing whence they move, where they stay, where are and which their aims and goals. The Philology lacks a sound and renovate Methodology. The Philologists consider the parole, consider the langue as the fundamental base of their Science and of their Methodology but many and controversial being the definitions of the parole and of the langue there is not a universally accepted Methodology in the philological field. To found a new and valid Methodology, first we must uncover the nature of the parole, establishing its structure, fixing its mutations in the form and changes in its meaning, duly marking its disappearance, following the parole along all its way to fossilization: all chapters must be studied an duly ruled only after the parole has been understood deeply and profoundly defined3. The parole has material nature and corporeal effects. There is no doubt about the materiality of the parole; the Stoic School teached the corporeity of the parole and so informed Seneca4 and wrote Sextus Empiricus5: authors who acknowledged their debt to the rhetoricians and grammarians of the Stoic School. Of the materiality or corporeity of the parole were aware the Romans who refusing disquisitions and subtilities, settled the problem using two different words but with the same root: res to indicate the abstract parole and ver+bum to indicate the concrete or material parole6. The materialty or corporeity of the parole clearly explains the birth, the diachronic growth, the slow orrapid changes of the parole, its disappearance and its fossilization at the extreme stadium of its long or short life7. Now, how to explain all the mutations of the parole beginning with its birth and finishing with its death or better with its fossilization if a new force does not resuscitate it to new life for a new meaning in a renovated society? The parole being material or corporeal is subjected to all the physical forces like all other object, body or particle; subjected to the impact of the physical force, the parole does not stop changing along the diachronic process of time. The force operating upon the parole bears the explanation of the causes of all the mutations of the parole. The existence of the postulated cause, the operating force, the changes of the parole, the materiality or corporeity of the parole together justify the employ of the First Law of Mechanics in the philological field: the inertial law proclaims:«The particle will remain in a state of rest or of uniform velocity (that is of motion in a straight line at constant speed) until it is compelled to change that state by an impressed force»8. In consequence of the premise, we dare change the galilean-newtonian inertial law applying it to the philological field so passing from Physics to Philology:«The parole remains in its state of rest until it is compelled to change that state of rest by an impressed force which constrains it to move in the straight line of constant entropy». The galilean-newtonian law wich changed the Physics did not change the Philology because it was ignored and strenously fought by the unanimous chorus of all the contemporary Philologists who with the ineffable Cremonini, refused to put their eyes to the lens of the cannocchiale of Galileo Galilei, so blocking and enervating the philological studies and not comparing the state of rest of the Philology to the state of motion of the Physics in the marvellous line of its stupendous achievements. The Philologists who earnestly refused to introduce the First Law of Mechanics in their studies, they also refused the new Physics Methodology in their philological inquiries so procuring detriment and damage to their Science, letf a long way behind the detested Physics. The want and lack of a new and sound Methodology in the philological studies, is evidenced by the same Philologists who ore rotundo proclaim to have and to use the surest Methodology while they all are still disputing about the name of their Science. The Philologists still quarrel about the name of their Science, calling it by various and different names: Semasiology, Sematology, Clossology, «Rhematics», «Rhematolog, Semantics and, last but not least, Philology9. The name: Philology has affirmed itself over the other names and nowadays the Science is known and is cultivated by the name of Philology, In this troublesome context and situation, the necessity of clarifying compels us to revisit the ancient name: Philology given to the Science of the paroles, to see if it applies welI to the Philological Science. Philology for us is not the Science of the sole paroles because the greek compound name bears a double meaning so restoring the greek word: lògos at its true signification. Philology is the Science of the paroles: lògoi, not extinguishing itself in the paroles but amplifying itself in the description of the various aspects of the people, of the society which the parole and the langue invented, used and transformed in the time’s process. This is the double meaning of lògos and lògoi as we read in the Historiai of the greek Herodotus, the father of history. Philology: the Science of the paroles, the Science of the history; there are not two separated Sciences but one Science for an unitarian but twofold study of the paroles to penetrate the secrets of a given society, of the history of the society in order to reconstitute the eventually missing links of the language. Society and language: twofold faces of the same money! To establish the Methodology for a new Philology, we formulate the following axioms: 1) The parole: a perfect mirror reflecting the society at a given moment; 2) The parole changes as changes the society at a given moment; 3) The parole falls, declines, disappears as falls, declines and disappears the society which invented and used the parole in the short or long arch of time. In order to demonstrate valid the axioms and to give a reaI demonstration of the new Methodology in the philological studies. we have chosen at random fourwords: paroles: two greek and two latino The preference given to the greek and latin paroles is not due to the love for Greece and Rome but because it is easier to follow their diachronic process than to study the paroles of the modern languages in continous mutations. The first parole we propose, is the latin word: bellum. Bellum in all dictionaries is translated with: guerra, guerre, Gefecht, gevecht, slag, war, Krieg: translation inexact because it is misleading not alerting the scholar or the student of the enormous distance existing between the latin word: bellum and the words of the modern languages. There a clear demonstration of the proverb: Translate is betray!; we must not confound the paroles if we do not want confound the societies: the modem society is very different from the roman society as bellum differs from the parole: guerra of the italian vulgar language. Who believes rigth the translation, he does not comprehend the exact meaning of the latin word: bellum infiltrating into it the meaning of the barbarian and gerrnan word: werra which had and has nothing in common with the latin word as the barbarian society had nothing in common with the roman society. Tracherously infiltrating in the latin word: bellum the meaning of the foreign and barbarian word: werra, there was made with extreme subtility and with extreme degree of ignorance a grave offence to the latin language, to the Roman people as a whole and to the roman society wich till now lies under the blow of this inacceptable translation and injury. Bellum=Duellum not to be translated werra; bellum = duellum was at its beginnings, at the beginning of the roman society the fight of two, indicating the recourse to arrns to solve the contrast between two peoples as we read of the bellum between Romans and Albans resolved by a duel sustained by the Horatii and Curiatii at Albalonga. as we read of the bellum = duellum between Romans and Sabini in the roman Forum; in those ancient time, there was not war but duel of chosen champions and after between two peoples at variance, in order to settle their dispute with the assistance of the national gods and with the sacred function of the respective priests. Slowly but constantly in the course of time. Rome enlarged its territory and we read of other bella=duella by which the Romans settling the disputes with the neighbouring peoples, never aimed at destroying them as was the aim of the barbarian werra. So bellum=duellum slowly changed from figh of two champions to «fight of two peoples»; losing its singularity of the plurality of the fighters but preserving its sacred nature if till the times of the emperor Trajan. Optimus Princeps Incomparabilis, the declaration of war was the duty of the Feciales, who opened the hostilities, hurling a blood-stained lance in the ager hostilis not far from the walls of Rome. There carne the Barbarians and the Romanorum Imperium collapsed, declining and falling under the violent onslaught of the Gofhs, Ostrogoths, Eruli, Vandals and Langobards. Fell and disappeared the Imperium and with it fell and disappeared the roman society and down went the latin language slowly substituted by the rising vulgar tongues. Of the changing politics, of the disappearance of the society and of the fossilization of the latin language, we uncover a direct proof in the new paroles invented and used by the new societies in their new langue. In the english vocabulary, all the words alluring to war: helmet, shield, bow, dart, sword and so on, are not oflatin matrice but ofbarbarian and saxon mould. The same variation in the vulgartongues: all the paroles alluring to war are not of latin matrice but of german root. With a few words in the vulgar tongues remained but with different meaning the word duellum; duello, duel, which for the Knights of the Round Table signified the will to fight for the poor and weak in defence of the ideals of the Knighthood and of the Holy Graal: at the time of la belle Epoque, duel signified a fight of two for personal offence or for the beauty of the dame: nowadays there are no duels, the parole being near to its disappearance it is used only metaphorically: the slow falling of the parole into fossilization. The passage from the latin langue to the vulgar tongues, the disappearance of the words alluring to war, are clear testimonies of the predominance of the barbarian elements in the spanish, french, portuguese, roumanian, and italian societies: in the changing meaning of the paroles we must see the changing thought of the changing societies. The idea of the war as duellum changed in the idea of the war of destruction if the aim of the Barbarians was the complete destruction of the opposing foe overthrowing the affirmed society. The historian writing the history ofthe Roman people only ifhe knows the