Romani ite domum

"Romani ite domum" (Romans go home) is the corrected Latin phrase for the graffito "Romanes eunt domus" from a scene in the film Monty Python's Life of Brian.

The scene features John Cleese as a centurion and Graham Chapman as Brian, at that stage a would-be member of the revolutionary group the "People's Front of Judea". To prove himself worthy to be a member of the group, Brian has to daub an anti-Roman slogan on the walls of Governor Pontius Pilate'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 grammar at sword-point.

"What's this, then?" he says. "Romanes eunt domus? 'People called Romanes they go the house'?!"[1] Brian is then forced to remember the correct Latin declension or conjugation 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. If it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off." Brian does so, and becomes a hero. In subsequent scenes, various Roman soldiers can be seen erasing the graffito to censor the seditious message.

Case of Domus

The exchange on the case of domus concludes:

CENTURION: Except that 'domus' takes the...?

BRIAN: The locative, sir!

CENTURION: Which is...?!

BRIAN: 'Domum'.

However domi the actual locative means "at home"; the correct case is the accusative of motion towards which is indeed domus.[2][3] The locative domi "in colloquial Latin... is an acceptable substitute" for the accusative/ablative, according to Krushwitz, citing Christopher S Mackay and CIL editors and referring to a Pompeian graffito Hic ego cum ueni, futui deinde redei domi.[4][5][note 1]

Notes

  1. ↑ This was found in a brothel in Pompeii. Judith Harris (2007). Pompeii Awakened: A Story of Rediscovery. I.B.Tauris. p. 122-123. ISBN 9781845112417.

References

  1. ↑ Graham Chapman, Monty Python, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin (2001). Life of Brian Screenplay. Methuen. ISBN 9780413741301.
  2. ↑ A297 Reading Classical Latin: Study Guide. Open University. 1999. p. 65.
  3. ↑ A. Allen Mahoney and Greenough (2000). New Latin Grammar. Newburyport, Massachusetts: Focus Publishing. p. 260.
  4. ↑ Peter Krushwitz (2009). Romanes eunt domus! Linguistic Aspects of the Sub-Literary Latin in Pompeian Wall Inscriptions. The Language of the Papyri. T. V. Evans, D. D. Obbink (editors) (OUP Oxford). ISBN 9780191608056.
  5. ↑ CIL IV 2246 Epigraphik-Datenbank image

External links

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