concedo nulli

I yield to nobody

The Romans worshiped in the figure of the god Terminus the sanctity of boundary stones. According to legend (Livy, 1.55), when king Tarquin began construction of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, he ordered the removal of the altars and shrines of all the gods that were worshiped there, so the area could be devoted exclusively to the king of the gods. All were transferred without problems, except for Terminus, represented with a stone that could not be removed. The Romans saw in this fact a manifestation of divine will, and let the rock inside the temple. Hence the expression "I yield to no one", because Terminus had refused to yield to Jupiter himself. This fact was interpreted as an omen, meaning that the dominion of Rome would be everlasting. The prophecy proved valid for centuries.

The celebrity of the sentence “concedo nulli” is due to Erasmus, who took it as a personal motto in 1509, adopting the old god Terminus as its emblem. The young Erasmus was then in Italy, and began to enjoy international recognition for his work and abilities. Apparently, Erasmus received from his pupil Alexander Stewart a gem depicting the god Terminus, and this is what inspired him to take the image of the god and the Latin quotation discussed here as personal emblems. They appear in a famous commemorative medal minted for Erasmus, whose image you see below. Erasmus is also shown next to the god Terminus in a famous engraving by Holbein.

Erasmus' enemies saw this motto as a sign of intolerable arrogance. In 1528 Erasmus wrote a letter justifying his choice of these words and trying to disarm his critics: the "epistola apologetica de Termini sui inscriptione concedo nulli" There, the great humanist stated that the term did not represent his own words, but those of death, the only one that yields to nobody. But this explanation did not satisfy his enemies. Written almost twenty years after the original stay of Erasmus in Italy, it seems, in fact, a later reworking. Humility was never one of Erasmus virtues. Posterity has been, however, more benign in judging Erasmus than his contemporaries.

Habent sua fata libelli

Books have their fates

Only a tiny fraction of the literary production of the ancient world has survived. This fraction has been transmitted by a very thin thread that throughout history was countless times close to breaking. Reflecting on the hazards that have determined what has survived and what has perished, it is inevitable not to agree with this statement: books, like men, have their fates.

The author of the quoted sentence is an example of this process. The grammarian Terentianus Maurus lived in the second century AD and was of African origin, as its name suggests. His major work, De litteris de syllabis, de metris (About pronunciation, syllables and metric), is conserved only in a fragmentary state. Forgotten during the Middle Ages, a manuscript with the text was discovered in 1493 and disappeared shortly after the first printed edition was published in Milan in 1497.

The most curious fate of some books is that their content is sometimes misunderstood or interpreted in a very different way from that desired by the author. Terentianus' phrase is a clear example, the meaning with which we have discussed it here and which is often cited, is not the one he intended. The verse from which it was taken reads:

Pro captu lectoris libelli habent sua fata

Books have their fates according to the reader's capacity

Homo homini lupus - Man is a wolf to man

This famous Latin phrase is first attested in a comedy by Plautus (250-184 BC). There, a character says:

Lupus est homo homini, non homo, non quom qualis sit novit

Wolf is the man for man, not man, when he does not know who is the other.

Erasmus included this phrase in his collection of adages, but his celebrity is due to the modern British philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). Hobbes is known today mainly for his groundbreaking developments in the field of political theory (especially in his work Leviathan, whose cover is here reproduced), but he was also a philologist and eminent scholar of classical antiquity, as is evidenced by his -still today frequently reprinted- English translation of Thucydides.

Having experienced the atrocities and cruelties of the English Civil War, one of Hobbes’ central aims was the discovery of the rational principles that could help building a stable political regime. The state of nature (i.e., the absence of government) was considered by Hobbes as a synonym for a permanent state of war of all against all, in which the achievements of civilized life would be impossible. Only a government with concentrated power can, in his conception, avoid that conflict. The Latin phrase homo homini lupus illustrates this idea with great force. If a greater authority does not impose restrictions on their brutal instincts, men behave like beasts ready to fall on each other.

This pessimistic view of human nature has been criticized from every position imaginable, perhaps rightly so. History, however, shows beyond doubt that man is the most formidable predator of its peers.

Cave canem!

