Expert: Maria - 3/23/2010

Question
I wondered what is the latin translation of the words "Tonight we dine in hell" ? I know that the quote is longer but I'm interested in that words especially!Thank you!

Answer

Hello,

“Tonight we dine in hell” -which is nothing but a kind of adaptation  of a  Greek quotation  from Plutarch and two Latin quotations from Cicero and Valerius Maximus -  can be translated as  follows:

-“Vesperi apud inferos cenamus”
or
-“Vesperi apud inferos cenabimus” with the future “cenabimus” (we will dine) as Latin prefers to use the future rather than the present.

Have a nice day,
Maria
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Note that:

-Tonight = VESPERI (ablative of VESPER, 3rd. declension)
-we dine = CENAMUS (present indicative of CENO)or CENABIMUS (future of CENO)
-in hell = APUD INFEROS

The quotations from Plutarch, Cicero and Valerius Maximus refer to the words addressed to his soldiers by the Spartan Leonidas before the battle of Thermopylae when “he bade his soldiers eat their breakfast as if they were to eat their dinner in the Underworld” [Plutarch, “Apophthegmata Laconica”( Sayings of the Spartans) ,13.]