Romani ite domum

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Brian writes Romani ite domum one hundred times
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Brian writes Romani ite domum one hundred times

"Romani ite domum" is Latin for "Romans go home!". It appears in a sketch in the film Monty Python's Life of Brian.

The sketch features John Cleese as a centurion and Graham Chapman as Brian, at that stage a would-be member of the People's Front of Judea. To prove himself worthy to be a member of this (rather ineffectual) group, Brian has to daub an anti-Roman slogan on the walls of the Governor's Palace in Jerusalem under cover of darkness. He has just finished when the centurion sees him. Brian is terrified and clearly expects to be killed on the spot, however, Cleese plays the centurion as an irascible Latin teacher, and instead of killing him he corrects Brian's sloppy Latin grammar (at sword-point).

"What's this, then?" he says. "Romanes eunt domus? People called Romanes they go the house?" Brian is forced to remember the correct forms for each word as if he were a delinquent school boy. "Now", says Cleese when they eventually get to the correct form Romani ite domum, "write it out 100 times!" Brian does so, and becomes a hero.

In subsequent scenes in the film various Roman soldiers can be seen cleaning it all off. The humor, in typical Python fashion, combines obscure intellectual references with slapstick humor and a surreal, ridiculous situation.

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