meaning of the parole; bellum=duellum shall not deviate from the right way, shall not deviate confounding the reader instilling in his mind the invented idea of Rome continually on the battle-fields, always assaulting external and pacific peoples, enjoying a state of perpetuaI war; the historian should give credit to the proverb: Romanus sedendo vincit. Fighting its wars, Rome applied one or all the three moments ofits politics: 1) parcere subiectis; 2) paci imponere morem; 3) debellare superbos, i.e.: 1) raise the prostrated foe; 2) habituate peoples to peace; 3) take away the weapons of the superbs; and that was a different politics: bellum=duellum being the preamble ofpeace and the prelude of progress. The passage from the latin to the vulgar vocabulary bears a direct testimony of the extemal force operating upon the paroles, of the same force operating upon the society, renewing the language, renewing the society under the onslaughts of the barbarian invaders who with their war-cries imported in the south of Europe blond hair and blue eyes and the practice of the war of destruction10. Rome founded by people of dark hairs and dark eyes and dark complexion was and is different from the Rome of the historians! To demonstrate the effects of an internaI force upon the «paroles», we have picked the parole: Εκκλησια, from the greek vocabulary11 . Εκκλησια: at the origin indicated an assembly duly summoned: in the heroic times, as we read in the Homeric poems, the parole: Εκκλησια indicated in the Iliad the assembly of the fighting heroes to discuss military matters: the parole: Εκκλησια, in the Odyssey, indicated the assembly of the Notables at court to discuss political matters and the decision ofsending back to his homeland the foreigner Odysseus with dark eyes, dark hairs and dark complexion, bom as all the Pheacians from the same mediterranean stock. When the greek polis affirmed its political status and its power the parole: Εκκλησια passed to indicate the popular assembly; the popular assembly lost its importance when it was dispersed by the tyrants, as we read of the Thirty Tyrants. The dispersed popular assembly did not reappear in the hellenistic times, the ellenistic sovereigns preferring their private council to the blundering popular assembly. To escape death and to avoid fossilization, the parole: Εκκλησια, changed its meaning and in the hellenistic time, indicated the assembly of thesons of Abraham in the place of prayers: the Synagogue; the change of mearning from the political to thereligious acception of the word testimonies the presence ofthe Izraelites in all the territories of the hellenistic monarchies12. In the NT, the parole: Εκκλησια: Ecclesia indicated the first group of the believers in Christ. The Apostles preaching the Gospel in all the countries and cities of the Mediterranean Ekumene, the parole: Εκκλησια, Ecclesia indicated the whole of the believers living and praying together. In the Cod. Just., the christian church being well established, the parole: Εκκλησια, Ecclesia, indicated the place of prayers of the christian believers. The transposition of the parole: Ecclesia in the italian word: chiesa, spanish: iglesia, french: église bearing reference only to the building of prayers and not to the christian belief, indicates the disappearance of the pagan worship and the destruction or transformation of the pagan temples. The new religion converted the Gentiles of the Imperium and Rome, superb of its many temples, had Ecclesiae and Basilicae dedicated to the martyrs of Christ. Another proof of the internal force or cause operating upon the parole we find in the latin parole imperium. The substantive: imperium and the verb imperare were in continual use during the Regnum, during the Res publica, during the Imperium, during the Dominatus; if the paroles: imperium and imperare were used under different political regimes by the different roman societies, the two paroles indicated something that could not be changed by the changing political regime or by the changing society of Rome: then the parole: imperium indicating what was stable and fixed, represented the substance of the antiqui mores Romani: the sound and perfect motor of all the roman political actions. Imperium: the special and particular endowment of the pater familias who had sucked it from the mouth ofhis dying fatherwith the last, cerimonial kiss13. Imperium, assuredly a strong constituent of the patria potestas wich derived its authority from imperium, of imperium being a private manifestation and exercise. The patria potestas accomplished many tasks in the familiar ambitus as in the political field. The pater familias was the fami1y priest; was commander-in-chief of the family combat-group in the field; was the provisor of the living means for all the family components; was the protector of the clients; gave the daughters in matrimony; elected the wife for the sons; legittimated the newbom son; condemned to death the guilty; gave freedom to the slaves; adopted a foreigner into the family14. If those the tasks the pater familias carried on in his life, they were also the base of the political tasks the pater exercised in the Roman Senate; the familiar tasks were automatically transformed in political tasks. To ascertain the origin of the parole: imperium, we must search the literary sources. There being strong ambiguity, the Philologists and the Historians gave and give to imperium the meaning of: «Supreme Command of the Combined Roman Forces in the battle-field» and to imperator the meaning of: Victorious Commander in chief: a right interpretation indeed, but a reductive and incomplete translation because it is partial, supporting only one of the many tasks of the pater familias in the family ambitus and of the pater in the Senate15. We find the most ancient source of the parole: imperium in the realm of the sermo sermo rusticus: Ovid, Vergil, Columella, Pliny the Older, Cicero and Tacite used the word: imperium, imperare in their works16. Imperium, imperare in the agricultural language indicated the necessity for the tillers along the left bank ofthe blond river Tiber to work plain the soil an for the wine-dressers of the hills to prune equal the wine-branches if the wanted good grain from the soil and good wine from the wine-yards17. So the patres familias worked the soil and pruned the wine-branches and the same work was done by the patres in the Senate for all the Roman people and for the externae nationes in the aim of rendering all equal before the law. The roman imperatores and the other authorities endowed with «imperium: maior potestas cum imperio; minor potestas sine imperio» among the military tasks had the power to give the civitas Romana to the people pruning them and separating the worthy from the unworthy. As the pater familias adopted a foreigner into the family group so the imperatores and the praefecti made citizen the foreigner incorporating him in the roman society, in the Roman Arrny. The parole: imperium restored to its ancient and true meaning, is to be considered the motor of the roman growth and the explanation of the greatness of Rome; only imperium thus interpreted explains the presence in Rome ofkings who were racialiy not Romans; explains emperors who were not Italians, like Traian, Septimius Severus, Diocletian and Philip the Arab who celebrated the first millenium of Rome: explains the coesistence of so different Romani cives from all the countries of the Imperium. There were roman citizen of Italy and Illyria, of Africa and Arabia, of Greece and Macedonia, of Syria and Palestine, of Spain, Gallia and Britannia, of Germany, Noricum, Pannonia and Dacia, all of them collaborating with arms and brains to aggrandize Rome and to defend the roman imperium and their countries. The state of civis pleni juris was a juridical, not a racial category! In the first period of the roman history, the parole: imperium changed under the impact of an internal cause and not of an external force. After the Antoninian Edict: «Omnes in orbe Romano qui sunt: cives Romani facti sunt» the imperium began to change, there being no more necessity to make new citizens, all being citizens by law and imperium losing the principal of its tasks. In the times of the dominatus, the parole: imperium accelerated its changing under the impact of an external force: the invading Barbarians, from imperare ut passing to imperare facere to give greater resonance to the militaty command of the Roman Army. In the word entropy we see the changing of the parole, the changing of the roman politics, the sign of the collapse and the commencement of the end of Rome and of the decline of the Roman Empire and the ruin of the roman society and the fossilization of the latin langue as we read in the Langobard King Rotari’s Edict and in the famous «Carte Capuane» and in the documents of S. Mary in Cinglis and of S. Salvatore in Cucuruzzo. The fourth and last parole by us subjected to inquiry following the Methodology of the Experimental Philology18, is the greek parole: Γεωμετρια, transposed as: Geometry in all the modem languages but not translated because what indicates nowadays Geometry, it is not what at the beginning indicated the greek word: Γεωμετρια. The greek historian Herodotus: the father of history wrote in His Historiai and we refer His thought not His words: greek philosophers had introduced in the greek poleis and gave as fruit of their mind what was a genuine product of the Egyptian priests. Among the other Sciences thus deceitfully smuggled from Egypt to Greece, there was Geometry. Geometry was effectively developed in the egyptian soil, by egyptian hands and minds of the state-experts who had the duty and the task of measuring the tillable soil along the two banks of the sacred river Nile, after the two annual inundations. in order to reassign the arabIe soil to the legitimate owners. The science of Geometry in the hands of the egyptian priests aimed at the exact survey of the tillable country soil in order to avoid strifes, quarrels and bloody fights among the tillers if peace in the fields meant more grain in the public granary for the starving people. The science of Geometry from Egypt passing in Greece, the parole lost its original meaning and changed because in the greek country and lands there was no use for Geometry: science measuring the soil, because in Greece there were no inundations. Losing its contact with the everyday reality, necessities and uses, the Geometry became an abstract science: «ne of the three principal branches of mathematics (the other two being algebra and analysis) may be described as the branch which deals with the properties of space»19. Euclides wrote his treatise of Geometry and for a long, long time He was the top and enjoyed the authority of