1. What's the 'thing' of Res Publica?
Oleg Kharkhordin Université Européenne de St Petersbourg
What's the 'thing' of Res Publica?

2. The mix of humans and non-humans: how to theorize it?
Latour: humans are folded into non-humans. A new metaphor for the social sciences. Things as not tools, vessels (of meanings), arenas
The concept of “fold” comes from Deleuze, Le Pli
Why invent new terms? Let’s take a look at the old - for example, res publica as such an intertwining of humans and non-humans

3. Indeed, in all standard introductions to Roman law -- there are «public things»
Institutiones II:1, De rerum divisione
1. res communes – things common under natural law - air, flowing water, sea and seashores, which belong to all humankind
2. res publica - things of the people “of the state”: e.g. regulated rivers and ports.
3. res universitatis - communal things, owned by a community or a corporation, like stadiums and theaters owned by a civitas.
4. res nullius - things of no one: either sacred (sacrae, religiosae, sanctae), or not captured yet, like wild animals

4. Modern books do not pay attention to the term itself
To justify their definition of res publica, modern books refer to expressions that talk about litora publica or loci publici, but do not care about the difference between locus and res, for example.
Other expressions: in patrimonio populi (D )
in pecunio populi ( D pr)
Not a single example of a Latin phrase with the clear use of the expressions res publica or res publicae!
The closest one gets is perhaps an expression res in usu publico (D )

5. Thesis of Rudolf Stark (1937)
Res publica as a term developed from the notion of the res of populus, a fighting army which divides booty from time to time
Later - “affairs, transactions of populus,” now meaning all citizens
In the end: Res publica as a separate object of action, though not a subject.
An idea of a “higher unity of the state”
But res publica never acts

6. Use of the term res publicae (in plural) in Justinian
three main types of phenomena:
several polities or communities together - very often implying municipia or civitates;
b) a special category in legal classifications, like we saw in Institutiones II:1; with very few examples
c) “public affairs”, with the term most frequently being used in this sense in the Codex rather than in the Digests.
Ergo: res is taken as a “thing” only
in late legal classifications

7. Yan Thomas on res (1980)
The Law of XII Tables, the earliest Roman legal source, tells us about the stages of litigation, and it employs the term res. Rem ubi pacunt, orato
So:
RES= litigious affair, process… and only later - res = over what litigation happens
The Germans see res as a thing because they read Kant and Hegel (Subjekt-Objekt) into the Romans

8. Res publica (singular) in the Digests
Most frequently used phrase - rei publicae causa abesse - “to be away on public business,” or, as it is frequently translated, “to be away on the affairs of the state.”
A unit of political obligation at different levels - municipality, province, etc.
Contrast: res publica vs. fiscus
Has a body, firmamenta (tendons and sinews - like the estate of publicans), ornamenta (statues and images)
Not an agent, but a recipient of external action, like lo stato before Machiavelli

9. So why interpret res publicae as “public things”?
Imperial interest: systematization and legitimation.
Use of language to ensure obvious, touchable referent for res publica, and no contest over its interpretation
Beginning -- Ceasar (Divus Julius 77):
nihil esse rem publicam, appellationem modo sine corpore ac specie.
“res publica is nothing, a mere name without body or form…”

10. Cicero against Ceasar (Llewellyn Morgan 1997)
Ceasar: the process of successful appellation - imposing a name stated in a noun - should point to both corpus and species. If either corpus or forma are missing, words remain empty, not supported by things.
Cicero: res publica is not a tangible, but an intelligible thing. And definitions of things non-tangible are subject to constant contestations and litigation. But we can settle them, at least for now.

11. Cicero, De re publica
Form of dialogue in De re publica: an exercise in progressive clarification in debate of the initial definition of res publica
Readers look for: the optimal state of res publica
Overlooked: how acts of naming and defining res publica proceed.
Apellari putant, apellatur, apellandas putant, dicebam, dicendum – point to the struggle of imposing a name, a successful or a misfiring performative act of naming

12. Cicero’s views
different naming speech acts would bring different res publicae into existence, carving out different and perhaps opposed signifieds, to which this expression can refer now.
This is essentially how non-tangible things exist: there is always clashing and litigation over their definition. Thus, to claim because of this that they do not have effect, is to miss the point.

13. Possible questions Should we study the grammarian debates?
e.g. Ceasar wrote de Analogia (a lost treatise) with an interest in fixing the clear logical rules of word usage
Should we study how speech acts functioned in ancient Latin?
Predicament:
People in the Classical departments do not use Wittgenstein and Austin, people in speech acts theory rarely know Latin

14. Introducing the Stoics
Notion of the sayable, lekton.
For the Stoics it constitutes, together with space, time and vacuum, a special category of the incorporeal
Cicero might have referred to this Stoic notion when he mentioned in Topica V:26 things that do not have corpus, as opposed to tangible ones. Is res publica one of them?
Deleuze, Logique du Sense, about the Stoics and lekton, based on Emile Brehier 1928

15. Conclusions Study of the relations, mix, fold of res and populus:
a. If there are material connotations in res publica (“things of the populus or public”), they happen either at the very beginning or end of the history of the Roman term (e.g. military or imperial purposes).
b. Cicero, De off I:54 : common things (communia omnia) serve as a seminarium for res publica, but it is a long road for this to grow into full bloom. How?
c. Materiality of speech acts that clash over res publica?

16. Conclusions II
Brehier/Deleuze - non-Cartseian conception of materiality.
Words do not have effects on material things, they are pure sayables existing as if on the surface of the things.
b. Things matter. But the lekton/sayable captures their dispositions, declinations, swerves and falling postures - not the effect of one thing on another
c. res publica as an incorporeal event emerging in the folds of corporeal res?