Re: off-topic -- latin translation

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sat Oct 30 1999 - 20:44:01 EDT


At 6:31 PM -0600 10/30/99, Charles Grebe wrote:
>Does any one know what the following means?
>
>faber est suae quisque fortunae appius claudius caecus dictua arcnua est
>neutron

The first part of it is clear: "Everyone is the builder/architect of his
own fortune." It looks like the last part has not been transmitted
correctly: Appius Claudius Caecus is the early Roman blind statesman who
was involved in writing the Laws of the Twelve Tables and building the
original Appian Way; 'DICTUA ARCNUA EST' looks like it may have been meant
to be 'DICTUM ARCANUM EST', i.e., "It is a secret saying." Finally, NEUTRON
appears to be a Greek form of the Latin adjective, NEUTER/TRA/TRUM; what's
intended by it here is, to put it mildly, ARCANISSIMUM. It just looks like
the last part of this has been garbled in the transmission.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/

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