the ipse dixit. Nowadays there are other Geometries which deal with space and its properties but from different points and differents prospectives: the Differential Geometry, the Projeetive Geometry, the Inversion Geometry, the Synthetie Geometry, the Analytic Geometry; there are also non-euclidean geometries derived from the studies of Saville, Saccheri, Lambert, Gauss, Lobachewski, Bolyai, Riemann, Helmholtz, Beltrami. Geometry gives a good example of a parole which at the beginning was subjected to an external cause but in Greece changing into science began its long voyage upon the writing-tables of the Scientists where it was subjected to a transcultural force: the force of all its corttinuous transformations. At end of the proposed inquiry about the four paroles, we affirm and we are sure of our affirmation, that the results obtained with the four paroles are the results obtainable from all the paroles if subjected to the same Methodology of the same Experimental Philology. Concluding our work and the paper, we dare signalize the ten axioms of the Experimental Philology: 1) The parole is material; immaterial is the meaning of the parole; 2) the material parole is subjected to internal, external, transcultural force which in short or long time modifies parole and meaning; 3) the force causes the entropy; decay of the parole; 4) the force operates upon the material parole as operates upon the material object, body and particle; 5 the parole is itself only at the point of a considered time; the meaning is itself only in the point of a considered time; 6) the parole changes in its diachronic process as changes the meaning as changes the society which invented and used the parole and the langue; 7) parole is consumed by the entropy as the objects are consumed by attrition; 8) the parole reflecting the society as a loyal mirror, is a two faced money to be spent only by the man who knows the meaning of the parole and the history of the society; 9) objective history of mankind relies only upon the paroles; 10) the Science wich studies together the parole and the society, is the Experimental Philology known also as the Dynamic Philology20. Davide Nardoni Note 1 Dos pas sto; da mihi ubi consistam: it was the doric motto of the famous Archimedes of Syracuse in the Magna Graecia of Sicily. 2 For a clear and limpid demonstration we could say without contradiction: we read books and treatises, articles and essays about the life and works of the mantuan Poet Vergil but we continue to ignore who were His parents, His relatives, His birthplace and the origin and the meaning of His nomenclatura: praenomen: Publius, nomen: Vergilius, cognomen: Maro and the Philologists have as yet not put an end to their quarrelsome diatribes about the celtic blood of Vergil derived from His parents: Magia Polla of the Volsci and Vergiliomarus of the celtic tuàth: tribe of the Andes. 3 The assertor of the Experimental Philology does not accept all the philological conclusions of the famous Linguist F. De Saussure; in the same time acknowledges the validity of the simple but profound intuition of the: parole and of the: langue. It is understood that the Experimental Philology is inclined to antepone for its particular methodology, the parole to the langue. 4 Quid est enim vox nisi intentio aeris ut audiatur, linguae formata percussu? (Sen., N.Q., 2,6,3). 5 Sext. Emp., Against the Logicians, II, 12. 6 Res ab original signified the parole understood as the ultimate decision of man; the man who formulated it expressed his res by verba as the gods expressed their will by indicating it to the human beings with signs appropriated to the fatum. Fatum the parole of god; res the parole of man introduce a new chapter in the roman theology. 7 The diachronic process of the parole for the Experimental Philology is entropy or decay, every parole being positive at the beginning and negative at the end of the process. 8 Encycl. Britan., W. Benton, Chicago 1963, vol. 15, p. 147, s. v.: Mechanics. 9 «Les grammariens avaient déjà dépuis le début du XIX siécle, le terme: «semasiologie» ou étude des significations, toujours formé sur le radical grec sema (signe). Le linguiste français Michel Bréal lui substitue le mot sémantique pour désigner «la science des significations» et de «loís qui président à la transformation des sens»; «étude (nous dit-il) si nouvelle qu’elle n’a même pas encore reçu de nom»; en fait elle relève – en le renouvelant et en l’enrichissant, de la sémasiologie. Les deux mots se confondent et employés concurrement, éliminent de nouveax termes: sématologie, glossologie, rhématique, rhématologie etc. qui ne font que des apparitions sporadiques. Sémantique-adopté ici-est en train de supplanter sémasiologie, au moins en France et dans les pays de langue anglaise». (P. Guiraud, La Sémantique, Press Univer. de France, Paris, 1955, p. 8). 10 It is not a rifie of a bagatelle: put an end to the long querelle which from the times of Pisistratus and Aristarchus till our days has fatigued minds and brains trying to ascertain the Iliad older than the Odyssey and vice-versa. The ExperimentaI Philology proclaims older the Odyssey than the Iliad moving from the difference of hairs and eyes in the heroes of the two epic poems. In the Odyssey the hero Odysseus has dark hairs, dark eyes, dark features in his dark complexion; in the Iliad we read of heroes who havc blond hairs, blue eyes and candid features in a white complexion. Odysseus is the sea-farer hero of the society of Mycenae and Crete which at the time was at its apex as we see in the paintings of Haghia Triada, Cnossos and Festos. Achilles is the blond protagonist of the fightning madness of the Iliad; the blond hero is the specimen of the blond people of fighters who invaded the Greece from the north and subjugated the native pcople of dark featurcs: the mediterraneans. To the invasion of this multitude of blond fighters is referable the exstinction of the mycenean culture and society. 11 «Εκκλησια»: Ecclesia: is a compound greek name; it results from: εκ: from and κλησια, from the verb: καλεω signifying: calling from; i.e.: from the house, from the place, from other places. 12 In Alexandria of Egypt there was a very florid diaspora of Ebrews; there, the Bible was translated from aramaic into greek by Seventy Experts: the so called: Εβμηxοντα: Septuaginta: the Seventy. 13 «More veterum, apud quos parens proximus, cognatus aut amicus intimus, admoto ad os morientis ore, extremun eius spiritum quasi excipere et haurire velle videbatur» J. Juvenco, P. Virgilii Maronis, Opera Omnia, A. Delalain, Parigi, 1810, p. 277, n. 685). 14 «Servitute liberabantur servi per manumissionem quae erat vel justa cum justam libertatem et plenum jus civitatis Romanae consequebantur vel minus justa cum ex lege Junia Norbana fiebant Latini Juniani quibus iriferiores etiam erant qui ex lege Allia Sentia fiebant liberti dediticii, qui scilicet: aliquando ob gravius crimen stigmate notati vel graviore poena affecti essent:». (A.O.H. Nieupoort, Rituum apud Romanos Explicatio, O. Tibernino, Venezia,1749, pp. 442-443, sect. VI, c.V., § 3). «Adoptio in specie talis est: eorum qui in aliena potest:ate sunt et a patris naturalis familia in adoptivi familiam transferuntur… Arrogatio est eorum qui cum sui juris sint, se in potestatem alterius tradunt. (A.G.H. Nieupoort, op. cit., p. 446, sect. VI, c.i., § 4). 15 «Res de quibus ad Senatum referebatur, erant omnes quae Rei publicae administrationem spectabant, praeter creationem magistratum, lationem legum et belli vel pacis arbitrium, quarum rerum potestas penes Populum erat» (A.G.H. Nieupoort, op. cit., pp. 28-29, sect. I, c.II, § 6). 16 Verg., Georg. I, 98-99; II, 362-370; Co1um., De Re Rust., 3, 3, 6; 4, 24, 21; 4, 28, 12; Plin., N.H., 17, 22, 178; Sen., Dial., 9, 12, 5; Tacit., De Germ, 26; Cic., Cato Major, 51; Ovid., Fast., 2, 296. 17 «Sic imperant vitibus ut eas palmitibus onerent nec posteritati consulant» (Colum., De Re Rust., III, 3, 6) . «Temerarium est imperare vitibus ante crassitudinem pollicarem» (Plin., N.H., 17, 22, 178). 18 The name of Experimental Philology was given to the Philological Science by the late prof. Nicola Petruzzellis, emeritus of Theoretical Philosophy in the University of Naples. To this Man of Science we are boundby special respect and profound admiration because he compelled us to prefer Experimental to Dymanic. 19 Encycl. Britan., W. Benton, Chicago, 1963, vol.10, p. 174, S.V.: Geometry. 20 Dynamic Philology is the name we prefer to indicate tbe new Philology and its new Methodology as opposed to the old Philology and its Methodology. Experimental Philology is justified by the Experimental Physics; Dynamic Philology is justified by its inexhaustible attempts to penetrate the paroles in order to reconstitute the society which invented and used the paroles leaving them as the true society’s photos for the future generations.
THE HOMERIC QUESTION or THE EXPERIMENTAL METHODOWGY
From the obscure beginnings to our foggy days among the Philologists days among the Philologists olds out vivacious debate about the nature and around the structure of the ir Discipline, about the immediate aims and the ultimate goal of their beloved Philology.
Great, large confusion in the philological field and no light shines to guide in the labyrinth and chaos of ideas, suggestions, ypotheses and convictions, everybody and everyone at the best of his means fiercely trying to condemn the new ideas: fruit of a sinful sinner’s mind!
Woe to the apostates!
The roman priest sermonizing deplore and condemn the sinners in viting them to repent going the way of virtue and leaving the way of vice; the Universities ‘Professors: laical priests of the new religion of Philology, from the high podiums of their minds superciliously pick up the heresies and scornfurly condemn the apostates and the heretics blaming them fortheir: «folle audacia e temerario ardire» in opening new ways or damning the bold innovators to absolute «silence» worse than death.
For apostates and heretics no piety; apostates and heretics don’t enjoy good time: «Mala tempora currunt!», not inside and outside of the Church but inside and outside of the Universities giving credit to the saying «Freelancer: great provoker!».
We suggest a point: among the ancient and the contemporary Philologists lacks unanimity; if questioned: «What’s Philology?», they would differently answer to the proposed question.
Not all but many of the modern and contemporary Philologists, leading the questioner by the nose, would shun the question leaving stunned the reader at such conclusion: To the question: «What’s today Philology?», are possible two classes of answers: 1) «the philological field is open»; 2) «the philological field is closed», so giving no answer to the proposed question.
