Abstract
There are many ways to define an object, in this case a ship. This lecture explores the approaches of a Latin declamator (Cicero, De l'invention, 2.153), a jurist (Alfenus, Digest, 21.2.44), a scholar (Aulu-Gelle, Nuits attiques, 10.25.5), the engraver of a sesterce of Nero (RIC 178; BnF). At the center of a cluster of images and metaphors, following Alfenus' language reveals that a poet undoubtedly borrowed his metaphor of the " limbs " of a ship (Ovid, Metamorphoses, 14.539 sqq.) ; in turn, the jurist may have appropriated a diminutive - parva navicula - that he had heard in his youth in a speech by Cicero (Après son retour de l'exil, au peuple Romain 19-20). Through these links, legal thought reveals itself rooted in the culture and society around it.
