Alle radici della pace. La parola pax nella cultura latina classica e occidentale

brief guide to the ancient (especially literary) uses of the word pax, lining up some of the most famous passages in which it recurs and which are still quoted today, often in a completely decontextualised manner. The legacy of those passages can be recovered and unleashed even in our own time if we try to reflect with historical sense and retrieve the diachronic and synchronic connections that bind them to each other and to the concrete events of Roman Antiquity, from its origins to the Christian age. A preliminary condition is the study on the etymology and original semantic values of the term. Plautus, Curc. 270, Ennius Trag. 122-123 R.3 = 342-343 V.2 = 309-310 Joc. = 143 Man., Lutatius Catulus 2 Bläns., Lucretius 3, 23-24, Augustus Res Gestae 13, Ovidius Ars 3, 502, Titus Livius 4, 30,14 and 30, 30,24, Tacitus Agricola 30,5, the text of Gen 47,27, 2 Sam 11,7, Mt 5,9, Phl 4,10 in the Vetus Latina and in the Vulgata, and Augustinus Civ. 19, 13 are analysed.