To the reader stupefied, feeling to fall from an absurd to other absurds, the reader tossed by the breaking wawes of doubt loses the hope of the shore of salvation.
From the Philologists we find no answer to the proposed question from the days of ancient Greece to our days which have witnessed the formidable succes of Physics and the persistent ineffectiveness of Philology.
The Philologists are still trying to find a valid definition universally accepted of their discipline: their effort inefficacious. There being as many definitions as there are Philologists, we find justified the ancient maxim: «Quot capitum vivunt, totidem studiorum milia», so obliged to believe: «The Philology is not a Science!».
In this chorus of «etemenankian» discordance, not having the thread to disentangle our selves from the skein of so different voices, not knowing what to believe but still hoping to find a correct answer to the unanswered question we shall spend brain and time to demonstrate: «The Philology: a
Science» and «The Philologist: a Scientist of higest degree».
The Greeks of ancient times were used to begin by Jove: not believing to the pagan deity we’ll begin from the beginnings of Philology. Philology is old as old the man who took abode upon the mother earth. Philology and Humanity contemporary: the Man making Philology: Philology making Man!
There, in the Mesopotamian land, between two large rivers, peoples lived their lives and left ruines of cities and amounts of tablets with cuneiform writing: leaving records and making history, they made Philology respecting the double-faced meaning of the greek compound name: «Philology»: 1) «The love of the parole: lógos»: 2) «The love of history: lógoi».
There, along its sandy banks flowed the sacred river Nile and from its rich and inundating waters the «fellahim» sucked their nutriment and gave their lives to the reigning Pharaoh erecting monuments and building tombs for the eternal peace of the Pharaoh’s «Kâ», for the merriment of the thieves and for the glory of the present day Archaelogists.
In the egyptian tombs and monuments engraving jeroglyphs the Egyptians made History and
made Philology respecting the double-facedmeaning of the greek compound name: «Philology».
There, in the land of Egypt lived the Izraelites. Guided by Moses, the Izraelites left the Egypt’s soil and crossed the Red sea waters, went wandering in the Sinai’s desert solitudes eating «mana» and adoring the serpent: the egyptian «aspis nigricolla» or «naje aje»: the theriomorphic symbol ofAmmon-Rà. God bymeans ofMoses gave to His People the Sacred Law: «Thoràh»; died Moses and Joshuà brought the Elected People in the Promised Land. The Izraelites made History, made Philology respecting the double-faced meaning of the greek compound name.
There, in the sea-shores of Phoenicia lived and traded Phoenicians who prefering the seas’s ways to the land’s routes, went by sea trading and establishing far away colonies and settlements. The Phoenicians invented the «alphabet» and passing it to other peoples they made History, made Philology respecting the double-faced meaning of the greek compound name.
There, in the mountainous land of Greece and in the luminous islands of the Mediterranean sea lived a people of dark eyes, dark hair and dark complexion: the mediterranean stock of humanity who enjoyed peace and loved music and dancing and left memories of its existence and of its social
organization ad activity in the ample ruines of Haghia Triada, of Knossos, of Festos and of Thera and in the «murales» of their palaces they rapresented men and women with dark hair, dark eyes and dark complexion while in the gigantic remains of Mykenae and Tyrinth they left marks of their power so making History, making Philology respecting the double-faced meaning of the greek compound name. The Odyssey: the epic poem of Odysseus the navigator hero fixed the great saga of this sea-farer people.
There, in the land of Greece reflected in the sparkling waters of the Ionian and Aegean sea penetrated bringing war and destruction the Achean warriors who had blond hair, blue eyes and white complexion.
The barbarian warriors looking for the first time at the sea called it «Thálatta» using the Aborigenes’ language: they had no name for what they ignored. The blond Acheans made wars home and abroad and the «Iliad» celebrated their bellicose deeds and they made History and made Philology respecting the double-faced meaning of the greek compound name.
Odyssey and Iliad: two poems and two societies between them as distant as the moon from the earth; the first the saga of the dark people; the second the saga of the blond people: two different histories of two different peoples in the same land, in the same islands but in different times.
In time’s process the greek People divided himself in: Ionians, Dorians and Attics; from them arised and proceeded the greek miracle: the miracle of literature, of philosophy, of science, of beauty, of culture and civilization.
There, in Halicarnassus lived his young years Herodotus: the father of History; to Him we owe the definition: «Philology: the love of the «parole»: «lógos»; «Philology: the love of history:«lógoi».
The greatest Wanderer of Antiquity wrote and passed to the future generations what the scribes translated to Him: the Wanderer wrote the History of the peoples He visited and His «parole» was and is a «parole» of Truth: He made Philology. He made History respecting the double-faced meaning of the greek compound name. There, in Athens lived Plato and Aristotle; the two celebrted philosophers did not neglect Philology or what they understood to be Philology.
There, in Athens happened something noteworthy: Plato and Aristotle marked the end of the double-faced meaning Philology burying it under studies of ample extensions and of diversified interests. The two philosophers studied and solved grammar’s problems: Plato distinguished the name from the verbo of the verb enhancing numbers, genders and times; in the Cratylus He discussed etymologies and discussed about the nature and quality of poetry in the «Politeia», and «Phaedrus» and forcibly He rebuked the «rapsodes» burlesquely constraining Ion to reconoitre Homer as the greatest greek poet but not the master-expert in all the fields of Science.
For the first time and fighting the «authoritative principle»: the «autos ephe». Plato in His way and by His means opened the «Homeric Question» but He did not close what He had tentatively
opened.
Aristotle in His Grammar’s studies, discovered the conjunctions and in His Poetics systematically studied the Poetry.
The two Philosophers: for his own part each of them made Philology but we call not philological their studies seeing in them grammatical studies, poetical studies but not philological studies if the greek compound name in its double-faced meaning still signifies: «Love of the «parole»: lógos; «love of history: lógoi». Plato and Aristotle amputated the Philology reducing it from Science to inclination, from the study of «parole» and «history» to the study of the sole «parole»: their fallacious distorsion and deceiving separation is still active with its nefastous and negative consequences. Philology is a very different matter! Plato and Aristotle had large number of followers. The Peripate and Academy’s pupils had scarce interest in Philology: they were not able to close the «Homeric Question» they never clairned to have opened.
There, in Macedonia lived king Philip and went his way fighting the Greeks and his phalanxers’ «sarissae» conquered Greece and the barbarous king cried his victory bawling: «Demosthenes Demosthenous, Paianeus tade eipen!» = «Demosthenes son of Demostenes from Pean, said all that!».
Philip of Macedonia made History, He did not make Philology! Alexander the Great, son of Philip, made History too but He left the Philology to the experts in the field.
There, in Alexandria city of Egypt, Ptolemy Philadelph founded the «Museum» and the «Serapeum» books deposits and boarding-house for all the scientists of the Oekumene: the «Museum» lasted for quite five centuries: in the «Museum» lived, teached and worked the best brains of Antiquity.
In those far away times and days, there, in Egypt, in Mesopotamia, Judea, Phoenicia and Greece worked geniuses who created marvelous monuments for the eternal glory of gods and goddesses, for the perpetual fame of the reigning sovereigns and rulers and for the continous joy of the people but they were not Scientists in the modern acception of the word.
The ancient Science, the modern Science have little in common: they have the same aims, they aim at same goals but they hav their way by different routes and means applying a diverse Methodology.
The difference separating the Ancient from the Modern Science is due principally to the different Methodology. The observation compell us to proclaim: «There, no Science without Methodology!» The alexandrinian men of culture catalogued the books of the «Museum» and filled the «Serapeum»
with copies: they emended and corrected the text: they expounded and annotaded the works of ancient masters: they sketched biographies and occupied themselves with grammar and critiques’s problems.
The alexandrianian experts were all but Philologists: they made Philology but they did not make History so not respecting the double-faced meaning af the greek compound name. There, in the «Museum» among the «Pensioners» of the Ptolemies aroused a fierce strife: coiled up in two opposed factions: «Callimacheans» and «Anticallimacheans», the cultured Alexandrinians professed a very different idea about poetry: they disputed and their disputing saw no end: they wrote elaborate epigrams and fine epills but neglecting the people, their poetry being adressed to the men of culture and doctrine, they made Philology not History so neglecting the
double-faced meaning of the greek compound name.
While in the «Museum» they fervently disputed, in Athen the Academic Philosophers studied Mathematics and Astronomy and the Peripatetic Philosophers studied Nature and Biology. In Alexandria lived, studied and worked Physicists of first degree who were not disturbed by the dispute raging in the hal1s of the «Museum». The alexandrianian Physicists had no time to quarrel: penetrating the marvelous word of Exact Science they scorned to lose time while pursuing the truth being pursued by it incessantly. In Alexandria, Euclides wrote his famous: «Stoicheia=Elements»
and in 13 books He expounded the Elementar Geometry.
