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Ancient Rome Quotes

Browse 93 quotes about Ancient Rome.

Ancient Rome Quotes

“I know not how the Christians order their own lives, but I know that where their religion begins, Roman rule ends, Rome itself ends, our mode of life ends, the distinction between conquered and conqueror, between rich and poor, lord and slave, ends, government ends, Caesar ends, law and all the order of the world ends; and in place of these appears Christ, with a certain mercy not existent hitherto, and kindness, as opposed to human and our Roman instincts. (Quo Vadis)”

ChristianityAncient RomeNeroPersecuted Christians
Author:Henryk Stanczyk
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“Silvanus, the camp prefect, took a step forward. I heard his voice every morning after parade, but had never listened to the tones of it as I did now. He was not afraid, that much was clear; he was angry. "Pathetic. I should cashier you all now and destroy your Eagles." Silvanus spoke quietly; we had to strain to hear his voice. You could have heard the stars slide across the sky, we were so still and so silent. "If General Corbulo were here, he would destroy you. He dismissed half of the Fifth and the Tenth and sent them home. The rest are billeted in tents in the Armenian highlands with barley meal for fodder. He intends to make an army of them, to meet Vologases when he comes. I intend the same and therefore you will be treated the same as your betters in better legions. You will be proficient by the spring, or you will be dead." His gaze raked us, and we wondered which of us might die that night for the crime of being ineffectual. His voice rocked us. "To that end, you will spend the next three months in tents in the Mountains of the Hawk that lie between us and the sea. One hundred paces above the snow line, each century will determine an area suitable for three months’ stay and build its own base camp. You will alternate along the mountains’ length so that each century of the Fourth has a century of the Twelfth to either side, and vice versa. Each century will defend and maintain its own stocks against the men of the opposing legion; you are encouraged to avail yourselves of what you can. You may not remove stocks from camps belonging to other centuries of your own legion, and equally you may not aid in defending them against raiding parties from the opposing men. So that you may tell each other apart, the Twelfth legion will wear" – did I hear a note of distaste there? – "red cloth tied about their left arms at all times. The Fourth will wear blue. You will be provided with raw fleece with which to wrap your weapons that they might strike but not bite. A man who is careless enough to be captured by the other side will be flogged and returned to his unit. Any man who kills another will be flogged until dead and any man who wounds another will be staked out beyond the boundary of his camp for two days and nights; if he lives, he will be returned to his unit. Any man who dies of hunger, cold or fright, or who falls off the mountain, will be deemed to have died by his own hand. You have until the next watch to make ready. You are dismissed.”

WarAncient RomeLegionaries
Book:Rome: The Eagle of the Twelfth
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“OVATION, n. n ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A lesser "triumph."”

NationsEnemyHonorAncientTriumphRomeFormalDefinitePageantAncient RomeOvation
Book:The Best Of Ambrose Bierce: The Damned Thing + An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge + The Devil's Dictionary + Chickamauga (4 Classics in 1 Book)
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“Putting gloves on the fighters was a symbolic change that suggested that we were now making it a civilized sport, and it was no longer this crazy gladiatorial throwback to ancient Rome. It's even in our language: If you want to get serious and violent, what do you do? You "take the gloves off." Bare-fisted is supposedly a much more dangerous way to hit someone. But we've got it completely backward. The glove is a weapon. It massively accentuates the ability of the fist to do harm.”

IfsWayWantLanguageSportsAbilityCrazyDangerousSeriousWeaponsAncientHarmViolentFighterCivilizedRomeFistsSymbolicGlovesAncient RomeAccentuateThrowback
Author:Jonathan Gottschall
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“No slave system has ever been able to continue to function on the slaves provided by its own biological reproduction because the rate of human reproduction is too slow and the expense from infant mortality and years of unproductive upkeep of the young make this prohibitively expensive. This relationship is one of the basic causes of the American Civil War, and was even more significant in destroying ancient Rome.”

YearsHumansWarAbleYoungCausesFunctionSlaveRateAncientSignificantCivil WarExpensiveExpensesMortalityDestroyingRomeInfantAmerican Civil WarReproductionAncient RomeUnproductiveInfant MortalityUpkeep
Book:The evolution of civilizations: an introduction to historical analysis
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“It was with the utmost difficulty that ancient Rome could support the institution of six vestals; but the primitive church was filled with a great number of persons of either sex who had devoted themselves to the profession of perpetual chastity.”

PersonsSexChurchNumbersHistorySupportSixDifficultyInstitutionsFilledAncientProfessionRomePerpetualDevotedPrimitiveChastityRoman EmpireAncient Rome
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“Women [in ancient Rome] were condemned to the perpetual tutelage of parents, husbands, or guardians; a sex created to please and obey was never supposed to have attained the age of reason and experience. Such, at least, was the stern and haughty spirit of the ancient law . . .”

ReasonAgeLawSpiritSexParentPleaseHusbandAncientRomePerpetualGuardianAncient RomeHaughtyAge Of ReasonTutelage
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die: but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”

KnowsWorldMayShowsMightDiesFallIndividualStrongForceSocialQualityChristianityStepsKnow HowInfluenceModernArmsDevelopmentEuropeStrongerBraveIslamSoldierAncientSpreadWarriorFearlessQueensRomeLoyalSplendidCivilisationEvery StepSocial DevelopmentMilitantFrenzyParalysisAncient RomeMuslim WorldRadical IslamArrestingStrong ArmsProselytizingMuslim FaithReligion Of IslamRetrograde
Author:Winston Churchill
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“Geological facts being of an historical nature, all attempts to deduce a complete knowledge of them merely from their still, subsisting consequences, to the exclusion of unexceptionable testimony, must be deemed as absurd as that of deducing the history of ancient Rome solely from the medals or other monuments of antiquity it still exhibits, or the scattered ruins of its empire, to the exclusion of a Livy, a Sallust, or a Tacitus.”

StillsFactsScienceKnowledgeHistoryConsequenceHistoricalAncientAbsurdObservationRuinsEmpiresRomeTestimonyMedalMonumentExhibitsAntiquityExclusionGeologyAncient Rome
Book:Geological essays
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“If you spend any time in Washington you'll find nerds. What happens is most of them sublimate their fixations with comics, or baseball cards, or 1960s British comedies to policy minutiae and political arcana. But, like Christians in ancient Rome, you can still spot them if you know the signals.”

IfsKnowsStillsHappensChristianPoliticalComedyPolicyBaseballAncientBritishCardsSpotsRomeSignalsNerd1960sAncient RomeFixationMinutiaeBaseball CardsBritish Comedy
Author:Jonah Goldberg
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