Civis Romanus Suuuuuuuuuuuuum!

'Civis Romanus sum' was the proudest boast any citizen of the ancient world could make, writes my old   friend Michael Gove in The Times this morning.

It was a declaration of allegiance that entitled the individual to the full protection of the Empire’s resources if their liberty was compromised.

According to Lord Palmerston (if only we had him now instead of Lord Mandelson!), any British citizen whose freedoms were curtailed while in another jurisdiction was entitled to the full protection of the British state. And on such a guarantee the health of liberty everywhere depended.

How different to our own miserable times  when decent Britons languish under the lash of Somali pirates, while "ministers are more concerned with navel-gazing than naval doctrine".

Here in TLS Towers we naturally share Michael's wish that the Somalis release their innnocent prey. Yet we remain ever so slightly nervous at the precedent of using the words 'Civis Romanus sum' to achieve that end.

Perhaps Mary Beard put the problem best in an article earlier this year, discussing the terror campaign of Verres on Sicily in the first century BC as deplored by Cicero.

"The fate of Gavius from the Sicilian town of Consa, who was flogged, tortured and crucified for being a spy, despite the fact that he was a Roman citizen and so legally protected from such treatment, has remained a powerful political symbol.

Gavius died with the words “Civis Romanus sum” (“I am a Roman citizen”) on his lips – a slogan that was later adopted by Lord Palmerston when he sent a gunboat in support of the British citizen Don Pacifico, who in 1847 had been attacked by an anti-Semitic crowd in Athens.

It was famously wheeled out again in 1963 by John F. Kennedy in Berlin: “Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was ‘civis Romanus sum’. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is ‘ich bin ein Berliner’”."

Citers of the phrase tend to forget (if they ever knew) that Gavius died with the sacred words on his lips:

along with the flies and birds and other winged creatures that so enjoy a crucifixion.

Comments

[Dion Per Sona]

INTERESTING TIMES

One unwittingly courts controverse
When quoting dead language in verse,
Raising more than a dimple
When keeping it simple:
Which, of Gavius or Catullus, is worse?

[Candadai Tirumalai]

Lord Palmerston's remark that Britain does not have permanent friends or enemies but only permanent interests was quoted approvingly by Gorbachev in the heady days of Soviet reform and has been cited by others since then.