The Europa Barbarorum Quotes Project

[oudysseos]

I have updated the first post with a list of the old quotes that still need to be cited.

I'd also like to encourage anyone who is interested to look into;

Ennius (there's more):

Fortune favours the bold.
Fortibus est fortuna viris data.
Annals, Book 7

On the tradtions and heros of ancient times stands firm the Roman state
Moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque
"Annals", Book 18

This is an exercise for the class:

De bello Hannibalico

...postquam Discordia taetra
Belli ferratos postes portasque refregit.
Pellitur e medio sapientia, vi geritur res,
Spernitur orator bonus, horridus miles amatur.
Haut doctis dictis certantes sed maledictis
Miscent inter sese inimicitiam a~itantes.
Non ex iure manu consertum sed magis ferro
Rem repetunt, regnumque petunt, vadunt solida vi.

Virgil (the translations on Perseus are pretty old: I'd like something more contemporary)

Audacibus annue coeptis
Look with favor upon a bold beginning.
Virgil, Georgics, Book I, line 40

Equo ne credite, Teucri. quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentis.
Do not trust the horse, Trojans. Whatever it is, I fear the Grecians, even bearing gifts.
Virgil, Aeneid, Book II, line 48

Audentes fortuna iuvat
Fortune favours the brave.
Virgil, Aeneid, Book X, line 284

Theocritus
Callimachus
Apollonius if Rhodes
Arrian ( particularly Indica )
Appian
Dionysius of Halicarnassus


Here's some Menander:

Whom the gods love dies young.
The Double Deceiver, fragment 125

The man who runs may fight again.
Monostikoi (Single Lines)

At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool.
Those Offered for Sale, fragment 421

We live, not as we wish to, but as we can.
Lady of Andros, fragment 50

There's still lots left in Cicero, Livy, Polybius, Herodotus, and Thucydides:

Inter arma enim silent leges
Law stands mute in the midst of arms.
Cicero, Pro Milone

A war is never undertaken by the ideal State, except in defense of its honor or its safety.
Cicero, De Re Publica, Book 3, Chapter 23

The Scythians take cannabis seed, creep in under the felts, and throw it on the red-hot stones. It smolders and sends up such billows of steam-smoke that no Greek vapor bath can surpass it. The Scythians howl with joy in these vapor-baths, which serve them instead of bathing, for they never wash their bodies with water.
Herodotus, Book 4, Ch. 74

Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.
Herodotus,Book 7, Ch. 49

Potius sero quam numquam.
Better late than never.
Livy, IV. 23

There is always more spirit in attack than in defense.
Livy, XXVIII. 44

When one is deprived of ones liberty, one is right in blaming not so much the man who puts the shackles on as the one who had the power to prevent him, but did not use it.
Thucydides, Book I, 69

It is from the greatest dangers that the greatest glory is to be won.
Thucydides, Book I, 144

The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.
Thucydides,Book II, 40

But MORE THAN ANYTHING I'd like someone to find good translations of the Drakht-i Asurig and Ayadgar-i Zareran, and indeed anything that's topical and not Latin or Greek!