"quique est barbarus alio"

[Haxamanis]

Little question: Who is this quote from?

I tried to google it, but found nothing...

[anubis88]

it's actually quisque est barbarus alii.

I dunno. I think the EB team made this one up

[/Bean\]

It roughly means "Everyone is a Barbarian to someone (else)", which is kind of what EB stands for.

[Atraphoenix]

closely; alex has said "For me a good barbarian is greek, a bad greek is barbarian."

[Mulceber]

Yep, unfortunately the EB team forgot that Alius is not a second-declension noun. I'm hoping it's something they'll fix in EB II. -M

[Tellos Athenaios]

If you want to know more, I suggest you do a forum search (can't be bothered myself at the moment, though) for this topic. Should bring up at least one prior discussion.

[Haxamanis]

Hi,
Thanks for the replies.

I am not so much interested in the correct latin form. (there is indeed another thread about that)
I was more interested in where this sentence came from, from which author I mean.

Or did the EB-team made this up?

[Zeibek]

Hi,
Thanks for the replies.

I am not so much interested in the correct latin form. (there is indeed another thread about that)
I was more interested in where this sentence came from, from which author I mean.

Or did the EB-team made this up?

Like it's been said yes, the EB team made it up to crystallize the aim of the wonderful EB mod. There is a quote from Alexander ("for me a good barbarian is greek, a bad greek is barbarian", by whom it is related I can't remember) that bares some resemblance to it but that's where it ends.

[Urg]

Yep, unfortunately the EB team forgot that Alius is not a second-declension noun. I'm hoping it's something they'll fix in EB II. -M

As someone said, we had this debate a while ago. It turns out there is an adverb "alio" which means "to someone/someplace else" (should be in a latin dictionary I think), and we had a discussion about whether alio was appropriate in the context of the phrase.

So I'm not sure that anyone got it right or wrong. In order to come to a view you would have to do a survey of the use of alii and alio (ie. alio the adverb, not alio the declension of alius) in ancient texts.

[tsidneku]

I apologize as my Latin is rusty.

As far as I can remember, "alio" can come either as an adv or as the sing. m. dat. form of alius/a/um. Wouldn't either of these uses serve the purpose of our quote here?

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

The topic of the accuracy of the grammar was brought up a while back both on the public forum and on the internal forum. I don't know if the team ever decided on giving an official response to the discussion.

[/Bean\]

And besides, the guy's already said he doesn't care...

[Haxamanis]

Hi,

Because nobody seemed to be able to help me with the source of the EB-motto and I really wanted to know, I did some serious searching. I didn’t think the team made this one up because I thought I remembered reading it before… somewhere…

Finally I found the author of the quote. Now I can sleep again. So all is well and this thread can be closed.

Thanks anyway

[Apázlinemjó]

Hi,

Because nobody seemed to be able to help me with the source of the EB-motto and I really wanted to know, I did some serious searching. I didn’t think the team made this one up because I thought I remembered reading it before… somewhere…

Finally I found the author of the quote. Now I can sleep again. So all is well and this thread can be closed.

Thanks anyway

And who is?

[Andronikos]

Yep, who? It's like in detective story when all suspects are in one room the detective says: "After three sleepless nights I finally know who the murder is, now I can go sleep, bye."

[Apázlinemjó]

Yep, who? It's like in detective story when all suspects are in one room the detective says: "After three sleepless nights I finally know who the murder is, now I can go sleep, bye."

Yeah, I'm shaking the table and yelling "WHO IS THE AUTHOR? I WANT TO KNOW!!!!" Nah really, tell us please. :o

[Haxamanis]

I'm sorry. I had a serious eureka-experience and forgot to share the info with you.

The thing I found (in english translation) was this: "... there is no man or nation which is not considered barbarian by some other..." which is approximately the same as the EB-motto.

This line is written by Bartolomé de Las Casas in his book Apologética historia sumaria in the 1550's. De Las Casas wrote about different barbarians (native americans) and in a different time, but you can clearly see how his humanist/renaissance knowledge was based on classical (and biblical) sources.

For the context of this quote I copied a piece of the translation I found into this post:

"CHAPTER CCLXIV. THE MEANING OF THE WORD "BARBARIAN" AND THE SEVERAL CLASSES OF BARBARIAN PEOPLES

In certain places above we have referred to this term or word "barbarian," which many call and consider these Indian peoples and other nations to be. Sometimes in the Holy Scriptures and frequently in holy decrees and lay histories barbarians are named and referred to, especially since the Philosopher [Aristotle] makes particular mention in his Politics of barbarians. Many times I find the term wrongly used, owing to error or to confusion between some barbarians and others. In order therefore to avoid this error and confusion I wish to explain here what it is to be a barbarian and what nations can properly be called barbarian. For such a clarification one must make the following fourfold distinction. A nation or people or part thereof can be called barbarian for four reasons: first, considering the term broadly and improperly, for any strangeness, ferocity, disorder, exorbitance, degeneration of reason, of justice and of good customs and human benignity; or also for evincing opinion which is confused or flighty, furious, tumultuous or beyond reason. Thus, there are men who have deserted and forgotten the rules and order of reason and the gentleness and peacefulness which man should naturally possess; blind with passion, they change in some way, or are ferocious, harsh, severe, cruel, and are precipitated into acts so inhuman that fierce and wild beasts of the mountains would not commit them. They seem to have been divested of the very nature of man, and the word "barbarian" thus signifies a strangeness and exorbitance or novelty which is in discord with the nature and common reason of men....

