Laudator Temporis Acti: Impermanent and Permanent

Impermanent and Permanent

Tacitus, Annals 3.6.3 (tr. John Jackson):

Statesmen were mortal, the state eternal.

principes mortales, rem publicam aeternam esse.

Or, as Ronald Syme rendered it in Tacitus, Vol. I (1958; rpt. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), p. 319:

Princes come and go, but the Commonwealth is perpetual.

# posted by Michael Gilleland @ 4:52 AM

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