In Alexandria, Aristarchus from Samos, precursor of Kopenik, Galileo and Newton, to the geo-centric opposed his helio-centric system: Aristarchus was accused of empiety; his condemnation did not alert Galileo. Conon from Samos was a famous astronomer in Alexandria and environs: Conon wrote 7 books of Astronomy and having detected in the sky a new constel1ation cal1ed it: «The Coma Berenices» honouring queen Berenice, daughter of Magas king of Cyrene and wife of Ptolemy III, to whorn Conon had dedicated his works about Astronomy.
There, in Alexandria, Archimedes frequented the disciples of Euclides: He was a great mathematician, a great physicist, the greatest of all, inventor of the «hydraulic windlass» and of the «coclea» by Galileo defined: «not marvelous but miraculous».
Claudius Marcellus, roman «imperator», unchaining his legionaries for the final assault against the walls of Syracuse with the geste of the «pollex versus», ordered to save Archimedes and that was very roman indeed: to save the bitterest foe who against the assaulting Combined Roman Forces had invented and manned catapults, missile throwers and grappling hooks.
Archimedes died killed by a roman soldier, hero of His city and martyr of the beloved Physics. In 1906, Johan Ludwig Heiberg, a danish Scholar, found the text of «Method»: book containing the ways fol1owed by Archimedes in His research-work.
Apol1onius from pamphylian Perge surnamed the «Geometer» considered the most eminent mathematician of all times, studied in Alexandria following the classes of the Euclides’ disciples; He wrote the «Conical Elements»: He defined more accurately the relation between the circumference and the circle’s diameter; He invented the «epicycles» which supported the geo-centric theory of Ptolemy. Eratostenes from Cyrene, calied «Beta» and «Pentathlete» by His defamers, ealled himself: «Philósophos» so declaring the vastness of His literary and scientific acquirements.
Chief of the alexandrinian bibliotheca and tutor of Ptolemy Philopator, He wrote about literature and poetry; He tried to determine the dates of important historical and literary events from the traditional fall of Troy (1184 B.C.) to his days; his «Geographica» elevated geography to the rank of Science, delving systematically into ethnographical, mathematical, physical and political geography; Hecorrected the earlier measurements of the obliquity of the ecliptic; He measured the earth circumference and his Calculation only slightly exceeded the magnitude now accepted therefore.
Eratosthenes had two sticks fixed in two wells: one in Alexandria, the other in Syene; from the angular difference of the shade and the measured distance between the two cities He calculated the earth’s circumference: a very great deed for that time! He wrote about literary and scientific matters and if He was «Beta»: a second in His literary works, He was certainly «Alfa»: the first in the scientific field; if what He wrote about Homer and the epic poetry did not close the «Homeric Question», what He wrote in the Geographical and Chronological field is still valid.
Erophilus, disciple of Praagoras from Cos, was the founder of Anatomy. The Anatomy made considerable progress when in the «Museum» was practised the vivisection of criminals.
In Alexandria, Pergamon, Antiocheia and Athens the Seience made progress in its different fields; no progress registered the Literature in its diversified fields; of this formidable contrast we must uncover the causes.
There, in the alexandrinian «Museum» and surroundings lived, worked and operated a bunch and bundle of Philologists seriously occupied in studying the greek literature, the greek poets and writers; they were particular1y addicted to enlighten the Homer’s life and the two poems: the «Iliad», the «Odyssey». In the alexandrinian «Museum» they opened rightly the «Homeric Question» but they were not rightly able to close it because they laeked the right methodology and «where is not Methodology, there is no Science».
The alexandrinian Philologists of the III century B.C. spoiled Homer: the blind Poet of all the poems of the Epic Cycle; «apertis verbis» they declared not homeric the «Margites», the
«Batrachomiomachy» and several «Epigrams» but «ore rotundo» declared homeric the «Iliad» and the «Odyssey».
The alexandrinian Philologists were not unanimous; in the «Homeric Question», they reflected all their culture and doctrine, all their sentiments. Xenon and Hellanicus declared Homer’s the «lliad», not the «Odyssey»; for the accomplished great deed the fellows adversaries adorned the two with the felicious but scornful surname: «Chorizontes’» repeated nowadays by the so called Philologists of our times afraid to appear inferior to the past and present stock yelding to the bandmaster of the moment.
In the «Chorizontes’» critique the true foundation of the «Homeric Question» which holds out in our days and there is no hope that may be closed someday the infinite series of books, treatises, essays, articles and papers which flowing from the authors’ hands don’t stop filling the bibliothecas’ long and bent shelves in all the countries.
The «Chorizontes’» voice was strangled by the Aristarchus’ authority who believed and forced all to believe: Homer author ofthe two poems: the «Iliad», the «Odyssey». The «Homeric Question» involved all the problems concerning the Poet’s life, homeland, deeds and death.
An Alexandrinian Epigrammatist in two verses confessed his incapacity to fix the Homer’s natal city choosing among seven cities: «Seven cities strife to be the Homer’s famous home / Smyrna, Chios; Kolophon, Pylos, Sparta, Ithaca, Athens». Among the ancient and the contemporary Philologists nobody knows the native city of the greek Poet and the relative doubts not yet solved are stille intriguing the cultured minds.
The roman Philologists, if we can consider them Philologists, following the greek erudite men, said nothing new about and around the «Homeric Question»: Horace xrote: «Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus»; Properce exclaimed: «Nescio quid maius nascitur Iliade»; Juvenal versified admiringly: «Conditor Iliados cantabitur atque Maronis»; Alcimus meditated: «Si potuit nasci quem sequereris, Homere / Nascetur qui Te possit, Homere, sequi»; Quintilianus remarked: «Qui mihi interroganti quem Homero crederet maxime accedere: «Secundus, inquit, est Vergilius: proprior tamen primo quam tertio»; Cicero informed about the Pisistratus’ redaction: «Qui (Pisistratus) primus Homeri libros confusos ante sic disposuisse dicitur ut nunc habemus».
The Roman Philologist had notice of the «Homeric Question» but to it they did not give attention: a greek problem to be solved by greek minds if they were able of such arduous deed!
Passed centuries, passed years upon years and nothing new, nothing of interest was said or written about Homer and around the «Homeric Question». Nothing new from the Humanists and all of them they were very cultured fellows; nothing new, nothing of interest was said or written by the Renaissance men and all of them they were very cultured fellows.
Everybody kept strict silence because there was nothing to say, because the «authoritative principle»: «autos ephe», «ipse dixit» was too great to be ignored or to be transgressed. Finally and centuries after, François Hédelin abbé d’Aubignac, in the year of grace 1664, reopening the «Homeric Question» firmy believed to have put a brilliant stop to the problem. The french «abbé» put the question his way: 1) the two poems too large to be transmitted orally in the absence of writing; 2) to an attentive examiner the «Iliad» presents no unity; 3) in the epic poem many contradictions. «L’abbé» reopened the «Homeric Question» but did not close it because He had not at his disposal the right Methodology.
A few years after Giambattista Vico in his: «Principi di Scienza Nuova intorno alla Comune Natura delle Nazioni» in the third chapter: «Discoverta del Vero Omero» expressed lucidly what He tought about Homer, about the two Poems and about the epic poetry; what He tought, what He wrote is nowadays still valid because Vico looked at Homer not with the Philologist’s eyes but with His philosophic mind.
Philology and philosophy are very different because they are about different matter treated with different Methodology. For Vico Homer was only a name: a fictitious name not a living person, not a living Poet.
Note
1 Dos pas sto; da mihi ubi consistam: it was the doric motto of the famous Archimedes of Syracuse in the Magna Graecia of Sicily.
2 For a clear and limpid demonstration we could say without contradiction: we read books and treatises, articles and essays about the life and works of the mantuan Poet Vergil but we continue to ignore who were His parents, His relatives, His birthplace and the origin and the meaning of His nomenclatura: praenomen: Publius, nomen: Vergilius, cognomen: Maro and the Philologists have as yet not put an end to their quarrelsome diatribes about the celtic blood of Vergil derived from His parents: Magia Polla of the Volsci and Vergiliomarus of the celtic tuàth: tribe of the Andes.
3 The assertor of the Experimental Philology does not accept all the philological conclusions of the famous Linguist F. De Saussure; in the same time acknowledges the validity of the simple but profound intuition of the: parole and of the: langue. It is understood that the Experimental Philology is inclined to antepone for its particular methodology, the parole to the langue.
4 Quid est enim vox nisi intentio aeris ut audiatur, linguae formata percussu? (Sen., N.Q., 2,6,3).
5 Sext. Emp., Against the Logicians, II, 12.
6 Res ab original signified the parole understood as the ultimate decision of man; the man who formulated it expressed his res by verba as the gods expressed their will by indicating it to the human beings with signs appropriated to the fatum. Fatum the parole of god; res the parole of man introduce a new chapter in the roman theology.
7 The diachronic process of the parole for the Experimental Philology is entropy or decay, every parole being positive at the beginning and negative at the end of the process.