Beware of the dog

(From a Pompeian Mosaic)

The ruins of Pompeii bear -for its wealth of information- unique testimony to the richness and variety of daily life in an ancient Roman city. Visitors of the modern archaeological park near Naples are doubly surprised, because Pompeii offers an unexpected mix of known and strange things. The first impression the city gives is one of “modernity”, the urban design and the buildings seem remarkably familiar to us. This familiarity is, however, only superficial, and visitors soon marvel at the many exotic elements in every corner of the city.

Among the many surprisingly familiar things, there is a beautiful little mosaic depicting a chained dog together with the brief text Cave Canem, beware the dog. The mosaic is on the floor of the entrance hall to the House of the Tragic Poet, (a house famous for its particularly exquisite decoration with mosaic floors and frescoes depicting well known scenes from Greek mythology). A similar picture is described by Petronius (Satyricon 29) and it is sure that mosaics like this one were a popular motif for the thresholds of Roman villas and rich houses.

This short phrase (quite different from the deep and philosophical reflections normally discussed in this blog) has for me a special charm. In my opinion, it illustrates how Latin can give a powerful force even to the more banal thoughts and expressions.

Fortuna multis dat nimis, satis nulli

Fortune gives too much to many, enough to no one

Martial, Epigrams, 12, 10, 2.

Satirical wit and brevity are the essence of epigram and Martial is the undisputed master of the genre. The poet is a cynical observer of imperial Rome, and an intelligent critic of its vices and miseries. His poems are classics because its criticism transcends time and reflects the flaws that plague human nature at all times. Insatiable greed is one of them. The tone of the Martial Epigrams is, however, never too harsh, never quite damning. In his work, a decadent and sophisticated society looks itself, and this, rather than to reproach, moves to laughter.

Ars longa, vita brevis

Life is short, art long

Seneca, De brevitate vitae1

This is the Latin translation of one of Hippocrates’ aphorisms:

Ὁ βίος βραχὺς, ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρὴ, ὁ δὲ καιρὸς ὀξὺς, ἡδὲ πεῖρα σφαλερὴ, ἡ δὲκρίσις χαλεπή

Vita brevis, ars longa, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile

Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment dangerous, judgment difficult.

Anyone who has ventured into a field in pursuit of human knowledge knows the feeling of helplessness that this proverb evokes. There is so much to learn, reality is so complex that many lives would not suffice to quench our thirst for knowledge. Thus science is like a torch, which is transmitted from generation to generation, each making only the small contribution that the narrow limits of his mortality and transience allow. But Seneca quotes this phrase at the beginning of his treatise on the brevity of life to express his disagreement:

We have not received a short life, but made it short. We are not poor in time, but wasteful.

Erasmus’ Adagia

With the start of the sixteenth century, Italy lost its almost exclusive dominance in the study of antiquity. Many humanists from other European countries, in many cases trained in Italy, carried the flame of classical studies to their countries of origin, starting new traditions of study. Undoubtedly, one of the central figures in the dissemination of European humanism was Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536).

In 1500 a young and still unknown Erasmus published in Paris the first edition of a text destined to become one of the most reprinted in history, the Adagia. It is a collection of Latin proverbs discussed and explained by Erasmus. The collection is, indeed, only an excuse that allows Erasmus to develop his vision of ancient culture and humanism. His educational interests are clearly visible; the adages are the distillation of the high ideals Erasmus wants to spread among his readers.

The first edition printed in Paris (Collectanea Adagiorum) covers only 832 adages. In 1508 Erasmus published with Aldus Manutius in Venice - the most famous publisher of this period-, a second enlarged edition (Adagiorum Chiliades), which included 3260 entries and transformed its author in an international celebrity. Many more versions were produced in the following years, like the one published by Frobenius in Basel in the year 1515. Different summaries of this work were widely read until the nineteenth century.

Erasmus is known today mainly for his “The Praise of Folly”. His collection of proverbs is, by contrast, almost forgotten and read only by scholars and researchers. To immerse in this book is to travel to another world, a world where the passion for ancient culture occupied a central place. With respect and devotion, we will use the Adagia often in this blog as a source of knowledge an inspiration.

Note: the original text of the Adagia is not online. But you can access the Full edition of Paolo Manuzio. The Adagia were placed by the Council of Trent (1545-1563), along with all the works of Erasmus, in the Index librorum prohibitorum. Paulo Manuzio (son of the editor who had published the 2nd edition of 1508) was commissioned to produce an expurgated edition, which appeared after his death in 1575.