I think I’m going to have to add some of these to my email sig. Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam! Because, you know, interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europe vincendarum.
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Latin
Veni, Vidi, Vici
explorant adversa viros — “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
Literally it means, “misfortunes put men to the test.”
from Veni, Vidi, Vici: Conquer Your Enemies, Impress Your Friends with Everyday Latin, by Eugene Ehlrich
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Ancient Texts
I’ve seen this linked in several places recently, but it’s such a great story I wanted to link it here too.
The villa probably belonged to Lucius Calpurnius Piso, father-in-law of Julius Caesar and one of the rulers of the Roman republic. In AD79, a century after his death, it was buried under 30 metres of volcanic debris by the same Vesuvius eruption that wiped out Pompeii and Herculaneum.
In 1738, it was rediscovered and the excavators removed statues and objets d’art. In the process, they threw away many lumps of what they took to be coal or charcoal. It was not until 1752 when they discovered the villa’s library - neatly lined with 1800 rolls of papyrus - that they realised the discarded material had been books.
It remains the only intact library to have survived from the ancient world …
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audacter calumniare semper aliquid haeret
audacter calumniare semper aliquid haeret - slander boldly, something always sticks
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