8 Encycl. Britan., W. Benton, Chicago 1963, vol. 15, p. 147, s. v.: Mechanics.
9 «Les grammariens avaient déjà dépuis le début du XIX siécle, le terme: «semasiologie» ou étude des significations, toujours formé sur le radical grec sema (signe). Le linguiste français Michel Bréal lui substitue le mot sémantique pour désigner «la science des significations» et de «loís qui président à la transformation des sens»; «étude (nous dit-il) si nouvelle qu’elle n’a même pas encore reçu de nom»; en fait elle relève – en le renouvelant et en l’enrichissant, de la sémasiologie. Les deux mots se confondent et employés concurrement, éliminent de nouveax termes: sématologie, glossologie, rhématique, rhématologie etc. qui ne font que des apparitions sporadiques. Sémantique-adopté ici-est en train de supplanter sémasiologie, au moins en France et dans les pays de langue anglaise». (P. Guiraud, La Sémantique, Press Univer. de France, Paris, 1955, p. 8).
10 It is not a rifie of a bagatelle: put an end to the long querelle which from the times of Pisistratus and Aristarchus till our days has fatigued minds and brains trying to ascertain the Iliad older than the Odyssey and vice-versa. The ExperimentaI Philology proclaims older the Odyssey than the Iliad moving from the difference of hairs and eyes in the heroes of the two epic poems. In the Odyssey the hero Odysseus has dark hairs, dark eyes, dark features in his dark complexion; in the Iliad we read of heroes who havc blond hairs, blue eyes and candid features in a white complexion. Odysseus is the sea-farer hero of the society of Mycenae and Crete which at the time was at its apex as we see in the paintings of Haghia Triada, Cnossos and Festos. Achilles is the blond protagonist of the fightning madness of the Iliad; the blond hero is the specimen of the blond people of fighters who invaded the Greece from the north and subjugated the native pcople of dark featurcs: the mediterraneans. To the invasion of this multitude of blond fighters is referable the exstinction of the mycenean culture and society.
11 «Εκκλησια»: Ecclesia: is a compound greek name; it results from: εκ: from and κλησια, from the verb: καλεωsignifying: calling from; i.e.: from the house, from the place, from other places.
12 In Alexandria of Egypt there was a very florid diaspora of Ebrews; there, the Bible was translated from aramaic into greek by Seventy Experts: the so called: Εβμηxοντα: Septuaginta: the Seventy.
13 «More veterum, apud quos parens proximus, cognatus aut amicus intimus, admoto ad os morientis ore, extremun eius spiritum quasi excipere et haurire velle videbatur» J. Juvenco, P. Virgilii Maronis, Opera Omnia, A. Delalain, Parigi, 1810, p. 277, n. 685).
14 «Servitute liberabantur servi per manumissionem quae erat vel justa cum justam libertatem et plenum jus civitatis Romanae consequebantur vel minus justa cum ex lege Junia Norbana fiebant Latini Juniani quibus iriferiores etiam erant qui ex lege Allia Sentia fiebant liberti dediticii, qui scilicet: aliquando ob gravius crimen stigmate notati vel graviore poena affecti essent:». (A.O.H. Nieupoort, Rituum apud Romanos Explicatio, O. Tibernino, Venezia,1749, pp. 442-443, sect. VI, c.V., § 3). «Adoptio in specie talis est: eorum qui in aliena potest:ate sunt et a patris naturalis familia in adoptivi familiam transferuntur… Arrogatio est eorum qui cum sui juris sint, se in potestatem alterius tradunt. (A.G.H. Nieupoort, op. cit., p. 446, sect. VI, c.i., § 4).
15 «Res de quibus ad Senatum referebatur, erant omnes quae Rei publicae administrationem spectabant, praeter creationem magistratum, lationem legum et belli vel pacis arbitrium, quarum rerum potestas penes Populum erat» (A.G.H. Nieupoort, op. cit., pp. 28-29, sect. I, c.II, § 6).
16 Verg., Georg. I, 98-99; II, 362-370; Co1um., De Re Rust., 3, 3, 6; 4, 24, 21; 4, 28, 12; Plin., N.H., 17, 22, 178; Sen., Dial., 9, 12, 5; Tacit., De Germ, 26; Cic., Cato Major, 51; Ovid., Fast., 2, 296.
17 «Sic imperant vitibus ut eas palmitibus onerent nec posteritati consulant» (Colum., De Re Rust., III, 3, 6) . «Temerarium est imperare vitibus ante crassitudinem pollicarem» (Plin., N.H., 17, 22, 178).
18 The name of Experimental Philology was given to the Philological Science by the late prof. Nicola Petruzzellis, emeritus of Theoretical Philosophy in the University of Naples. To this Man of Science we are boundby special respect and profound admiration because he compelled us to prefer Experimental to Dymanic.
19 Encycl. Britan., W. Benton, Chicago, 1963, vol.10, p. 174, S.V.: Geometry.
20 Dynamic Philology is the name we prefer to indicate tbe new Philology and its new Methodology as opposed to the old Philology and its Methodology. Experimental Philology is justified by the Experimental Physics; Dynamic Philology is
justified by its inexhaustible attempts to penetrate the paroles in order to reconstitute the society which invented and used the paroles leaving them as the true society’s photos for the future generations.
For Vico understood in Homer all the greek people in its «infancy», seen and considered author of the two poems: the «Iliad» the «Odyssey». For Vico the «Iliad», the «Odyssey» were and are: «due gran tesori dei costumi dell’antichissima Grecia».
ForVico the Philosopher, the «Iliad», the «Odyssey» contain diverse uses, different manners, diverse ways of two different societies. For Vico the two poems represent the «infancy» and the «maturity» ofthe ancient greek people as of all the peoples upon the mother earth’s surface.
We applaud to Vico and recognizing His greatness, we profoundly ~pplaud
appreciate what He saw in Homer, what He wrote about the two epic poems but being no slaves of the «authoritative principle» we daresay that Vico did not close the opened «Homeric Question» for two principal arguments: 1) Vico could not close the «Homeric Question» which was extraneous to Him; 2) Vico could not close what He had not opened because He lacked the necessary information about the two societies He understood portrayed in the poems.
The ideas and work of Hédelin d’Aubignac and Giambattista Vico were not known to the large public who had no access to the secret hals of the contemporary Academies. There, from Hainrode went Friedrich August Wolf who moved the quiet waters of the «Homeric Question». Wolf was the second in the long arch of time to employ the name: «Philologia» in his registration’s demand: «Studiosus Philologiae» in the Gottingen University.
Wolf in a second time, to the name: «Philologia» preferred the german compound name: «Alterthumswissensehaft» as omnicomprensive and not restricted as the greek compound name. Wolf wasn’t aware adopting the german compound name that He was betraying the double-faced meaning of the greek compound name. For Wolf who studied Homer, the epic poems and the «Homeric Question» moving from the «Scholia» of «Venetus A», pubblished by Villoison, there was no writing in the Homer’s supposed times.
For Wolf there only a possibility: the two poems: «Iliad» and «Odyssey» were redacted in Athens by a Commisssion appointed by Pisistratus in the VI century B.C. For Wolf the «Iliad» contains a central nucleus of 18 chants; the «Odyssey» believed Wolf, was due partly to Homer and partly to the «Homeridae». Wolf saw a strong analogy between the homeric poems and the ossianic poems: a fruit of the popular poetry!
Friedrich August Wolf, teuton from Hainrode and german «Philologist» or, so He preferred, «Alterthumswissensehatler» acquired great fame with His «Prolegomena ad Homerum», reopening the «Homeric Question» but He was not able to close what He had reopened because He lacked Methodology and He was a german Philologist! There, from Leipzig came Gottfried Hermann with a new theory of His own about Homer and about the two epic poems. Hermann followed Wilh. Mueller in structuring the «Erweiterung-oder Entwicklungs hypothesis».
Hermann believed the «Iliad» composed around a central «Kern» of successive adjoints, ampliations and rielaborations elaborated to improve the «nucleus». Herman believed the «Odyssey» resulting by successive adjoints, ampliations and successive rielaborations around the central «nucleus» of the original poem.
Gottfried Hermann from Leipzig enjoyed great fame home and abroad but fame and name did not help Him to close the «Homeric Question» He had not opened ad because He too lacked the right Methodology and He was a Philologist, a german Philologist!
W. Leaf, RC. Jebb, E. Petersen, E. Rohde, M. Valenton, G. Murray. P. Cauer and, last but not least, G. Finsler, each for his own part, tried to buttress the «Hermannsche Ypothesis». There, from Braunschweig came Karl Lachmann and teached at the «Berliner Universitaet».
Lachman was an eminent classical and german Philologist who distinguished in the philological field the «recensio» and the «emendatio», exhorting to establish the archetype by collating the manuscripts, the testimonies, the «Scholia» before ascending by conjectures to the original archetype. Lachmann founded the «Liedertheorie»: the «Iliad» resulted from 18 distinct laies originally indipendent but mechanically assembled and only in the sixth centuxy recorded by writing, by the commission «ad hoc» appointed by Pisistratus. Lachmann was not able to close the
«Omeric Question» He had not opened.