The second manner or species of barbarian is somewhat more limited; it includes those who lack a written language corresponding to their spoken one as the Latin language corresponds to our own. In short, people who lack the practice and study of letters are said to be barbarians secundum quid, (1) which means that they fall short by some measure or quality of not being barbarian, because in all else they can be wise, polished and lacking in ferocity, strangeness and harshness. Because the English lacked the practice of letters, the Venerable Bede, who was an Englishman, translated the liberal arts into the English language so that his people would not be considered barbarians.... In like manner, it is customary to call barbarian a man whose manner of speech is strange compared to another's, when one does not pronounce well the language of the other or when in conversation people do not manage to deal and converse with one another. According to Strabo, Book XIV, the first occasion the Greeks took to call other peoples barbarian was when the latter mispronounced the Greek language crudely and defectively. Hence there is no man or nation which is not considered barbarian by some other.... Just as we consider these peoples of the Indies barbarians, so they, since they do not understand us, also consider us barbarians and strangers. From this has arisen a great error in many of us, laymen, ecclesiastics and monks, concerning these Indian nations of diverse languages, which we neither understand nor penetrate, and of different customs. People of every profession and quality came to these lands from our nation after these people had lost their republics and their order of life and government, for we had put them in such great disorder and so reduced their numbers that they became almost completely annihilated. These arrivals find them in this state and think that the confusion and abasement in which they now live was always so and comes from their barbaric nature and disorderly government, while in truth we can affirm that in many ways they have seen in us no few customs which, with justifiable reason, might cause us to be taken for extreme barbarians by them -- not so much barbarians of this second type, which means strangers, but of the first, for our being exceedingly ferocious, harsh, severe and abominable....

(1) Secundum quid means in some respect. This is in contrast to simpliciter, or absolutely, which is used later on. "

http://www.columbia.edu/acis/ets/CCREAD/lascasas.htm

[Apázlinemjó]

Wow, thank you.

[Mulceber]

Honestly, the meaning of the word barbarian is pretty simple:

if you're a greek from before Rome conquered Greece, Barbarian means anyone who doesn't speak Greek.

if you're a Roman, or a Greek who lives in Roman-controlled Greece, Barbarian means anyone who doesn't speak Greek OR Latin. -M

[Alsatia]

Honestly, the meaning of the word barbarian is pretty simple:

if you're a greek from before Rome conquered Greece, Barbarian means anyone who doesn't speak Greek.

if you're a Roman, or a Greek who lives in Roman-controlled Greece, Barbarian means anyone who doesn't speak Greek OR Latin. -M

Well, there are a few meanings...

I - A tyrant
II - Someone that you dislike or disdain
III - Unwashed people of the classical era smashed into three categories.
IV - My cousin
V - A bully
VI - A group of people you don't understand (Greeks did not understand non-greeks, Romans disdained and knew little of the Gallic tribes except there were one big mob)
VII - Someone that does not speak latin or greek
VIII - Everyone in Europe , infact anyone that speaks english (because the barbarians took over, killing the roman/greek populations, the "Civilised, hence the barbarians of then rule the world. English originated from Germany)
IX - ......


So the EB team rephrased it and translated it. Nice.
It came from a medieval scholar????

[Watchman]

Mid-1500s isn't "Medieval" by any measure I'm familiar with. Historians usually refer to the 1500s-1600s as the "Early Modern Period" instead.

[Ca Putt]

interesting, wasnt that the guy who first came up with the idea to Import Workers from Africa to America as slaves?

[Apázlinemjó]

Mid-1500s isn't "Medieval" by any measure I'm familiar with. Historians usually refer to the 1500s-1600s as the "Early Modern Period" instead.

True, officaly the Middle Ages ended in 1492.

[Alsatia]

Missed by eight years.....

[Marcus Gallicus]

interesting, wasnt that the guy who first came up with the idea to Import Workers from Africa to America as slaves?

IIRC he convinced the Spaniards to stop using the Aztecs as slaves and use Africans instead.

[Ludens]

IIRC he convinced the Spaniards to stop using the Aztecs as slaves and use Africans instead.

Weren't it the Caribbeans? They were very susceptible to European diseases and died in droves, so he argued it would be more humane to use the tougher Africans. Which makes some sense, I guess, although I wouldn't use the word humane to describe the American slave trade.