- A great fortune is a great slavery
- A healthy mind in a healthy body
- A rolling stone gathers no moss
- Publilius Syrus (85-43 BCE) in Sententiae
- Always the same
- Art is long, Life is short
- As you sow, so shall you reap
- Bread and circuses
- by Jove
- The Phrase ‘by Jove’ means ‘by Jupiter’, the Chief Roman God. The Romans would swear an oath in the Law Courts by starting ‘By Jove…’
- “Courage stands halfway between cowardice and rashness, one of which is a lack of, the other an excess of courage.”
- Crossing the Rubicon
- When Julius Caesar passed the point of no return.
- Dedicate your life to truth
- Fortune favours the brave
- Fortune smiles upon our first effort
- I came, I saw, I conquered
- I shall either find or make a way
- Hannibal. This was his response when his generals told him it was impossible to cross the alps with elephants.
- If you want Peace, prepare for War
- “It is better that a wise enemy should fear you, than that foolish friends should praise you.”
- Quintus Fabius Maximus, (218 BCE) Livy, The War with Hannibal, Books XXI-XXX, ‘History of Rome from its foundation’.
- “Know how to listen, and you will learn even from those who talk badly.”
- Lasts longer than Bronze
- Leave all else to the Gods
- ‘Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.’
- Let the buyer beware
- Let us live, since we must die
- Love conquers all
- Make haste slowly
- More haste, less speed
- One night awaits everyone
- Nero fiddled while Rome burned
- This is a modern phrase based on the story by Dio Cassius
- Never despair!
- No one is without fault
- Now I know what love is!
- Pyrrhic victory
- Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things which are God's:
- From the New Testament, the Gospel of St. Mark, 12:17.
- Seize the Day!
- “Silence at the proper time is wisdom, and better than any speech.”
- Skeleton at the feast
- Solid ground
- The beginning of all things are small
- The cause of fear is ignorance
- The Play is over, Applaud!
- The die is cast
- The sinews of war are unlimited money
- Pecunia Nervus Belli: Cicero Fifth Phillipic Chap V.
- They lived (meaning: “They are dead.”)
- Vixere: Cicero commenting on the execution of the members of the Catiline Conspiracy.
- They make a desert and call it peace (a description of the Roman Empire)
- Tacitus, Histories, Agricola.
- Things are not always what they seem
- Phaedrus (15 BCE-50 CE) author of Fables
- Time flies
- Tempus fugit: Virgil, ‘Georgics’ Book 3, line 284.
- “To find fault is easy, to do better may be harder.”
- “To make no mistakes is not in the power of man, but from their mistakes do the wise learn wisdom for the future”
- Truth hates delay
- Truth in Wine
- Two Caesars is one too many:
- Augustus: His remark on the execution of Caesarion, the son of Julius Caesar and Queen Cleopatra VII who was a potential rival.
- We cannot all of us do everything
- We, who are about to die, salute you
- What has been wrongly gained is wrongly lost
- Who will guard the guards?
- Who, what, where, with what, why, how, when?
- Wise men learn from fools more than fools learn from wise men. Wise men avoid the mistakes of fools, but fools do not learn from the achievements of the wise.
- Cato the Elder from ‘Life of Cato’ by Plutarch.
- Without which nothing
Roman Expressions from later Sources
- All roads lead to Rome:
- From the French Poet Alain de Lille (1175 CE).
- Rome wasn’t built in a day
- Flanders (c. 1190 CE)
- Pax Romana
- The term was coined by Edward Gibbon, in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The Romans called it the ‘Pax Augusta’.
- What have the Romans ever done for us?
- From the Movie, Life of Brian (1979) by Monty Python.
- When in Rome, do as the Romans do
- A medieval phrase attributed to Ambrose (340-397 CE) Bishop of Milan.
Roman Expressions from William Shakespeare (c.1590-1616 CE)
- Beware the Ides of March: Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene II.
- Et tu, Brute?: Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene I.
- Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!: Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene II.