Karl Lachmann classical and german Philologist left open what open He did find because He too lacked a right and sound Methodology! There, from BerIin came Adolf Kirchhoff and He acquired great fame and vaste resonance in the philological circles by His homeric studies. Kirchhoff
proposed His «Kompilationstheorie» extrapolating it from the «Odyssey». Kirchhoff believed and tried to demonstrate the «Odyssey» composed by three distinct «Gedichte»: 1) «Nostoi», 2) «Telemachy», 3) «Ithakesia». The «Kompilationstheorie» was followed and corroborated by the works and
studies of B. Miese, Ch. Reimreichs, U.v. Wilamowitz, O. Seeck, J. van Leeuwen and D. Muelder.
Kirchhoff and His followers did not close the «Homeric Question» because all of them had doctrine and culture but they all lacked the right and sound Methodology!
The contemporary Philologists are assembled in two opposite groups: 1) «The Unitarians», 2) «The Antiunitarians» and between them have their good space the «Neo unitarians» who believed: a Poet for the «Iliad», a Poet for the «Odyssey»: poets who at their times had rielaborated preesistent poems or epic laies. They all: «Unitarians», the «Antiunitarians» and the «Neounitarians» believe to be able to close the «Homeric Question» but all of them failed because they too lacked the right and sound Methodology!
Nowadays, the «Homeric Questions» is losing if it has not lost its attraction b’ut nobody recognizes this loss of interest because nobody has the courage to denounce the total and final bankruptcy of all the ancient and contemporary attempts to close the still open «Homeric Question». The failure was and is due principally to the lack of a right and sound Methodology to which we recognize the capacity of closing once and for all the «Homeric Question» and the other classical questions and problems still open because not solved.
The contemporary Philology is slowly making its way toward a better understarding of Homer, of His poems, of His poetry, His times and the two societies described in the two poems because the modern Philologists are ready to accept the help of the other Sciences while trying to solve problems
exclusively philological.
This is the first and necessary step toward the scientific foundation of the Experimental Philology: give space, give importance to the Sciences before called «Subsidiary» because underestimated.
While the «Homeric Question» was raging among the cultured circles, the Archaelogists gave news to the cultured world of their brilliant discoveries in the land ofTurkey, Crete and Greece. Well, the archaelogical discoveries proved the existence of writing (Linear A, Linear B) in the royal palaces of
Crete; if the writing was in use in Crete of the Minoan Age (3000 B.C. to 1100 B.C.) all were concord to admit: the writing, a fortiori, in use in the homeric times. The discovery of writing crashed and smashed the Hédelinian and Wolfian theory, both built upon anthistorical premise.
Heinrich Schliemann, german from Neubukow, in the hill of Hissarlik in Turkey discovered a city and in the sixth couch He saw the burned ruines of the homeric city of Troy devoured by fire; excavating at Tirinth, Mycenae and Orchomenos Schliemann found precious ornaments, jewels and utensils
testimonies of a dead but rich society. There, in the island of Crete worked Arctur Evans, Federico Halbherr and Luigi Pernier at Knossos, Festos and Haghia Triada and everybody knows what They found but nobody as it seems, was aware of the importance of their discoveries related to the «Homeric Question».
Every Homer’s word was studied, weighed and referred to the minoan society, to the minoan culture but no one was intrigued by the «murales» discovered in the royal palaces of Crete, nobody was intrigued by the «murale» discovered in the island of Thera. In the studied but somewhat ignored «murales» the Experimental Philology grasps the new idea and establishes a new Methodology in the philological studies.
Well, if there we may doubt of the «paroles» of the two poems for the ambiguity carried by the
«parole», it is not possible to doubt of the «parole» if and when confirmed by the «murales» which represent the society of Crete and of the greek island, described by Homer in His Odyssey. In the royal
palaces’ «murales» we contemplate men and women with dark hair, dark eyes in their features of a dark complexion; in Thera’s «murale» we contemplate men and a navy of merchant vessels going by oars and by sails or mooring at anchor in the sheltered harbor of the island.
Dark hair, dark eyes and mediterranean features in the dark complexion Homer attributes to Odysseus the seafarer hero of the «Odyssey» and dark hair, dark eyes and features of dark complexion have the Pheacians in their island and they were of the same mediterranean racial stock and like Odysseus they were great navigators putting their defense and all their hopes in the vessels, in the navigation’s skill and in the absence of dangers and in the presence of peace. This mediterranean people of navigators
enjoyed a society which had reached the highest degree of culture and civilization: the Cretan-Minoan civilization from 3000 B.C. to 1400 B.C.
The archaelogical discoveries, the existence at that time of writing, the glorious ruines of the cities of Crete and Greece; the surprising «murales» bring to our attention the existence in the mediterranean land and sea area of an industrious people of dark complexion, dark eyes and dark hair who went around the mediterranean waters for commercial purposes not for war; who lived in cities defended by the navy not by wall or fortified ramparts; who loved peace refusing war and a lively life because around they had no foe to be afraid of; whose women could love whom they loved nobody enforcing them to matrimony.
Upon this solid archeological premises conforted and supported by the «Odyssey’s» verses, the Experimental Philology dares say the «Odyssey» poem and saga of the people of navigators of mediterranean racial stock: dark hair, dark eyes, dark features in dark complexion living in the greek island and in the greek inland, who enjoyed peace and lived a life free of fears because in the navy they put their defence and in the commerce their riches.
The Experimental Philology proclaims the «Odyssey» the lay of the mediterranean people, in the «Odyssey» seeing the navigation book of the men who dominated in the long run the Mediterranean, Ionian and Aegean waters before the coming of the Arian warriors who brought with them the barbarian idea ofwar and introduced in the dark mediterranean racial stock the blond hair, blue eyes and white features in the candid complexion. The Arian warriors knew the art of war but they ignored the winds, ignored the stars, they ignored the navigability of the sea waters: of the sea they ignored the name and «Thalatta» they called with a mediterranean word the brilliant
waters of the greek sea they saw for the first time and they had non name for wat they did not know. The blond warriors destroyed the society and the civilization they found in Greece but they were not able to destroy the culture as they were not able to destroy the mediterranean people who
racially survived and in the long run of time absorbed the intruding blond warriors who slowly but incessantly absorbed the superior culture of the conquered enemy and rightly we understand the Horace’s verse: «Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit».
The blond warriors by fire and by sword destroied the mediterranean people: of these ancient wars we have memories in the «Iliad»: the poem of warriors, the saga of the fighting blond men, the lay of the blody and furious madness of Achilles the hero of the «Iliad» who knew the use of the
arms but ignored the laws of the sea and of the sky, because as did his fellows, he ignored the winds, the marine currents and the navigating art.
The Experimental Philology making the right use of the archaeological discoveries, of the anthropological discoveries, of the philological conc1usions and extrapolating from those Sciences what is to be extrapolated, readily acknowledges: The «Homeric Question» may finally and decisively be closed by the Experimental Philologist who humbly considers all the subsidiary sciences as necessary and valid instruments of research in the philological field: who applies to the philological realm the «Experimental Methodology».
Having indicated the possibility of closing in a scientific way the still unsolved «Homeric Question», we are ready to confess as not having yet demonstrated the Philologya Science, not having proposed answer to the question: «Philology is a Science?».
The answer to the question was given three centuries ago by the founder of the «Experimental Physics»: Galileo Galilei who for his misfortune and our fortune was a dedicated Physicist and not a Philologist. The contemporary Philologist saw the «Experimental Physics» as a blasphemy and cried anathema and stout1y refused to put their eyes to the «cannocchiale» and believing to condemn Galileo and His discoveries they condemned themselves and their discipline to complete inefficacy.
This refusal was not a trifle of a bagatelle if it costed to Galileo His imprisonement at Arcetri and to the Philologists the misery of their «Static Philology» and to the Philology thelossoftheprimacyitenjoyedoveralltheotherSciences.
Guided by the succes of the «Experimental Physics» we openly acknowledge: «There, every Sciencets Experimental». Well, now there is the problem: «demonstrate the Philology subjected to the ‘Experimental Methodology” is equivalent to proclaim the Philology a Science» and not a «forma mentis» reserved for few men elected to enter the Philology’s reserved domain.
The «Experimental Methodology»opened the way to Physics to enter in the scientific field and realm: the «Experimental Methodology» shall intro-duce once and for all the Philology into the scientific realm, field and domain. To the physical force is subjected everything, everybody born and living upon the earth’s surface, in the air of the sky and in the profound and dark waters of oceans and seas.
The «parole»: creature of man, as such is of material matter and therefore subjected as all other bodies, objects and particles to the «attrition’s law» which operating in the philological field we call: «catatropy», in order to shun the blame of the Physicists jealous of their Science, of their definitions, of their terminology.
All the bodies, all the objects, all the particles being material and therefore subjected to the «attrition’s law», pass from a superior to an inferior status, finally disappearing at the end of their shortorlongway. The same happens to the «parole» which lives its life and after the transformations undergone in its diachronic process, finally disappears in the mute heap of all the «fossilized» words.
