How ready are the gods to grant supremacy to men, and how unready to maintain it!
O faciles dare summa deos eademque tueri
difficiles!
difficiles!
Original text (Latin)
Original text (Latin)
You have taken from me the one privilege of civil war – the power of granting life to the defeated.
Men are ignorant that the purpose of the sword is to save every man from slavery.
I have a wife, I have sons; all these hostages have I given to fortune.
Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Lucan (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.