Expert: Maria - 12/10/2009

Question
Could you advise what the english to latin translation for

"No better friend - No worse enemy"

would be?

Answer
Hello,

"No better friend - No worse enemy" can be translated as follows:

-“Nullus amicus melior - Nullus inimicus peior”.

It  seems that this statement  comes from the epitaph of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, famous general and cruel dictator of ancient Rome, as we read in Plutarch’s Life of Sulla, chapter 38, paragraph 4, where the Greek biographer Plutarch (died in ca. 120 AD) says:
“…Sulla’s  monument stands in the Campus Martius, and the inscription on it…..is one which he wrote for it himself, and the substance of it is, that no friend ever surpassed him in kindness, and no enemy in mischief”.


Best regards,
Maria
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Note that:

-No = NULLUS (nominative masculine singular agreed with AMICUS)

-better = MELIOR (comparative in the nominative masculine singular agreed with AMICUS)

-friend = AMICUS (nominative masculine singular, 2nd.declension)

-no = NULLUS (nominative masculine singular agreed with  INIMICUS)

-worse = PEIOR (comparative in the nominative masculine singular agreed with  INIMICUS)

-enemy = INIMICUS (nominative masculine singular, 2nd.declension)