The life and death of a body, object and particle is not different from the life and death of a «parole»: the life and death of a galaxy, of a solar system, of a star is not different from the life and death of a «parole»: the mikrokosmos, the makrokosmos!
The astronomers following the stars photograph them and to study them fix what they cannot see in the stellar «spectrogram»: in the fixed «spectogram» the astronomers read the pulsating life of the star and they follow the stars all along the way of their decaying till to their death in a gigantic fire explosion: «expyrosis».
What do the Astronomers, that must do the Philologists if they will make Science not Rhetoric: imitating the Astronomers, they must follow the «parole» from its appearange all along the path of its life to its disappearance when left to decay and die in the neglected heap of all the dead «paroles». Who follws the «parole» all along the path of its short or long life, must fix all its mutations, diversifications, changements of form and meaning in the baconian: 1) «tabula praesentiae» 2)«tabula absentiae» 3) «tabula graduum», in order to shape the history of the «parole» in a graduate stripe we call: «rhematogram». The «rhematogram» when and if finished carries the history of the «parole»: the objective not the subjective history.
The «parole» being the loyal mirror of the society which invented, used and transformed the «parole», the «rhematogram» of the «parole» carries and contains the history of the society: the objective history not the subjective history. There, we see unified the study of the double-faced greek compound name: Philology: 1)«study of the parole=lógos» 2) «study of the history:lógoi»
The «Experimental Methodology» resulting in the objective study of the «parole» and of «history», the objectivity the true fruit of Science compells us to proclaim Philology a Science not a subjective
«forma mentis». If in the «paroles» the Philologist unveils the history, then Philology is on the way to regain its primacy!
The astronomer to fix the star «spectrogram» has the plate or the star’s film: the Philologist has the sources: literary, archaelogical, anthropological, religious, artistic, antiquarian sources to rebuild the «rhematogram» of the «parole»; when the sources are absent or silent, the Philologist must have the heart to use «phantasy», which is not the propriety of the sole Physicists!
Studying the diachronic evolution of the «parole in its external form and in its internal meaning, there are two ways to register and fix the «rhematogram»: 1)«Anabatic way»: moving down-up from th known meaning of the «parole» to the aboriginal and unknown meaning of the same «parole»: 2) «Katabatic way»: moving up-down from the known aboriginal meaning to the unknown ultimate meaning of the «parole».
When to the brave Philologist shines no hope of finding sources, then He must formulate «hypothesis» that sor tof «Arbeitsypothese» which is very familiar with the Physicists having guided them in their researches, to have a channel to let flow the ideas, not constraining them to be stanched; carrier of truth the «ypothesis» which shall be corroborated by valid proofs.
The prudent Philologist, who feels the gravity of his work, speaks not by the support of the «ipse dixit» or the confort of the literary sources because of their ambiguity but with the help of the improperly called: «subsidiary sciences»: graffiti, pictures, mosaics, numismatic, sculptures, antiquarian, history, geography, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy,sociology, anthropology, mathematics, and last but not least, medicine.
Using correctly the «Experimental Philology» and correctly applyingits«Decalogue when shaping the «rhematogram» of the «parole» in order to know the history of the «parole», in order to know the history of the society, the Philologist shall register success as never before in the long life of Philology.
When the Philologist will scientifically interpret the «rhematogram», then and only then Philologist will regain his place, will be the master of his Science to indicate to all the right way to follow in their studies.
Here the renewable «Decalogue» of the «Experimental Philology»:
1) «Eternal and perpetual refusal of the Autoritative principle»;
2) «Eternal and perpetual adherence to the Bengelian imperative»; «Applica Te totum ad textum; rem totam applica ad Te!»;
3) «Eternal and perpetual searching of the “parole” reversing the De Saussureian theory»;
4) «Eternal and perpetual inquiry of the “parole” in order to fix its aboriginal meaning; employ of “phantasy” and “ypothesis “when necessary»;
5) «Eternal and perpetual registering of the meanings of the”parole” all along its short or long diachronic process; employ of “phantasy” and “ypothesis” when 4gi
necessary»;
6) «Eternal and perpetual registering of the “parole” by “Anabasis.” when is known the last meaning of the “parole”; by “Katabasis” when is know the aboriginal meaning of the ”parole”»;
7) «Eternal and perpetual registering of the”rhematogram” of the”parole»”
8) «Eternally and perpetually the Philologist will adhere to the “rhematogram” of the “parole”»;
9) «Eternally andperpetually adhering to the “rhematogram “the Philologist shall rebuild the society and its history»;
10) The «rhematogram» carries the objective history of man and the sole possibility of its remaking.
To the «Experimental Philology» and to its simple «Decalogue» we recognize as due the objective successes obtained in our work still vivacious in the field left unvaried by the Static Philology. The «Experimental Philology» helped us to prove false the «maneloquium» attributed to theRomans and the «saluto fascista» the Romans civilians and soldiers never did (I); to prove false the gest of the
and of the «pollex versus» (inexistent) (2), so reconstructing the roman gesture of the «maneloquium circense», «maneloquium castrenese», «maneloquium cottidianum», «maneloquium sub-uranum» or «sucusanum»; the right interpretation of the roman «manelo-quium» was of great help in reading the «Columna Ulpiatraiana», the «Columna Marcaurelia» and all the mosaics and pictures and the pompeian graffiti(3).
The employ of the same «Decalogue» facilitated our work in penetrating the «nominatura» of the «Divus Julius»(4); the same «Decalogue» correctly applied was helpful insolving the difficult problem sconnected with the «nominatura» of Publius Vergilius «Maro Parthenias» and in making light in the obscure «Vergaiusge burtsortsjrage», declaring «Andes» not a vicus’ or pagus’ name but name of the celtic tribe to which belonged «Vergiliomarus»: father of the mantuan Poet, which had occupied the territory of the Ultrahighpadania of Mantua(5).
The «Decalogue» helped us to solve the problem of the meaning of the name: «Roma», «Romus», «Romulus», «Romina» and «Ruminalis»(6); helped us to nullify the absurd legend of the Capitol’s geese(7); to solve the legend of the serpent: «aspis nigricolla» or «naje aje» suggested as the cause of the death of Cleopatra, of Iras and Charmion(8); helped us also in clearing the difficulties and the problems of the two battles of Philippi and of the military career of the tribune Q. Horatius Flaccus(9); helped us also in restituting to Q. Fabius Maximus Ovicula Verrucosus Cunctator the glory of his surname and the merits of his strategy against Hannibal and the fame of his War-school (10). The «Experimental Philology» helped us to formulate the «imperiu’s» theory, which opened new fields of study in the Roman history (11).
The results give credit to the «Experimental Philology» and to its «Decalogue» and we recommend it to all concerned and to all the uncon-cerned inviting all to leave the old way to enter new ways for new kind of grazing in the new pasturage having left tbe withered and arid old pasturage.
Davide Nardoni
(1)D.Nardoni, «Utroque…pollice», Nuova Scienza, XVII, maggio 1976, n.5, pp.39-45.
(2)D.Nardoni, «Pollice presso, pollice verso», Nuova Scienza, XVIII, aprile 1977 n.4, pp.7-9.
(3)D.Nardoni, La Colonna Ulpia Traiana, Roma, Eiles, 1986.
D.Nardoni, La Colonna Marcaurelia, in pubblicazione per i tipi della Eiles, Roma.
(4)D.Nardoni, «Caius Julius Caesar Dictator Perpetuus», Nuova Scienza, XVII, agosto-settembre 1976, n.8-9, pp.8-10.
(5)D.Nardoni, «Vico Andico», Il Tartarello, dicembre 1983, n.4, pp.3-13.
D.Nardoni, «Vico Andico», Il Tartarello, marzo 1984, n.l, pp.3-18.
(6)D.Nardoni, Romus, Romulus, Rominalis, Romina, Roma, in «Spiragli», I, dicembre 1989, n.3 pp.8-10.
(7)Delle «oche capitoline» in una prossima «taratalla» sulla rivista «Spiragli».
(8)D.Nardoni, «Fatale monstrum»,Nuova Scienza, XVIII, luglio1977, n.7, pp.7-9.
(9)D. Nardopi. «Me dimisere Philippi», Novantiqua, Tip. Artig. Latina, 1979, pp.97-100; Accad. Ital. Scienz. Biolog. Moral.
D. Nardoni, «Relicta non bene parmula», Novantiqua, Tip. Artig. Latina, 1979, pp.101-107: Accad. Ital. Scienz. Biolog. Moral.
D. Nardoni. «O navis referent…» Novantiqua, Tip. Artig. Latina, 1979, pp.109-116; Accad. ltal. Scienz. Biolog. Moral.
(10)D. Nardoni. «Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, Ovicula, Cunctator», Caicachanna, Tip. Artig. Latina. Accad. Ital. Scienz. Biolog. Moral., 1979, pp.11-13.
(11)D.Nardoni. «Imperium sine fine dedit»,Caiachanna, Accad. Ital.&ienz. Biolog. Moral.,Tip.Artig.Latina.197, pp.50-64.