Monday, February 17, 2020
Resume the Manners and Customs of Your Fathers
Tacitus, Histories 4.64.3 (ambassadors of the Tencteri speaking to an assembly of the people of Cologne, 69 A.D.; tr. John Jackson):
Newer› ‹Older
Even as Nature has always made the light of day free to all mankind, so she has made all lands open to the brave. Resume the manners and customs of your fathers, cutting off those pleasures which give the Romans more power over their subjects than their arms bestow. A people pure, untainted, forgetting your servitude, you will live the equals of any or will rule others.
quo modo lucem diemque omnibus hominibus, ita omnis terras fortibus viris natura aperuit. instituta cultumque patrium resumite, abruptis voluptatibus, quibus Romani plus adversus subiectos quam armis valent. sincerus et integer et servitutis oblitus populus aut ex aequo agetis aut aliis imperitabitis.
