This document discusses Roman perspectives on topics like invention, authorship, interpretation, and rhetoric. It references various historical figures from different time periods in Rome like St. Bonaventure, Cicero, Pliny, and Augustine. The document also examines debates around what classifies someone as an author versus a compiler or commentator. It explores Roman traditions like handbooks and how perspectives on topics like invention and eloquence evolved over time in Rome.

1. Roman Perspectives
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2. Codifying Invention and asking “how”
rather than “why.”
(Lauer 22-23)
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3. first, a detour
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4. St. Bonaventure
Italian, 1224 - 1271
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5. A man might write the works of others, adding and
changing nothing, in which case he is simply called a
“scribe” (scriptor). Another writes the works of others
with additions which are not his own; and he is called a
“compiler” (compilator). Another writes both others’
works and his own, but with others’ work in the principal
place, adding his own for purposes of explanation; and he
is called a “commentator” (commentator). ... another
writes both his own work and others’ but with his own
work in principal place adding others’ for purposes of
confirmation; and such a man should be called an
“author” (auctor). (Eisenstein 122)
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6. interpreter
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7. Tamara:
What’s wrong with a compiler? And why can’t a compiler be an
author? Why can’t a commentator be an author?
Jess:
Specifically thinking of my own work with community texts, I
wonder: am I an author, if I write an introduction to a website of
archived community publications? Am I merely a compiler and
does this dismiss my own agency in the project, if I am relegated to
a compiler rather than creator? I ask this because I still continue to
go over this in my head about what my goals, my tasks, my roles are
in this project. And I think it’s complicated because I’m not sure
how to characterize myself.
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8. Does unoriginality
lack virtue?
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9. Roman handbook
tradition
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10. Pliny: Naturalis Historia
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11. Now, Rome
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12. Friday, January 25, 13

13. “Invention is the discovery of valid or
seemingly valid arguments to render
one’s cause plausible.” (VII)
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14. eloquence
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15. Can eloquence be an
inventionary impetus
for civic development?
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16. Topical invention systems (Lauer 25)
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17. Progression of thought
across Cicero’s works
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18. interpretation, dialectic
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19. Friday, January 25, 13

20. Augustine & Davidson
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21. the problems of
interpretation
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22. shared truth
coherence of belief
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23. love / desire
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24. The chief purpose of all that we have been saying in our discussion
of things is to make it understood that the fulfillment and end of
the law and all the divine scripture is to love the thing which must
be enjoyed and the thing which together with us can enjoy that
thing.
- De doctrina 1.84
Believing this enables one to know the truth - because it is the
truth in its most general terms; or perhaps a better way to say it is
that this double love of God and the neighbor who seeks God
characterizes the truth. With this characterization in hand, the
interpreter of scripture - which the interpreter believes to be
revealing the truth - is able to tell when her initial (literal) reading
must be wrong and so know to keep her mind open for another
(transferred) meaning that will correspond with the truth as she
already believes it to be characterized [38]
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